President Barack Obama and his family attended Sunday church services at St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House. Obama is the target of rising claims that he is secretly Muslim and anti-American, including a recent preposterous cover story in Forbes Magazine claiming that he is animated by “Kenyan anti-colonialism.”
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He has no scheduled public events.
In some very good news, pressure tests indicate that the blown-out BP oil well a mile beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico is at last sealed.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster on April 20th, which killed 11 men, led to the worst oil spill in American history.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Saturday’s national parliamentary elections in Afghanistan went badly. Turnout was light and there are widespread charges of flagrant voting irregularities.
A series of bomb attacks by terrorists across Iraq today killed some 40 people and raised fresh questions about the ability of Iraqi forces to maintain internal security without U.S. troops playing a very active role.
Iraq’s governance situation remains unsettled over six months after national parliamentary elections, though there are some signs of an emerging compromise.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILES – SUNDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
** EXPENDABLE ARNOLD: WHAT’S AHEAD FOR SCHWARZENEGGER?Arnold Schwarzenegger was back from his last big trip to Asia as governor of California and sounded pretty sick. But he powered through a Friday appearance giving out the annual awards of his Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. The overall numbers for the program were pretty impressive, with big increases in fitness activity levels for California schoolkids.
Still, another set of new numbers may have more bearing on Schwarzenegger’s future. Then there’s the usual state budget stalemate and the fights over the fate of the landmark climate change program Schwarzenegger helped enact and whether Jerry Brown or billionaire Republican Meg Whitman — now the biggest spending candidate in American history — will succeed him as governor.
The Expendables went over $100 million in domestic box office this weekend. The Expendables is the old school action flick, directed by and starring Schwarzenegger’s old rival-turned-pal Sylvester Stallone, which has become a late summer hit movie. Part of that is due to Schwarzenegger. He has only a cameo role in the picture — one scene which he filmed in a few hours last year — but it was heavily publicized in trailers, advertising, and PR as a sort of summit meeting of classic action stars. And Schwarzenegger appeared with his friend Stallone in LA and Vegas to help promote the movie. …
In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama warned against unlimited corporate campaign spending and the insistence of Republican politicians to keep that spending secret.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 5:40 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual legislative conference Phoenix Award dinner at the Washington Convention Center.
Recent Republican primary successes by Tea Party candidates are further emboldening the far right and moving prospective Republican presidential candidates further to the right.
Frontrunner Mitt Romney, who convinced his protege Meg Whitman to run for governor of California, gave his most right-wing speech yet yesterday.
And Sarah Palin, now riding very high in the GOP, spoke at the annual Ronald Reagan Dinner last night in Des Moines, Iowa, sounding very much like a presidential contender.
She attacked the “lamestream media,” urging Republicans to communicate through right-wing media, and talked up her usual far right themes.
This is all a tremendous opportunity for Obama and the Democrats.
Obama is monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Afghanistan has national parliamentary elections today. Reports indicate a light turnout, with polling places not even opening in much of the country due to the threat of Taliban attacks.
In Iraq, there may be some progress on ending the six-month impasse following that country’s national parliamentary elections. Secular Sunni moderate Ayad Allawi, whose party finished first, may become Iraq’s president, while a Shiite politician who is not current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki may take over the premiereship.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
Yesterday broke the all-time record for the longest that the state Legislature has gone without passing a budget.
Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman blames Schwarzenegger for the delay, saying that he should not have taken a large business delegation on his trade mission to Asia. And that he should have, you know, acted really tough.
Whitman doesn’t understand what’s going on.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
The classic ’60s and ’70s TV series Hawaii Five-0 relaunches on Monday night. Same great theme song, same named characters, with a few differences. This show actually began the year that Jerry Brown was organizing the California slate for anti-Vietnam War presidential candidate Gene McCarthy.
** BILL CLINTON HEARTS JERRY BROWN! (AND OTHER TALES OF INTRIGUE)For a debacle, this is certainly working out very nicely for Jerry Brown.
I’m referring to his widely publicized joke on Sunday, in which he seemed to many to have wrecked his chances for backing from former President Bill Clinton, whose long-ago false attack (based on a very inaccurate CNN report) on Brown is featured in billionaire Meg Whitman’s thoroughly debunked anti-Brown TV ad.
Clinton on Tuesday issued a very snappy endorsement of Jerry Brown. In the process, he denounced Whitman’s latest TV attack ad against Brown.
With Clinton’s endorsement in hand, less than 48 hours after Brown told a rather mild joke in Los Angeles questioning the consistency of Clinton’s veracity, Brown thanked his former presidential campaign rival for his backing and pivoted to the launch of two new 15-second attack ads against Whitman which brand her a liar.
Was Brown’s Sunday joke, for which he apologized Monday, a gaffe or a gambit?
The effect of Brown’s action was to place more attention on Whitman’s TV ad and on the question of whether or not Clinton, who was with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday, would endorse him. My reporting told me all along that the former president — who had a very nasty campaign against Brown for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992 — would nonetheless back his former rival and denounce Whitman’s TV ad. He just, well, hadn’t gotten around to it yet. …From my September 16th feature.
** JERRY BROWN’S OFF TO A ROLLICKING START AGAINST BILLIONAIRE MEG WHITMAN.Jerry Brown finally began his advertising campaign this week in the race to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California and he’s starting off in a good position. As I’ve been saying for the past few months, he’s come through the period from the June primary to Labor Day weekend without billionaire Meg Whitman and her biggest-spending non-presidential campaign in American history getting the 12 to 15-point lead it had planned on. In fact, she doesn’t have any lead at all.
A new poll from CNN shows the race dead even, despite Whitman having spent over $125 million, some three times more than all her opponents — Republican primary rival Steve Poizner and Democratic independent expenditure outfits like California Working Families and Working Californians — combined. (That doesn’t count millions spent on Whitman’s behalf by the shadowy “Small Business Action Committee,” which refuses to divulge its true contributors for this advertising, but shows in other reports that it gets its money from very big business.) As for Brown, he hadn’t spent a dime during his many months of Zen rope-a-dope. Until a few days ago.
Now Whitman is hoping that her latest attack ad — she’s been running them since the beginning of February — doesn’t show that she’s overstayed her welcome on California’s airwaves. She’s hoping voters take seriously an attack leveled over 18 years ago against Jerry Brown by Bill Clinton, then running against Brown in the Democratic presidential primaries. The problem for Whitman is that the election is not next Tuesday.
** GARY HART’S NEW MEMOIR SHOWS THE CONTINUITY IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.Gary Hart has just released a fascinating personal memoir. In The Thunder and the Sunshine: Four Seasons In A Burnished Life, the former U.S. senator and presidential candidate weaves his personal story and observations through the history of the past 40 years.
An accomplished author of more than a dozen books, Hart’s been in a unique position throughout. And in this book, Hart unleashes a slew of intriguing vignettes that bring those decades of modern American history to life.
Reading the book, which is a brisk read at 240 pages or so, I’m struck by the threads of continuity running from 1970 to 2010. Then as now, America was in a state of imperial overstretch, riven by a foolish war and roiled by a divisive politics, fatefully dependent on foreign oil and tethered to an old energy economy that threatens the future of our economy, our environment, and our security. … From my September 9th essay.
** 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 $73.66 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.
President Barack Obama today named Elizabeth Warren as assistant to the president/special advisor to the treasury secretary. In this role, she will oversee the creation and implementation of the new Consumer Finance Protection Board authorized in the recently enacted Wall Street reform bill.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … EXPENDABLE ARNOLD: WHAT’S AROUND THE NEXT FEW BENDS FOR SCHWARZENEGGER?
** CALIFORNIA 2010: THE SHAPE OF THE AD WARS. The TV ad wars are almost fully engaged in California’s top of the ticket races for governor and U.S. senator. I say almost because one candidate still isn’t in the game.
That would be ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorinia, who fumed on the sidelines this week as Senator Barbara Boxer took advantage of her big fundraising advantage to go up on the air. First with a positive TV ad, extolling her record of, as she puts it, fighting for regular Californians. Then with a a strong negative ad attacking Fiorina as a failed CEO who destroyed jobs at HP, extolled off-shoring employment, and indulged herself with massive perks.
Fiorina calls it “class warfare.” Which again shows why, for all her gifts as a performer — gifts which fellow ticket-mate and fellow ex-CEO Meg Whitman does not at all share — Fiorina is off as a candidate for California.
While Boxer is a little too liberal for California, Fiorina is a lot too conservative for the tarnished Golden State. What she fails to grasp is that her record and attitude as a corporate conservative looks like a different sort of class warfare, upon working Californians, when viewed from outside the executive suite.
This is why I’ve always thought Boxer has the edge over Fiorina, despite being lumped in with an unpopular Congress, despite the campaign chops that I expected would easily take Fiorina past the putative GOP primary frontrunner, the highly over-rated Tom Campbell. The ex-congressman was persuaded to switch from the governor’s race, where his ability to draw more moderate votes, was very complicating for Whitman, by Whitman’s backers. Once in the Senate race, after some fool’s gold early financial support, Campbell was left to swing in the breeze.
In the governor’s race, billionaire Whitman continues to run those now thoroughly discredited TV attack ads against Jerry Brown featuring Bill Clinton from their 1992 presidential race. Against all fact, Whitman keeps insisting that the charges are true.
Will she actually keep running the ad now the Clinton is coming to campaign for Brown? Are she and her strategists that arrogant? Or are they just that cynical about the much diminished local press corps and its ability to maintain a focus on the overall? Not to mention their belief in the Big Lie technique of propaganda.
Perhaps they really think that Whitman won’t be humiliated next month with Clinton in the state campaigning with Brown, discussing her lying advertising and her cynical, unapproved use of his image.
In any event, Brown, having launched his first TV ad last week, a biographical spot with footage from the past closing with the candidate himself speaking to camera, readjusted his mix this week.
First he put the positive spot in a 50-50 rotation around the state with two 15-second ads portraying Whitman and her lying attacks as Pinocchio. Then he changed out the first positive ad yesterday for a new one, which features the candidate speaking to camera enunciating his campaign themes.
It’s a very effective ad, and points up Whitman’s inability to do the same.
Meanwhile, shadowy business interests fund additional anti-Brown attack ads from secret sources. And the California Teachers Association, unintimidated by Whitman legal moves, continues a very hard-hitting anti-Whitman TV ad which I ran last week with a Huffington Post feature..
** BILL CLINTON IS COMING TO CALIFORNIA FOR A SERIES OF EVENTS WITH JERRY BROWN AND GAVIN NEWSOM. As I mentioned he would at the beginning of the week, former President Bill Clinton is coming to California next month to campaign with Jerry Brown. Along with the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in the mix of events is San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor.
The official announcement came this morning through the Brown for Governor campaign and the California Democratic Party.
The former president will be out on October 15-17 for a variety of events in Southern California and Northern California.
“I am very pleased to have the endorsement of President Clinton, and I look forward to campaigning with him and with Gavin Newsom,” said Jerry Brown in a statement. “President Clinton accomplished a lot for California, and we have a ticket that will accomplish a lot for California’s future.”
“Over the years, I’ve enjoyed a close working relationship with President Clinton and I’m honored to have his continued support in my campaign for Lieutenant Governor,” added Mayor Newsom. “I’m looking forward to campaigning alongside the President next month along with Attorney General Brown. Californians will never forget his record of accomplishments and his commitment to effectively confront our most pressing issues.”
Wasn’t that nice of the Meg Whitman campaign, and her brilliant chief strategist Mike Murphy, to make Clinton’s involvement in the California governor’s race so important?
President Barack Obama yesterday announced a new initiative to expand sci/tech and math education.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
Biden then held a Recovery Act Implementation Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room.
At 10:30 AM Pacific, Obama makes an announcement to the press in the Rose Garden.
He is appointing Elizabeth Warren to start up and oversee the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a key part of the recently enacted Wall Street reform bill.
Warren will serve as assistant to the President and as special advisor to the Secretary of Treasury. Assistant to the President is the executive staff level rank in the White House. There are only a handful.
The title of special advisor is one more normally found in the government of the UK than of the US. In the UK, special advisors to cabinet ministers normally have great power and report back to the prime minister’s office. The special advisor rank is a way of working around the normal bureaucracy.
In appoint Warren to these two executive branch posts which do not require Senate confirmation, Obama is avoiding a protracted fight with Senate Republicans and a likely filibuster, one which he might not be able to overcome.
Warren, a Harvard professor, runs the Congressional oversight operation on the Wall Street bailout, and has become a great liberal favorite as a result. She writes fairly frequently for the Huffington Post, the leading liberal news site in the world.
Many power brokers on Wall Street hate her, of course, which means that Senate Republicans reflexively oppose her. So do some Senate Democrats, naturally.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unsettled more than six months after national parliamentary elections. There is a government in place, but it does not reflect the election’s outcome. The usual religious and political factionalism stands in the way of resolution.
New York City is cleaning up today after a sudden heavy weather event of the sort forecast in climate change models. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a major event this weekend to preserve California’s landmark climate change program against the oil industry-backed Proposition 23.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles and Sacramento today.
At 10:30 AM, Schwarzenegger joins with Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Council Chairman Jake Steinfeld to announce the winners of the 2010 Spotlight Awards and launch the 5th Annual Fitness Challenge.
The event takes place in the auditorium of the Secretary of State Bldg. in Sacramento at 10:30 AM.
Following the physical fitness awards, Schwarzenegger will hold another “Big 5″ meeting with Democratic and Republican legislative leaders on the chronic state budget crisis and current impasse.
Today breaks the all-time record for the longest that the state Legislature has gone without passing a budget.
Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman blames Schwarzenegger for the delay, saying that he should not have taken a large business delegation on his trade mission to Asia.
Whitman doesn’t understand what’s going on, which I’ll get into at another point shortly.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** BILL CLINTON HEARTS JERRY BROWN! (AND OTHER TALES OF INTRIGUE)For a debacle, this is certainly working out very nicely for Jerry Brown.
I’m referring to his widely publicized joke on Sunday, in which he seemed to many to have wrecked his chances for backing from former President Bill Clinton, whose long-ago false attack (based on a very inaccurate CNN report) on Brown is featured in billionaire Meg Whitman’s thoroughly debunked anti-Brown TV ad.
Clinton on Tuesday issued a very snappy endorsement of Jerry Brown. In the process, he denounced Whitman’s latest TV attack ad against Brown.
With Clinton’s endorsement in hand, less than 48 hours after Brown told a rather mild joke in Los Angeles questioning the consistency of Clinton’s veracity, Brown thanked his former presidential campaign rival for his backing and pivoted to the launch of two new 15-second attack ads against Whitman which brand her a liar.
Was Brown’s Sunday joke, for which he apologized Monday, a gaffe or a gambit?
The effect of Brown’s action was to place more attention on Whitman’s TV ad and on the question of whether or not Clinton, who was with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday, would endorse him. My reporting told me all along that the former president — who had a very nasty campaign against Brown for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992 — would nonetheless back his former rival and denounce Whitman’s TV ad. He just, well, hadn’t gotten around to it yet. …From my September 16th feature.
** JERRY BROWN’S OFF TO A ROLLICKING START AGAINST BILLIONAIRE MEG WHITMAN.Jerry Brown finally began his advertising campaign this week in the race to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California and he’s starting off in a good position. As I’ve been saying for the past few months, he’s come through the period from the June primary to Labor Day weekend without billionaire Meg Whitman and her biggest-spending non-presidential campaign in American history getting the 12 to 15-point lead it had planned on. In fact, she doesn’t have any lead at all.
A new poll from CNN shows the race dead even, despite Whitman having spent over $125 million, some three times more than all her opponents — Republican primary rival Steve Poizner and Democratic independent expenditure outfits like California Working Families and Working Californians — combined. (That doesn’t count millions spent on Whitman’s behalf by the shadowy “Small Business Action Committee,” which refuses to divulge its true contributors for this advertising, but shows in other reports that it gets its money from very big business.) As for Brown, he hadn’t spent a dime during his many months of Zen rope-a-dope. Until a few days ago.
Now Whitman is hoping that her latest attack ad — she’s been running them since the beginning of February — doesn’t show that she’s overstayed her welcome on California’s airwaves. She’s hoping voters take seriously an attack leveled over 18 years ago against Jerry Brown by Bill Clinton, then running against Brown in the Democratic presidential primaries. The problem for Whitman is that the election is not next Tuesday.
** GARY HART’S NEW MEMOIR SHOWS THE CONTINUITY IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.Gary Hart has just released a fascinating personal memoir. In The Thunder and the Sunshine: Four Seasons In A Burnished Life, the former U.S. senator and presidential candidate weaves his personal story and observations through the history of the past 40 years.
An accomplished author of more than a dozen books, Hart’s been in a unique position throughout. And in this book, Hart unleashes a slew of intriguing vignettes that bring those decades of modern American history to life.
Reading the book, which is a brisk read at 240 pages or so, I’m struck by the threads of continuity running from 1970 to 2010. Then as now, America was in a state of imperial overstretch, riven by a foolish war and roiled by a divisive politics, fatefully dependent on foreign oil and tethered to an old energy economy that threatens the future of our economy, our environment, and our security. … From my September 9th essay.
** 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.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she is confident about prospects for Middle East peace. But settlement by fundamentalist Israelis in disputed areas is a major stumbling block, as always.
** QUICK HITS.In the big California races, Jerry Brown launched a new TV ad today which consists of him speaking to camera about his priorities and values and Barbara Boxer, who launched her first ad a few days ago, a positive spot, launched a negative ad on ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. I’ll go through the advertising strategies in the races for governor and U.S. senator tomorrow. … President Barack Obama will tomorrow announce the appointment of liberal favorite Elizabeth Warren as a senior White House aide overseeing the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, thus avoiding a Republican blockade of her administrative appointment. … With Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger back from his Asian trade mission, he and legislative leaders held a “big 5″ meeting on the state budget impasse. But California remains poised to break, on Friday the all-time record for latest passage of a budget.
** BILL CLINTON HEARTS JERRY BROWN! (AND OTHER TALES OF INTRIGUE)For a debacle, this is certainly working out very nicely for Jerry Brown.
I’m referring to his widely publicized joke on Sunday, in which he seemed to many to have wrecked his chances for backing from former President Bill Clinton, whose long-ago false attack (based on a very inaccurate CNN report) on Brown is featured in billionaire Meg Whitman’s thoroughly debunked anti-Brown TV ad.
Clinton on Tuesday issued a very snappy endorsement of Jerry Brown. In the process, he denounced Whitman’s latest TV attack ad against Brown.
With Clinton’s endorsement in hand, less than 48 hours after Brown told a rather mild joke in Los Angeles questioning the consistency of Clinton’s veracity, Brown thanked his former presidential campaign rival for his backing and pivoted to the launch of two new 15-second attack ads against Whitman which brand her a liar.
Was Brown’s Sunday joke, for which he apologized Monday, a gaffe or a gambit?
The effect of Brown’s action was to place more attention on Whitman’s TV ad and on the question of whether or not Clinton, who was with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday, would endorse him. My reporting told me all along that the former president — who had a very nasty campaign against Brown for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992 — would nonetheless back his former rival and denounce Whitman’s TV ad. He just, well, hadn’t gotten around to it yet. …
** NEW POLL: MOST STILL SAY OBAMA’S NOT BLAME FOR ECONOMIC TROUBLES WHILE AN OVERWHELMING MAJORITY BLAMES BUSH. A little more good news today for Democrats in the form of the latest Gallup Poll.
Far more blame former President George W. Bush, and his policies — which, and this is key, are still the policies of the Republican Party — for the still lagging economy than blame President Barack Obama.
Nearly two years into his presidency, 51% of Americans say President Barack Obama bears little to no blame for U.S. economic problems, while 48% assign him a great deal or moderate amount of blame. More Americans now blame Obama than did so a year ago, but a substantially higher percentage, 71%, blame former President George W. Bush. …
More specifically, the Aug. 27-30 USA Today/Gallup poll finds 24% of Americans blaming Obama a great deal for the current economic problems, 24% a moderate amount, 25% not much, and 26% not at all. By contrast, 37% blame Bush a great deal, compared with 10% assigning him no blame.
Bush fares poorly on this measure partly because a relatively high proportion of Republicans — 48% — blame him a great deal or moderate amount, as do most Democrats (89%) and independents (73%). By contrast, relatively few Democrats, 19%, blame Obama. These patterns are consistent with Gallup’s findings on the same question in April. …
Americans are far from charitable when it comes to their evaluations of Obama’s performance on the economy. Recent Gallup polling found 38% approving of the job he is doing in this arena — among his worst job scores on the nation’s top issues. However, that still exceeds Bush’s final approval rating on the economy of 27%, measured in February 2008. That was prior to the Wall Street financial crisis that rocked both the economy and consumer confidence later in the year, so Bush’s rating likely fell even further by the time he left office.
Obama’s overall job approval rating was 46% at the time of his latest economic rating, in early August, and continues to hover in the mid- to high 40s in Gallup Daily tracking. The gap between his approval on the economy and his overall approval may be partly explained by Americans’ tendency to believe that the enduring economic problems are at least not of his own making.
President Barack Obama spoke yesterday about the economy and the likely passage of a major bill to help small businesses. Two Senate Republicans have abandoned the party’s filibuster blockade.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington, New York, and Connecticut.
Obama received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
He also delivered remarks at the President’s Export Council meeting in the East Room.
At 9:15 AM Pacific, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have lunch in the Private Dining Room.
At 9:45 AM Pacific, Obama participates in an Ambassador Credentialing Ceremony in the Oval Office.
At 11:30 AM Pacific, Obama meets with Senator Menendez and Representatives Velazquez and Gutierrez in the Oval Office.
At 12:25 PM Pacific, Obama makes an announcement on the expansion of the “Educate to Innovate” initiative in the South Court Auditorium.
At 1:05 PM Pacific, Obama departs the White House on Marine One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 1:20 PM Pacific, Obama departs Andrews Air Force Base on Air Force One en route to New York City.
At 2:15 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in New York. He then proceeds to Stamford, Connecticut.
At 3:15 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at an event for Connecticut Attorney General Blumenthal at the Stamford Marriott Hotel. Blumenthal is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate to succeed the retiring Chris Dodd.
At 4:45 PM Pacific, Obama attends an event for the Democratic National Committee at a private residence.
At 6:40 PM Pacific, Obama departs New York on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 7:35 PM Pacific, Obama arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One.
At 7:50 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on hand for another day in the Middle East today for peace talks.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unsettled more than six months after national parliamentary elections. There is a government in place, but it does not reflect the election’s outcome. The usual religious and political factionalism stands in the way of resolution.
Back from his Asian trade mission yesterday afternoon, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured the natural gas blast site in San Bruno.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles and Sacramento today.
He has no scheduled public events.
Today ties the all-time record for the longest that the state Legislature has gone without passing a budget.
There is no agreement in sight.
Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman yesterday blamed Schwarzenegger for the delay, saying that he should not have taken a large business delegation on his trade mission to Asia.
Whitman doesn’t understand what’s going on, which I’ll get into at another point.
Late on Tuesday Whitman contributed another $15 million to her own campaign, surpassing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as the biggest self-funding candidate in American history.
Whitman had already broken Bloomberg’s record for the most spending on a non-presidential campaign in American history.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN: “THE SUMMER MAN” IS CLEARING HIS HEAD.“The Summer Man” is another very fine and very consequential episode of Mad Men. We’re up to June 1965, hence the title of the episode, moving swiftly through time with over a third of the season left. It was just before Thanksgiving 1964 when the season began, and Lyndon Johnson, the assassinated JFK’s vice president, had just been elected president in a landslide. As always, there be spoilers ahead.
Another big campaign is underway, for mayor of New York City, and it deeply affects two of our major characters. But before we get to that, let’s talk about the Summer Man. …From my September 13th essay.
** JERRY BROWN’S OFF TO A ROLLICKING START AGAINST BILLIONAIRE MEG WHITMAN.Jerry Brown finally began his advertising campaign this week in the race to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California and he’s starting off in a good position. As I’ve been saying for the past few months, he’s come through the period from the June primary to Labor Day weekend without billionaire Meg Whitman and her biggest-spending non-presidential campaign in American history getting the 12 to 15-point lead it had planned on. In fact, she doesn’t have any lead at all.
A new poll from CNN shows the race dead even, despite Whitman having spent over $125 million, some three times more than all her opponents — Republican primary rival Steve Poizner and Democratic independent expenditure outfits like California Working Families and Working Californians — combined. (That doesn’t count millions spent on Whitman’s behalf by the shadowy “Small Business Action Committee,” which refuses to divulge its true contributors for this advertising, but shows in other reports that it gets its money from very big business.) As for Brown, he hadn’t spent a dime during his many months of Zen rope-a-dope. Until a few days ago.
Now Whitman is hoping that her latest attack ad — she’s been running them since the beginning of February — doesn’t show that she’s overstayed her welcome on California’s airwaves. She’s hoping voters take seriously an attack leveled over 18 years ago against Jerry Brown by Bill Clinton, then running against Brown in the Democratic presidential primaries. The problem for Whitman is that the election is not next Tuesday.
** GARY HART’S NEW MEMOIR SHOWS THE CONTINUITY IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.Gary Hart has just released a fascinating personal memoir. In The Thunder and the Sunshine: Four Seasons In A Burnished Life, the former U.S. senator and presidential candidate weaves his personal story and observations through the history of the past 40 years.
An accomplished author of more than a dozen books, Hart’s been in a unique position throughout. And in this book, Hart unleashes a slew of intriguing vignettes that bring those decades of modern American history to life.
Reading the book, which is a brisk read at 240 pages or so, I’m struck by the threads of continuity running from 1970 to 2010. Then as now, America was in a state of imperial overstretch, riven by a foolish war and roiled by a divisive politics, fatefully dependent on foreign oil and tethered to an old energy economy that threatens the future of our economy, our environment, and our security.
** 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 $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.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, in the wake of a strong far right Tea Party showing in last night’s Republican primaries, said today that he’s confident Democrats will retain majorities in Congress.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … BILL CLINTON HEARTS JERRY BROWN! (AND OTHER TALES OF INTRIGUE).
** QUICK HITS. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met for several hours today in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The tone was positive, but Netanyahu again said that some settlement activity will take place in disputed areas, which Palestinians say is a non-starter. The current settlement moratorium, under which construction has nonetheless continued, expires on September 26th. … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, back in California from a week-long Asian trade mission, toured the San Bruno natural gas disaster and hailed state Energy Commission approval of the world’s largest solar electric plant, a 1000-megawatt facility outside the Southern California desert town of Blyth. … Meanwhile, California’s second longest state budget impasse continues, with no end in sight.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: JERRY BROWN SUES (AND APPEARS AT HUGE LATINO RALLY) WHILE WHITMAN SPENDS (AND THREATENS TO SUE). In Los Angeles this morning, Attorney General Jerry Brown sued eight current and former officials of Bell. That’s the little city that paid very big bucks to its purported public servants, who naturally awarded it to themselves.
Brown charged them with fraud and conspiracy.
The suit demands city officials, including former City Manager Robert Rizzo and three current council members, return hundreds of thousands of dollars from the bloated salaries. The legal action also calls for a reduction of pension benefits for the officials.
Attorney General Jerry Brown said his investigators will look at other cities where the annual salaries of officials exceed $300,000 and will ask legislators to reform salary and pension practices. “I’m going to continue to do everything in my power to go after corrupt officials who, rather than doing the public’s business, scheme behind closed doors to line their own pockets,” said Brown, a candidate for governor.
Brown’s office and the Los Angeles County district attorney opened investigations after learning Bell had some of the highest-paid officials in the nation, even though one in six city residents live in poverty. Rizzo resigned after it was disclosed that he was being paid nearly $800,000 a year, plus lucrative benefits.
The blue-collar suburb of 40,000 people also faces a federal probe into whether it violated the civil rights of Hispanics by deliberately targeting their cars for towing to raise revenue.
Along with Rizzo, those named in the lawsuit filed Wednesday are former assistant city manager Angela Spaccia; ex-Police Chief Randy Adams; council members Oscar Hernandez, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabel; and former council members Victor Bello and George Cole. Phone messages left for Rizzo and council members were not immediately returned.
Rizzo’s salary had been raised by the council 16 times since 1993, with an average increase of 14 percent a year, according to Brown. In 2005 alone, the council boosted his salary 47 percent.
Four City Council members were paid nearly $100,000 a year before they took a recent cut. Cities of similar size pay their council members about $5,000 a year.
Brown also subpoenaed the City of Vernon. With a population of less than 100, one individual was nonetheless paid $1.6 million in 2008, while another made $800,000 last year.
Staying on in Los Angeles, tonight Brown appears at a huge Latino rally at Staples Center in honor of the 200th birthday of Mexico.
Brown will join Mexican Consul General Juan Marcos Gutierrez, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and dozens of elected officials, business leaders, musicians and artists to celebrate the El Grito, the bicentennial of the founding of Mexico.
The event will be telecast live on Univision throughout California and the U.S.
Brown’s gubernatorial opponent, billionaire Meg Whitman, had tried to cast aspersions on Brown’s Bell investigation, till it became a joint investigation with LA County District Attorney Steve Cooley, the Republican nominee for attorney general. Whitman had also tried to claim that Brown presided over similar abuses in Oakland. But it turned out that the individuals she was citing who made $200,000 were actually firefighters who were owed back pay for overtime.
Whitman may be having better luck getting some TV stations to stop airing a tough new attack ad against her by the California Teachers Association. The ad claims that Whitman would cut education spending by $7 billion. Her policy pamphlet doesn’t say that. It does say that she would cut another $15 billion from the budget, without saying where.
Well, those cuts have to come somewhere, and they won’t come from a fantasy of “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Whitman is hoist by her own petard here. But her campaign says that Comcast is taking the ads down, since her purported plan budget plan doesn’t say where the cuts would take place.
I don’t know that the claim is accurate. I do know that non-candidate committees have a somewhat higher standard of accuracy than do candidate committees, which accounts at least in part for why Whitman’s thoroughly debunked ad featuring a thoroughly displeased former President Bill Clinton are still on the air.
In any event, the CTA is ready to go with another tough ad if need be.
Whitman, incidentally, as I mentioned earlier, has shattered the old record for self-funding in a political campaign, previously some $109 million by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his re-election to a third term last year.
She put another $15 million into her campaign last night. That brings her official total to $119 million. As I’ve previously reported, her real total is over $121 million.
Whitman did not report much of her early spending, including at least a million dollars spent on consultants, research, and travel, and more than a million paid to chief strategist Mike Murphy two days after he cut ties with Whitman’s primary opponent, Steve Poizner. That payment was purportedly for Whitman’s credit-free Hollywood production company. The reality is that I have far more Hollywood credits than Murphy, who has only one, and I would never claim to be pursuing a career in entertainment.
Whitman had already broken Bloomberg’s campaign spending record. (Virtually all his spending came from his own pocket.) Whitman is well over $125 million and obviously still counting.
** NEW NATIONAL POLL: DEMOCRATIC IDENTIFICATION EDGES UPWARD. A new Gallup Poll shows voter identification with the Democratic Party edging back upwards this month.
It is still much lower than it was when Barack Obama became president. Nevertheless, it is another sign that Republicans have already reached their high-water mark this year.
Slightly more Americans identify as Democrats or lean Democratic (44%) than identify as or lean Republican (41%) in September to date, re-establishing a Democratic edge that disappeared in August, when the parties were even. The Democrats’ current positioning remains much weaker than it was at the time President Barack Obama took office, when they enjoyed a 17-point edge in party affiliation. …
Most of the decline since Obama took office occurred last year, when the Democratic advantage dropped from 17 points in January to 5 points by November, following the same general trajectory as Obama’s job approval rating.
Democrats have maintained a slight advantage of three to five points since November, but even that small edge disappeared in August, coinciding with the low point in Obama’s approval rating. September has been a bit kinder to both Obama and the Democrats. Based on more than 13,000 interviews conducted so far this month, the party has re-established an advantage in affiliation, although it is not quite back to the four-point advantage it has averaged since November. …
All key demographic subgroups of Americans show a drop in Democratic affiliation since January 2009, and the declines are largely similar across the groups, ranging from 3 points among blacks to 10 points among Midwestern residents and those aged 50 to 64. …
President Barack Obama gave his second annual back to school speech at the Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School in Philadelphia, telling students that while government has the responsibility to make educational opportunity available to them, they have the responsibility to take advantage of it.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
He and Vice President Joe Biden then met with General Ray Odierno, the just returned U.S. commander in Iraq, in the Oval Office.
At 12 noon Pacific, Obama holds a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room.
At 2:20 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and California Congressman George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.
At 5:20 PM Pacific, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama attend the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 33rd Annual Awards Gala at the Washington Convention Center, where Obama will be the principal speaker.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on hand in the Middle East today for face-to-face peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unsettled more than six months after national parliamentary elections. There is a government in place, but it does not reflect the election’s outcome. The usual religious and political factionalism stands in the way of resolution.
In domestic politics, the landslide victory of Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell in last night’s Delaware Republican primary for the U.S. Senate all but guarantees that the Democrats will retain a majority in the Senate.
O’Donnell, a creationist and all-around extremist, won easily over the longtime favorite for November, Congressman and former Delaware Governor Nick Castle.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, back in California today, assessed bullet train technology on his week-long Asia trade mission.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in South Korea and California today.
At 2:45 PM, Schwarzenegger holds a press availability after touring the damage site of a massive natural gas explosion in San Bruno. He will be joined by Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, who oversaw recovery operations in his absence.
Earlier today in Asia, Schwarzenegger wrapped up his trade mission with a round of events in South Korea.
At the Grand Hilton in Seoul, Schwarzenegger delivered remarks calling for the ratification of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement at a breakfast hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea and the Korea Free Trade Agreement Industry Alliance.
He then joined Chair of the 2013 Special Olympics World Winter Games Preparatory Committee Congresswoman Na Kyung Won and Special Olympics Korea First Vice Chair Kim Byeong Deok to announce and congratulate Korea for being chosen to host the 2013 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Gangwon Province.
Following that, Schwarzenegger made an announcement about increased investment in California — namely big new investments by Hyundai Motors — and highlighted the importance of trade and tourism between California and South Korea at the California-Korea: Tourism, Trade and Investment Extravaganza hosted by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and the California Travel and Tourism Commission.
In the afternoon, he toured Lotte Department Store to highlight California food and wine exports.
Schwarzenegger then rode a high-speed rail train with California High Speed Rail Authority Chief Executive Officer Roelf Van Ark and KORAIL Vice President Sim Hyeog Yun, discussing the technology used by Korea’s high-speed rail system.
Finally, Schwarzenegger attended a rally for U.S. troops stationed at U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan in South Korea.
Schwarzenegger then flew back across the Pacific on his private jet.
Late yesterday, Schwarzenegger’s would-be Republican successor, billionaire Meg Whitman, contributed another $15 million to her own campaign, surpassing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as the biggest self-funding candidate in American history.
Whitman had already broken Bloomberg’s record for the most spending on a non-presidential campaign in American history.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN: “THE SUMMER MAN” IS CLEARING HIS HEAD.“The Summer Man” is another very fine and very consequential episode of Mad Men. We’re up to June 1965, hence the title of the episode, moving swiftly through time with over a third of the season left. It was just before Thanksgiving 1964 when the season began, and Lyndon Johnson, the assassinated JFK’s vice president, had just been elected president in a landslide. As always, there be spoilers ahead.
Another big campaign is underway, for mayor of New York City, and it deeply affects two of our major characters. But before we get to that, let’s talk about the Summer Man. …From my September 13th essay.
** JERRY BROWN’S OFF TO A ROLLICKING START AGAINST BILLIONAIRE MEG WHITMAN.Jerry Brown finally began his advertising campaign this week in the race to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California and he’s starting off in a good position. As I’ve been saying for the past few months, he’s come through the period from the June primary to Labor Day weekend without billionaire Meg Whitman and her biggest-spending non-presidential campaign in American history getting the 12 to 15-point lead it had planned on. In fact, she doesn’t have any lead at all.
A new poll from CNN shows the race dead even, despite Whitman having spent over $125 million, some three times more than all her opponents — Republican primary rival Steve Poizner and Democratic independent expenditure outfits like California Working Families and Working Californians — combined. (That doesn’t count millions spent on Whitman’s behalf by the shadowy “Small Business Action Committee,” which refuses to divulge its true contributors for this advertising, but shows in other reports that it gets its money from very big business.) As for Brown, he hadn’t spent a dime during his many months of Zen rope-a-dope. Until a few days ago.
Now Whitman is hoping that her latest attack ad — she’s been running them since the beginning of February — doesn’t show that she’s overstayed her welcome on California’s airwaves. She’s hoping voters take seriously an attack leveled over 18 years ago against Jerry Brown by Bill Clinton, then running against Brown in the Democratic presidential primaries. The problem for Whitman is that the election is not next Tuesday.
** GARY HART’S NEW MEMOIR SHOWS THE CONTINUITY IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.Gary Hart has just released a fascinating personal memoir. In The Thunder and the Sunshine: Four Seasons In A Burnished Life, the former U.S. senator and presidential candidate weaves his personal story and observations through the history of the past 40 years.
An accomplished author of more than a dozen books, Hart’s been in a unique position throughout. And in this book, Hart unleashes a slew of intriguing vignettes that bring those decades of modern American history to life.
Reading the book, which is a brisk read at 240 pages or so, I’m struck by the threads of continuity running from 1970 to 2010. Then as now, America was in a state of imperial overstretch, riven by a foolish war and roiled by a divisive politics, fatefully dependent on foreign oil and tethered to an old energy economy that threatens the future of our economy, our environment, and our security.
** 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 $42 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 Bill Clinton, seen backstage yesterday in Philadelphia with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, today issued a strong endorsement of former presidential campaign rival Jerry Brown for governor of California. Clinton denounced a thoroughly debunked attack ad from billionaire Meg Whitman featuring footage of Clinton from a 1992 presidential campaign debate with Brown.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: BILL CLINTON HEARTS JERRY BROWN! Former President Bill Clinton issued a very snappy endorsement of Jerry Brown today for governor of California. In the process, he denounced billionaire Meg Whitman’s latest TV attack ad against Brown, featuring him from 18 years ago, and charges which have been thoroughly debunked.
With Clinton’s endorsement in hand, less than 48 hours after Brown told a rather mild joke in Los Angeles questioning the consistency of Clinton’s veracity, Brown thanked his former presidential campaign rival for his backing and pivoted to the launch of two new 15-second attack ads against Whitman which call her a liar.
Was Brown’s Sunday joke, for which he apologized yesterday, a mistake or a gambit?
The effect of Brown’s action was to place more attention on Whitman’s TV ad and on the question of whether or not Clinton, who was with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday, would endorse him.
Here’s what Bill Clinton said in his statement: “I strongly support Jerry Brown for governor because I believe he was a fine mayor of Oakland, he’s been a very good attorney general, and he would be an excellent governor at a time when California needs his creativity and fiscal prudence.”
“The tough campaign we fought 18 years ago,” said Clinton in his statement, “is not relevant to the choice facing Californians today. Jerry and I put that behind us a long time ago.”
For his part, Brown thanked Clinton, whom he once offered to make his chief of staff after the Arkansan lost his re-election bid: “I am deeply honored to have been endorsed by former President Bill Clinton, who, after his accomplishment-rich presidency, continues to demonstrate his commitment to bettering our state, our nation, and our world, each and every day.”
Clinton denounced Whitman’s ad, which cynically features Clinton making attacks Whitman has previously leveled and which have been widely debunked. Clinton explained that his remarks in a 1992 presidential primary debate with Brown were based on an erroneous CNN report, the author of which also acknowledges his error.
As Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s state Department of Finance stated at the end of last week, taxes did not go up under Brown during his first go-round as governor. Taxes went down under Brown, by nearly 5%.
And that does not include the Proposition 13 property tax cuts. Prop 13 devastated local government revenues. Fortunately, Brown had husbanded a large rainy day fund, which he used to bail out local services which otherwise would have gone belly up.
Clinton also finally explained why he endorsed San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom last year, just a few weeks before he dropped out of his Democratic primary race against Brown. His own remarks at the time were very indistinct.
Clinton endorsed Newsom, he said, for the same reason I have reported for more than a year, as payback for Newsom’s role as a national co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Newsom was one of dozens of politicians around the country for whom Bill Clinton appeared on a national payback tour.
“I endorsed Mayor Gavin Newsom for governor before he withdrew and became a candidate for lieutenant governor because of his strong support for Hillary in the 2008 primary season and because of his impressive record of innovation and accomplishment,” said Clinton. “He can really help revitalize California as lieutenant governor.”
Most of the coverage yesterday focused on a supposed massive feud between Brown and Clinton. Which was tremendously overblown, as I’ve reported from the beginning. Was their campaign against each other for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination a rugged experience? Absolutely. Very rugged, in fact, of the sort that few have experienced.
But Brown met with the Clintons during the 2008 presidential campaign. And some of Clinton’s longtime closest backers were early supporters of Brown for governor.
Was Bill Clinton going to endorse Brown anyway? Yes.
My very well-informed source on this, who is not Jerry Brown or anyone part of his campaign, told me weeks ago that the former president would endorse his former opponent in October.
Meanwhile, the Whitman campaign brain trust imagined that it had executed a major coup. First by using Clinton’s 1992 footage in its thoroughly dishonest ad against Brown, which it refused to pull off the air. Then by crowing about the supposed feud between Brown and Clinton by pushing more video, both of Brown’s Sunday joke about Clinton and of Clinton lambasting Brown during their Democratic primary race.
The net effect, however, was to move Clinton’s endorsement from October to September, making it more important in the process. And to draw more attention to the Whitman ad, the falseness of which was already fading from press coverage.
Next time out, I’ll explain how the Whitman campaign injected this story into the media, and how it seriously miscalculated on the nature of Democratic politics.
Incidentally, Whitman refuses to pull her now utterly debunked attack ad on Brown, but is trying to get TV stations to stop airing the California Teachers Association’s tough new ad against her. CTA says, nothing doing.
I don’t know if the CTA charges are accurate or not — it’s hard to say, given the illogical mess of a “budget program” that Whitman has put out — but they are certainly more accurate than the nonsense she and her merry band of pricey professional prevaricators are spewing.
** A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE? NEW POLL SHOWS ONLY ONE OF FIVE RECENT PROGRAMS IS POPULAR.A new Gallup Poll shows that, of five major pieces of domestic legislation — four of them enacted by President Barack Obama — only one is currently popular.
That includes at least two others — stimulating the economy and saving the auto industry — that are conceptually very popular.
Only the Wall Street reform bill is currently popular. And that was the last one that Obama and Democratic leaders moved through the process.
Perhaps the order should have been reversed.
And perhaps the whole kit and kaboodle is colored by the unpopularity of the Wall Street bailout, enacted by the Bush/Cheney Administration, which Obama and the Democrats have allowed to become conflated with their own programs.
The financial reform bill President Obama signed into law in July is the most popular of five major pieces of legislation Congress has passed in the past two years — in fact, it is the only one tested in a recent USA Today/Gallup poll that a majority of Americans support. …
Six in 10 Americans approve of the legislation to strengthen government regulation of the financial industry. By contrast, a majority disapprove of the 2009 economic stimulus package, the auto industry bailout, healthcare reform, and — most of all — the 2008 banking industry bailout.
Financial reform does best due to a relatively high level of support from Republicans — 42% approve of it — as well as majority support from independents. Independents join Republicans in mostly opposing the other four legislative initiatives tested. Democrats, on the other hand, approve of all five, although to varying degrees. …
Of the five legislative acts, healthcare reform and the economic stimulus package are the most politically divisive. By contrast, financial regulatory reform, as well as aid to automakers and banks, sparks more similar reactions from Republicans and Democrats
Congress’ approval rating has been stalled at or below 20% for most of this year, down from 39% in March 2009 — and recent Gallup polling finds Americans no happier with the Republicans than with the Democrats in Congress. While some of this may be due to unavoidable fallout from the prolonged economic downturn, it may also represent an accumulation of public discontent with the more prominent spending and policy programs Congress has made law. Wall Street regulatory reform stands alone as a major legislative accomplishment that congressional incumbents would be wise to tout as they campaign for re-election this fall.
President Barack Obama honored Academic All-Americans and members of national collegiate championship teams yesterday at the White House.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Pennsylvania.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
Obama then flew to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Air Force One.
At 9:30 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
At 10 AM Pacific, Obama delivers the annual Back-to-School Speech at Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School in Philadelphia, a 2010 National Blue Ribbon School.
At 11 AM Pacific, Obama departs Philadelphia on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 11:40 AM Pacific, Obama lands at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One.
At 11:55 AM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
For his part, remaining behind in Washington, Biden holds a lunch meeting with chiefs of staff to Cabinet members and holds a conference call with governors around the country to discuss implementation of the economic recovery act.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
India is looking askance at China moving thousands of troops into Pakistan in the wake of flooding there, including 2,000 troops in Kashmir near the Indian border.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unsettled six months after national parliamentary elections. There is a government in place, but it does not reflect the election’s outcome. The usual religious and political factionalism stands in the way of resolution.
Iran today released UC Berkeley grad Sarah Shourd, who has been imprisoned for more than a year after she and two fellows Berkeley alums wandered over the border from Iraq. The other two remain in prison.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Japan and South Korea today.
Schwarzenegger took part in a moderated conversation with members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan at Keio Plaza Hotel in Tokyo.
He then met with Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara.
Following that, Schwarzenegger rode a high-speed rail train with Japanese Vice Minister of Transportation Masafumi Syukuri, Railway Bureau Director General Shigeto Kubo, Japan Rail East Vice President Masaki Ogata and U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos.
Schwarzenegger is a great enthusiast of high-speed rail in California.
Following that, he toured JUSCO Shinagawa Seaside Store in Tokyo, then flew to Seoul, South Korea.
Schwarzenegger then met with Gyeonggi Governor Kim Moon-Soo. The two signed a memorandum of understanding to increase cooperation in the areas of technology, education and trade between Gyeonggi Province and California.
In other action, a San Francisco court yesterday blocked a legal move to stop the open primary system authorized by the Schwarzenegger-backed initiative passed in the June primary election.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN: “THE SUMMER MAN” IS CLEARING HIS HEAD.“The Summer Man” is another very fine and very consequential episode of Mad Men. We’re up to June 1965, hence the title of the episode, moving swiftly through time with over a third of the season left. It was just before Thanksgiving 1964 when the season began, and Lyndon Johnson, the assassinated JFK’s vice president, had just been elected president in a landslide. As always, there be spoilers ahead.
Another big campaign is underway, for mayor of New York City, and it deeply affects two of our major characters. But before we get to that, let’s talk about the Summer Man. …From my September 13th essay.
** JERRY BROWN’S OFF TO A ROLLICKING START AGAINST BILLIONAIRE MEG WHITMAN.Jerry Brown finally began his advertising campaign this week in the race to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California and he’s starting off in a good position. As I’ve been saying for the past few months, he’s come through the period from the June primary to Labor Day weekend without billionaire Meg Whitman and her biggest-spending non-presidential campaign in American history getting the 12 to 15-point lead it had planned on. In fact, she doesn’t have any lead at all.
A new poll from CNN shows the race dead even, despite Whitman having spent over $125 million, some three times more than all her opponents — Republican primary rival Steve Poizner and Democratic independent expenditure outfits like California Working Families and Working Californians — combined. (That doesn’t count millions spent on Whitman’s behalf by the shadowy “Small Business Action Committee,” which refuses to divulge its true contributors for this advertising, but shows in other reports that it gets its money from very big business.) As for Brown, he hadn’t spent a dime during his many months of Zen rope-a-dope. Until a few days ago.
Now Whitman is hoping that her latest attack ad — she’s been running them since the beginning of February — doesn’t show that she’s overstayed her welcome on California’s airwaves. She’s hoping voters take seriously an attack leveled over 18 years ago against Jerry Brown by Bill Clinton, then running against Brown in the Democratic presidential primaries. The problem for Whitman is that the election is not next Tuesday.
** GARY HART’S NEW MEMOIR SHOWS THE CONTINUITY IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.Gary Hart has just released a fascinating personal memoir. In The Thunder and the Sunshine: Four Seasons In A Burnished Life, the former U.S. senator and presidential candidate weaves his personal story and observations through the history of the past 40 years.
An accomplished author of more than a dozen books, Hart’s been in a unique position throughout. And in this book, Hart unleashes a slew of intriguing vignettes that bring those decades of modern American history to life.
Reading the book, which is a brisk read at 240 pages or so, I’m struck by the threads of continuity running from 1970 to 2010. Then as now, America was in a state of imperial overstretch, riven by a foolish war and roiled by a divisive politics, fatefully dependent on foreign oil and tethered to an old energy economy that threatens the future of our economy, our environment, and our security.
** 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 $43 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 Bill Clinton and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia hours before Blair was to receive the Liberty Medal from a private group headed by Clinton. Blair has issued his long-awaited, 720-page memoir, which has been widely panned. Blair’s attempts to hold events in the UK around his book have been blocked by protesters angry about his leading role in the invasion of Iraq.
** A LATE SUMMER DUST-UP. An interesting little tempest has ensued about a joke Jerry Brown made yesterday in LA while discussing billionaire Meg Whitman’s thoroughly debunked latest TV attack ad. Whitman’s camp cynically uses footage of Bill Clinton attacking Brown during their heated 1992 presidential race, making charges that have since been shown to be false, relying on an inaccurate news report. Whitman, as I wrote a few days ago, shows every indication of keeping the ad on the air even though it is false. So Brown made a joke about Clinton’s own veracity yesterday. He apologized for it today. Is it a gaffe? Or is it a way to focus more attention on Whitman’s false ad as the deracinated news media cycles the story through and shrugs? Or is it both? I’ll discuss all this tomorrow, along with how this spread through the media. …
** MAD MEN: “THE SUMMER MAN” IS CLEARING HIS HEAD.“The Summer Man” is another very fine and very consequential episode of Mad Men. We’re up to June 1965, hence the title of the episode, moving swiftly through time with over a third of the season left. It was just before Thanksgiving 1964 when the season began, and Lyndon Johnson, the assassinated JFK’s vice president, had just been elected president in a landslide. As always, there be spoilers ahead.
Another big campaign is underway, for mayor of New York City, and it deeply affects two of our major characters. But before we get to that, let’s talk about the Summer Man.
It’s Don Draper, of course. He’s gone through a string of depressing holidays, the winning of a big award, and now the death of his closest friend — Mad Men creator Matt Weiner has seemed determined to showcase Don this season at the times in which he is most likely to get ridiculously drunk — and he’s ready to take stock of his life.
He’s writing in a journal (going more than 250 words at a stretch for the first time in his life, Don having come from a horribly impoverished background where it hardly mattered that he dropped out of high school), cutting way back on the booze, and exercising. And not a moment too soon. …
President Barack Obama joined Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Bob Gates on Saturday at the Pentagon Memorial to the 9/11 attack there.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
A full week ahead in presidential politics and California politics.
On Monday, Obama will meet with his national security team for his regular monthly meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Later he will visit Fairfax, Virginia, where he will meet with a local family at their home before hosting a discussion on the economy with families from the area. In the afternoon, Obama will honor national championship teams and Academic All-American student athletes from across the NCAA with a reception at the White House.
On Tuesday, Obama will deliver his second annual Back-to-School Speech at Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a 2010 National Blue Ribbon School.
On Wednesday, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will attend the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Gala in Washington. Later, Obama will hold a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
On Thursday, Obama will travel to Connecticut to attend events for Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, running for the U.S. Senate against the super-rich wife of the owner of a professional wrestling league, and the Democratic National Committee.
On Friday, Obama will hold meetings at the White House. As always, Obama’s schedule late in the week remains vague, to allow for reaction to events.
On Saturday, the Obamas will attend the Congressional Black Caucus Gala in Washington.
In California politics, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger continues his trade mission to Asia, leading nearly 100 California business executives and several members of his executive staff and Cabinet in China, Japan, and South Korea.
His appointed Lieutenant Governor, Abel Maldonado, is acting governor now and receiving a bonanza of attention for managing the crisis in San Bruno, where a spectacular natural gas explosion killed four people and destroyed and nearly destroyed over 50 homes.
At Maldonado’s direction, the Public Utilities Commission has ordered Pacific Gas & Electric to examine all its natural gas lines around the state. Several residents in San Bruno say they complained to PG&E that they smelled gas in their neighborhood, but the company was slow to follow up.
PG&E spent nearly $50 million on an unsuccessful initiative in the June statewide primary to try to make it harder for local governments to pursue renewable energy projects, but has been faulted repeatedly for failing to respond to customer complaints.
In the race to succeed Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown continues the roll-out of his campaign, with his first TV and radio ads airing around the state.
Billionaire Meg Whitman, who failed to build any lead over the summer despite already breaking all non-presidential campaign spending records in American history, is continuing to air a TV ad attacking Brown which has already been proved to be false. (See my feature linked below for a discussion of this, and the overall race.)
But in what can only be described as poetic justice, the California Teachers Association is up with a tough TV ad attacking Whitman’s vaporous budget plan as a cover for rollbacks in public education. Is it accurate? Well, let’s put it this way; it’s at least as accurate as Whitman’s advertising, which is the Big Lie propaganda technique in action.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Virginia.
Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He then spoke at the Historically Black Colleges and Universities reception in the Grand Foyer.
At 8 AM Pacific, Obama meets with his AfPak national security team in the Situation Room.
At 10:45 AM Pacific, Obama meets with a family in their Fairfax, Virginia home to discuss the economy.
At 11 AM Pacific, Obama holds a discussion on the economy with the family’s neighbors.
At 12:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Defense Secretary Bob Gates in the Oval Office.
At 2:45 PM Pacific, Obama honors Academic All-American college athletes from all sports and championship teams from a variety of sports (i.e., not the football and basketball champions honored separately in the White House) on the South Lawn.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
India is looking askance at China moving thousands of troops into Pakistan in the wake of flooding there, including 2,000 troops in Kashmir near the Indian border.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unsettled six months after national parliamentary elections. There is a government in place, but it does not reflect the election’s outcome. The usual religious and political factionalism stands in the way of resolution.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on his trade mission in China over the weekend.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in China and Japan today.
Schwarzenegger delivered remarks and participated in a one-on-one conversation with Bay Area Council President Jim Wunderman at the Century of the Pacific Breakfast hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and the Bay Area Council.
The time in Shanghai is 15 hours ahead of Pacific Daylight Time.
Then Schwarzenegger oversaw the signing of memorandums of understanding between Yangpu District officials and California companies.
Schwarzenegger then toured and delivered remarks at Zhenhua Port Machinery Company, the world leader in port container cranes. This company is manufacturing the fabricated steel deck and tower for the Self-Anchored Suspension Span of the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge.
Schwarzenegger then flew from Shanghai to Tokyo.
Once in Tokyo, Schwarzenegger proceeded to the Kantei, the prime minister’s official residence, where he met with new Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
In his absence, Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado is making hay while the sun shines.
Schwarzenegger’s appointee is acting governor now. Locked in a close race with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Maldonado is overseeing the aftermath of Thursday night’s natural gas disaster in San Bruno. Many residents are saying they complained of gas smells to Pacific Gas & Electric prior to the catastrophe.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** JERRY BROWN’S OFF TO A ROLLICKING START AGAINST BILLIONAIRE MEG WHITMAN.Jerry Brown finally began his advertising campaign this week in the race to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California and he’s starting off in a good position. As I’ve been saying for the past few months, he’s come through the period from the June primary to Labor Day weekend without billionaire Meg Whitman and her biggest-spending non-presidential campaign in American history getting the 12 to 15-point lead it had planned on. In fact, she doesn’t have any lead at all.
A new poll from CNN shows the race dead even, despite Whitman having spent over $125 million, some three times more than all her opponents — Republican primary rival Steve Poizner and Democratic independent expenditure outfits like California Working Families and Working Californians — combined. (That doesn’t count millions spent on Whitman’s behalf by the shadowy “Small Business Action Committee,” which refuses to divulge its true contributors for this advertising, but shows in other reports that it gets its money from very big business.) As for Brown, he hadn’t spent a dime during his many months of Zen rope-a-dope. Until a few days ago.
Now Whitman is hoping that her latest attack ad — she’s been running them since the beginning of February — doesn’t show that she’s overstayed her welcome on California’s airwaves. She’s hoping voters take seriously an attack leveled over 18 years ago against Jerry Brown by Bill Clinton, then running against Brown in the Democratic presidential primaries. The problem for Whitman is that the election is not next Tuesday.
** GARY HART’S NEW MEMOIR SHOWS THE CONTINUITY IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.Gary Hart has just released a fascinating personal memoir. In The Thunder and the Sunshine: Four Seasons In A Burnished Life, the former U.S. senator and presidential candidate weaves his personal story and observations through the history of the past 40 years.
An accomplished author of more than a dozen books, Hart’s been in a unique position throughout. And in this book, Hart unleashes a slew of intriguing vignettes that bring those decades of modern American history to life.
Reading the book, which is a brisk read at 240 pages or so, I’m struck by the threads of continuity running from 1970 to 2010. Then as now, America was in a state of imperial overstretch, riven by a foolish war and roiled by a divisive politics, fatefully dependent on foreign oil and tethered to an old energy economy that threatens the future of our economy, our environment, and our security.
Gary Hart has had a unique vantage point throughout. …
** MAD MEN: “THE SUITCASE” IS TOUGHER THAN SONNY LISTON.How nice of AMC to run one of the better episodes of Mad Men on Labor Day weekend. (That’s a little joke.) Fortunately, it’s not one of the more mysterious ones. As always, there be spoilers ahead.
The episode is about people taking potential knock-out blows, and how they react. Not all of them bounce back up. And so it’s not hard to figure out, it’s organized around a famous fight, the May 25, 1965 re-match of Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight boxing championship. … From my September 6th essay.
** ENTER THE MOONBEAM. Here comes Jerry Brown. After months of Zen rope-a-dope against billionaire Meg Whitman’s biggest spending non-presidential campaign in American history, Brown is spinning up his campaign to succeed term-limited Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California.
Attorney General Brown made three campaign appearances on Thursday, in Oakland and Los Angeles, and will make a round of appearances over Labor Day weekend. Next week he begins running TV ads, the first of his campaign. Oddly enough, with Whitman’s incessant advertising over the past year, the former two-term governor of California, two-term mayor of gritty Oakland, and two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination will be the fresh presence on the air.
On the eve of all this, Brown was in a pensive mood. In an evening conversation, he told me that he feels ready for the two-month dash to the finish line. “The stage is set,” he said. …From my September 3rd feature.
** MAD MEN MAKES THE ALL-TIME TELEVISION PANTHEON, AND UNSPOOLS ANOTHER FINE EPISODE. … From my September 1st essay.
** 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 $43 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.
9/11 continues to reverberate nine years after the Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, as we see in the recent spate of Islamophobic incidents. The “falling man” image, utilized for a more poetic purpose in the opening credits of Mad Men, Emmy winner for a third straight season as television’s best drama, may be more deeply metaphorical than we initially thought.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He has no scheduled public events.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILES – SUNDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in China.
Today in Shanghai — where the time is 15 hours ahead of Pacific Daylight Time, Schwarzenegger announced California’s bid to host the 2020 World Expo in Silicon Valley. He was joined by leaders of the Bay Area Council in the announcement.
The World Expo, similar to the old World’s Fair, takes place every five years.
Schwarzenegger toured the 2010 World Expo, hosted by Shanghai. He was scheduled to linger in the American, Austrian, and Chinese pavilions. However, knowing Schwarzenegger, I’ve no doubt that he was drawn to additional exhibits on the spur of the moment.
Earlier in the day, Schwarzenegger met with China Ministry of Railways Vice Minister Lu Chunfang. They then traveled on China’s high-speed railway system through Shanghai.
Schwarzenegger also met with leaders of Marvell Semiconductor and toured their facility in the Zhangjiang High-Technology Park in Shanghai.
Last week, Schwarzenegger toured Marvell Semiconductor in Silicon Valley, where he announced a smart growth initiative
Tomorrow, Schwarzenegger and the California trade mission are in China and Japan.
Schwarzenegger will deliver remarks and participate in a one-on-one conversation with Bay Area Council President Jim Wunderman at the Century of the Pacific Breakfast hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and the Bay Area Council.
Then Schwarzenegger will oversee the signing of memorandums of understanding between Yangpu District officials and California companies.
Schwarzenegger will then tour and deliver remarks at Zhenhua Port Machinery Company, the world leader in port container cranes. This company is manufacturing the fabricated steel deck and tower for the Self-Anchored Suspension Span of the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge.
Schwarzenegger then flies from Shanghai to Tokyo.
Once in Tokyo, Schwarzenegger proceeds to the Kantei, the prime minister’s official residence, where he will meet with new Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
Yesterday, Schwarzenegger received a phone call from President Barack Obama to discuss the natural gas disaster in San Bruno that destroyed over 50 homes, claimed the lives and four people, and injured many more.
Here’s the read-out from the White House:
Today, the President called California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to express his condolences for the tragic loss of life in San Bruno and his concern for those still recovering from injuries and picking up the pieces of their lives. While on the call, Governor Schwarzenegger thanked the President for reaching out to Lt. Governor Abel Maldonado and for all of the support he offered. President Obama assured Governor Schwarzenegger that the federal government would provide resources if needed and asked the Governor to stay in touch if he or the people of California need further assistance in their ongoing efforts to recover from this terrible tragedy.
For his part, Maldonado, as acting governor, has asked the U.S. Small Business Administration to declare San Bruno a disaster area and render federal disaster loan assistance.
He also directed the California Public Utilities Commission to assess all natural gas transmission lines in the state, inspect transmission lines in the San Bruno area, and order Pacific Gas & Electric to inspect all its transmission lines around the state and report on their responsiveness to complaints about gas leaks.
A number of San Bruno residents say they reported smelling gas but got no action from PG&E.
** JERRY BROWN’S OFF TO A ROLLICKING START AGAINST BILLIONAIRE MEG WHITMAN.Jerry Brown finally began his advertising campaign this week in the race to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California and he’s starting off in a good position. As I’ve been saying for the past few months, he’s come through the period from the June primary to Labor Day weekend without billionaire Meg Whitman and her biggest-spending non-presidential campaign in American history getting the 12 to 15-point lead it had planned on. In fact, she doesn’t have any lead at all.
A new poll from CNN shows the race dead even, despite Whitman having spent over $125 million, some three times more than all her opponents — Republican primary rival Steve Poizner and Democratic independent expenditure outfits like California Working Families and Working Californians — combined. (That doesn’t count millions spent on Whitman’s behalf by the shadowy “Small Business Action Committee,” which refuses to divulge its true contributors for this advertising, but shows in other reports that it gets its money from very big business.) As for Brown, he hadn’t spent a dime during his many months of Zen rope-a-dope. Until a few days ago.
Now Whitman is hoping that her latest attack ad — she’s been running them since the beginning of February — doesn’t show that she’s overstayed her welcome on California’s airwaves. She’s hoping voters take seriously an attack leveled over 18 years ago against Jerry Brown by Bill Clinton, then running against Brown in the Democratic presidential primaries. The problem for Whitman is that the election is not next Tuesday.
In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama commemorates the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and calls for unity rather than division.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
At 6:30 AM Pacific, Obama delivered remarks at the Pentagon Memorial to 9/11.
At 8:15 AM Pacific, Obama participated in a service project in Washington
Vice President Joe Biden is at the Ground Zero site of the former World Trade Center in New York City.
First Lady Michelle Obama is with former First Lady Laura Bush in a field outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where they visit the Flight 93 crash site.
Al Qaeda operatives hijacked this airliner, a flight from Newark, New Jersey to San Francisco, and are believed to have targeted the White House, Flight 93 crashed when passengers counter-attacked against the Al Qaeda hijackers.
As passengers re-took the plane, the Al Qaeda pilot deliberately crashed it rather than be captured alive. It was the only one of the four hijacked airliners not to reach its target.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
India is looking askance at China moving thousands of troops into Pakistan in the wake of flooding there, including 2,000 troops in Kashmir near the Indian border.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unsettled six months after national parliamentary elections. There is a government in place, but it does not reflect the election’s outcome. The usual religious and political factionalism stands in the way of resolution.
California First Lady Maria Shriver visited victims of the massive natural gas explosion Thursday night in San Bruno, south of San Francisco.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in China today.
Schwarzenegger is on the first leg of his week-long trade mission to Asia, which takes him to China, Japan, and South Korea.
Schwarzenegger today toured the City Life Huashang Store in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
He then delivered remarks and participated in a one-on-one conversation with founder and CEO of Alibaba Group Jack Ma discussing small business and entrepreneurship. Alibaba Group, China’s leading e-commerce company, just established the Schwarzenegger Emerging Entrepreneur Initiative to help 3,000 young Californians develop their own businesses.
After that, Schwarzenegger held a media availability.
These events took place in the Great People’s Hall in Hangzhou.
Tomorrow, Schwarzenegger and the rest of the trade mission are in Shanghai, where the time is 15 hours ahead of the time in California.
Schwarzenegger will ride China’s high-speed rail with People’s Republic of China Ministry of Railways Vice Minister Lu Chunfang and discuss the technology used by China’s high-speed rail system, the largest high-speed rail network in the world.
He will then join the Bay Area Council at the USA pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo to announce a bid to host the 2020 World Expo in California’s Silicon Valley.
Following the announcement, Schwarzenegger will tour the U.S., Austrian, and Chinese pavilions at the World Expo.
Schwarzenegger will the join Marvell Semiconductor co-founders Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai in Shanghai in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang High Technology Park to discuss the company’s leadership in technology and promoting green practices. Last week, Schwarzenegger toured the company’s headquarters in Silicon Valley.
In his absence, Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado is making hay while the sun shines.
Schwarzenegger’s appointee is acting governor now. Locked in a close race with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Maldonado is overseeing the aftermath of Thursday night’s natural gas disaster in San Bruno. Many residents are saying they complained of gas smells to Pacific Gas & Electric prior to the catastrophe.
** GARY HART’S NEW MEMOIR SHOWS THE CONTINUITY IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.Gary Hart has just released a fascinating personal memoir. In The Thunder and the Sunshine: Four Seasons In A Burnished Life, the former U.S. senator and presidential candidate weaves his personal story and observations through the history of the past 40 years.
An accomplished author of more than a dozen books, Hart’s been in a unique position throughout. And in this book, Hart unleashes a slew of intriguing vignettes that bring those decades of modern American history to life.
Reading the book, which is a brisk read at 240 pages or so, I’m struck by the threads of continuity running from 1970 to 2010. Then as now, America was in a state of imperial overstretch, riven by a foolish war and roiled by a divisive politics, fatefully dependent on foreign oil and tethered to an old energy economy that threatens the future of our economy, our environment, and our security.
Gary Hart has had a unique vantage point throughout. …
** MAD MEN: “THE SUITCASE” IS TOUGHER THAN SONNY LISTON.How nice of AMC to run one of the better episodes of Mad Men on Labor Day weekend. (That’s a little joke.) Fortunately, it’s not one of the more mysterious ones. As always, there be spoilers ahead.
The episode is about people taking potential knock-out blows, and how they react. Not all of them bounce back up. And so it’s not hard to figure out, it’s organized around a famous fight, the May 25, 1965 re-match of Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight boxing championship. … From my September 6th essay.
** ENTER THE MOONBEAM. Here comes Jerry Brown. After months of Zen rope-a-dope against billionaire Meg Whitman’s biggest spending non-presidential campaign in American history, Brown is spinning up his campaign to succeed term-limited Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California.
Attorney General Brown made three campaign appearances on Thursday, in Oakland and Los Angeles, and will make a round of appearances over Labor Day weekend. Next week he begins running TV ads, the first of his campaign. Oddly enough, with Whitman’s incessant advertising over the past year, the former two-term governor of California, two-term mayor of gritty Oakland, and two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination will be the fresh presence on the air.
On the eve of all this, Brown was in a pensive mood. In an evening conversation, he told me that he feels ready for the two-month dash to the finish line. “The stage is set,” he said. …From my September 3rd feature.
** MAD MEN MAKES THE ALL-TIME TELEVISION PANTHEON, AND UNSPOOLS ANOTHER FINE EPISODE. … From my September 1st essay.
** 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 $76.45 per barrel. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $42 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 White House news conference this morning, President Barack Obama discussed the alarming rise in Islamophobia on the eve of the ninth anniversary of 9/11.
** NEW FEATURE COMING UP … CALIFORNIA STORY.
** QUICK HITS. A fairly quiet day in politics. … President Barack Obama reiterated his retooled economic program, which I discussed below, in a White House news conference. It looks like he will get a big new program to help small businesses through the Senate, thanks to Republican Senator George Voinovich breaking away from his party’s latest filibuster effort. … Iran backtracked on its promise to swiftly release a UC Berkeley grad jailed for more than a year after wandering across the border from Iraq with two fellow alums. Their judicial process supposedly has to work some more, or something. … Billionaire Meg Whitman is hoping her latest attack ad — she’s been running them since the beginning of February — doesn’t show that she’s overstayed her welcome on California’s airwaves. She’s hoping voters take seriously an attack leveled over 18 years ago against Jerry Brown by Bill Clinton, then running against Brown in the Democratic presidential primaries. The problem for Whitman is that the election is not next Tuesday.
** NEW POLL: LARGE MAJORITY FAVORS ENDING BUSH/CHENEY TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY. A new Gallup Poll shows that 59% favor ending the Bush/Cheney tax cuts for Americans making over $250,000 a year. Only 37% favor extending those tax cuts.
In California, this can’t augur very well for billionaire Republican gubernatorial wannabee Meg Whitman’s plan to eliminate all capital gains taxes, which Jerry Brown denounced yesterday as “a big rip-off.”
A majority of American voters favors letting the tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration expire for the wealthy. While 37% support keeping the tax cuts for all Americans, 44% want them extended only for those making less than $250,000 and 15% think they should expire for all taxpayers.
These results are based on an Aug. 27-30 USA Today/Gallup poll. The fate of the 2001 and 2003 federal income tax cuts that were a centerpiece of Bush administration policy could be a significant campaign issue this fall. The tax cuts are set to expire after this year unless Congress votes to extend them. Congress plans to take up the issue next week when it returns to session.
It appears as though Congress, like the American public, broadly agrees that the tax cuts should be extended for American families earning less than $250,000. The debate Congress will have this fall will be over whether to extend the tax cuts for wealthier Americans. Most Republicans and some Democrats in Congress are thought to favor extending them for wealthier Americans. President Obama said Wednesday that he is opposed to any plan that would extend the tax cuts for wealthier Americans.
The president’s views on ending the tax cuts for wealthy Americans are in line with the views of the majority of rank-and-file Democrats. Meanwhile, the majority of Republicans want the tax cuts extended for all taxpayers, regardless of their income level. Independents’ views fall between those of the two groups, but a majority (56%) would seem to endorse the idea of not extending tax cuts for higher-income Americans, whether or not they want them extended for middle- and lower-income Americans.
With about one in three Americans, including a minority of independents and Democrats, in favor of extending the Bush-era tax cuts for all taxpayers, Democrats may not be putting themselves at great political risk by allowing the tax cuts to expire for wealthy Americans. In fact, the middle ground of extending tax cuts for low- and middle-income Americans but allowing them to expire for wealthy Americans — the Democrats’ most likely proposal — is the specific option the public prefers most.
Gallup has typically found Americans unsympathetic to the argument that upper-income Americans are overtaxed. They generally believe upper-income Americans pay too little in taxes and favor higher taxes on wealthy Americans as a means to fund government programs, such as Social Security.
U.S. Marines recaptured a German cargo ship seized by Somali pirates off the coast of Africa yesterday.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
At 8 AM Pacific, he holds a news conference in the East Room
At 9:30 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
Vice President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden travel to New York City today.
The principal topic of Obama’s news conference, of course, is the economy.
That Florida church planning to burn the Koran to commemorate 9/11, a move that sparked worldwide controversy, has backed off. Its pastor decided to drop the plan after he was called by Defense Secretary Bob Gates.
In some good news for the slowed economic recovery, unemployment claims again dropped in the past week and the trade deficit dipped.
In some additional good news for Obama, retiring Ohio Senator George Voinovich is signaling that he will break ranks with his fellow Republicans and vote to end the filibuster against Obama’s small business stimulus program. This should make passage of the bill possible.
Obama on Wednesday laid out a next phase economic program reiterating his Labor Day call for $50 billion in new infrastructure investment and adding, extending, and expanding upon the research and development tax credit and allowing businesses to write off the full value of new equipment purchases through 2011. This is on top of his already existing proposal to help small businesses.
He also made clear his opposition to extension of the Bush/Cheney tax cuts for the wealthy, while proposing that tax cuts be made permanent for the middle class.
Obama is daring Republicans to demonstrate their obstructionism even by opposing proposals they should support, leaving their ideological opposition founded on tax cuts for the wealthy.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unsettled six months after national parliamentary elections.
There is a government in place, but it does not reflect the election’s outcome. The usual religious and political factionalism stands in the way of resolution.
A natural gas explosion and subsequent fire destroyed over 50 homes last night in San Bruno, a suburb of San Francisco.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in China today.
He has no scheduled public events.
Schwarzenegger has begun the first leg of his week-long trade mission to Asia, which takes him to China, Japan, and South Korea.
Some 40 California companies are participating, sending approximately 80 representatives along on the trip, along with a few members of Schwarzenegger’s executive staff and Cabinet. None of Schwarzenegger’s family members are on the trip.
This is likely the second-to-last major foreign trip of Schwarzenegger’s governorship, with a fall trip to Russia on tap. More on that as it approaches.
In his absence, Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado is making hay while the sun shines.
Schwarzenegger’s appointee is acting governor now. Locked in a close race with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Maldonado is overseeing the aftermath of the natural gas disaster last night in San Bruno.
He is also going to Los Angeles today to sign legislation sending federal stimulus funds to school districts to save the jobs of tens of thousands of teachers and other school personnel.
In the afternoon, he will be in Oakland, appearing with Mayor Ron Dellums to use the executive authority of the Governor’s Office to expedite a development project expected to generate thousands of construction jobs.
Don’t ask me what Newsom is doing, because I don’t know. And it’s not as if I’m not interested.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** GARY HART’S NEW MEMOIR SHOWS THE CONTINUITY IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.Gary Hart has just released a fascinating personal memoir. In The Thunder and the Sunshine: Four Seasons In A Burnished Life, the former U.S. senator and presidential candidate weaves his personal story and observations through the history of the past 40 years.
An accomplished author of more than a dozen books, Hart’s been in a unique position throughout. And in this book, Hart unleashes a slew of intriguing vignettes that bring those decades of modern American history to life.
Reading the book, which is a brisk read at 240 pages or so, I’m struck by the threads of continuity running from 1970 to 2010. Then as now, America was in a state of imperial overstretch, riven by a foolish war and roiled by a divisive politics, fatefully dependent on foreign oil and tethered to an old energy economy that threatens the future of our economy, our environment, and our security.
Gary Hart has had a unique vantage point throughout. …
** MAD MEN: “THE SUITCASE” IS TOUGHER THAN SONNY LISTON.How nice of AMC to run one of the better episodes of Mad Men on Labor Day weekend. (That’s a little joke.) Fortunately, it’s not one of the more mysterious ones. As always, there be spoilers ahead.
The episode is about people taking potential knock-out blows, and how they react. Not all of them bounce back up. And so it’s not hard to figure out, it’s organized around a famous fight, the May 25, 1965 re-match of Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight boxing championship. … From my September 6th essay.
** ENTER THE MOONBEAM. Here comes Jerry Brown. After months of Zen rope-a-dope against billionaire Meg Whitman’s biggest spending non-presidential campaign in American history, Brown is spinning up his campaign to succeed term-limited Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California.
Attorney General Brown made three campaign appearances on Thursday, in Oakland and Los Angeles, and will make a round of appearances over Labor Day weekend. Next week he begins running TV ads, the first of his campaign. Oddly enough, with Whitman’s incessant advertising over the past year, the former two-term governor of California, two-term mayor of gritty Oakland, and two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination will be the fresh presence on the air.
On the eve of all this, Brown was in a pensive mood. In an evening conversation, he told me that he feels ready for the two-month dash to the finish line. “The stage is set,” he said. …From my September 3rd feature.
** MAD MEN MAKES THE ALL-TIME TELEVISION PANTHEON, AND UNSPOOLS ANOTHER FINE EPISODE. … From my September 1st essay.
** 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 $42 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.
Iran said it will free one of three UC Berkeley grads jailed for more than a year on Saturday in a clemency to mark the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Sarah Shourd and two male friends wandered across the border from Iraq and have played the role of political football ever since.
** QUICK HITS. That Florida Christian fundamentalist church taking Islamophobia to new heights with its promise to commemorate 9/11 by burning the Koran has backed off its plans. … President Barack Obama will hold a news conference tomorrow at the White House to discuss the economy and a variety of topics, including Islamophobia. …
** GARY HART’S NEW MEMOIR SHOWS THE CONTINUITY IN CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.Gary Hart has just released a fascinating personal memoir. In The Thunder and the Sunshine: Four Seasons In A Burnished Life, the former U.S. senator and presidential candidate weaves his personal story and observations through the history of the past 40 years.
An accomplished author of more than a dozen books, Hart’s been in a unique position throughout. And in this book, Hart unleashes a slew of intriguing vignettes that bring those decades of modern American history to life.
Reading the book, which is a brisk read at 240 pages or so, I’m struck by the threads of continuity running from 1970 to 2010. Then as now, America was in a state of imperial overstretch, riven by a foolish war and roiled by a divisive politics, fatefully dependent on foreign oil and tethered to an old energy economy that threatens the future of our economy, our environment, and our security.
Gary Hart has had a unique vantage point throughout. …
** CALIFORNIA 2010: JERRY BROWN ADDS NEW RADIO CAMPAIGN AND GETS BIGGEST LAW ENFORCEMENT ENDORSEMENT AS WHITMAN TRIES TO USE A CLINTON CAMPAIGN QUOTE. Having launched a statewide TV ad on Tuesday, his first ad of the campaign, Jerry Brown is launching a statewide radio ad today.
Here’s the script.
Announcer: Never accused of following conventional wisdom, Jerry Brown took on the status quo. As Governor he refused to take a pay raise and vetoed pay raises for state employees – dumped the Governor’s mansion and the limo to save money.
And with Jerry Brown as Governor, California was working. Four billion in tax cuts – 1.9 million jobs created. Jerry Brown has the knowledge and know-how to get California working again.
Jerry Brown: As Governor, I was known for frugality. I thought if people were cutting back, Government should too. Today our state is in serious trouble. We need to make major changes – think differently and govern differently. By making the tough decisions now, we can get California back on track. We have to start living within our means. We need to return power and decision-making to the local level, closer to the people. And no new taxes without voter approval.
Announcer: Jerry Brown. The knowledge and know how to get California working again. Paid for by Brown for Governor 2010
The narrator on the 60-second radio spot, as on the TV ad, is actor Peter Coyote, who chaired the California Arts Council during Attorney General Brown’s first go-round as governor.
Brown also today received the endorsement of the nation’s largest state-level association of law enforcement officers, PORAC, the 62,000 member Peace Officers Research Association of California.
While Brown philosophically opposes the death penalty (which as many readers know, I do not), he has a lengthy background on law enforcement issues, having enacted the “Use a gun, go to prison” law during his first time as governor, increasing the police force and cutting crime as mayor of Oakland, pioneering new uses of DNA technology and executing major gang round-ups as California attorney general, and intervening along with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to stop a statewide initiative to do away with the state’s three-strikes law.
Meanwhile, billionaire Meg Whitman has a new attack ad against Brown. Sensing the need to block Brown from consolidating the Democratic vote — the principle reason why the race is a dead heat — her campaign is using an old Bill Clinton claim during one of their 1992 presidential primary debates that Brown raised taxes as governor.
It’s a clever try, but will fall short in the end.
Incidentally, in the latest example of the dramatic decline of the state press corps, the joint Capitol Weekly/Los Angeles Times web site published this little gem: “Last year, Clinton took the unusual step of endorsing Brown’s then-rival, Gavin Newsom, in the governor’s race.”
In reality, as I’ve mentioned many times, this is a canard.
Clinton was on a national payback tour for dozens of politicians who had helped Hillary Clinton in her campaign. Newsom was a national co-chair.
Clinton did one low-level fundraiser for Newsom in Los Angeles, made a very tepid statement about him, then spent the next three days in San Francisco, where Newsom is mayor, and proceeded to ignore him. Newsom dropped out a few weeks later, as first reported here on NWN.
President Barack Obama laid out his economic agenda yesterday in a speech at Ohio’s Cuyahoga Community College. Better late than never.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 10:30 AM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner in the Oval Office.
A major topic of discussion will be fiscal stimulus for the economy.
In a bit more of good news for the slowed economic recovery, unemployment claims again dropped in the past week and the trade dei dipped.
Obama yesterday laid out a next phase economic program today, reiterating his Labor Day call for $50 billion in new infrastructure investment and adding, extending, and expanding upon the research and development tax credit and allowing businesses to write off the full value of new equipment purchases through 2011. This is on top of his already existing proposal to help small businesses.
He also made clear his opposition to extension of the Bush/Cheney tax cuts for the wealthy, while proposing that tax cuts be made permanent for the middle class.
In essence, Obama is daring Republicans to demonstrate their obstructionism even by opposing proposals they should support. And he is striking a populist stance on the Bush/Cheney tax cuts.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
A joint U.S.-South Korean anti-submarine naval exercise has been delayed due to weather.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unsettled six months after national parliamentary elections.
There is a government in place, but it does not reflect the election’s outcome. The usual religious and political factionalism stands in the way of resolution.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger starts out today on his trade mission to Asia.
UPDATE: Schwarzenegger’s appearance in San Diego, which will be webcast live, is at 10:10 AM.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in San Diego, Los Angeles, Alaska, and China today.
At 9:45 AM, Schwarzenegger signs the Chelsea’s Law anti-sex offender act in San Diego, which further toughens penalties for sex crimes against children and increases prohibitions on parolees.
He then returns to Los Angeles, from which he flies to Anchorage, Alaska, where his Gulfstream jet refuels before flying on to China.
This is the first leg of his week-long trade mission to Asia, which takes him to China, Japan, and South Korea.
Some 40 California companies are participating, sending approximately 80 representatives along on the trip, along with a few members of Schwarzenegger’s executive staff and Cabinet.
None of Schwarzenegger’s family members are going on the trip.
This is likely the second-to-last major foreign trip of Schwarzenegger’s governorship, with a fall trip to Russia on tap.
The state Supreme Court yesterday heard arguments on Schwarzenegger’s right to furlough state employees while the state budget remains unenacted. Its use is a tactic to try to force legislative action on the budget. Schwarzenegger is optimistic about prevailing.
Jerry Brown supported the authority of the governor to furlough state employees in answer to a question on Labor Day.
Incidentally, don’t be surprised if the state budget stall — now the second longest in California history — continues on.
It is probably helping the prospects for passage of Proposition 25, which would change the current two-thirds legislative vote requirement on the budget to a majority vote. (Without doing the same for tax hikes, though it would certainly be a forcing function in that direction.) California is one of only a few states with the two-thirds vote requirement.
Prop 25′s prospects are already pretty good. Which I will discuss another time.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN: “THE SUITCASE” IS TOUGHER THAN SONNY LISTON.How nice of AMC to run one of the better episodes of Mad Men on Labor Day weekend. (That’s a little joke.) Fortunately, it’s not one of the more mysterious ones. As always, there be spoilers ahead.
The episode is about people taking potential knock-out blows, and how they react. Not all of them bounce back up. And so it’s not hard to figure out, it’s organized around a famous fight, the May 25, 1965 re-match of Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight boxing championship. …
From my September 6th essay.
** ENTER THE MOONBEAM. Here comes Jerry Brown. After months of Zen rope-a-dope against billionaire Meg Whitman’s biggest spending non-presidential campaign in American history, Brown is spinning up his campaign to succeed term-limited Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California.
Attorney General Brown made three campaign appearances on Thursday, in Oakland and Los Angeles, and will make a round of appearances over Labor Day weekend. Next week he begins running TV ads, the first of his campaign. Oddly enough, with Whitman’s incessant advertising over the past year, the former two-term governor of California, two-term mayor of gritty Oakland, and two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination will be the fresh presence on the air.
On the eve of all this, Brown was in a pensive mood. In an evening conversation, he told me that he feels ready for the two-month dash to the finish line. “The stage is set,” he said. …From my September 3rd feature.
** MAD MEN MAKES THE ALL-TIME TELEVISION PANTHEON, AND UNSPOOLS ANOTHER FINE EPISODE. … From my September 1st essay.
** 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 $42 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
President Barack Obama, speaking today in Cleveland, strongly defended his opposition to extending tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and delivered a searing attack on Republicans for advocating “the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place.”
** NEW REVIEW COMING UP … GARY HART’S MEMOIR: THE THUNDER AND THE SUNSHINE.
** NEW FEATURE COMING UP … CALIFORNIA STORY.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: POST-LABOR DAY DYNAMICS. As long anticipated here, a new CNN poll has the governor’s race even between billionaire Republican Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown. And Senator Barbara Boxer has a slight edge over ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
Brown, as I’ve been saying for months that he would, has, with a little help from his friends like California Working Families and Working Californians, withstood a massive avalanche of spending and attacks from Whitman’s campaign, which has already broken all spending records for a non-presidential campaign in American history.
Brown is underperforming among Democrats, where younger Dems need more inspirational information about him and moderate Dems need reassurance that he won’t be a spendthrift in a time of grave economic uncertainty.
He also needs to hold his own with independents, who aren’t as liberally oriented as they were a few years ago in happier economic times.
His messaging going into and through the Labor Day weekend, along with the beginning of his positive TV advertising campaign this week, will help in all those areas. His initial ad, which features Brown speaking to camera — unlike the Whitman ads, where that has always been problematic — is workmanlike but seems to work.
Brown today agreed to a third debate and is trying to get Whitman to go for another in Los Angeles. All the debates agreed to so far are north of the Tehachapis.
Brown, of course, is still challenging Whitman to 10 town hall debates up and down the state. Whitman prefers the more staid panel of reporters approach, which makes continuity and follow-up much harder and allows the less fluent candidate to escape extended scrutiny.
As for Boxer, she is not at all popular and represents an unpopular institution in Congress. But she can more than hold her own in any give and take and Fiorina seems insistent on running to the right of the California grain.
And Fiorina, who doesn’t have anywhere near Whitman’s ability to self-fund, also presents a target-rich environment.
** NEW POLL: AN UNDERWHELMING WAVE.A new Gallup Poll indicates that there is at least one thing that voters like less than Congressional Democrats. That’s Congressional Republicans.
Both parties’ ratings are just barely above their historic lows.
Generally speaking, only one voter in three likes what either party is doing in Congress.
Couple this with other polling I’ve seen showing that a strong plurality of voters blames Republicans and the Bush/Cheney Administration for the lingering economic doldrums and the seeds of a message for Democrats are clear.
Americans’ frustration with Congress is directed at both sides of the aisle — with job approval ratings of 33% for the Democrats in Congress and 32% for the Republicans in Congress.
Both parties’ ratings are on the low end of what Gallup has measured since the question was first asked in 1999. The Democratic Party’s current job approval rating is just three points above its low of 30% measured in December 2007. The historical low rating for congressional Republicans is 25% in December 2008.
Since early 2009, approval of the Democrats has generally trended downward, while the Republican approval rating has been mostly flat. This has resulted in a fairly notable situation in which the two parties in Congress currently receive similar ratings.
Over time, Americans have tended to give the Democrats in Congress at least slightly more positive ratings than the Republicans in Congress. This has been the case when the Democrats were in the majority as well as when they were in the minority; thus, being the majority party is not an obvious liability when it comes to these ratings.
The Democrats’ typically higher ratings likely reflect that a larger number of Americans have historically identified as Democrats than as Republicans. People who identify with a party tend to rate that party’s congressional delegation more positively, which is the case in the current poll.
The two parties’ similar job approval ratings are also notable because Republicans have recently been leading when voters are asked which party’s candidate they favor in this fall’s congressional elections (although Gallup’s latest generic ballot suggests this could be changing).
President Barack Obama is in the Midwest again today talking about economic revitalization. Here he is on Labor Day in Milwaukee.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Ohio.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
Biden then met with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.
At 9:20 AM Pacific, Obama departs Andrews Air Force on Air Force One en route to Cleveland, Ohio.
At 10:30 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in Cleveland, Ohio.
At 11:10 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks on the economy at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland.
Obama is laying out a next phase economic program today, reiterating his Labor Day call for $50 billion in new infrastructure investment and adding, extending, and expanding upon the research and development tax credit and allowing businesses to write off the full value of new equipment purchases through 2011.
This is on top of his already existing proposal to help small businesses.
He will also make clear his opposition to extension of the Bush/Cheney tax cuts for the wealthy.
In essence, Obama is daring Republicans to demonstrate their obstructionism even by opposing proposals they should support. And he is striking a populist tone on the Bush/Cheney tax cuts.
At 12:50 PM Pacific, Obama departs Cleveland on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 2 PM Pacific, Obama lands at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One.
At 2:15 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
At 2:20 PM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
For his part, Biden travels to New York this evening for a taping of “The Colbert Report.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today denounced the planned burning of the Koran by Christian fundamentalists in Florida as a supposed commemoration of 9/11 as “disgraceful.”
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
The governance situation in Iraq remains unsettled six months to the day after national parliamentary elections. Biden is working again to get the various factions to coalesce in a national unity government, even as Sunni leaders begin to fragment.
FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, and Sacramento today.
Schwarzenegger will this morning tour Marvell Semiconductor in Santa Clara and receive a briefing regarding their Smart Electronics Initiative.
Following the briefing, Schwarzenegger will hold a press conference regarding his upcoming trade mission to Asia where he will visit the Marvell Semiconductor facility in Shanghai, China.
The state Supreme Court hears arguments today on Schwarzenegger’s right to furlough state employees while the state budget remains unenacted. Schwarzenegger is optimistic about prevailing.
It’s interesting to note that Attorney General and former Governor Jerry Brown said on Labor Day that he furloughed employees as mayor of Oakland.
… THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN. … From my March 2nd column.
** MAD MEN: “THE SUITCASE” IS TOUGHER THAN SONNY LISTON.How nice of AMC to run one of the better episodes of Mad Men on Labor Day weekend. (That’s a little joke.) Fortunately, it’s not one of the more mysterious ones. As always, there be spoilers ahead.
The episode is about people taking potential knock-out blows, and how they react. Not all of them bounce back up. And so it’s not hard to figure out, it’s organized around a famous fight, the May 25, 1965 re-match of Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight boxing championship. …
From my September 6th essay.
** ENTER THE MOONBEAM. Here comes Jerry Brown. After months of Zen rope-a-dope against billionaire Meg Whitman’s biggest spending non-presidential campaign in American history, Brown is spinning up his campaign to succeed term-limited Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California.
Attorney General Brown made three campaign appearances on Thursday, in Oakland and Los Angeles, and will make a round of appearances over Labor Day weekend. Next week he begins running TV ads, the first of his campaign. Oddly enough, with Whitman’s incessant advertising over the past year, the former two-term governor of California, two-term mayor of gritty Oakland, and two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination will be the fresh presence on the air.
On the eve of all this, Brown was in a pensive mood. In an evening conversation, he told me that he feels ready for the two-month dash to the finish line. “The stage is set,” he said. …From my September 3rd feature.
** MAD MEN MAKES THE ALL-TIME TELEVISION PANTHEON, AND UNSPOOLS ANOTHER FINE EPISODE. … From my September 1st essay.
** 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 $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.
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