In advance of tonight’s Oval Office address on the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq, President Barack Obama visited with the troops at Fort Bliss outside El Paso, Texas.
** QUICK HITS.California’s chronic budget crisis dragged on today, with predictably failing votes for the various alternative budget proposals in a Legislature which has accomplished nothing on the matter all year. … Billionaire Meg Whitman launched yet another TV attack ad against Jerry Brown in her latest effort to get some momentum in the governor’s race. More than two months before the election, Whitman has already shattered all spending records for a non-presidential candidate in American history. With the Whitman campaign’s trademark mixture of falsehood and distortion, it claims Brown failed to solve Oakland’s school problems as mayor, causing the state to take over the district. In reality, Brown got the state to take over the district when the school board was unresponsive to his reform ideas. It also claims he was soft on crime. Murders did go up at the end of his term (Oakland is a dumping ground for parolees) but crime went down throughout and as mayor Brown was a great favorite of the police department. … Now California’s attorney general, Brown today announced a major takedown of the notorious Nuestra Familia crime gang, with major arrests in the Central Valley and a move to block the communications of gang leaders operating out of the maximum-security Pelican Bay state prison way up on the North Coast.
** EXCERPTS FROM OBAMA’S ADDRESS TO THE NATION TONIGHT ON THE END OF U.S. COMBAT OPERATIONS IN IRAQ.
“But this milestone should serve as a reminder to all Americans that our future is ours to shape if we move forward with confidence and commitment. It should also serve as a message to the world that the United States of America intends to sustain and strengthen our leadership in this young century.”
***
“At every turn, America’s men and women in uniform have served with courage and resolve. As Commander-in-Chief, I am proud of their service. Like all Americans, I am awed by their sacrifice, and by the sacrifices of their families.”
***
“Tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country. This was my pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office. Last February, I announced a plan that would bring our combat brigades out of Iraq, while redoubling our efforts to strengthen Iraq’s Security Forces and support its government and people. That is what we have done. We have removed nearly 100,000 U.S. troops from Iraq. We have closed or transferred hundreds of bases to the Iraqis. And we have moved millions of pieces of equipment out of Iraq.”
***
“Ending this war is not only in Iraq’s interest – it is in our own. The United States has paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its people. We have sent our young men and women to make enormous sacrifices in Iraq, and spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home. We have persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people – a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it is time to turn the page.”
***
“Today, our most urgent task is to restore our economy, and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work. To strengthen our middle class, we must give all our children the education they deserve, and all our workers the skills that they need to compete in a global economy. We must jumpstart industries that create jobs, and end our dependence on foreign oil. We must unleash the innovation that allows new products to roll off our assembly lines, and nurture the ideas that spring from our entrepreneurs. This will be difficult. But in the days to come, it must be our central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as President.”
** OBAMA REMARKS TODAY AT FORT BLISS ON IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. In a preview of his Oval Office address tonight, President Barack Obama made some remarks today to Iraq and Afghan War veterans at Fort Bliss outside El Paso, Texas.
Hello, everybody. (Applause.) Everybody have a seat. Well, listen, I am extraordinarily honored to be with all of you today, and I want to thank General Pittard, I want to thank Command Sergeant Major Dave Davenport, who have shown such extraordinary leadership here.
I wanted to come down to Fort Bliss mainly to say thank you and to say welcome home.
I’m going to make a speech to the nation tonight. It’s not going to be a victory lap. It’s not going to be self-congratulatory. There’s still a lot of work that we’ve got to do to make sure that Iraq is an effective partner with us. But the fact of the matter is that because of the extraordinary service that all of you have done, and so many people here at Fort Bliss have done, Iraq has an opportunity to create a better future for itself, and America is more secure.
Now, I just met with some Gold Star families, and yesterday I was at Walter Reed. And there are no moments when I feel more keenly and more deeply my responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief than during those moments. I know we lost 51 fellow soldiers from here in Fort Bliss. A lot more than that were injured, some of them very severely. A million men and women in uniform have now served in Iraq. And this has been one of our longest wars.
But the fact of the matter is that there has not been a single mission that has been assigned to all of you in which you have not performed with gallantry, with courage, with excellence. And that is something that the entire country understands.
There are times where, in our country, we’ve got political disagreements. And appropriately we have big debates about war and peace. But the one thing we don’t argue about is the fact that we’ve got the finest fighting force in the history of the world. (Applause.)
And the reason we have it is because of the men and women in uniform, in every branch of service, who make so many sacrifices, and their families make those sacrifices alongside them.
And so the main message I have tonight and the main message I have to you is congratulations on a job well done. The country appreciates you. I appreciate you. And the most pride I take in my job is being your Commander-in-Chief.
It also means that as we transition in Iraq, that the one thing I will insist upon for however long I remain President of the United States is that we serve you and your families as well as you served us.
So we spent a lot of time over the last couple of years making sure that we’re increasing our support of veterans: that we are making sure that our wounded warriors are cared for; that some of the signature injuries of our war, like post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, that we are devoting special services there; that we’ve got a post-9/11 GI bill that ensures that you and your family members are able to come back and fully contribute and participate in our economy; that our veterans are constantly getting the care and honor that they have earned.
So that’s part of my message to the country. And one of the great things about the last several years has been to see how unified the country is around support of our veterans and of our men and women who are currently serving.
Now, I know that, as I said at the beginning, our task in Iraq is not yet completed. Our combat phase is over, but we’ve worked too hard to neglect the continuing work that has to be done by our civilians and by those transitional forces, including some folks who are going to be deploying I understand today. And I’m going to be talking to them later.
The work that continues is absolutely critical: providing training and assistance to Iraqi security forces because there’s still violence in Iraq, and they’re still learning how to secure their country the way they need to. And they’ve made enormous strides thanks to the training that they’ve already received. But there’s still more work to do there.
We’re going to have to protect our civilians, our aid workers and our diplomats who are over there, who are still trying to expand and help what’s going to be a long road ahead for the Iraqi people in terms of rebuilding their country.
We’re still going to be going after terrorists in those areas. And so our counterterrorism operations are still going to be conducted jointly. But the bottom line is, is that our combat phase is now over. We are in transition. And that could not have been accomplished had it not been for the men and women here at Fort Bliss and across the country.
The other thing that I’m going to talk about this evening is the fact that we obviously still have a very tough fight in Afghanistan. And a lot of families have been touched by the way in Iraq. A lot of families are now being touched in Afghanistan. We’ve seen casualties go up because we’re taking the fight to al Qaeda and the Taliban and their allies.
It is going to be a tough slog, but what I know is that after 9/11, this country was unified in saying we are not going to let something like that happen again. And we are going to go after those who perpetrated that crime, and we are going to make sure that they do not have safe haven.
And now under the command of General Petraeus, we have the troops who are there in a position to start taking the fight to the terrorists. And that’s going to mean some casualties and it’s going to mean some heartbreak. But the one thing that I know from all of you is that when we put our minds to it, we get things done. And we’re willing to make some sacrifices on behalf of our security here at home.
So to all of you, and to your families, I want to express my deepest gratitude, the gratitude of Michelle, the First Lady, and our entire family. But also I just want to say thank you on behalf of the country, because without you we couldn’t enjoy the freedoms and the security that are so precious. And all of you represent that long line of heroes that have served us so well generation after generation.
You know, when I was talking to the Gold Star families there, there were some widows dating back to World War II, and then there was a young woman who had just had a baby and had just lost her husband. And that describes the arc of heroism and sacrifice that’s been made by the men and women in uniform for so many generations. You’re part of that line, part of that tradition, part of that heroism.
So what I’d like to do is just to come around and shake all of your hands personally, to say thank you to all of you, to say thank you for a job well done, and to know that you are welcome home with open arms from every corner of this country. People could not be prouder of you, and we are grateful.
Thank you very much, everybody.
** NEW GLOBAL SURVEY: THE LINK BETWEEN RELIGIOSITY AND AFFLUENCE, OR LACK OF SAME.A new Gallup Poll survey of religious influence and involvement in countries around the world bears out what I learned as an undergrad major in history and sociology; religion is most important in poor and relatively poor societies.
As affluence and education increases, religious intensity decreases.
There are only two regions of the world which buck that trend: The Gulf Arab oil states and the United States.
Gallup surveys in 114 countries in 2009 show that religion continues to play an important role in many people’s lives worldwide. The global median proportion of adults who say religion is an important part of their daily lives is 84%, unchanged from what Gallup has found in other years. In 10 countries and areas, at least 98% say religion is important in their daily lives. …
Each of the most religious countries is relatively poor, with a per-capita GDP below $5,000. This reflects the strong relationship between a country’s socioeconomic status and the religiosity of its residents. In the world’s poorest countries — those with average per-capita incomes of $2,000 or lower — the median proportion who say religion is important in their daily lives is 95%. In contrast, the median for the richest countries — those with average per-capita incomes higher than $25,000 — is 47%. …
The United States is one of the rich countries that bucks the trend. About two-thirds of Americans — 65% — say religion is important in their daily lives. Among high-income countries, only Italians, Greeks, Singaporeans, and residents of the oil-rich Persian Gulf states are more likely to say religion is important.
Most high-income countries are further down the religiosity spectrum. In 10 countries, no more than 34% of residents say religion is an important part of their daily lives. Six of those are developed countries in Europe and Asia with per-capita incomes greater than $25,000.
In three of the four lower income countries on the list — Estonia, Russia, and Belarus — the Soviet government restricted religious expression for decades until the U.S.S.R.’s collapse in 1991. The final country is Vietnam, where the government also has a history of limiting religious practice. …
Social scientists have put forth numerous possible explanations for the relationship between the religiosity of a population and its average income level. One theory is that religion plays a more functional role in the world’s poorest countries, helping many residents cope with a daily struggle to provide for themselves and their families. A previous Gallup analysis supports this idea, revealing that the relationship between religiosity and emotional wellbeing is stronger among poor countries than among those in the developed world. …
President Barack Obama discussed the economy yesterday. Tonight he delivers an Oval Office address on Iraq, which the last U.S. combat unit has departed, and Afghanistan.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Texas.
Obama is traveling on Air Force One to El Paso, Texas. After he lands there, he will proceed to the massive Army base at Fort Bliss. Obama is receiving his daily intelligence and economic briefings on Air Force One.
At 9:30 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in El Paso, Texas.
At 10:10 AM Pacific, Obama meets with troops at Fort Bliss Army Base.
Most have returned from Iraq and Obama will make some remarks.
Incidentally, my bottom line on Iraq is that the surge worked. And the invasion was a multifaceted disaster (though as predicted a short-term military success), a misbegotten gift that will keep on giving for a long time.
At 11:20 AM Pacific, Obama departs El Paso, Texas on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 2:55 PM Pacific, Obama lands at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One.
At 3:10 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
At 5 PM Pacific, Obama addresses the nation on Iraq and Afghanistan from the Oval Office.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Speaking of Iraq, that’s where Vice President Joe Biden is today.
Although U.S. combat units have departed, the Iraqi military will be dependent on America for a long time.
Among other things, Biden’s purpose is to bring together the disparate factions of Iraqi politics to at last form a new government, nearly six months after national parliamentary elections.
I believe this is Biden’s third trip there for this purpose. Sunni and Shiite factions are refusing to work together, which is no surprise since it was only Saddam Hussein’s autocratic rule that kept Iraq together prior to the U.S./U.K. invasion in 2003.
As countries go, Iraq is something of an artificial construct, an artifact of colonial times.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento today.
At 11 AM, Schwarzenegger will discuss California’s chronic budget crisis with the San Francisco Chamber of Commer
Schwarzenegger will also hold private talks, much of them around the now very late state budget.
In the last day of its regular session, the Legislature will hold votes on competing budget plans which can’t pass.
This, even though state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg loathes the term, amounts to a drill.
Steinberg says that holding votes on plans which can’t pass will open up the process and create some action. Well, considering how little the Legislature has done on the budget, I suppose it’s all relative.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** HARSH REALM: THE MEG WHITMAN PROGRAM FOR FUTURE CALIFORNIA.Billionaire Meg Whitman keeps plugging what she says is a program for California’s future as a key reason to make her governor of the nation’s largest state. She must be counting on people not paying attention to what her program actually is.
For quite awhile, Whitman, still struggling to develop any momentum in her race for California governor against Jerry Brown despite having already broken all spending records for a non-presidential candidate in American history, has touted her program as the reason to vote for her as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s successor. Namely, that she has one and Brown doesn’t. Or didn’t. Lately, Brown has released a lot of program points, none of which are a surprise since they reflect what he’s been doing and saying throughout his decades in public life.
But that didn’t stop Whitman from trying to have what she calls her “book” — it’s actually a 40-page pamphlet, with big type and many pictures and graphics — placed in California’s public libraries. Virtually all of them turned her down, since it’s campaign advertising and decidedly not a book. Nor did it stop her from using it as one her many excuses to avoid debates with Brown (I have a policy book and he doesn’t have one yet), or from mailing it around the state, or from having it lovingly photographed for one of her incessant TV ads.
For quite awhile, the much diminished state press corps bought into the whole Whitman-has-a-program thing. No one really took a look at what it is. Which is interesting, because the program makes no sense. …From my August 30th feature.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: ANOTHER FAMOUS ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY. The reports of Don Draper’s descent into chaos have been greatly exaggerated.
“The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” a distinctly odd title for those who were not students of anthropology, sociology, or history, is a significant improvement over last week’s episode. Much more happened in this episode, and there was a sense of greater forward motion. There be spoilers ahead, as usual.
Let’s get the title out of the way first. It’s a direct reference to a famous book, published in 1946 by anthropologist Ruth Benedict, a close associate of Margaret Mead. Benedict, sadly, died not long after, but her work lived on. In particular this book, which drew from a series of papers Benedict prepared during World War II for American intelligence. Their purpose? To understand the Japanese, with whom we were then engaged in a war in the Pacific far more brutal than the war against Germany. … From my August 25th review.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “THE REJECTED” IS A ROUTINE EPISODE, BUT BETTY DRAPER HAS JOINED THE X-MEN! … From my August 18th review.
** 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 $40 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.
Back from a quiet summer vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, President Barack Obama this morning called on the Senate to pass a long-stalled small business assistance bill when it returns from its summer recess.
** HARSH REALM: THE MEG WHITMAN PROGRAM FOR FUTURE CALIFORNIA.Billionaire Meg Whitman keeps plugging what she says is a program for California’s future as a key reason to make her governor of the nation’s largest state. She must be counting on people not paying attention to what her program actually is.
For quite awhile, Whitman, still struggling to develop any momentum in her race for California governor against Jerry Brown despite having already broken all spending records for a non-presidential candidate in American history, has touted her program as the reason to vote for her as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s successor. Namely, that she has one and Brown doesn’t. Or didn’t. Lately, Brown has released a lot of program points, none of which are a surprise since they reflect what he’s been doing and saying throughout his decades in public life.
But that didn’t stop Whitman from trying to have what she calls her “book” — it’s actually a 40-page pamphlet, with big type and many pictures and graphics — placed in California’s public libraries. Virtually all of them turned her down, since it’s campaign advertising and decidedly not a book. Nor did it stop her from using it as one her many excuses to avoid debates with Brown (I have a policy book and he doesn’t have one yet), or from mailing it around the state, or from having it lovingly photographed for one of her incessant TV ads.
For quite awhile, the much diminished state press corps bought into the whole Whitman-has-a-program thing. No one really took a look at what it is. Which is interesting, because the program makes no sense. …
** NEW SURVEY: WHAT WORKERS DON’T LIKE ABOUT THEIR JOBS. STRESS. Those fortunate enough to be employed during this slow-mo recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression generally like their work, according to a new Gallup Poll survey.
What don’t they like? Work-related stress. They’re not that happy about the pay, either.
Oddly, the level of satisfaction with jobs is higher than it was a decade ago, and doesn’t appear to have changed since before the mega-recession.
The majority of U.S. workers are completely satisfied with several aspects of their work environment, including their relations with coworkers, the flexibility of their hours, and the amount of work required of them. Of 13 job characteristics rated, they are the least satisfied with their on-the-job stress, followed by their pay. …
No more than 32% of workers are dissatisfied with any of the job aspects rated in the Aug. 5-8 Gallup poll; however, the number completely satisfied does dwindle well below 50% for several. Aside from stress, these include the important material rewards that come from working: pay, company retirement plans, health insurance benefits, and one’s opportunity for promotion.
Worker satisfaction ratings have not changed appreciably over the past year, or even since August 2007, a full year before the start of the global financial crisis. However, workers do appear to be more satisfied today than they were at the beginning of the decade, when Gallup launched the annual measure.
This is seen in the trend for overall job satisfaction, in which 48% are now completely satisfied, similar to the 50% recorded last year, but higher than 39% to 43% readings in most years from 2001 through 2006. …
Workers also appear to be more satisfied today than in 2001 with several specific aspects of their jobs. Ratings for physical safety at work, recognition for work accomplishments, the amount of work required, vacation time, and chances for promotion all show significant improvement since 2001.
Over the same period, workers have become no more satisfied today with their job security, their companies’ retirement plans or health insurance benefits, or on-the-job stress. …
Despite severe turbulence in the U.S. economy and labor market in recent years, working Americans’ satisfaction with their job conditions has changed little since 2007. The long-term comparison is more mixed. Workers are more satisfied today than they were in 2001 with the amount of work required of them, the recognition they receive, their chances for promotion, and pay, among others. Thus, either employers have become more generous in these areas, or employees — perhaps more grateful to have a job — have become easier to please. At the same time, there has been little or no improvement in worker satisfaction in three important areas: health insurance benefits, retirement plans, and job security.
Stress has consistently ranked near the bottom in Gallup’s annual worker satisfaction ratings, trading off with pay for last place. The potentially good news offsetting this is that workers continue to be largely content with their bosses, and with their coworker relations.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
It’s a relatively short week ahead in presidential politics and California politics, thanks to the impending Labor Day weekend, but there will be a few major developments.
Back from a quiet summer vacation with the family on Martha’s Vineyard, Obama brings Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the White House this week to renew the peace process.
On Monday, Obama will attend meetings at the White House and make a statement on the economy. There have been a few recent signs of renewed economic recovery, though most of the recent news has been mediocre.
On Tuesday, Obama will travel to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he will meet with troops returned from Iraq. Later, the President will also address the nation on Iraq from the Oval Office.
All U.S. combat troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, actually ahead of schedule. 50,000 U.S. troops designated as non-combat, who will not patrol or engage in combat operations, remain in country. They are scheduled to be withdrawn by the end of 2011.
On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Obama will attend meetings at the White House. Much of that is around the re-start of the Israeli/Palestinian peace process.
Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, special envoy of the Mideast Quartet powers, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be on hand for a working dinner Tuesday night and scheduled peace talks on Wednesday.
After that, while Obama’s public schedule remains flexible as it always is later in the week to accommodate emerging issues, much of America’s attention turns to the start of Labor Day weekend.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have been staging attacks in the relatively stable north, in addition to the usual attacks in the east and the south.
The touted Taliban offensive hasn’t amounted to that much. But then again, neither has the ballyhooed U.S./allied offensive in Kandahar Province, which is far behind schedule.
In Pakistan, relief efforts to deal with the country’s worst flooding in history are ongoing. Private American contributions to the effort are relatively low.
In Iraq, the governance situation remains unresolved over five-and-a-half months since national parliamentary elections on March 7th.
Back in California politics, Senator Barbara Boxer will debate her Republican challenger, ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. They’re in a tight race in which Boxer still has the edge.
Fiorina will head to the Middle East over Labor Day weekend. Boxer has a large built-in advantage with the Jewish community, despite her reputation as an ultra-liberal.
Naturally, these two will debate before the gubernatorial candidates.
Billionaire Meg Whitman has dodged Jerry Brown’s challenge to 10 town hall debates. Having already broken the campaign spending record for all non-presidential candidates in American history, Whitman is still busily spending her fortune, trying once again to overwhelm Brown and develop some momentum in her stalled campaign.
Meanwhile, California’s chronic budget crisis drags on, with no agreement in sight between Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic and Republican legislative leaders.
The Legislature will conduct what’s called a drill on Tuesday, voting on budget proposals which don’t the votes to pass.
President Barack Obama traveled to New Orleans yesterday to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
He has met with senior advisors in the Oval Office and is receiving his daily intelligence and economic briefings there.
At 9:30 AM Pacific, Obama makes a statement on the economy in the Rose Garden.
After stalling in July, there have been a few signs of renewed economic recovery. Unemployment claims were down last week. Now comes word that consumer spending is up slightly.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Speaking of Iraq, that’s where Vice President Joe Biden is today and tomorrow.
He made a confidential trip there in advance of tomorrow’s formal announcement of the end of U.S. combat operations there. Among other things, Biden’s purpose is to bring together the disparate factions of Iraqi politics to at last form a new government, nearly six months after national parliamentary elections.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles and Sacramento today.
At 1 PM, Schwarzenegger will deliver remarks at the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) Political Reform Act Task Force meeting in Sacramento.
Mad Men won the award for Best Dramatic Series for the third year in a row at last night’s Emmy Awards at the Nokia Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: ANOTHER FAMOUS ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY. The reports of Don Draper’s descent into chaos have been greatly exaggerated.
“The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” a distinctly odd title for those who were not students of anthropology, sociology, or history, is a significant improvement over last week’s episode. Much more happened in this episode, and there was a sense of greater forward motion. There be spoilers ahead, as usual.
Let’s get the title out of the way first. It’s a direct reference to a famous book, published in 1946 by anthropologist Ruth Benedict, a close associate of Margaret Mead. Benedict, sadly, died not long after, but her work lived on. In particular this book, which drew from a series of papers Benedict prepared during World War II for American intelligence. Their purpose? To understand the Japanese, with whom we were then engaged in a war in the Pacific far more brutal than the war against Germany. … From my August 25th review.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “THE REJECTED” IS A ROUTINE EPISODE, BUT BETTY DRAPER HAS JOINED THE X-MEN!This was the most routine of the episodes so far this season. But afterwards, I learned where Betty Draper has gotten herself to. She’s joined The X-Men! … From my August 18th review.
** HARSH REALM: MEG WHITMAN AND THE C.E.O. MYTH.Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman, still trying to gain traction in her bid to beat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor despite already having smashed all non-presidential campaign spending records in American history, rests her campaign on her reputation as a corporate CEO. Since she didn’t bother to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding to start as governor of a state she moved to in the late ’90s, it’s all she has. Absent that, she is nothing more than an assertion of ambition and creation of paid advertising.
Californians have been inundated with ads since last fall extolling Whitman’s purported expertise as the former CEO of eBay, the online auction company, and other business credentials. With her negative ads coming up short against Brown, Whitman relaunched her imagineering efforts anew … with a TV ad telling us she did a great job at eBay.
But did she, really? Or did she actually do what she claims politicians do, i.e., disastrously expand into areas she knew nothing about, jack up overhead, take far more in personal pay and perks, and repeatedly hike fees (read: taxes) on eBay sellers? … From my August 17th feature.
** 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 $40 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.
New Orleans has rebounded but not recovered from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts, Louisiana, and Washington, DC.
Obama and his family have ended their summer vacation on Marth’s Vineyard. It was a very low-key affair, especially compared to President Bill Clinton’s vacations in the same locale. The Obamas were even kept indoors for a few days due to heavy storms hitting the island off the Massachusetts coast.
Obama went to a bookstore, went out to dinner a few times, and played golf a few times — including on Friday with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg — but otherwise was very much out of sight with family and friends.
Obama left Martha’s Vineyard via helicopter designated Marine One to the Cape Cod Coast Guard Air Station, where he boarded Air Force One and left commemorate the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina striking and nearly destroying New Orleans.
At 10:20 AM Pacific, Obama lands in New Orleans.
At 12:10 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks commemorating the strike of Hurricane Katrina at Xavier University.
At 3:20 PM Pacific, Obama flies on Air Force One from New Orleans to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 5:20 PM Pacific, Obama lands at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One.
At 5:35 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILES – SUNDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama discusses the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts with his family.
Obama is on summer vacation through August 29th.
He received his daily intelligence and economic briefings at a private residence on Martha’s Vineyard, the island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Obama has no scheduled public events today.
Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton will hold a daily media briefing on Martha’s Vineyard.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have been staging attacks in the relatively stable north, in addition to the usual attacks in the east and the south.
The touted Taliban offensive hasn’t amounted to that much. But then again, neither has the ballyhooed U.S./allied offensive in Kandahar Province, which is far behind schedule.
In Pakistan, relief efforts to deal with the country’s worst flooding in history are ongoing. Private American contributions to the effort are relatively low.
In Iraq, the governance situation remains unresolved over five-and-a-half months since national parliamentary elections on March 7th.
Obama will formally declare the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq in a speech on August 31st. Prior to that, he will visit returned American troops at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Far right Fox News media personality Glenn Beck — speaking at the National Mall in Washington, site of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech on its 47th anniversary — told a crowd of tens of thousands that “America is turning back to God.”
Far right media personality Glenn Beck is having a rally today on the anniversary and at the site of Rev. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. He claims it’s a coincidence, and that his purpose is to honor America’s troops. Also on hand is ex-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
Of course, a big part of Beck’s message, in addition to his trademark efforts to re-write American history, is that it’s time to stop talking about what’s wrong with America and focus on what’s right with America. Well, except for the part where he talks about Obama as the personification of evil.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: ANOTHER FAMOUS ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY. The reports of Don Draper’s descent into chaos have been greatly exaggerated.
“The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” a distinctly odd title for those who were not students of anthropology, sociology, or history, is a significant improvement over last week’s episode. Much more happened in this episode, and there was a sense of greater forward motion. There be spoilers ahead, as usual.
Let’s get the title out of the way first. It’s a direct reference to a famous book, published in 1946 by anthropologist Ruth Benedict, a close associate of Margaret Mead. Benedict, sadly, died not long after, but her work lived on. In particular this book, which drew from a series of papers Benedict prepared during World War II for American intelligence. Their purpose? To understand the Japanese, with whom we were then engaged in a war in the Pacific far more brutal than the war against Germany. … From my August 25th review.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “THE REJECTED” IS A ROUTINE EPISODE, BUT BETTY DRAPER HAS JOINED THE X-MEN!This was the most routine of the episodes so far this season. But afterwards, I learned where Betty Draper has gotten herself to. She’s joined The X-Men! … From my August 18th review.
** HARSH REALM: MEG WHITMAN AND THE C.E.O. MYTH.Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman, still trying to gain traction in her bid to beat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor despite already having smashed all non-presidential campaign spending records in American history, rests her campaign on her reputation as a corporate CEO. Since she didn’t bother to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding to start as governor of a state she moved to in the late ’90s, it’s all she has. Absent that, she is nothing more than an assertion of ambition and creation of paid advertising.
Californians have been inundated with ads since last fall extolling Whitman’s purported expertise as the former CEO of eBay, the online auction company, and other business credentials. With her negative ads coming up short against Brown, Whitman relaunched her imagineering efforts anew … with a TV ad telling us she did a great job at eBay.
But did she, really? Or did she actually do what she claims politicians do, i.e., disastrously expand into areas she knew nothing about, jack up overhead, take far more in personal pay and perks, and repeatedly hike fees (read: taxes) on eBay sellers? … From my August 17th feature.
** 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 $75.17 per barrel on Friday. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $41 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.
Former President Jimmy Carter flew out of North Korea today with an American imprisoned in the Hermit Kingdom since January.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … HARSH REALM: THE WHITMAN PROGRAM FOR FUTURE CALIFORNIA.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: MORE RATTLING MUSKET FIRE. Some jabs, and jibs, today in the California governor’s race. And an intriguing fact in the California race for U.S. senator.
After checking with legal experts, the California Democratic Party today announced it is filing a legal complaint with the Internal Revenue Service against the so-called Small Business Action Committee, a member-free group run by veteran conservative business lobbyist and Meg Whitman backer Joel Fox that is fronting money from sources it refuses to disclose to run TV ads attacking Jerry Brown.
The committee, which reveals in other filings that it is really the BIG Business Action Committee, as it has raised no money from small businesses, is using a loophole in state campaign finance law through which it is running attack ads as purported educational “issue” advertising. (This is the same ploy that the California Chamber of Commerce tried during the spring, but had to back down from after key members of its board objected. Since Fox’s committee actually represents no one, he doesn’t have this problem.)
But at least one legal expert I’ve talked to says that the “Small” Business Action Committee advertising goes well beyond issue advertising allowed a 501(c)(4) status entity, putting it in the 527 committee category, in which committees can accepts unlimited sums but must disclose their sources.
I’m not sure how good the advertising is, actually, but in any event it will be interesting to see who is really behind it.
On the Whitman side, her chief strategist Mike Murphy — evidently thinking that things have died down over the revelation that Whitman paid him over $1 million as an investment in his still credit-free Hollywood production company two days after he ankled primary rival Steve Poizner’s campaign — said today that the campaign will make a big push in Brown’s Bay Area stronghold. But he wouldn’t say when, or what would really be done, but did claim that Brown is in big trouble there.
In this Post-Press Era, there are few journos left who even remember the famous 2005 California special election, which ended in complete defeat for Murphy’s then client, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Murphy regularly made preposterous pronouncements in that campaign, even claiming very late in the game that the four initiatives headed for defeat were actually winning.
In any event, the governor’s race remains where it has been for the past couple of months. Whitman’s record-shattering spending — which Murphy and others expected to build a 12 to 15-point lead over Brown from which he couldn’t come back — hasn’t built any lead at all.
In the Senate race, which is even more low-key — yes, a governor’s race in which one candidate spends a couple of million dollars PER WEEK can in fact be low-key — ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina has been on a fundraising tour of Texas.
Fiorina doesn’t have Whitman’s ability to spend endlessly on her own campaign. So she has to raise money, or risk being swamped by Senator Barbara Boxer.
Down in the Lone Star State, Fiorina picked up the enthusiastic backing of Lynne Cheney’s political action committee. I have a feeling we’ll hear more about the link between Fiorina and the wife of the former vice president, who is very unpopular in California.
** NEW POLL: OBAMA POPULARITY BY RELIGIOUS GROUPING. Well, it looks like, relatively speaking, Muslim Americans love President Barack Obama. And Mormons hate him.
And everyone else is in between, with Catholics rather positive and Protestants worrisomely low, though still relatively approving in this environment.
Of course, both Muslims and Mormons are small constituencies in America, each religion less than 2% of the country.
According to a new Gallup Poll survey, Obama is also rated very highly by Jews, agnostics and atheists, and adherents of other religions. (I have a feeling that Zen practitioners, for example, like the rather Zen-like Obama.)
Muslim Americans continue to give President Barack Obama the highest job approval rating of any major religious group in the U.S., while Mormons give the president the lowest ratings.
The differences in Obama’s approval ratings across the religious groups included in this analysis have held fairly constant across time, even as Obama’s overall rating has fallen by 15 percentage points between the first half of 2009 and the first seven months of this year. American Muslims — in the news recently with the controversy over proposed plans to build an Islamic center and mosque near ground zero in New York City — have given Obama his highest ratings in all three time periods: 86% in the first half of 2009, 83% in the second half of 2009, and 78% so far this year. Mormons have given Obama his lowest ratings across time, dropping from 43% in the first half of 2009 to 24% this year.
In addition to Muslims, Obama receives above-average ratings among Jews, those who identify with other non-Christian religious groups, and those with no formal religious identity. Obama gets lower-than-average ratings among Protestants. Catholics have given Obama slightly higher-than-average ratings last year and so far this year.
Obama has lost slightly more ground than average so far among Mormons, and has lost the least among Muslims.
These findings are based on interviews with more than 275,000 adult Americans conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking from Jan. 21, 2009, through July 31, 2010. Protestants and other non-Catholic/unaffiliated Christians are by far the largest religious group in America, representing about 55% of the adult population, followed by Catholics, at roughly 22%. About 13% of Americans do not have a formal religious identity or are explicitly atheists or agnostics. Jews, Mormons, and Muslims each represent no more than 2% of U.S. adults interviewed in Gallup’s tracking.
President Obama’s job approval ratings have fallen significantly between his first six months in office and this year so far, and his ratings among major religious groups have fallen in rough lock step. The pattern that pertained when Obama first took office — high ratings among Muslims, those with no religious identity, those identifying with non-Christian religions, and Jews; and lower ratings among Protestants and Mormons — continues today. Although his standing has dropped among Americans in each of these groups, Obama has retained a little more strength among Muslims, the group giving him the highest ratings, and has lost a little more among Mormons, the group giving him the lowest ratings.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts with his family.
Obama is on summer vacation through August 29th.
He received his daily intelligence and economic briefings at a private residence on Martha’s Vineyard, the island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Obama has no scheduled public events today.
Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton will hold a daily media briefing on Martha’s Vineyard.
Economic growth in the second quarter has been downgraded to 1.6%, yet another sign of the cooling economic recovery.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Korean, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Vice President Joe Biden is in Washington, where he has no scheduled public events.
Former President Jimmy Carter is returning from North Korea with an American imprisoned there since January.
The Obama Administration issued another strong travel warning against Americans seeking to travel to North Korea as soon as Carter’s plane cleared North Korean airspace.
The freed American, 31-year old Aijalon Gomes, had been teaching English in South Korea when he decided to wander across the border into North Korea. Reportedly a religious activist, he had attended rallies for others jailed in the Hermit Kingdom.
While Carter was in North Korea, regime leader Kim Jong Il made an unscheduled trip to meet with Chinese leaders in Beijing, adding to the intrigue of the situation.
Carter is well regarded in North Korea. He brokered a major nuclear agreeement in 1994 which came unraveled after the Bush/Cheney Administration declared North Korea part of the “Axis of Evil” in 2002, a small set of nations which actually had little to do with one another.
It’s not widely known, but on September 11th, 2001, then National Security Advisor Condi Rice was scheduled to give a speech on the gravest national security threat facing America: The missile programs of rogue states like North Korea.
Subsequent events caused her speech to be scrapped.
New British Prime Minister David Cameron, celebrating the birth of his fourth child this week while on holiday, reportedly came close to assassination earlier this year in Afghanistan.
Reports are emerging that British Prime Minister David Cameron came perilously close to assassination during a June visit to Afghanistan.
The British helicopter carrying the new PM to a publicly unannounced inspection of a Royal Army base in Helmand Province changed its route at the last minute following reports that the Taliban were aware of Cameron’s trip.
Now reports say that Taliban radio traffic indicated that the jihadists knew in advance of the helicopter’s flight path and the timing of the trip, indicating a security breech.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
Schwarzenegger will hold private talks.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: ANOTHER FAMOUS ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY. The reports of Don Draper’s descent into chaos have been greatly exaggerated.
“The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” a distinctly odd title for those who were not students of anthropology, sociology, or history, is a significant improvement over last week’s episode. Much more happened in this episode, and there was a sense of greater forward motion. There be spoilers ahead, as usual.
Let’s get the title out of the way first. It’s a direct reference to a famous book, published in 1946 by anthropologist Ruth Benedict, a close associate of Margaret Mead. Benedict, sadly, died not long after, but her work lived on. In particular this book, which drew from a series of papers Benedict prepared during World War II for American intelligence. Their purpose? To understand the Japanese, with whom we were then engaged in a war in the Pacific far more brutal than the war against Germany. … From my August 25th review.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “THE REJECTED” IS A ROUTINE EPISODE, BUT BETTY DRAPER HAS JOINED THE X-MEN!This was the most routine of the episodes so far this season. But afterwards, I learned where Betty Draper has gotten herself to. She’s joined The X-Men! … From my August 18th review.
** HARSH REALM: MEG WHITMAN AND THE C.E.O. MYTH.Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman, still trying to gain traction in her bid to beat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor despite already having smashed all non-presidential campaign spending records in American history, rests her campaign on her reputation as a corporate CEO. Since she didn’t bother to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding to start as governor of a state she moved to in the late ’90s, it’s all she has. Absent that, she is nothing more than an assertion of ambition and creation of paid advertising.
Californians have been inundated with ads since last fall extolling Whitman’s purported expertise as the former CEO of eBay, the online auction company, and other business credentials. With her negative ads coming up short against Brown, Whitman relaunched her imagineering efforts anew … with a TV ad telling us she did a great job at eBay.
But did she, really? Or did she actually do what she claims politicians do, i.e., disastrously expand into areas she knew nothing about, jack up overhead, take far more in personal pay and perks, and repeatedly hike fees (read: taxes) on eBay sellers? … From my August 17th feature.
** 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 $39 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg met with a Muslim cab driver stabbed in a hate crime.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … HARSH REALM: MEG WHITMAN’S PROGRAM FOR FUTURE CALIFORNIA.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: SOME LATE AUGUST HEAT. The California governor’s race has been fairly quiet of late. I’m not referring to flurries of oppo-derived items which don’t amount to much of anything, the usual rattle of musket desultory musket fire, but to big moves.
Billionaire Meg Whitman keeps spending megabucks — the most for a non-presidential candidate in American history, at $120 million-plus and climbing — but she’s been essentially stuck since the June 8th primary, as I’ve said since, well, the June 8th primary. This has become the conventional wisdom in the race, with Jerry Brown playing what I’ve called Zen rope-a-dope.
But she keeps on spending, and the spinning keeps happening. More about all that in a moment.
Today was actually a very big day for Whitman, but not in the way she would like. Her new old friends, the California Nurses Association, joined with a host of women’s organizations and organized an afternoon rally at the State Capitol, with thousands in attendance. It’s actually the biggest rally of the campaign.
It marks the 90th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote, and bashes Whitman for her repeated failure to vote throughout her adult life. They also laid into Whitman for her corporate conservative program of tax cuts for the wealthy, rollback of regulation, opposition to the state’s landmark climate change/renewable energy program, flip-flopping on illegal immigration, and lack of consistency on abortion.
In fact, California’s leading pro-choice organizations, Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights Action League, today endorsed Brown over the professed pro-choice Whitman. In her zeal to win the Republican nomination, Whitman backtracked on some pro-choice issues, in a familiar pattern of behavior.
Meanwhile, Whitman, and a shadowy ally organization, are spending millions more on TV. Whitman herself has a new ad, which I discussed yesterday, seeking to equate herself with the glory of Silicon Valley greatness and contrast it with the dysfunction and, supposedly, Brown. Who spends very little time in Sacramento and was backed his first time around as governor by the principal founders of Apple and Intel, the two firms she cited along with eBay as symbol of high tech greatness. I actually worked for a time with the leaders of both those companies.
More interesting than this latest attempt to appropriate the eBay brand, which is not that highly regarded, as it happens — see link below for the company’s myriad of problems under Whitman’s leadership — is the use of the so-called Small Business Action Committee as a front group for TV attack ads against Brown.
The group, headed by veteran conservative business lobbyist Joel Fox and which doesn’t really have a membership as I recall, says it doesn’t have to disclose where the money is coming from. Because it is engaged in an “educational effort on the issues.” A loophole in campaign finance law allows this nonsense. And since the group is essentially Fox himself, there is no constituency to be shamed, as there was when the California Chamber of Commerce, directed by the former lobbyist for Whitman’s campaign chairman, ex-Governor Pete Wilson, tried the same stunt during the spring.
Fox did reveal where the group is getting big money for its other campaigns, the ones that can’t be spun as . And it’s all from big business. Making his moniker of Small Business Action Committee simply another non-serious matter.
Speaking of non-serious, the Rasmussen organization, notorious for trying to set pro-conservative media narratives and darling of the Fox News crowd and the far right blogosphere, released a purported poll today showing Whitman with a sudden eight-point lead.
Which would be quite a trick, since the very serious private poll I just revealed here showed the race tied.
Rasmussen is owned by a very conservative Christian fundamentalist named Scott Rasmussen. There have been a number of studies of its slant and manipulation, as a result of which I no longer take his polls seriously. I had noticed on my own in previous years that his polls were frequently anti-Democratic outliers, which became more in line with what I knew from other sources as the election drew nearer, allowing him to cite his poll’s purported accuracy.
There’s a big tell with Rasmussen’s narrative today, in that the accompanying prose says that Whitman has broken the tie and taken the lead in the wake of her performance at last weekend’s state Republican convention. This is very much an out-of-state conception, as state party conventions don’t rate much attention from the general voting population. This is especially so for a state party convention in August.
And since Whitman didn’t do much there, and certainly didn’t shine, and in fact was widely assailed by party factions as she came and went as fast as possible, the whole Rasmussen narrative becomes even more fanciful than usual.
** NEW POLL: BACK TO FIGHTING IN IRAQ? NOT A CHANCE. With the last of U.S. combat troops pulled out of Iraq this week, the question of Iraq’s future security is still unclear. There was a wave of attacks on Iraq security forces a day after, and there is still no new national government nearly half a year after national parliamentary elections.
But most Americans are strongly opposed to re-engaging in the country, even if the turmoil increases again.
A new Gallup Poll shows heavy opposition to renewing U.S. combat operations in Iraq, with Democrats and independents deeply opposed. A small majority of Republicans would renew combat in Iraq.
Only 33% of Americans favor any renewal of U.S. combat operations in Iraq. 63% are opposed.
The Iraq War itself is strongly opposed, 60% to 34%.
And most do not believe that invading Iraq made American safer from terrorism or contributed to stability in the Middle East.
Americans are about twice as likely to oppose as they are to favor renewing U.S. combat operations in Iraq if Iraqi forces are unable to maintain security there. These views are shared by Democrats and independents, but a slight majority of Republicans disagree.
These results are based on an Aug. 21-22 USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted in advance of the official transfer of combat operations in Iraq from the U.S. military to Iraqi forces. The last remaining U.S. combat forces actually left Iraq last week. The United States plans to keep a smaller force in the country through the end of 2011.
A Gallup poll conducted earlier this month found Americans pessimistic that Iraqi forces would be able to limit insurgent attacks and maintain order in the country. That poll also found a majority of Americans in favor of sticking to the timetable for complete withdrawal from Iraq regardless of the situation there at the time.
Taken together, the results of the two recent polls on Iraq suggest Americans have little appetite for a continuing major U.S. presence in Iraq even though they believe Iraqis will not be able to handle the situation themselves.
These views exist even though Americans do not believe the war has met two of its stated objectives: making the U.S. safer from terrorism and stabilizing the political situation in the Middle East. On both counts, more Americans believe the situation is now worse rather than better, although substantial minorities believe there has been no change in either situation. Even Republicans, who tend to be most supportive of the war, are dubious the U.S. has achieved these goals.
Americans do, however, acknowledge that Iraqis are better off because of the war — 52% say this, while 20% believe they are worse off and 21% say there has been no change.
The poll finds 60% of Americans saying the situation in Iraq was not worth going to war over, while 34% believe it was. In recent years, Gallup has also found a consistent majority of Americans saying the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq.
Americans are eager to end their more than seven-year involvement in Iraq, even if that could leave Iraqis in charge of a situation they are not equipped to handle, and even if that means the United States has not met some of its stated objectives for going to war. Americans have been negatively disposed to the war for more than five years, and that has changed little even as they have become more optimistic about U.S. progress in the war since the surge of U.S. troops in 2007-2008.
The so-called “Ground Zero Mosque,” actually an Islamic center planned for a few blocks away from the site of the late World Trade Center, is receiving new support.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts.
Obama is on summer vacation through August 29th.
He received his daily intelligence and economic briefings at a private residence on Martha’s Vineyard, the island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Obama has no scheduled public events today.
Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton will hold a daily media briefing on Martha’s Vineyard.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Korean, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
At 8:15 AM Pacific, Biden delivers remarks on the economic recovery act in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Biden will focus on the new national weatherization program, making homes more energy efficient.
200,000 homes have been weatherized so far thanks to the economic recovery act.
After some economic data yesterday indicating that the recovery is stalling, this morning brought news that new unemployment claims declined for the first time in a month.
Iraq’s governance situation is still unsettled over five-and-a-half months after national parliamentary elections.
Senator Barbara Boxer, as you may have heard, is in a tight re-election race with ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
It looks like the far right Tea Party crowd has knocked off another incumbent Republican senator. Senator Lisa Murkowski still trails slightly in Alaska with all precincts reporting from across the sprawling state, America’s largest and one of its least populated.
Former Governor Sarah Palin backed Tea Party favorite Joe Miller in his primary bid. Palin previously defeated Murkowski’s father, former Governor Frank Murkowski, for Republican nomination for governor in 2006.
Palin served half her term as governor, then resigned last year.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
At 11 AM, Schwarzenegger joins California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials and a task force of federal and regional law enforcement agencies to announce the results of Operation Disarm.
The operation is the largest parole sweep in the history of Los Angeles targeting high profile parolees for illegal activity in both the city and county.
Schwarzenegger’s pick as chief justice of the California Supreme Court, Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, won a confirmation vote yesterday from the state’s judicial panel.
The 3-0 confirmation vote in her favor was cast by Attorney General Jerry Brown, outgoing Chief Justice Ron George, and the dean of the state’s appellate courts, Justice Joan Dempsey Klein.
The new chief justice faces a public confirmation vote in November at the end of what was George’s 12-year term. The Supreme Court convenes again next January in San Francisco.
Brown, incidentally, went on to Santa Rosa last night for a spirited rally of a thousand people backing his return to the governorship.
The night before, he held a fundraiser at his old “14th and N” gubernatorial apartment across the street from Capitol Park. There was a serious problem with the air conditioning on perhaps the hottest day of the year.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: ANOTHER FAMOUS ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY. The reports of Don Draper’s descent into chaos have been greatly exaggerated.
“The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” a distinctly odd title for those who were not students of anthropology, sociology, or history, is a significant improvement over last week’s episode. Much more happened in this episode, and there was a sense of greater forward motion. There be spoilers ahead, as usual.
Let’s get the title out of the way first. It’s a direct reference to a famous book, published in 1946 by anthropologist Ruth Benedict, a close associate of Margaret Mead. Benedict, sadly, died not long after, but her work lived on. In particular this book, which drew from a series of papers Benedict prepared during World War II for American intelligence. Their purpose? To understand the Japanese, with whom we were then engaged in a war in the Pacific far more brutal than the war against Germany. … From my August 25th review.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “THE REJECTED” IS A ROUTINE EPISODE, BUT BETTY DRAPER HAS JOINED THE X-MEN!This was the most routine of the episodes so far this season. But afterwards, I learned where Betty Draper has gotten herself to. She’s joined The X-Men! … From my August 18th review.
** HARSH REALM: MEG WHITMAN AND THE C.E.O. MYTH.Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman, still trying to gain traction in her bid to beat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor despite already having smashed all non-presidential campaign spending records in American history, rests her campaign on her reputation as a corporate CEO. Since she didn’t bother to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding to start as governor of a state she moved to in the late ’90s, it’s all she has. Absent that, she is nothing more than an assertion of ambition and creation of paid advertising.
Californians have been inundated with ads since last fall extolling Whitman’s purported expertise as the former CEO of eBay, the online auction company, and other business credentials. With her negative ads coming up short against Brown, Whitman relaunched her imagineering efforts anew … with a TV ad telling us she did a great job at eBay.
But did she, really? Or did she actually do what she claims politicians do, i.e., disastrously expand into areas she knew nothing about, jack up overhead, take far more in personal pay and perks, and repeatedly hike fees (read: taxes) on eBay sellers? … From my August 17th feature.
** 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 $39 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Saber-rattling around Iran and its rogue nuclear program continued with the launch today of what Iran says is a new short-range surface-to-surface missile.
** QUICK HITS. Billionaire Meg Whitman, lacking momentum in the California governor’s race despite having outspent all her opponents combined by nearly three to one, unveiled yet another TV ad today. One which tries to cast the race against Jerry Brown as a choice between the brilliance of Silicon Valley — epitomized by Apple, Intel, and eBay — and the dysfunction of Sacramento. Unfortunately for Whitman, the principal founders of Apple and Intel were actually Jerry Brown supporters and served in his gubernatorial administration. Which she would know if she hadn’t just moved to California in the late ’90s from back East. … The so-called Small Business Action Committee, taking advantage of a loophole in the law, refuses to reveal where it got its money for over a million dollars in TV attack ads against Jerry Brown. But it did reveal funding for other projects. No small businesses involved. The group should rename itself the Big Business Action Committee. … Former George W. Bush consigliere Karl Rove’s political committee Crossroads GPS is launching a $1 million TV attack against Senator Barbara Boxer in the Los Angeles market, attempting to boost the prospects of ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
** NEW POLL: PARENTS WANT TEACHERS JUDGED ON STUDENT PERFORMANCE. In unwelcome news for teachers unions, a new Gallup Poll shows big majorities of parents nationwide with children in the public school system wanting teacher pay tied at least in part to performance.
The findings provide support for the Obama Administration’s Race To The Top education initiatives.
The large majority of parents with children in the public K-12 school system would like to see teacher pay revolve around teacher performance, not the standard scale of pay. Seventy-two percent of public school parents say teachers’ salaries should be tied to the quality of their work. Additionally, 75% say teachers’ salaries should be somewhat or very closely tied to their own students’ academic achievement.
On the flip side, 28% of public school parents want teachers compensated based on a “standard scale,” which was not defined in the question wording, but typically would involve a teacher’s experience and education level. Similarly, 25% say pay should be not at all or not very closely tied to student academic achievement. The views of all national adults align closely with those of public school parents. …
But teaching remains a highly esteemed profession.
Even though thousands of teachers have been laid off over the past two years, and schools across the country continue to face intense budget problems, more Americans, 67%, now say they would like to have a child of theirs take up teaching in the public school system as a career than did so when Gallup and PDK asked the question in 1990 (51%) and 1980 (48%).
The Gallup/PDK findings reveal that the large majority of public school parents in America support the idea of a teacher compensation system based on performance rather than on a “standard scale.” The majority of parents also think teachers’ salaries should be at least somewhat closely tied to student achievement. But in many school districts, pay is not currently determined on the basis of teacher quality or student outcomes; rather, it is determined largely by a standard scale system, typically based on seniority. The Obama administration last year launched a federal grant program, “Race to the Top,” one requirement of which is for competing states to link student achievement to teachers.
Despite the disconnect between parents’ ideas for how teachers should be compensated and the current teacher compensation framework in the nation’s public schools, most parents do have trust and confidence in public school teachers. This positivity comes during a tough time for the nation’s public schools and can be a source of pride for teachers and public education leaders.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: ANOTHER FAMOUS ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY. The reports of Don Draper’s descent into chaos have been greatly exaggerated.
“The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” a distinctly odd title for those who were not students of anthropology, sociology, or history, is a significant improvement over last week’s episode. Much more happened in this episode, and there was a sense of greater forward motion. There be spoilers ahead, as usual.
Let’s get the title out of the way first. It’s a direct reference to a famous book, published in 1946 by anthropologist Ruth Benedict, a close associate of Margaret Mead. Benedict, sadly, died not long after, but her work lived on. In particular this book, which drew from a series of papers Benedict prepared during World War II for American intelligence. Their purpose? To understand the Japanese, with whom we were then engaged in a war in the Pacific far more brutal than the war against Germany.
Vice President Joe Biden — introduced by Energy Secretary Steve Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist from California — discussed the economy yesterday in Washington.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts.
Obama is on summer vacation through August 29th.
He received his daily intelligence and economic briefings at a private residence on Martha’s Vineyard, the island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Obama has no scheduled public events today.
Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton will hold a daily media briefing on Martha’s Vineyard.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Korean, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Vice President Joe Biden, holding down the fort in Washington, conducts a Middle Class Task Force meeting today in the Eisenhower Executive Office Bldg.
Some more economic data is emerging today indicating that the recovery is stalling.
While the Iraq operation transitions into a decidedly new mode amidst waves of congratulations following the departure of U.S. combat units, Iraq’s governance situation is still unsettled over five-and-a-half months after national parliamentary elections.
A wave of deadly attacks against Iraqi security forces struck today, one day after the last U.S. combat units departed.
And, with American troops no longer on patrol, Iraq was hit today by a country-wide series of attacks against its domestic security forces, killing at least 50 people.
U.S. and Iraqi officials insist that there will be no change in security arrangements.
In other action, Obama’s 2008 Republican opponent, Senator John McCain, handily defeated his Tea Party Arizona primary opponent, ex-Congressman J.D. Hayworth, 56% to 32%. A third candidate in the race took roughly 10% of the vote.
McCain spent over $20 million and moved to the right to fend off this intra-party challenge.
In Alaska, former Governor Sarah Palin may have knocked off Senator Lisa Murkowski in another Republican primary. Tea Party favorite Joe Miller has a 51% to 49% lead with almost all precincts reporting.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles and Sacramento today.
Schwarzenegger will hold private talks in and around the Capitol.
California’s chronic budget crisis drags on with no discernible movement in the Legislature after months of internal talks. Schwarzenegger has held repeated conversations with legislative leaders.
The first day of Schwarzenegger’s renewed unpaid Friday furloughs of state employees was on Friday. The furloughs will halt when a state budget emerges, or if the California Supreme Court ends them. But the Court is allowing them to go forward for now.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “THE REJECTED” IS A ROUTINE EPISODE, BUT BETTY DRAPER HAS JOINED THE X-MEN!This was the most routine of the episodes so far this season. But afterwards, I learned where Betty Draper has gotten herself to. She’s joined The X-Men! … From my August 18th review.
** HARSH REALM: MEG WHITMAN AND THE C.E.O. MYTH.Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman, still trying to gain traction in her bid to beat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor despite already having smashed all non-presidential campaign spending records in American history, rests her campaign on her reputation as a corporate CEO. Since she didn’t bother to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding to start as governor of a state she moved to in the late ’90s, it’s all she has. Absent that, she is nothing more than an assertion of ambition and creation of paid advertising.
Californians have been inundated with ads since last fall extolling Whitman’s purported expertise as the former CEO of eBay, the online auction company, and other business credentials. With her negative ads coming up short against Brown, Whitman relaunched her imagineering efforts anew … with a TV ad telling us she did a great job at eBay.
But did she, really? Or did she actually do what she claims politicians do, i.e., disastrously expand into areas she knew nothing about, jack up overhead, take far more in personal pay and perks, and repeatedly hike fees (read: taxes) on eBay sellers? … From my August 17th feature.
** HARSH REALM: THE LEGACY THAT MEG WHITMAN INVOKES.As she shatters all spending records in her attempt to defeat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California, a campaign which is way off plan, billionaire Republican Meg Whitman has a role model in mind.
He was “the greatest governor in the history of California.” So says Whitman, the political novice who seldom bothered to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding, one fine day, that she really should start at the top.
He’s her campaign chairman. And, as fate would have it, he is responsible for California’s structural budget deficit, the disastrous electric power deregulation scheme that enriched Enron and turned out California’s lights, and the hypocritical nastiness of the debate over illegal immigration. …
Now, to be fair, had Jerry Brown not run for the presidency in 1980, the only one of his three presidential campaigns that really didn’t make a lick of sense, most likely would never have heard of Wilson, then the mayor of San Diego. He had tried to run against Brown for governor in 1978, when Governor “Moonbeam” won a 20-point landslide re-election. Wilson couldn’t get out of the Republican primary, finishing a badly beaten fourth. …From my August 7th feature.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “CHRISTMAS COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR,” EXCEPT FOR THESE THREE WISE GUYS. … From my August 3rd review.
** 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 $38 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Vice President Joe Biden discussed the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq yesterday when he addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars annual convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. The last U.S. combat troops pulled out of Iraq early today.
** QUICK HITS. President Barack Obama has been campaigning for Senator Barbara Boxer’s hotly contested re-election campaign for many months, but today he dipped his toe into the California governor’s race for the first time with an e-mail extolling Jerry Brown to his Obama for America volunteer network. The response was so large and immediate that it crashed Brown’s web site! … With Brown’s billionaire Republican opponent Meg Whitman still stalled despite massive spending on TV (see item below), Brown’s allies are still pitching in to help until he weighs in at last himself. The Working Californians independent expenditure (IE) committee, which operates in association with the largest pro-Brown IE, California Working Families, is up with another radio ad. This is its second positive ad about Brown — contrary to an erroneous report on an LA Times-affiliated site, which says it’s the first positive ad — backed by an $800,000 buy. California Working Families continues the second week of its current TV ad flight, countering Whitman’s attempt to reboot her image by returning to her eBay roots. As readers know, Whitman’s record as a corporate CEO is far less than (literally) advertised.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: STILL NO MOVEMENT FOR MEGA-SPENDING MEG WHITMAN. A new private poll indicates that billionaire Republican Meg Whitman has failed to move against Jerry Brown despite some $3 million spent for advertising on her behalf last week.
The race is even, and Whitman’s unfavorables remain the same.
Whitman had planned to build a 12 to 15 point lead between the primary election and Labor Day weekend in order to prevent a Jerry Brown comeback when the attorney general and former governor finally goes on the air himself. But that’s just 17 days away now, and not only has Whitman failed to build her anticipated big lead, she hasn’t built any lead at all.
Most of the spending was for advertising trying to promote Whitman’s image — her unfavorables are quite high for someone who has spent over $120 million, out-spending all opponents combined by nearly three to one — with the remainder pushing an attack ad against Brown.
The latter ad, sponsored by the so-called Small Business Action Committee. The group, fronted by veteran anti-tax business lobbyist Joel Fox, is using the “issue advocacy” dodge to avoid revealing its funders.
I say so-called because I’m told that the funders are small business only if you consider J.R. Ewing to be small business.
** NEW POLL: ECONOMIC CONFIDENCE SLIPS. The currently plateaued economic recovery is definitely affecting recession-weary Americans.
A new Gallup Poll survey shows that economic confidence, after going up some in early August, has slipped back to July levels, matching the lowest of the year.
In fact, confidence is lower than it was a year ago.
As a matter of social psychology, people frequently react to the trend rather than the absolute. Which in turn affects the trend.
After improving slightly earlier this month, Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index declined over the past two weeks to its current -33, matching the average for all of July.
The July confidence numbers are the lowest of the year so far; thus, even with the slight uptick in early August, confidence remains below the levels seen during much of 2010 and below its depressed levels of a year ago.
Forty-eight percent of Americans rated current economic conditions as “poor” during the week ending Aug. 22 — approaching the highest levels of the year. This is marginally worse than the early August reading, is in line with the full July average of 47%, and is marginally worse than at this time in 2009.
During recent weeks, slightly more consumers told Gallup they think economic conditions are “getting worse” than thought that was the case earlier this month. These expectations for the economy basically match the average for all of July and are worse than those consumers held at this time a year ago.
Gallup’s economic confidence data show consumer confidence giving up its modest gains of late July and early August during recent weeks. These declines in consumer confidence are not surprising given the downturn on Wall Street, all the talk of an economic slowdown, and the growing fears of a double-dip recession.
In turn, the decline in Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index suggests that Friday’s Consumer Sentiment report is likely to show a decline from its earlier estimate for August — but still exhibit a modest improvement compared with the average for all of July. As a result, Friday’s report for the month may already be somewhat out of date even as it is released.
Gallup’s underemployment measure suggests there has been little or no recent improvement in the job market, while Gallup’s consumer spending measure shows essentially no improvement from a year ago. The stagnation in these measures, along with the decline in consumer confidence, seems consistent with another weak back-to-school season. Of course, the nation’s retailers can still hope that many consumers are simply delaying their purchases until the last minute because of the current weak economy, not deciding to forgo them altogether.
Regardless, probably the most troubling aspect of the current economic confidence data is that they show no improvement from a year ago. In fact, Americans are slightly less optimistic about the future direction of the economy today than they were at this time in 2009. This is not good news for retailers or for incumbents facing re-election this November.
Former U.S. Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod says she’s not coming back to work full-time, but will do some consulting for her former agency. Sherrod was wrongfully fired by the Obama Administration after it and the news media allowed itself to be buffaloed by a doctored video from far right Los Angeles blog impresario Andrew Breitbart that seemed to show Sherrod expressing anti-white sentiments.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts.
Obama is on summer vacation through August 29th.
He received his daily intelligence and economic briefings at a private residence on Martha’s Vineyard, the island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Obama has no scheduled public events today.
Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton will hold a daily media briefing on Martha’s Vineyard.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Korean, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Speaking to reporters this morning on Martha’s Vineyard, White House counter-terrorism chief John Brennan announced that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq is now below 50,000. All troops designated as combat troops have been withdrawn, ahead of the August 31st deadline set by Obama.
Early this morning in Washington, Vice President Joe Biden delivered remarks on the economic recovery act and unloaded on House Minority Leader John Boehner, blasting his continued support for economic policies that he says caused the worst recession since the Great Depression and lauded the U.S. withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq.
The number of U.S. troops in Iraq is now 49,700. The goal was to be down to 50,000 by the end of August, so as I’ve been reporting for weeks, the withdrawal is ahead of schedule.
At 9:45 AM Pacific, Biden meets with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the AfPak special envoy, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
At 10:45 AM Pacific, Biden meets with Lieutenant General Lloyd Austin in the Roosevelt Room.
Austin will formally replace General Ray Odierno as U.S. commander in Iraq on August 31st.
At that time, Operation Iraqi Freedom will be redesignated Operation New Dawn.
At 12 noon Pacific, Biden swears in new Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
While the Iraq operation transitions into a decidedly new mode amidst waves of congratulations, Iraq’s governance situation is still unsettled five-and-a-half months after national parliamentary elections.
You know the scene, I’ve laid it out many times before.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles, the Central Coast, Sacramento today.
At 10 AM, Schwarzenegger discusses the state budget with the Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce in Goleta, which is near Santa Barbara.
California’s chronic budget crisis drags on with no discernible movement in the Legislature after months of internal talks. Schwarzenegger has held repeated conversations with legislative leaders, including working lunch on Thursday with Democratic legislative leaders.
The first day of Schwarzenegger’s renewed unpaid Friday furloughs of state employees was on Friday. The furloughs will halt when a state budget emerges, or if the California Supreme Court ends them. But the Court is allowing them to go forward for now.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “THE REJECTED” IS A ROUTINE EPISODE, BUT BETTY DRAPER HAS JOINED THE X-MEN!This was the most routine of the episodes so far this season. But afterwards, I learned where Betty Draper has gotten herself to. She’s joined The X-Men! … From my August 18th review.
** HARSH REALM: MEG WHITMAN AND THE C.E.O. MYTH.Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman, still trying to gain traction in her bid to beat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor despite already having smashed all non-presidential campaign spending records in American history, rests her campaign on her reputation as a corporate CEO. Since she didn’t bother to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding to start as governor of a state she moved to in the late ’90s, it’s all she has. Absent that, she is nothing more than an assertion of ambition and creation of paid advertising.
Californians have been inundated with ads since last fall extolling Whitman’s purported expertise as the former CEO of eBay, the online auction company, and other business credentials. With her negative ads coming up short against Brown, Whitman relaunched her imagineering efforts anew … with a TV ad telling us she did a great job at eBay.
But did she, really? Or did she actually do what she claims politicians do, i.e., disastrously expand into areas she knew nothing about, jack up overhead, take far more in personal pay and perks, and repeatedly hike fees (read: taxes) on eBay sellers? … From my August 17th feature.
** HARSH REALM: THE LEGACY THAT MEG WHITMAN INVOKES.As she shatters all spending records in her attempt to defeat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California, a campaign which is way off plan, billionaire Republican Meg Whitman has a role model in mind.
He was “the greatest governor in the history of California.” So says Whitman, the political novice who seldom bothered to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding, one fine day, that she really should start at the top.
He’s her campaign chairman. And, as fate would have it, he is responsible for California’s structural budget deficit, the disastrous electric power deregulation scheme that enriched Enron and turned out California’s lights, and the hypocritical nastiness of the debate over illegal immigration. …
Now, to be fair, had Jerry Brown not run for the presidency in 1980, the only one of his three presidential campaigns that really didn’t make a lick of sense, most likely would never have heard of Wilson, then the mayor of San Diego. He had tried to run against Brown for governor in 1978, when Governor “Moonbeam” won a 20-point landslide re-election. Wilson couldn’t get out of the Republican primary, finishing a badly beaten fourth. …From my August 7th feature.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “CHRISTMAS COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR,” EXCEPT FOR THESE THREE WISE GUYS. … From my August 3rd review.
** 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.
Jimena Navarette, Miss Mexico, last night won the Miss Universe title at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Navarette says she will use her new position to promote Mexico around the world.
** 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 $39 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday inaugurated the country’s first domestically built unmanned bomber aircraft, calling it an “ambassador of death” to Iran’s enemies.
** QUICK HITS. Arizona Senator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, is headed for a big win tomorrow in his state’s primary against ex-Congressman J.D. Hayworth, who mounted a Tea Party-style challenge to the veteran legislator and Vietnam War hero. McCain tacked far to the right to salvage a primary win. I’ll have more about this. … A federal judge today granted a motion by a fundamentalist religious organization to block federal funding for human embryo stem cell research. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, authorized by a 2004 ballot initiative promoted by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and others, said today that it will continue funding such research. CIRM is the largest stem cell research organization in the world, having already funded over $1 billion in grants to hundreds of researchers and institutes. … Schwarzenegger today signed legislation ratifying agreements his administration previously negotiated with a half-dozen unions covering 37,000 state workers on public pension reform. … California Attorney General Jerry Brown today sued self-styled taxpayer advocate Roni Deutch for allegedly swindling thousands of clients out of $34 million. Deutch, who advertises incessantly on cable TV, claims to be able to settle government tax claims very favorably for her clients but reportedly does not deliver, instead collecting upfront payments for her services and constantly churning a client base with a high-pressure boiler room operation.
** BOMB BOMB BOMB, BOMB BOMB IRAN? There’s been an upswing in the never-ending chatter about a military strike against Iran to destroy its rogue nuclear program. In the saying of it, in Washington, New York, Tel Aviv, London, Qatar, and Moscow, the strikes would carried out by air and naval forces, with some special operations elements, as an either an Israeli operation or an Israeli and American operation.
Hart, who co-chaired the U.S. Commission on National Security, which predicted major terrorist strikes inside America over a year before 9/11, is not enthusiastic about this scenario.
Before bombing Iran, as many now seem to want to do, here are some questions that require answers and considerable public debate:
1. Bombing a sovereign nation is a de facto declaration of war. Our Constitution requires the Congress, not the President, to declare war. Simply because we have launched a number of wars without a Congressional declaration does not mean the Constitutional requirement has been suspended;
2. Such an attack will have economic consequences for us. The Iranians most likely would blockade the Strait of Hormuz, thus reducing the shipment of Persian Gulf oil–almost one-quarter of our imports–and dramatically increasing world oil prices. This would have a powerfully negative affect on our already fragile economy;
3. Such an attack would place great stress on our military. We cannot continue the Afghan war, prop up the neighboring Iraqi government, and create a third battlefield in the Middle East. It is folly to assume that a US-Iran war can be carried out by the Navy and Air Force alone. Our ground combat forces are near exhaustion;
4. Bombing Iran would virtually assure an attack of considerable dimensions carried out against Israel. This would involve both Iranian and Lebanon-based missiles. Israel would necessarily retaliate. We would then have all-out war in the Middle East.
5. An attack on another Muslim (albeit Persian) nation invigorates al Qaeda recruitment. A third war in a Islamic nation confirms their argument that the US hates Muslims. Expect other 9/11′s of some dimensions.
But really, Gary, what could go wrong?
Hart’s memoirs, incidentally, The Thunder and the Sunshine, will be published this fall.
I have an advance copy, which I’ve read, of the book by the former Colorado senator and presidential frontrunner, and will review it in the near future.
Sunday saw an anti-Muslim rally in New York City near the proposed Islamic center a few blocks from the site of the late World Trade Center.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
With Barack Obama on vacation all week, a low-key week ahead in presidential politics. And in California politics, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders try to get some action on the long-stalled state budget crisis with the Legislature’s official session about to end, while the governor’s would-be Republican successor, billionaire Meg Whitman, once again searches for momentum against Jerry Brown from her record-shattering campaign spending.
Obama is with his family on Martha’s Vineyard, the island off the coast of Massachusetts. He’s having a very low-key vacation there, especially in contrast to the presidential vacations there during the Bill Clinton years.
We’ll see if events cooperate with Obama, who has taken about one-third as much time off as former President George W. Bush by this point in his presidency. During Obama’s first year in office, down time frequently coincided with intervening events, such as the death of Senator Ted Kennedy last year while Obama vacationed on Martha’s Vineyard.
The last major U.S. combat unit was withdrawn from Iraq on Thursday, leaving only about 2000 more combat troops to pull out before the August 31st deadline, coincidentally, two days after Obama returns from vacation.
50,000 other military personnel will remain till the end of 2011, when virtually all of them are scheduled to be withdrawn.
Sectarian violence continues in Iraq, where a new government has still failed to form over five months after national parliamentary elections.
General Ray Odierno, the U.S. commander in Iraq, said yesterday that U.S. forces may remain there following the December 31, 2011 deadline for complete withdrawal. He cited basing potential basing agreements with the Iraqi government similar to those with Saudi Arabia.
Odierno was responding to complaints of a few days ago from Iraq’s foreign minister that the U.S. is “abandoning” Iraq to foreign intrigue.
The commander of Iraqi armed forces has said that he wants a major U.S. military presence in Iraq at least through 2020.
Iraq’s governance remains unsettled more than five months after national parliamentary elections.
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose secular Sunni party finished first in the national election but is being blocked by Shiite parties from forming a government, is in Moscow meeting with Russian leaders.
Shiite party leaders, for their part, regularly travel to Tehran for consultations with Iranian leaders.
We’re seeing a return of Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites to default positions from the Saddam Hussein days, with the difference that Saddam had the power to quell disturbances, frequently brutally when they erupted.
Over the weekend, Iran celebrated the fueling of its first major nuclear reactor, the long-delayed Russian-built Bushehr plant. Russia provides the fuel, and its guarantee that it will not be used to develop nuclear weapons. Moscow says this reactor is not to feared with regard to Iran’s nuclear program, and the the Obama Administration’s stance is that Bushehr, with Russian safeguards, will not lead to nuclear weapons proliferation.
Meanwhile, chatter about an Israeli military strike against other aspects of Iran’s nuclear program is picking up.
Back in California politics, state Republicans had their second convention of the year over the weekend, this one in San Diego. The turnout was reportedly not high and the party’s gubernatorial nominee, billionaire Meg Whitman, didn’t spend much time there. She’s under fire from conservatives for attempting to flip-flop on a number of her primary positions. I say attempting because they are hardly the only ones who will remind of all the changes in Whitman’s policy positions.
Ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, running against Senator Barbara Boxer, was reportedly much better received. That was certainly in the case at the state GOP convention this past spring in Silicon Valley, which I covered intensively.
That’s due in part to Fiorina’s far greater candidate skills, and in part to her consistent conservative positioning on the issues. Whitman has been all over the lot on a host of issues, flip-flopping more in her only campaign than Jerry Brown, a notable flip-flopper himself, has in 40 years.
But Fiorina’s consistency is what is quite likely to cost her the race against Boxer. Boxer is a little too liberal for California; Fiorinia is lot too conservative for California.
Schwarzenegger did not attend the state Republican convention in San Diego where would-be successor Whitman hurried in and scurried out, delivering an attack on Jerry Brown and avoiding questioning on her flip-flopping positions since the primary.
The Whitman campaign played its usual peek-a-boo games with the press, and her allies worked to avoid a party endorsement of the Arizona immigration law, which Whitman notoriously says she supports in Arizona, but not in California. Because California has “a big geography,” whatever that is supposed to mean.
Schwarzenegger has his hands full with the chronic California budget crisis. The state legislative session is scheduled to end at the end of this week. What’s been accomplished? Not much.
And the real work hasn’t been handled at all. Barring a breakthrough this week, Schwarzenegger will call the Legislature back into special session to deal with the budget. Overtime awaits.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts.
Obama is on summer vacation through August 29th.
He received his daily intelligence and economic briefings at a private residence on Martha’s Vineyard, the island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Obama has no scheduled public events today.
Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton will hold a daily media briefing on Martha’s Vineyard.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Korean, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Vice President Joe Biden is in the Midwest today.
At 8 AM Pacific, Biden delivers remarks at the Veterans of Foreign Wars 111th National Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana.
At 12 noon Pacific, Biden delivers remarks on the auto industry at the Chrysler Toledo Assembly Complex in Toledo, Ohio.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Biden attends an event for Ohio Governor Ted Strickland.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, doing a brief Stallone impression, discussed The Expendables in May on The Tonight Show.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles and Sacramento today.
He has no scheduled public events.
California’s chronic budget crisis drags on with no discernible movement in the Legislature after months of internal talks. Schwarzenegger has held repeated conversations with legislative leaders, including working lunch on Thursday with Democratic legislative leaders.
The first day of Schwarzenegger’s renewed unpaid Friday furloughs of state employees was on Friday. The furloughs will halt when a state budget emerges, or if the California Supreme Court ends them. But the Court is allowing them to go forward for now.
The new old school action film directed by Schwarzenegger’s old friend Sylvester Stallone, The Expendables, again finished an easy first at the domestic box office over the weekend.
The Expendables features a brief but highly touted cameo role for Schwarzenegger, and looks like a sequel-worthy late summer hit.
More to follow …
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “THE REJECTED” IS A ROUTINE EPISODE, BUT BETTY DRAPER HAS JOINED THE X-MEN!This was the most routine of the episodes so far this season. But afterwards, I learned where Betty Draper has gotten herself to. She’s joined The X-Men! … From my August 18th review.
** HARSH REALM: MEG WHITMAN AND THE C.E.O. MYTH.Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman, still trying to gain traction in her bid to beat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor despite already having smashed all non-presidential campaign spending records in American history, rests her campaign on her reputation as a corporate CEO. Since she didn’t bother to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding to start as governor of a state she moved to in the late ’90s, it’s all she has. Absent that, she is nothing more than an assertion of ambition and creation of paid advertising.
Californians have been inundated with ads since last fall extolling Whitman’s purported expertise as the former CEO of eBay, the online auction company, and other business credentials. With her negative ads coming up short against Brown, Whitman relaunched her imagineering efforts anew … with a TV ad telling us she did a great job at eBay.
But did she, really? Or did she actually do what she claims politicians do, i.e., disastrously expand into areas she knew nothing about, jack up overhead, take far more in personal pay and perks, and repeatedly hike fees (read: taxes) on eBay sellers? … From my August 17th feature.
** HARSH REALM: THE LEGACY THAT MEG WHITMAN INVOKES.As she shatters all spending records in her attempt to defeat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California, a campaign which is way off plan, billionaire Republican Meg Whitman has a role model in mind.
He was “the greatest governor in the history of California.” So says Whitman, the political novice who seldom bothered to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding, one fine day, that she really should start at the top.
He’s her campaign chairman. And, as fate would have it, he is responsible for California’s structural budget deficit, the disastrous electric power deregulation scheme that enriched Enron and turned out California’s lights, and the hypocritical nastiness of the debate over illegal immigration. …
Now, to be fair, had Jerry Brown not run for the presidency in 1980, the only one of his three presidential campaigns that really didn’t make a lick of sense, most likely would never have heard of Wilson, then the mayor of San Diego. He had tried to run against Brown for governor in 1978, when Governor “Moonbeam” won a 20-point landslide re-election. Wilson couldn’t get out of the Republican primary, finishing a badly beaten fourth. …From my August 7th feature.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “CHRISTMAS COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR,” EXCEPT FOR THESE THREE WISE GUYS. … From my August 3rd review.
** 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 $39 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama calls on Republicans to drop their opposition to campaign finance reforms in the wake of the Supreme Court opening up the floodgates on corporate campaign spending in its Citizens United decision last year.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is on vacation with his family on Martha’s Vineyard.
Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings at a private residence.
Obama will be on vacation through August 29th.
He may, however, give a speech this week on the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq.
Which won’t stop him from giving another speech when the withdrawal is completed at the end of the month.
Sectarian violence continues in Iraq, where a new government has still failed to form over five months after national parliamentary elections.
General Ray Odierno, the U.S. commander in Iraq, today said that U.S. forces may remain there following the December 31, 2011 deadline for complete withdrawal. He cited basing potential basing agreements with the Iraqi government similar to those with Saudi Arabia.
Odierno was responding to complaints of a few days ago from Iraq’s foreign minister that the U.S. is “abandoning” Iraq to foreign intrigue.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILES – SUNDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
Schwarzenegger did not attend the state Republican convention in San Diego where his would-be successor, billionaire Meg Whitman, hurried in and scurried out, delivering an attack on Jerry Brown and avoiding questioning on her flip-flopping positions since the primary.
The Whitman campaign played its usual peek-a-boo games with the press, and her allies worked to avoid a party endorsement of the Arizona immigration law, which Whitman notoriously says she supports in Arizona, but not in California.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts.
Obama is on summer vacation through August 29th.
He received his daily intelligence and economic briefings at a private residence on Martha’s Vineyard, the island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Obama has no scheduled public events today.
Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton will hold a daily media briefing on Martha’s Vineyard.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Korean, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Iraq’s governance remains unsettled more than five months after national parliamentary elections. Iraq’s foreign minister complained on Thursday that the U.S. is “abandoning” Iraq, leaving it open for foreign intrigue.
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, whose secular Sunni party finished first in the national election but is being blocked by Shiite parties from forming a government, is in Moscow meeting with Russian leaders.
Shiite party leaders, for their part, regularly travel to Tehran for consultations with Iranian leaders.
The commander of Iraqi armed forces has said that he wants a major U.S. military presence in Iraq at least through 2020.
But the last major U.S. combat unit was withdrawn from Iraq on Thursday, leaving only about 2000 more combat troops to pull out before the August 31st deadline, coincidentally, two days after Obama returns from vacation.
50,000 other military personnel will remain till the end of 2011, when virtually all of them are scheduled to be withdrawn.
Iran today celebrates the fueling of its first major nuclear reactor, the long-delayed Russian-built Bushehr plant.
Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power reactor is at last complete and, as of today, fueled by Russia. Russian authorities say they will make sure that neither it nor its byproducts are used for nuclear weapons.
Russia provides the fuel, and its guarantee that it will not be used to develop nuclear weapons.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
California’s chronic budget crisis drags on with no discernible movement i the Legislature after months of internal talks.
Schwarzenegger has held repeated conversations with legislative leaders, including working lunch on Thursday with Democratic legislative leaders.
The first day of Schwarzenegger’s renewed unpaid Friday furloughs of state employees was yesterday. The furloughs will halt when a state budget emerges, or if the California Supreme Court ends them. But the Court is allowing them to go forward for now.
Schwarzenegger is again not in attendance at the latest California Republican Party convention, this one over the weekend in San Diego.
If you think the state Republicans have a lot of conventions, they do. The Democrats go once a year, the Republicans twice.
One thing Schwarzenegger and I have in common is that neither of us is in San Diego for the GOP confab. I went to the spring convention in Silicon Valley, as readers know, producing a fairly exhaustive account relating to the primary campaign infighting for governor and U.S. senator.
Now the resulting nominees are trying to avoid getting in trouble — or, in billionaire Meg Whitman’s case — more trouble with the party base. Whitman is trying to flip-flop again on major issues. Which is irritating conservatives and will not be allowed to work by Jerry Brown and the Democrats.
I’ll have a lot more on that during the week.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “THE REJECTED” IS A ROUTINE EPISODE, BUT BETTY DRAPER HAS JOINED THE X-MEN!This was the most routine of the episodes so far this season. But afterwards, I learned where Betty Draper has gotten herself to. She’s joined The X-Men! … From my August 18th review.
** HARSH REALM: MEG WHITMAN AND THE C.E.O. MYTH.Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman, still trying to gain traction in her bid to beat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor despite already having smashed all non-presidential campaign spending records in American history, rests her campaign on her reputation as a corporate CEO. Since she didn’t bother to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding to start as governor of a state she moved to in the late ’90s, it’s all she has. Absent that, she is nothing more than an assertion of ambition and creation of paid advertising.
Californians have been inundated with ads since last fall extolling Whitman’s purported expertise as the former CEO of eBay, the online auction company, and other business credentials. With her negative ads coming up short against Brown, Whitman relaunched her imagineering efforts anew … with a TV ad telling us she did a great job at eBay.
But did she, really? Or did she actually do what she claims politicians do, i.e., disastrously expand into areas she knew nothing about, jack up overhead, take far more in personal pay and perks, and repeatedly hike fees (read: taxes) on eBay sellers? … From my August 17th feature.
** HARSH REALM: THE LEGACY THAT MEG WHITMAN INVOKES.As she shatters all spending records in her attempt to defeat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California, a campaign which is way off plan, billionaire Republican Meg Whitman has a role model in mind.
He was “the greatest governor in the history of California.” So says Whitman, the political novice who seldom bothered to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding, one fine day, that she really should start at the top.
He’s her campaign chairman. And, as fate would have it, he is responsible for California’s structural budget deficit, the disastrous electric power deregulation scheme that enriched Enron and turned out California’s lights, and the hypocritical nastiness of the debate over illegal immigration. …
Now, to be fair, had Jerry Brown not run for the presidency in 1980, the only one of his three presidential campaigns that really didn’t make a lick of sense, most likely would never have heard of Wilson, then the mayor of San Diego. He had tried to run against Brown for governor in 1978, when Governor “Moonbeam” won a 20-point landslide re-election. Wilson couldn’t get out of the Republican primary, finishing a badly beaten fourth. …From my August 7th feature.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “CHRISTMAS COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR,” EXCEPT FOR THESE THREE WISE GUYS. … From my August 3rd review.
** 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 on Friday at $73.82 per barrel. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $40 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.
Before departing for summer vacation yesterday, President Barack Obama called on the Senate to pass major new assistance for small businesses.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING BENEATH THE FROTH. I’ve noticed a number of reports in California’s much diminished state press corps chasing the tail of billionaire Meg Whitman’s very over-paid/under-employed opposition research department — no Fox News Channel or Drudge Report for an endless conveyor belt — with regard to Jerry Brown.
A silly, and badly-written set of columns in the far right Orange County Register prompting wildly inaccurate speculation about Brown’s supposed public pension wealth. A few Associated Presss reports on Brown’s handful of flights to state events (the University of California being a state institution) on a propeller plane owned by the state Department of Justice.
Which in nitwit equivalency is the same as Whitman’s constant use of a luxurious Gulfstream jet.
Stories like this waste some time and irritate but don’t amount to anything.
Here’s what does amount to a great deal.
Whitman had bought $2.2 million in TV advertising this week, while the so-called Small Business Action Committee — with $1.6 million in secret funds that I am told are from anything but small businesses — was also spending that money this week.
That $3.8 million would have broken the record for one week of TV on behalf of a candidate. In the dead of summer!
The record has been $3 million in a week for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, at the height of his campaign in 2006.
But I’ve learned that Whitman ended up scaling back her TV buy this week, and next week.
And that the anonymous $1.6 million for an anti-Brown hit ad is not for one week, it’s being spread out over an 11-day period.
Why is Whitman scaling back her TV buy?
The answer to that comes next time …
** IN MEMORIAM.The Honorable Mario Obledo passed away yesterday in Sacramento. He was 80.
Obledo was an important Latino pioneer. The Navy veteran was the first Latino to head a large agency in California state government, serving as Governor Jerry Brown’s secretary of health and welfare from 1975 to 1982.
Obledo also spearheaded much of the movement for Latino civil rights, among other things serving as the co-founder of MALDEF, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
I knew him, and he was a great gentleman as well as advocate and public servant. He will be missed. Memorial and funeral arrangements are pending.
In addition, there will be a California memorial service tomorrow for Stephen Rivers, the publicist for many leading Hollywood and political figures and liberal causes who died in his early 50s from cancer just as the California primary began.
He previously had a funeral service in his native Massachusetts.
The Los Angeles memorial for Stephen Rivers will be held at Creative Artists Agency, where he was once director of public affairs, on Saturday from 11 AM to 1 PM.
** NEW POLL: IRAQ WAR WILL BE JUDGED A FAILURE. The last U.S. combat brigade pulled out of Iraq yesterday morning. To no little fanfare, though it happened under cover of darkness in the pre-dawn hours. (So as to avoid attack.) Only a few thousand combat troops, in smaller units, remain, the better to be withdrawn after President Barack Obama returns from vacation at the end of the month, again, to no little fanfare.
What do Americans think of the lengthy Iraq adventure as it wind further down? Not much.
A new Gallup Poll shows that a clear majority believes that not only was the war a mistake, it will be judged a failure. Even though they believe that Iraqis are better off without Saddam Hussein.
An even bigger majority thinks that the Iraqis will not be able to maintain their own security. But that, nonetheless, the final U.S. withdrawal — some 50,000 personnel designated as non-combat forces, though there is a lot combat power, remain after the end of August — should remain on schedule for the end of 2011.
More Americans believe history will judge the Iraq war as a failure (53%) rather than a success (42%). These views have varied little over the past few years even as Americans have become more positive in their assessments of how the war is going.
To a large degree, Americans’ predictions on how history will judge the war mirror their basic support for the war — 55% say the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, while 41% disagree. War opposition has eased only slightly in recent years from a high of 63% in April 2008.
Despite their more negative than positive evaluations of the war effort, Americans think Iraq is better off now than it was before the war started. Sixty-four percent hold this view, though this is down from prior Gallup measurements.
These results are based on an Aug. 5-8 Gallup poll, conducted as the U.S. was in the process of transferring responsibility for combat operations to the Iraqi military. On Wednesday, the last U.S. combat troops left Iraq. About 50,000 U.S. troops remain to provide logistical support to the Iraqi forces.
Americans are not optimistic that Iraqi security forces are up to their new task. By 61% to 34%, the public believes Iraqi security forces will be unable to limit insurgent attacks and generally maintain peace and security in Iraq.
Nevertheless, Americans prefer that the U.S. stick to its timetable for withdrawing all troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. Fifty-three percent say U.S. withdrawal should proceed regardless of what is going on in Iraq at the time, while 43% think the U.S. should keep troops in Iraq beyond the deadline if Iraqi security forces cannot maintain order in Iraq.
The war, one of the longest military conflicts in U.S. history, began under a Republican president and is being concluded under a Democratic one. As has been the case for much of the war’s history, there is a clear partisan divide among the public, with Republicans generally supportive of the war and Democrats generally opposed.
Two areas on which there is some cross-party agreement are that Iraq is better off now than it was before the war (though only a slim majority of Democrats believe it is) and that Iraqi forces will be unable to maintain order in Iraq (Republicans are more pessimistic than Democrats on this count).
The transfer of combat operations to Iraqi forces marks a major milestone in the more than seven-year war in Iraq. The war proved more challenging for the United States than may have initially appeared to be the case after the U.S. toppled the Saddam Hussein regime in the spring of 2003. Americans’ opinions of the war began to sour as progress became less obvious and U.S. casualties rose. For most of the last five years, a majority has opposed it, even as the United States began to make strides after the surge of U.S. troops in 2007.
For now, Americans believe history will be more harsh than kind in judging the war. Of course, the final chapters have not been written, as the U.S. will maintain a presence in the country for at least another year. The Iraqis’ ability to keep the country secure will likely also factor into historical evaluations of the war.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts.
Obama is on summer vacation through August 29th.
He received his daily intelligence and economic briefings at a private residence on Martha’s Vineyard, the island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Obama has no scheduled public events today.
Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton will hold a daily media briefing on Martha’s Vineyard.
Vice President Joe Biden was in St. Louis this morning, where he delivered the keynote address at the summer meeting of the Democratic National Committee.
Democratic Party leaders hope that fundraising and organizational advantages will hold off Republican efforts to take control of the House or Senate.
The last U.S. combat brigade exited Iraq early yesterday morning. But a few thousand combat troops remain in smaller postings.
Obama’s deadline for withdrawal of U.S. combat forces is August 31st, so the program is nearly two weeks ahead of schedule.
By coincidence, of course, Obama will be back from vacation two days before the last of the combat troops are scheduled to have departed.
Nevertheless, plenty of U.S. combat power will remain behind. Some 50,000 personnel will remain through the end of 2011, and that includes some re-classified units which are highly operational. They simply won’t be out on patrol.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s governance remains unsettled more than five months after national parliamentary elections. Iraq’s foreign minister complained yesterday that the U.S. is “abandoning” Iraq, leaving it open for foreign intrigue.
The commander of Iraqi armed forces has said that he wants a major U.S. military presence in Iraq at least through 2020.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced this morning in Washington that direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians will soon resume. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, special envoy of the Mideast Quartet, and U.S. special envoy George Mitchell worked out the talks, which will talk place under the auspices of the Quartet powers (U.S., Russia, European Union, and United Nations).
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced this morning that peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are about to resume.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles and Sacramento today.
He will hold private talks.
California’s chronic budget crisis drags on with no discernible movement i the Legislature after months of internal talks.
The first day of Schwarzenegger’s renewed unpaid Friday furloughs of state employees is today. The furloughs will halt when a state budget emerges, or if the California Supreme Court ends them. But the Court is allowing them to go forward for now.
Schwarzenegger will again not be in attendance at the latest California Republican Party convention, this one starting this afternoon in San Diego.
If you think the state Republicans have a lot of conventions, they do. The Democrats go once a year, the Republicans twice.
One thing Schwarzenegger and I have in common is that neither of us will be in San Diego for the GOP confab. I went to the spring convention in Silicon Valley, as readers know, producing a fairly exhaustive account relating to the primary campaign infighting for governor and U.S. senator.
Now the resulting nominees are trying to avoid getting in trouble — or, in billionaire Meg Whitman’s case — more trouble with the party base. Whitman is trying to flip-flop again on major issues, as I may have mentioned. And may again.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “THE REJECTED” IS A ROUTINE EPISODE, BUT BETTY DRAPER HAS JOINED THE X-MEN!This was the most routine of the episodes so far this season. But afterwards, I learned where Betty Draper has gotten herself to. She’s joined The X-Men! … From my August 18th review.
** HARSH REALM: MEG WHITMAN AND THE C.E.O. MYTH.Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman, still trying to gain traction in her bid to beat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor despite already having smashed all non-presidential campaign spending records in American history, rests her campaign on her reputation as a corporate CEO. Since she didn’t bother to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding to start as governor of a state she moved to in the late ’90s, it’s all she has. Absent that, she is nothing more than an assertion of ambition and creation of paid advertising.
Californians have been inundated with ads since last fall extolling Whitman’s purported expertise as the former CEO of eBay, the online auction company, and other business credentials. With her negative ads coming up short against Brown, Whitman relaunched her imagineering efforts anew … with a TV ad telling us she did a great job at eBay.
But did she, really? Or did she actually do what she claims politicians do, i.e., disastrously expand into areas she knew nothing about, jack up overhead, take far more in personal pay and perks, and repeatedly hike fees (read: taxes) on eBay sellers? … From my August 17th feature.
** HARSH REALM: THE LEGACY THAT MEG WHITMAN INVOKES.As she shatters all spending records in her attempt to defeat Jerry Brown and succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California, a campaign which is way off plan, billionaire Republican Meg Whitman has a role model in mind.
He was “the greatest governor in the history of California.” So says Whitman, the political novice who seldom bothered to vote and was never involved in public affairs before deciding, one fine day, that she really should start at the top.
He’s her campaign chairman. And, as fate would have it, he is responsible for California’s structural budget deficit, the disastrous electric power deregulation scheme that enriched Enron and turned out California’s lights, and the hypocritical nastiness of the debate over illegal immigration. …
Now, to be fair, had Jerry Brown not run for the presidency in 1980, the only one of his three presidential campaigns that really didn’t make a lick of sense, most likely would never have heard of Wilson, then the mayor of San Diego. He had tried to run against Brown for governor in 1978, when Governor “Moonbeam” won a 20-point landslide re-election. Wilson couldn’t get out of the Republican primary, finishing a badly beaten fourth. …From my August 7th feature.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “CHRISTMAS COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR,” EXCEPT FOR THESE THREE WISE GUYS. … From my August 3rd review.
** 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 $40 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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