Working his way around the country in the run-up to the Democratic National Convention, President Barack Obama told workers early Monday in Ohio that Mitt Romney, who wouldn’t reveal his “secret sauce” for job creation in his convention speech, would guide the nation to a “losing season,” insisting that voters should take his opponent’s plan and “punt it away.”
** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … SO WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED WITH CLINT EASTWOOD? (AND THE PERILS OF ARGUING WITH IMAGINARY OBAMAS), CONSIDERING THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (WHICH JUST ROSE TO $1 BILLION) and WHILE ONE CLINTON WOWS AT THE OBAMARAMA, ANOTHER PIVOTS TO THE LONG GAME.
** OBAMA TODAY – MONDAY. President Barack Obama is in Ohio, Louisiana, and Washington, DC.
In the morning, Obama speaks to a rally in Toledo, Ohio.
In the afternoon, Obama tours hurricane damage and delivers remarks in New Orleans, Louisiana.
He then returns to the White House.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES – MONDAY. Governor Jerry Brown is out of state.
He issued the following proclamation for Labor Day:
“When government and business recognize the intrinsic right of workers to organize and bargain collectively, it is possible to maintain an orderly system of industrial relations, avoiding the chaos and bloodshed that often marked labor disputes in the past. The industrial growth that our nation enjoyed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries came at a great human cost. While men, women and children suffered under brutal working conditions, their attempts to improve their situation were often met with violence by employers and the government. In response, many workers became radical or violent themselves, leading to a seemingly unbreakable cycle of destruction and terror.
“There were countless instances of labor actions leading to tragedy during this period. One of the earliest and most infamous of these was the Haymarket Affair of 1886, a bombing and shooting incident during May Day rallies in Chicago that took the lives of seven police officers, four civilians and four anarchists that were hanged for plotting the attack—a sentence whose justness is still debated. In 1894, a nationwide wildcat strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company led to a disproportionate response from the federal government. Twelve thousand United States Army troops were deployed to break the strike, killing 13 workers and wounding dozens more.
“Though unions and craft organizations had begun to hold Labor Day picnics as early as the 1870s, it was not until the aftermath of this tragedy that the observance became an official holiday for all Americans. In that year President Grover Cleveland established the national Labor Day as part of his efforts to heal the nation’s wounds. However, lacking an orderly system to address labor disputes, the country continued to suffer similar events for several decades after this symbolic act of reconciliation. During a textile workers’ strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912, police clubbed women and children attempting to flee the embattled town. In San Francisco, on July 5, 1934, two men participating in a longshoremen’s strike were killed by police gunfire in an incident that came to be known as “Bloody Thursday.”
“The following year, on July 5, 1935, President Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act—also known as the Wagner Act—the foundational law of our modern system of industrial relations. By legitimizing workers’ organizations as political entities and creating a legal framework for the resolution of workplace disputes, the Wagner Act effectively ended the decades of bloodshed and despair that attended our nation’s birth as an industrial giant. Today, disagreements between management and labor are typically worked out at the bargaining table with paper and pens, not in the streets with guns and bombs. For this we can all be thankful.
“This year, as we enjoy traditions ranging from beach outings and barbecues to an annual change in the rules of high fashion, we should remember how much progress has allowed us to celebrate this Labor Day. I urge all Californians to take this opportunity to appreciate not only the vast contribution of labor to our economy, but also the privilege of living under a fair and well-regulated system of industrial relations.”
In his Labor Day weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama discussed his Friday visit to Fort Bliss in Texas to mark the second anniversary of the end of major combat in Iraq and thanks the members and families of the U.S. Armed Forces for the work they have done and are doing.
** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … SO WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED WITH CLINT EASTWOOD? (AND THE PERILS OF ARGUING WITH IMAGINARY OBAMAS), CONSIDERING THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (WHICH JUST ROSE TO $1 BILLION) and WHILE ONE CLINTON WOWS AT THE OBAMARAMA, ANOTHER PIVOTS TO THE LONG GAME.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY AND SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington, Iowa, Colorado, and Ohio.
Obama received the intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He then flew on Air Force One to Des Moines, Iowa.
On Saturday afternoon, Obama deliver remarks at a campaign event at the Living History Farms in Urbandale, Iowa.
Later in the afternoon, Obama will depart Des Moines, Iowa en route Sioux City, Iowa.
While in Sioux City, Obama will deliver remarks at a campaign event at Morningside College.
In the evening, Obama will depart Sioux City, Iowa en route Denver, Colorado.
Obama will remain overnight in Denver.
On Sunday morning, Obama will deliver remarks at a campaign event at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
In the afternoon, Obama will depart Denver, Colorado en route Toledo, Ohio. The departure from Buckley Air Force Base and the arrival at Toledo Express Airport are open press.
The President will remain overnight in Toledo, Ohio.
Obama is prepping for the Democratic National Convention, which starts at the beginning of the week in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Can’t you feel the excitement building?
He’s also monitoring and managing several geopolitical crises.
Iran’s big moment out of the shade of supposed global isolation is drawing to a close along with the annual summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran.
Despite the hopes of many in Israel and the US, top level representatives, in many cases heads of government, from 120 nations gathered in the Iranian capital to discuss the interests of nations not aligned with superpowers or would-be superpowers.
The group originally emerged in the Cold War as an ostensible alternative to the US and NATO alliance and to the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. I say ostensible, as the various superpower/would-be superpower camps did in fact have allies in the NAM mix.
The fact that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other top leaders took part in the Tehran conclave was a plus for Iran.
But what they said and did largely was not.
While the NAM summit voted to back Iran in its drive for peaceful nuclear power — Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke and insisted that Iran has no plans to develop nuclear weapons (remarkable that they are so persistent against such opposition in the post-Fukushima world, isn’t it?) — that’s a largely boiler plate position, in my view.
Ban took Iranian leaders publicly to task for human rights violations at home and for its nuclear program.
Morsi called on all nations to support the uprising in Syria against one of Iran’s few staunch allies, the Assad regime, making it clear that it is part and parcel of the Arab Awakening movement.
Singh announced that India is cutting back on its purchases of Iranian oil, contradicting Iranian hopes.
And the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, issued a report saying that Iran has accelerated its nuclear enrichment program and is cleaning up a disputed site that it has occasionally said it might finally open for inspection.
This has triggered another spike in war talk from Israel.
But the Israeli security leadership is very split on war with Iran. More to follow.
Meanwhile, as her husband preps his Wednesday night nominating speech for President Barack Obama, the president’s once fierce rival is off representing him on the big geopolitical pivot to Asia and the Pacific.
Specifically, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has concluded the first part of a sprawling trip to the even more sprawling region, attending the Pacific islands nations summit in Rarotonga, capital of the Cook Islands.
Clinton brought promises of continued and in some cases, expanded US aid to the Pacific island nations. Including promises of more action on climate change and mitigation aid for nations which some call the charter members of “the League of Drowning Nations.” Which is not an official name, of course.
Clinton said that the South Pacific is “big enough” for both the US and China, which has lately stepped up its efforts to gain sway by providing financial aid and investment in the islands.
China, of course, is not at all on board with the anti-greenhouse gas movement, as one of the biggest obstacles to any sort of global agreement.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Syria, Iraq, AfPak, and the South China Sea.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Persian/Arabian Gulf is ten hours ahead of Pacific time and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time. The time in Manila, on the South China Sea, is fifteen hours ahead of Pacific time.
In remarks to the United Food and Commercial Workers union in Los Angeles, Governor Jerry Brown challenged New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to a fitness contest, consisting of push-ups, pull-ups, and a 3-mile run, saying he has no doubt of the outcome. Christie, in his inimitable fashion, dismissed Brown as “old” during his various comments at the Republican National Convention.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES – SATURDAY AND SUNDAY. Governor Jerry Brown and First Lady/Special Advisor Anne Gust Brown have left the state.
Brown has no scheduled public events.
Before leaving, Brown made this brief statement on the bipartisan passage of an updating of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2004 workers compensation reforms:
“I commend the Legislature for an extraordinary workers’ compensation reform bill that helps injured workers and averts an imminent crisis of skyrocketing rates. Again, Republicans have joined Democrats to work together – perhaps, a portent of good things to come.”
Brown worked with legislators of both parties in a late-developing drive to fend off impending rate hikes for businesses and to increase payments to injured workers.
Both things were accomplished by cutting administrative procedures and costs and economizing on medical costs.
The bill, backed by business and labor interests but opposed by many lawyers and some doctors, passed by overwhelming margins in both houses, 64-4 in the Assembly and 34-4 in the Senate.
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan left Florida Friday morning following the Republican National Convention. “Obama doesn’t remind us of the Greek columns anymore because he promised us he would cut the deficit in half,” Romney intoned on the tarmac.
** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED WITH CLINT EASTWOOD? (AND THE PERILS OF ARGUING WITH IMAGINARY OBAMAS), CONSIDERING THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (WHICH JUST ROSE TO $1 BILLION) and WHILE ONE CLINTON WOWS AT THE OBAMARAMA, ANOTHER PIVOTS TO THE LONG GAME.
** OBAMA TODAY – FRIDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Texas.
After watching the spectacle of Clint Eastwood argue with his non-spectral apparition last night on international television, Obama left the White House early this morning to fly to El Paso, Texas.
At 10:30 AM Pacific, he arrived in El Paso, Texas at an Army air field at the massive Fort Bliss complex.
At 11:15 AM Pacific, Obama took part in a roundtable discussion with service-members and military families at Fort Bliss.
At 12 noon Pacific, Obama delivers remarks to troops at Fort Bliss.
At 1:10 PM Pacific, Obama departs El Paso, Texas on Air Force One en route Joint Base Andrews.
At 4:45 PM Pacific, Obama arrives Joint Base Andrews, where he boards Marine One.
At 5 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
What to say about Thursday night at the Republican National Convention?
Well, we saw pretty much the same Mitt Romney as always. Notably, he had no specifics on his plan to revive the US economy. He promised to create 12 million jobs, a specific number, but didn’t say how that would happen.
So if you don’t have faith that tax cuts and regulatory cuts and ramping up the oil industry gets you 12 million news jobs — and does not further bust the budget — you are left unsatisfied with it all.
But Romney, who was formally introduced by up and coming Florida Senator Marco Rubio, was in large part upstaged by the introducer before Rubio.
That would be Clint Eastwood.
I will have a piece exploring and at least partially explaining this.
The official word from the Romney camp is that Eastwood, who argued, arguably humorously, with an empty chair representing an invisible Barack Obama, was ad libbing.
Team Romney, in this version, turned over the stage to Eastwood and hoped for the best.
Well, if so, and that would be one of the biggest ifs you can find, that would be quite extraordinary, to say the least.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger, then the governor of California — and not a guy who showed up last month at the candidate’s fundraiser in Idaho to reveal his support, as Eastwood supposedly did — spoke to the 2004 Republican National Convention, his speech was gone over and over with a fine tooth comb.
In my own observation and experience, no star, no matter how cool or commanding, is given anything near this high profile a platform and simply trusted to make the magic.
There was no magic last night.
I felt badly for Eastwood, whom I’ve admired since I was a kid. I’ve met him, don’t know him, but certainly know friends of his. This surprised me on a few levels. More to follow
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Syria, Iraq, AfPak, and the South China Sea.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is ten hours ahead of Pacific time and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time. The time in Manila, on the South China Sea, is fifteen hours ahead of Pacific time.
Clint Eastwood argued with an imaginary President Barack Obama during his appearance on the last night of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.
** AFTER THE ROMNEYRAMA, AND MORE SERIOUS MATTERS.This Republican national convention has made one thing very clear. These days, the only practicing moderate Republican politicians are on Mad Men.
I wrote here in June that the Enlightenment, that sustained starburst in political thinking which ushered in the transition from the medieval to the modern and drove the American Revolution, has become a fundamental divide in American politics. And the increasingly insular and anti-science Republican Party is largely on the side of the anti-Enlightenment forces.
Political conventions lost most of their meaning a while back. Now they are mostly just grabs for media attention and excuses to congregate socially and do status self-checks. (And, more positively, network.) Folks get to play a more concentrated form of the political ping pong that is their stock in trade 24/7 and 365. From the outsider’s point of view, conventions don’t do much, but they do signal, often inadvertently, where a party really is. But they also ratchet up the distraction factor in a culture that doesn’t need any more distracting.
For Mitt Romney, the convention provides his latest attempt to re-introduce himself to the American people. But what’s that old ad tag line? “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” It’s not a Don Draper line but it sounds like it ought to be.
Romney running mate Paul Ryan had a big night to work on adjusting his still emerging first impression. 2008 Republican nominee John McCain and former Secretary of State Condi Rice joined in the fun, though his first impression is long past and hers, well, probably doesn’t matter.
Ryan delivered a very spirited run-through of his very conservative agenda. More tax cuts for the rich, less regulation of Wall Street and business in general, privatizing Medicare while insisting he’ll protect it, cutting social spending, beefing up our beefy military, hewing to the fossil fuel path on energy and denigrating renewables, and so on. He didn’t mention his opposition to abortion for rape victims, or the ticket’s super-hawkishness, for those would be too obvious for undecided independents.
Ryan’s politics obviously aren’t much different from Sarah Palin’s. He knows more and is able to avoid the queasy deer-in-the-headlights stuff. He also lacks her pizzazz, though he’s certainly peppy, if more than a little preppy. Ryan’s speech was, er, severely factually challenged, as CBS and quite a few other outlets have pointed out.
A new Gallup Poll survey may, inadvertently and indirectly, sum up the reaction of the country to this presidential race as it delivers an assessment of Ryan.
The big reaction, as it were, is that there is no big reaction.
It’s sort of a collective “meh.”
The country is split on whether it views Ryan positively or negatively, with a quarter having no opinion whatsoever. That means that positive and negative reactions to him, after plenty of exposure since his debut early this month in Norfolk, Virginia, are each below 40 percent.
That’s not very good.
Especially not good for Ryan and Romney is that the negative has climbed much more rapidly than the positive since he was announced as the veep pick on August 11th.
Today’s 38-36 dead heat contrasts with the 25-17 positive assessment when Ryan was announced.
My guess is that Ryan is actually somewhat more negatively viewed than that, as I think that Gallup skews a bit Republican in its polling.
McCain and Rice handled the super-hawk side of things, especially McCain. Naturally, he didn’t talk about Obama getting Osama bin Laden, nor about the sweeping Obama anti-terror program which has resulted in the deaths — by unceasing drone strikes and special ops raids — of thousands of jihadist cadre in several nations.
He also didn’t talk about Obama’s very successful program in Libya, which resulted in a true coalition effort and the overthrow of longtime dictator Moammar Gaddafi. And the election of a non-Islamist government.
He did talk about him not staying the course in Afghanistan, not overthrowing the Iranian government, not doing something quite unclear to change the situation in Syria, not being sufficiently hawkish with Russia and China… You get the gist.
Rice’s message was more measured, although most anyone’s of substance would be. She’s moved more to the right since she was on the advisory board of Senator Gary Hart’s Center for A New Democracy during his Democratic presidential frontrunner days.
But she is much more moderate than most of the folks on display in Tampa. As a black woman, a useful symbol for the GOP, but nothing more, as I’m sure she will never run for public office. And given her deep involvement with the Iraq War — not that she was one of the strongest advocates of it, but she was the national security advisor when the fateful deals went down — her career in public office is probably over.
Would-be First Lady Ann Romney, originally scheduled for Monday night, addressed the conventioneers Tuesday evening as another part of the effort to deal with the GOP’s problem with women, and Romney’s humanization problem. “From my heart about our hearts,” she discussed what a great guy who came from very little Mitt Romney really is. Except, it didn’t happen that way. Never mind.
Then New Jersey Governor Chris Christie delivered the convention keynote address.
Christie, normally a big gust of wind to rival any hurricane, fell flat. Christie, who is, to be sure, more than twice the man Governor Jerry Brown (whom Christie cleverly insulted as “old”) is, insisted that “we have to fundamentally reduce the size” of the federal government.
He was humorless in text and delivery, unpleasant in aspect, boiler plate in his rote Republican appeal, and remarkably self-absorbed, mentioning himself far more often than Romney. To put it briefly, as is richly deserved, he was boring.
A Gallup Poll survey as the convention got underway had some unwelcome news for the new Romney/Ryan ticket. The expectation of a victory by Obama is overwhelming, 58-36 over Romney. In May, it was 56-36.
The needle has moved only slightly with all the sturm und drang, and not in the right direction for the conservative challenger and his would-be Robin.
Gallup consistently has the race closer than I believe it is, not incidentally.
The funny thing about polls regarding the likely victor is that the candidate viewed as the likely victory usually wins.
In fact, the candidate expected to win actually did win the last four presidential elections.
Notably, Democrats are more optimistic about Obama’s prospects than Republican are about Romney’s, with 80 percent of Dems saying Obama will win to only 60 percent of Republicans saying that Romney will win.
Meanwhile, Obama is prepping for the the Democratic National Convention next week in Charlotte, North Carolina, and managing some geopolitical crises.
While he works with former President Bill Clinton on his one-time opponent’s nominating speech, he dispatches Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on another lengthy geopolitical Pivot tour, again to the Asia Pacific region. (See my articles on the emerging US geopolitical pivot from over-engagement with the Islamic world to increased engagement with Asia and the Pacific here.) …
Governor Jerry Brown shot some hoops with the kids at Ramona Elementary School in the LA area city of Hawthorne while campaigning for the Proposition 30 revenue initiative.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES – FRIDAY. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events.
On Thursday morning he appeared at a school in Los Angeles promoting the Proposition 30 revenue initiative. At a public elementary school in Hawthorne, which is also the home to SpaceX, Brown met with parents, teachers, and children, then appeared with various education figures all emphasizing the need to pass the initiative to avert disaster.
Brown also shot a few hoops with the kids, as you see above.
California’s landmark climate change program ran a test version of its cap and trade program on Thursday, with the Air Resources Board monitoring for glitches and potentials for gaming.
Brown awaits the last rush of bills on Friday, including a possible updating of the 2004 workers compensation reform package.
He will, as I reported a few days ago, go through hundreds of bills next week rather than attend the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
** 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.
Last November, the USC Trojans football team, beset for two years by NCAA sanctions, upset the #4 nationally rated Oregon Ducks in Eugene, 38-35, to mark a sudden resurgence. Now USC, loaded on offense, led by Heisman Trophy favorite Matt Barkley, who returned to school rather than take first round draft choice riches in the NFL, is ranked #1 in several national polls as the college football season gets underway.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in major military operations in the region, and the Arab awakening underway, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. 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.
** 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 from the Russia Today channel. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the state-run 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 $96.47 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $62 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down about $18 per barrel from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.
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News media fact checkers are finding Congressman Paul Ryan’s big Wednesday night speech to be very, er, factually challenged.
** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … AFTER THE ROMNEYRAMA, AND MORE SERIOUS MATTERS and WHILE ONE CLINTON WOWS AT THE OBAMARAMA, ANOTHER PIVOTS TO THE LONG GAME.
** QUICK HITS. The California legislature continues working through its legislative hopper, with the session over for the year at midnight Friday night. (Or thereabouts.) Will there be anything especially new on workers compensation? … Reaction to the public pension reform compromise plan is moderately favorable, with most not simply pro or anti-union calling it a good set of beginning steps, but only that. The trick in dealing with any overhang of unfunded obligations to current employees is that the courts have viewed them as sacrosanct. Absent new case law, or an initiative, which has not emerged, that overhang can’t be addressed. …
** ROMNEY CONVENTION SPEECH EXCERPTS (STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS BEFORE):
Four years ago, I know that many Americans felt a fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president. That president was not the choice of our party but Americans always come together after elections. We are a good and generous people who are united by so much more than divides us.
When that hard fought election was over, when the yard signs came down and the television commercials finally came off the air, Americans were eager to go back to work, to live our lives the way Americans always have – optimistic and positive and confident in the future.
That very optimism is uniquely American.
It is what brought us to America. We are a nation of immigrants. We are the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the ones who wanted a better life, the driven ones, the ones who woke up at night hearing that voice telling them that life in that place called America could be better.
They came not just in pursuit of the riches of this world but for the richness of this life.
***
Every family in America wanted this to be a time when they could get ahead a little more, put aside a little more for college, do more for their elderly mom who’s living alone now or give a little more to their church or charity.
Every small business wanted these to be their best years ever, when they could hire more, do more for those who had stuck with them through the hard times, open a new store or sponsor that Little League team.
Every new college graduate thought they’d have a good job by now, a place of their own, and that they could start paying back some of their loans and build for the future.
This is when our nation was supposed to start paying down the national debt and rolling back those massive deficits.
This was the hope and change America voted for.
***
I wish President Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed. But his promises gave way to disappointment and division. This isn’t something we have to accept. Now is the moment when we CAN do something. With your help we will do something.
Now is the moment when we can stand up and say, “I’m an American. I make my destiny. And we deserve better! My children deserve better! My family deserves better. My country deserves better!”
So here we stand. Americans have a choice. A decision.
To make that choice, you need to know more about me and about where I will lead our country.
***
My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all – the gift of unconditional love. They cared deeply about who we would BE, and much less about what we would DO.
Unconditional love is a gift that Ann and I have tried to pass on to our sons and now to our grandchildren. All the laws and legislation in the world will never heal this world like the loving hearts and arms of mothers and fathers. If every child could drift to sleep feeling wrapped in the love of their family – and God’s love– this world would be a far more gentle and better place.
***
My mom and dad were true partners, a life lesson that shaped me by everyday example. When my mom ran for the Senate, my dad was there for her every step of the way. I can still hear her saying in her beautiful voice, “Why should women have any less say than men, about the great decisions facing our nation?”
I wish she could have been here at the convention and heard leaders like Governor Mary Fallin, Governor Nikki Haley, Governor Susana Martinez, Senator Kelly Ayotte and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
As Governor of Massachusetts, I chose a woman Lt. Governor, a woman chief of staff, half of my cabinet and senior officials were women, and in business, I mentored and supported great women leaders who went on to run great companies.
***
Like a lot of families in a new place with no family, we found kinship with a wide circle of friends through our church. When we were new to the community it was welcoming and as the years went by, it was a joy to help others who had just moved to town or just joined our church. We had remarkably vibrant and diverse congregations of all walks of life and many who were new to America. We prayed together, our kids played together and we always stood ready to help each other out in different ways.
And that’s how it is in America. We look to our communities, our faiths, our families for our joy, our support, in good times and bad. It is both how we live our lives and why we live our lives. The strength and power and goodness of America has always been based on the strength and power and goodness of our communities, our families, our faiths.
***
When I was 37, I helped start a small company. My partners and I had been working for a company that was in the business of helping other businesses.
So some of us had this idea that if we really believed our advice was helping companies, we should invest in companies. We should bet on ourselves and on our advice.
***
That business we started with 10 people has now grown into a great American success story. Some of the companies we helped start are names you know. An office supply company called Staples – where I’m pleased to see the Obama campaign has been shopping; The Sports Authority, which became a favorite of my sons. We started an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly praised. At a time when nobody thought we’d ever see a new steel mill built in America, we took a chance and built one in a corn field in Indiana. Today Steel Dynamics is one of the largest steel producers in the United States.
***
But for too many Americans, these good days are harder to come by. How many days have you woken up feeling that something really special was happening in America?
Many of you felt that way on Election Day four years ago. Hope and Change had a powerful appeal. But tonight I’d ask a simple question: If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn’t you feel that way now that he’s President Obama? You know there’s something wrong with the kind of job he’s done as president when the best feeling you had, was the day you voted for him.
***
Today the time has come for us to put the disappointments of the last four years behind us.
To put aside the divisiveness and the recriminations.
To forget about what might have been and to look ahead to what can be.
Now is the time to restore the Promise of America. Many Americans have given up on this president but they haven’t ever thought about giving up. Not on themselves. Not on each other. And not on America.
What is needed in our country today is not complicated or profound. It doesn’t take a special government commission to tell us what America needs.
What America needs is jobs.
Lots of jobs.
***
To the majority of Americans who now believe that the future will not be better than the past, I can guarantee you this: if Barack Obama is re-elected, you will be right.
I am running for president to help create a better future. A future where everyone who wants a job can find one. Where no senior fears for the security of their retirement. An America where every parent knows that their child will get an education that leads them to a good job and a bright horizon.
And unlike the president, I have a plan to create 12 million new jobs. It has 5 steps.
First, by 2020, North America will be energy independent by taking full advantage of our oil and coal and gas and nuclear and renewables.
Second, we will give our fellow citizens the skills they need for the jobs of today and the careers of tomorrow. When it comes to the school your child will attend, every parent should have a choice, and every child should have a chance.
Third, we will make trade work for America by forging new trade agreements. And when nations cheat in trade, there will be unmistakable consequences.
Fourth, to assure every entrepreneur and every job creator that their investments in America will not vanish as have those in Greece, we will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget.
And fifth, we will champion SMALL businesses, America’s engine of job growth. That means reducing taxes on business, not raising them. It means simplifying and modernizing the regulations that hurt small business the most. And it means that we must rein in the skyrocketing cost of healthcare by repealing and replacing Obamacare.
***
President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. MY promise…is to help you and your family.
***
We will honor America’s democratic ideals because a free world is a more peaceful world. This is the bipartisan foreign policy legacy of Truman, and Reagan. And under my presidency we will return to it once again.
***
The America we all know has been a story of the many becoming one, uniting to preserve liberty, uniting to build the greatest economy in the world, uniting to save the world from unspeakable darkness.
Everywhere I go in America, there are monuments that list those who have given their lives for America. There is no mention of their race, their party affiliation, or what they did for a living. They lived and died under a single flag, fighting for a single purpose. They pledged allegiance to the UNITED States of America.
That America, that united America, can unleash an economy that will put Americans back to work, that will once again lead the world with innovation and productivity, and that will restore every father and mother’s confidence that their children’s future is brighter even than the past.
That America, that united America, will preserve a military that is so strong, no nation would ever dare to test it.
That America, that united America, will uphold the constellation of rights that were endowed by our Creator, and codified in our constitution.
That united America will care for the poor and the sick, will honor and respect the elderly, and will give a helping hand to those in need.
That America is the best within each of us. That America we want for our children.
If I am elected President of these United States, I will work with all my energy and soul to restore that America, to lift our eyes to a better future. That future is our destiny. That future is out there. It is waiting for us. Our children deserve it, our nation depends upon it, the peace and freedom of the world require it. And with your help we will deliver it. Let us begin that future together tonight.
** NEW SURVEY: REPUBLICANS LESS LIKELY THAN DEMS OR INDIES TO STRUGGLE WITH NECESSITIES. It certainly stands to reason, but a new Gallup Poll survey delineates what you can already tell from the party’s policy stances.
Democrats and independents are far more prone than Republicans to struggling with basic necessities like food, shelter, and medical and dental care.
Only a party whose members have largely gone beyond any worry about basic necessities can afford to entertain Ayn Rand ideological musings.
Amusingly, the Gallup Poll analysts struggle with their explanation for what the findings mean:
There appears, however, to be more than just demographic differences that divide the three partisan groups in terms of their access to necessities. Even when controlling for income and other demographic factors, Republicans still maintain an advantage over Democrats and independents, possibly suggesting a more robust social support infrastructure of family and friends.
Still, the direction of the relationship between party identification and access to basics isn’t clear. It is possible, for example, that the noted relationship between a Republican political identity and basic access could go in the other direction — that people who have ascertained a lifestyle that ensures them of meeting their basic needs are more likely to identify with the ideological and political orientation of the Republican Party.
Congressman Paul Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee, wowed the Republican National Convention last night as he complained about the Obama Administration blaming the nation’s problems on the Bush/Cheney Administration. 1936 Republican vice presidential nominee Frank Knox did the same thing.
** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … AFTER THE ROMNEYRAMA, WHY THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN IS DISAPPOINTING, AND MORE SERIOUS MATTERS and WHILE ONE CLINTON WOWS AT THE OBAMARAMA, ANOTHER PIVOTS TO THE LONG GAME.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
He and Vice President Joe Biden have received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
At 10 AM Pacific, Obama and Biden have lunch in the Private Dining Room.
While it’s Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney now, thanks to a quick Tuesday vote at the hurricane-shortened GOP confab in Tampa, tonight is his big night, long anticipated.
The corporate takeover artist-turned-one-term Massachusetts governor delivers his acceptance speech tonight.
Last night was his running mate Paul Ryan’s night, along with 2008 Republican nominee John McCain and former Secretary of State Condi Rice.
Ryan delivered a very spirited run-through of his very conservative agenda. More tax cuts for the rich, less regulation of Wall Street and business in general, privatizing Medicare while insisting he’ll protect it, cutting social spending, beefing up our beefy military, hewing to the fossil fuel path on energy and denigrating renewables, and so on. He didn’t mention his opposition to abortion for rape victims, or the ticket’s super-hawkishness, for those would be too obvious for undecided independents.
Ryan’s politics obviously aren’t much different from Sarah Palin’s. He knows more and is able to avoid the obvious deer-in-the-headlights stuff. He also lacks her pizzazz, though he’s certainly peppy, if more than a little preppy. Ryan was also quite, er, factually challenged, but there are plenty of folks weighing in on that.
McCain and Rice handled the super-hawk side of things, especially McCain. Naturally, he didn’t talk about Obama getting Osama bin Laden, nor about the sweeping Obama anti-terror program which has resulted in the deaths — by unceasing drone strikes and special ops raids — of thousands of jihadist cadre in several nations.
He also didn’t talk about Obama’s very successful program in Libya, which resulted in a true coalition effort and the overthrow of longtime dictator Moammar Gaddafi. And the election of a non-Islamist government.
He did talk about him not staying the course in Afghanistan, not overthrowing the Iranian government, not doing something quite unclear to change the situation in Syria, not being sufficiently hawkish with Russia and China … You get the gist.
Rice’s message was more measured, although most anyone’s of substance would be. She’s moved more to the right since she was on the advisory board of Senator Gary Hart’s Center for A New Democracy during his presidential frontrunner days.
But she is much more moderate than most of the folks on display in Tampa. A useful symbol for the GOP, but nothing more, as she will never run for public office. And given her deep involvement with the Iraq War — not that she was a strong advocate of it, but she was national security advisor when the fateful deals went down — her career in public office is probably over.
Meanwhile, Obama is preparing for the the Democratic National Convention next week in Charlotte, North Carolina, and managing some geopolitical crises.
While he works with former President Bill Clinton on his one-time opponent’s nominating speech, he dispatches Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on another lengthy geopolitical Pivot tour, again to the Asia Pacific region.
Clinton was to have met with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard at a Pacific island nations summit in the capital of the Cook Islands, but Gillard is staying at home to deal with the death of five Australian soldiers yesterday in Afghanistan. It’s the bloodiest day for the Oz military since the Vietnam War.
Most were killed in the latest example of “green on blue” violence by an Afghan military colleague.
Australia is a key partner in the Pivot, with US forces increasingly integrating at the base in Darwin.
Gillard says that yesterday’s tragedies won’t hasten Australia’s departure from Afghanistan, but that may be wishful thinking, as the deployment is very unpopular. Longtime US ally New Zealand is already rushing for the exits.
The news is rather better elsewhere, especially in Tehran.
Iran is hosting the 120 nations in the Non-Aligned Movement, with the summit beginning today.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, the USC-educated Muslim Brotherhood leader who won the first democratic presidential election in the lynchpin Arab power since the overthrow of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak, today denounced the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Addressing the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran, capital of one of the Assad regime’s few remaining allies, Morsi reminded the assembled heads of government and ministers that the Syrian uprising is part of the Arab Awakening. This prompted an angry walkout by Syria’s foreign minister and the rest of the Syrian delegation, and angry murmurs from Morsi’s Iranian hosts.
New Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi laced into Iran’s ally Syria for its ongoing violent suppression of pro-democracy protesters in his speech to the summit. That prompted an angry Syrian walkout and displeasure from Iranian leaders.
And UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon took Iran to task for its human rights violations and for its support of the Assad regime in Syria, as well as its foot-dragging in allowing UN inspectors in to its nuclear facilities.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Syria, Iraq, AfPak, and the South China Sea.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is ten hours ahead of Pacific time and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time. The time in Manila, on the South China Sea, is fifteen hours ahead of Pacific time.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Southern California and Northern California.
This morning he appears at a school in Los Angeles promoting the Proposition 30 revenue initiative. Brown will be at a public elementary school in Hawthorne, which is also the home to SpaceX.
California’s landmark climate change program will run a test version of its cap and trade program on Thursday, with the Air Resources Board monitoring for glitches and potentials for gaming.
A bill to place a privately-funded statue of Ronald Reagan inside the California State Capitol has passed both houses of the legislature and gone to Governor Jerry Brown. A Reagan statue? Sure, why not? I like Reagan. He did some very good things as president (along with not very good). And he was a very interesting governor, who in the present day would probably be run out of the far right state GOP.
It should make for some interesting commentary opportunities going forward, and an amusing way to see if far right wingers actually understand their putative hero.
In another sign of the impact of the great global recession and subsequent budget cuts, California’s community college enrollment is down 17% from what it was in the 2008-2009 school year.
Brown, not surprisingly, will not be attending next week’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
He’s never been much of a scene maker and, in any event, it’s not his show.
** 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 AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in major military operations in the region, and the Arab awakening underway, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. 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.
** 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 from the Russia Today channel. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the state-run 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 is trading around $94 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $60 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down about $20 per barrel from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
While the usual hot air, accompanied by complaints about how bad the campaign is, as if that is a new thing, emanates in American politics, the real effects of hot air are being seen in the Arctic Sea, where we now have the lowest extent of sea ice in history.
** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … AFTER THE ROMNEYRAMA, WHY THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN IS DISAPPOINTING, AND MORE SERIOUS MATTERS and WHILE ONE CLINTON WOWS AT THE OBAMARAMA, ANOTHER PIVOTS TO THE LONG GAME.
** QUICK HITS.California’s landmark climate change program will run a test version of its cap and trade program on Thursday, with the Air Resources Board monitoring for glitches. … A bill to place a privately-funded statue of Ronald Reagan inside the California State Capitol has passed both houses of the legislature and gone to Governor Jerry Brown. A Reagan statue? Sure, why not? I like Reagan. He did some very good things as president (along with not very good). And he was a very interesting governor, who in the present day would probably be run out of the far right state GOP. … In another sign of the impact of the great global recession and subsequent budget cuts, California’s community college enrollment is down 17% from what it was in the 2008-2009 school year.
** NEW POLL: ON EVE OF HIS NATIONAL CONVENTION DEBUT, PAUL RYAN GETS A COLLECTIVE SHRUG. A new Gallup Poll survey may, inadvertently and indirectly, sum up the reaction of the country to this presidential race as it delivers an assessment of Congressman Paul Ryan, tapped by Mitt Romney to bring excitement and pizzazz to his ticket as a would-be vice president.
The big reaction, as it were, is that there is no big reaction.
It’s sort of a collective “meh.”
The country is split on whether it views Ryan positively or negatively, with a quarter having no opinion whatsoever. That means that positive and negative reactions to him, after plenty of exposure since his debut early this month in Norfolk, Virginia, are each below 40%.
That’s not very good.
Especially not good for Ryan and Romney is that the negative has climbed much more rapidly than the positive since he was announced as the veep pick on August 11th. (Which I think of more as the day of the 4×100 meter relay final in the Olympics.)
Today’s 38-36 dead heat contrasts with the 25-17 positive assessment when Ryan was announced.
My guess is that Ryan is actually somewhat more negatively viewed than that, as I think that Gallup skews a bit Republican in its polling.
Ryan takes the big stage tonight in Tampa.
Americans have mixed views of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, who will be confirmed as the GOP’s vice presidential nominee on Wednesday night, with 38% saying their opinion is favorable, and 36% saying it is unfavorable. About a quarter of Americans say they have never heard of Ryan or don’t know enough about him to have an opinion. …
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie fizzled last night as the keynote speaker of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. Christie, who is, to be sure, more than twice the man Governor Jerry Brown is, insisted that “we have to fundamentally reduce the size” of the federal government.
NOTE: New West Notes was offline this morning due to a server problem. Sorry for any inconvenience.
** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … AFTER THE ROMNEYRAMA, WHY THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN IS DISAPPOINTING, AND MORE SERIOUS MATTERS and WHILE ONE CLINTON WOWS AT THE OBAMARAMA, ANOTHER PIVOTS TO THE LONG GAME.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Colorado, Virginia, and Washington, DC.
Obama flew this morning on Air Force One from Fort Collins, Colorado to Charlottesville, Virginia.
At 12:30 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event at nTelos Wireless Pavilion in Charlottesville,, Virginia.
At 3:25 PM Pacific, Obama departs Charlottesville, Virginia on Air Force One en route Joint Base Andrews.
At 4:10 PM Pacific, Obama arrives Joint Base Andrews, where he boards Marine One.
At 4:25 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
It’s Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney now, thanks to a quick Tuesday vote at the hurricane-shortened GOP confab in Tampa.
Would-be First Lady Ann Romney, originally scheduled for Monday night, address the conventioneers Tuesday evening, “from my heart about our hearts,” discussing what a great guy who came from very little Mitt Romney really is.
Then New Jersey Governor Chris Christie delivered the convention keynote address.
Christie, normally a big gust of wind to rival any hurricane, fell rather flat.
He was humorless in text and delivery, unpleasant in aspect, boiler plate in his rote Republican appeal, and remarkably self-absorbed, mentioning himself far more often than Romney.
Elsewhere,some big things of consequence are happening.
Iran is hosting the 120 nations in the Non-Aligned Movement, with the NAM summit officially beginning on Thursday.
Spurred by the Cold War, led by nations who, at least ostensibly, didn’t want to be affiliated with either the Free World or the Communist bloc, the NAM has struggled for a post-Cold War role.
As chance would have it, Iran was previously scheduled to host the group this year in Tehran. And everyone is coming who was coming otherwise, despite efforts by Israel and the US to dissuade UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and some other leading figures.
We’ll know for sure which major heads of state are coming tomorrow, but Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whom Obama hosted at his first ever State Dinner in 2009 — naturally overshadowed by the media fixation on the reality show contestant gate-crashers — as a beginning move in his geopolitical pivot to Asia and the Pacific, will be on hand.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is dealing with a deteriorating security situation, marked by increasing attacks by Afghan soldiers and police on their US colleagues, by replacing Afghanistan’s defense minister and interior minister.
Iran is preparing to host the summit of non-aligned states. The two-day meeting begins on Thursday. The US and Israel have criticized the UN secretary-general’s attendance.
And, while former President Bill Clinton preps next week’s Democratic National Convention nominating speech for Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is prepping for another big trip across the sprawling Asia Pacific region next week which will take her to at least six nations, starting with the Cook Islands, and including China and Russia.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Syria, Iraq, AfPak, and the South China Sea.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is ten hours ahead of Pacific time and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time. The time in Manila, on the South China Sea, is fifteen hours ahead of Pacific time.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Sacramento.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
Brown, incidentally, will not be attending next week’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
He has his hands full presently with the end of legislative session rush.
His compromise public pension reform bill, finally worked out with Democratic legislative leaders, drew fire yesterday from conservative critics and public employee union redhots. That probably works for Brown, as the public is more muddled on the issue than many reformers like to think it is. If it wasn’t, there would be an initiative.
The inability of public pension reformers to get an initiative off the ground made Brown’s task all the harder, as I may have mentioned to them a while back.
** 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 AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in major military operations in the region, and the Arab awakening underway, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. 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.
** 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 from the Russia Today channel. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the state-run 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 is trading around $95 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $61 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down about $19 per barrel from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is a leading figure in the on-site Democratic counter to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. He described the Republican platform as one not for 2012, but 1812. Villaraigosa, who will chair the Democratic National Convention next week in Charlotte, North Carolina, says Republican efforts to use Latino speakers to win over Latino voters won’t work.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … AFTER THE ROMNEYRAMA, WHY THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN IS DISAPPOINTING, AND MORE SERIOUS MATTERS.
** QUICK HITS.That’s Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney now, thanks to a quick Tuesday vote at the hurricane-shortened GOP confab in Tampa. Would-be First Lady Ann Romney speaks, according to advance text, “from my heart about our hearts.” Sans Olympic gold medal, sadly, as her horse finished back in the pack in the London dressage competition. … Governor Jerry Brown’s compromise public pension reform bill, finally worked out with Democratic legislative leaders, drew fire today from conservative critics and public employee union redhots. That probably works for Brown, as the public is more muddled on the issue than many reformers like to think it is. If it wasn’t, there would be an initiative. … The inability of public pension reformers to get an initiative off the ground made Brown’s task all the harder, as I may have mentioned to them a while back. …
** NEW POLL: AS REPUBLICAN CONVENTION BELATEDLY BEGINS, MOST EXPECT AN OBAMA VICTORY. A new Gallup Poll survey has some unwelcome news for the new Romney/Ryan ticket. As the hurricane-shortened Republican National Convention gets underway in Tampa, Florida, the expectation of a victory by President Barack Obama is overwhelming in a new Gallup Poll.
The expectation of an Obama victory is 58-36 over Romney.
In May, it was 56-36.
The needle has moved only slightly with all the sturm und drang, and not in the right direction for the conservative challenger and his would-be Robin.
Gallup consistently has the race closer than I believe it is, not incidentally.
The funny thing about polls regarding the likely victor is that the candidate viewed as the likely victory usually wins.
In fact, the candidate expected to win actually did win the last four presidential elections.
Notably, Democrats are more optimistic about Obama’s prospects than Republican are about Romney’s, with 80% of Dems saying Obama will win to only 60% of Republicans saying that Romney will win.
(Naturally, I hear disproportionately from neurotic Democrats and arrogant Republicans.)
Most Americans believe President Obama will win the presidential election this fall, even though the race has been highly competitive for most of the year. Americans’ expectation that Obama will win has been remarkably consistent, virtually unchanged since May despite three intervening months of campaigning. …
Presumptive nominees Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan arrived earlier today in Tampa, Florida for the hurricane-shortened Republican National Convention.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … AFTER THE ROMNEYRAMA, AND MORE SERIOUS MATTERS.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington, Iowa, and Colorado.
Early this morning, Obama delivered a statement on Tropical Storm Isaac (which has just been upgraded to a hurricane) from the Diplomatic Room, urging residents in the path of the incipient hurricane not to delay in evacuating.
He then flew on Air Force One to Des Moines, Iowa.
At 11:05 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event at Iowa State University.
At 1:40 PM Pacific, Obama departs Des Moines on Air Force One en route Fort Collins, Colorado.
At 3:10 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in Fort Collins, Colorado.
At 4:30 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event at Colorado State University.
Vice President Joe Biden, who was to have been on hand in Tampa for the Republican convention, cancelled over the weekend due to the extreme weather situation.
Day One of the convention was cancelled, too, making today’s Day Two something of a mish-mash of Ann Romney’s prime time introduction to America and “We Built It Day.”
In the latter theme, the Romney/Ryan team doubles down on its gross distortion of Obama’s remarks to the effect that entrepreneurs benefit greatly from a public infrastructure which they did not build.
But various top hands for the O Team are around, and pushing back hard on the “We Built It” canard.
Meanwhile, while these rather childish antics ensue, some big things of consequence are happening elsewhere.
Iran is hosting the 120 nations in the Non-Aligned Movement, spurred by the Cold War, led by nations who, at least ostensibly, didn’t want to be affiliated with either the Free World or the Communist bloc.
It’s Iran’s turn, by sheer chance, but it doesn’t look like anyone is staying away. So much for Iran becoming totally isolated in the world.
Iran had brandished opening a secret nuclear site to inspection by the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, but has apparently backed away, once again.
The drumbeat for war continues in the Israeli press, as does the fighting in Syria.
As this multi-faceted Gulf crisis plays out, some new developments in Afghanistan are unlikely to make things any better.
US Central Command leaders have decided on administrative only punishments for US soldiers and Marines who took part in two incidents earlier this year which resulted in major demonstrations across Afghanistan. Dozens were killed as backlash swept the country.
30,000 American troops sent into Afghanistan to bolster the US effort there are due to be withdrawn by the end of the month. But the Obama administration has not specified what the US commitment will be moving forward and the situation is increasingly tenuous, with increasing numbers of “green on blue” attacks by Afghan troops on their American colleagues.
In one incident, troops at Bagram Air Base burned copies of the Koran confiscated from accused Taliban prisoners. About 100 copies of the Islamic holy scripture and other religious documents were destroyed in the incident.
In the other incident, Marines promulgated a video showing them urinating on the corpses of dead Taliban fighters.
In both cases, the troops in question could have been prosecuted for criminal offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Instead, administrative sanctions, as yet undisclosed, will be imposed. They can include reduction in grade of rank and some loss of pay.
This is not going to go over well in Afghanistan, where “green on blue” attacks by Afghan soldiers and police personnel on their American colleagues have increased dramatically this year.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Syria, Iraq, AfPak, and the South China Sea.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is ten hours ahead of Pacific time and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time. The time in Manila, on the South China Sea, is fifteen hours ahead of Pacific time.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Southern California and Northern California.
Brown held a press conference late this morning at the Ronald Reagan State Building in Los Angeles to announce a compromise agreement on his plans for public pension reform.
The details were still being hashed over on Monday as I wrote my latest essay, linked below.
Democratic legislators and their public employee union patrons balked at Brown’s call for a hybrid pension system including payments into private accounts.
Instead, the legislation, backed by Democratic legislative leaders, will include a cap on benefits.
“If the legislature approves these reforms, public retirement benefits will be lower than when I took office in 1975,” said Brown. “Additional changes would require a vote of the people.”
Brown called the agreement a “sweeping” reform that will save billions by capping benefits, increasing the retirement age, requiring state workers to pay half the cost of their pensions, and stop various abusive practices, such as “spiking” and “air time” by which employees have been able to artificially increase the base upon which their pensions are calculated.
Is this reform package adequate to the political occasion, which demands some reform to ensure passage of the Prop 30 revenue initiative? That’s unclear. Voters have an ambiguous view of the public pension situation, one that is not as clearcut as pension reforms want to believe.
Is this package adequate to the occasion of fixing the problem? I need to study it, but my initial guess is no.
** SPACE, JERRY BROWN’S PLACE, AND A RACE.While our presidential race is mired in negativity and marked by shallowness, our economy is stuck in low gear, and our country is in danger of drifting into yet another war as it tries to execute a little-reported and less-understood pivot from over-engagement with the Islamic world to increased engagement with Asia and the Pacific, one aspect of public life is looking up, literally. And that, odd as it would have seemed just last year, is the long-neglected space program.
After 30 years, the space shuttle program finally wound down last year. Many wondered, to the extent they thought about it all, if, after abandoning Moon missions 40 years ago, running the old space truck round and round the planet would turn out — along with Neil Armstrong’s “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” — to have been the highlight of our space endeavors, and if deeper exploration and adventures would henceforth be left, albeit fictitiously, in the hands of Hollywood.
But now space is happening again, in ways different than before. While NASA begins to refocus on a true deep-space mission to the asteroid belt while maintaining its presence with the International Space Station, private enterprise is beginning to pick up the slack for orbital missions. And unmanned exploration, run by sci-tech geeks in California, is coming to the fore as never before. These are the missions that are generating the knowledge that will pave the way for interplanetary exploration and travel in the future. Going to the Moon was great. Orbiting the Earth is useful. But the future is out there.
In a major success for the U.S. space program, the Mars rover Curiosity successfully executed a series of complex maneuvers to land on the surface of Mars late on the night of Sunday, Aug. 5. The Mars Science Laboratory is the most complex spacecraft ever to land on another planet — well, from Earth, at least. The mission, like all U.S. deep-space and interplanetary missions, is run out of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Then, after testing various systems, the rover’s software system had to be completely updated and rebooted as it shifted mission focus from getting to Mars and landing there to exploring its environs.
Once that was successfully and laboriously accomplished, it was time for a test drive. Governor Jerry Brown was on hand for that. In fact, it was the anticipated success of that endeavor that Brown’s proclamation of Space Day in California implicitly acknowledged. (Brown declared Aug. 22 Space Day in California.) After all, it wouldn’t have looked too good for the governor to be there when the giant gadget suddenly didn’t work.
But work like a charm it did, showing how it will tool around its new habitat, winnowing out the clues that will enable it to fulfill its mission: to determine habitability, including the past or current presence of water; to study the planet’s climate and geology; and to gather data to prepare a future manned mission to Mars.
Because that, too, is a major goal of NASA, as retooled by President Barack Obama. And Brown has been a longstanding advocate of exploring Mars.
For this was not the first time that he had proclaimed Space Day in California.
The first was 35 years ago, on Aug. 11, 1977, a much more elaborate affair that he timed for the day before the first test flight of the first space shuttle, the Enterprise, named for the Star Trek starship.
Brown put on a day-long Space Day conference at the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles, attended by all the top leadership of NASA and various science notables such as Carl Sagan, Gerard O’Neill, and Jacques Cousteau. There was even a beat poet or two on hand (those way over the right who deride Brown as a former hippie completely miss it; he’s much more beat-influenced [use the Google]), with Michael McClure ending the day by reading a new work set against spectacular NASA space footage.
The next day, Brown and the crew, including Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweikart, who was to serve first as Brown’s sci/tech advisor and then California Energy Commission chairman, went up to Edwards Air Force Base, the legendary test flight center in California’s high desert country, for the test flight of Enterprise.
Edwards, of course, is where Neil Armstrong, who passed away over the weekend from coronary procedure complications at 82, cut his eyeteeth as an elite test pilot. An engineer educated at Purdue and USC, Armstrong was a naval aviator in the Korean War, decorated for flying nearly 80 combat missions. But it was his prowess flying the hottest experimental jets over the California high desert, taking the famed X-15 into the beginnings of outer space, that, coupled with his engineering expertise, made him a natural for the space program. His leadership of the first Apollo mission to the Moon, and his stature as the first person to walk on another world, deserves more than the somewhat muted attention his passing has received.
Brown proved to be a bit too anticipatory in 1977 on the eve of that first space shuttle test flight, declaring, “The shuttle’s flight tomorrow is truly like laying the last spike on the transcontinental railroad, only much more so. And whether or not we’re going to see in in the next 10 or 20 years, there are people alive today who will see manufacturing in space from moon materials or from asteroids.”
There are, after all, reasons they called him Governor Moonbeam. There are also reasons why hardboiled Chicago columnist Mike Royko, who coined the term, tried to disavow it, indeed dismantle it. (In 1991 Royko called it an “idiotic, damn-fool, meaningless, throw-away line” and, in exasperation, tried to kill off his, er, intellectual creation. “Enough of this ‘Moonbeam’ stuff,” he wrote. “I declare it null, void and deceased.”)
But the moniker stuck, as did the notion, comfortable for some, that Brown’s ideas were simply wacky, pushed along by conventional thinkers in the media and persistent conservative critics, like Sacramento Union columnist turned Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters, who built his career over the past four decades attacking Brown, the Brown family, and most Democrats, for that matter. Walters, who, during Brown’s 1992 presidential campaign, appeared in a faux exposé story on ABC News that alleged a Brown drug scandal, saying he had been at a Brown fundraiser where drugs were used (it later turned out to have been an Eagles concert where — gasp! — some in the huge crowd smoked pot), has, in the absence of a credible state Republican Party PR effort, taken on the role of attacking Brown’s moves to raise taxes on the rich, balance the budget, control greenhouse gas emissions, promote renewable energy, and build a high-speed rail.
At his 1977 Space Day celebration, in L.A. and up at Edwards, Brown sought to square what seemed a contradiction to some between his acknowledgement of the Era of Limits and his advocacy of an expansive space program.
“Ecology and technology,” he intoned, “find a unity in space. When the day of manufacturing in space occurs and extraterrestrial material is added into the economic equation, then the old economic rules no longer apply. Going into space is an investment. It’s not a waste of money, it’s not a depleting asset, it’s an expanding asset, and through the creation of new wealth we make possible the redistribution of more wealth to those who don’t have it. … Awareness of limits leads to awareness of possibilities.”
This time around, presenting less of a profile for attack, Brown was a bit less gushing, this Space Day far less programmed and produced, though he did, and rightfully so, close his telling remarks by thanking the JPL controllers for “taking us to the stars.”
“Ad astra per aspera,” he had just argued, citing the Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid. That means, for those few who never took Latin, “to the stars through difficulties,” or, in the interpretation of UC Berkeley Classics major Brown, “to the stars through the thorns.”
Brown pointed out, as you might guess, that it makes little sense to stop thinking long and building for the future just because there are some budget difficulties, which, as he noted, are much worse at the federal level than they are at the state level.
Brown was especially bullish about the prospects for the California Republic as compared to the Roman Republic, which, as he noted to the laughter of the JPL and Caltech team, took 700 years to collapse, so, bahdump, we have hundreds to go.
Brown was briefed in on the Mars rover mission, examined the tech, and met with the mission controllers. And he was named an honorary member of the JPL Mission Control team. He even got a nifty blue T-shirt, which the JPL and Caltech crew urged him to wear next time he addresses the state legislature. Maybe at a brown bag lunch.
As I wrote here on The Huffington Post at the end of May as the first SpaceX mission to the International Space Station wrapped up, California has emerged as a center of the post-shuttle space exploration movement. …
** 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 AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in major military operations in the region, and the Arab awakening underway, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. 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.
** 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 from the Russia Today channel. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the state-run 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 is trading around $96 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $62 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down about $18 per barrel from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.
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 makes the case for re-electing President Barack Obama in an ad titled “Clear Choice” to run in the battleground states of New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada. Clinton, who argues that the Romney/Ryan economic plan is the plan that failed during the Bush/Cheney years, will nominate Obama for his second term at next month’s Democratic National Convention.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … SPACE, JERRY BROWN’S PLACE, AND A RACE.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Maryland and Washington, DC.
Obama departed the White House on Friday afternoon for the Camp David presidential retreat in the Maryland countryside.
He will return to the White House sometime on Sunday.
He has no scheduled public events on the weekend, but some very recent interviews are showing up now.
On the eve of the Republican National Convention, in what promises to be a storm-lashed Tampa, Florida, Obama says that Romney seeks to impose extremist views on social and economic issues.
He also says that Romney has no serious ideas and indulges in essentially dishonest claims.
Obama all but promised that Romney will be confronted in the debates with this record of dishonesty.
Obama will campaign during the next week in three swing states, focusing at least in part on issues of concern to college students and other young voters.
Vice President Joe Biden will show up in Tampa to counter-program the Republicans.
And the Republicans? Well, they have their big convention.
Meanwhile, the drumbeat for war with Iran continues in the Israeli press.
Some of Israel’s backers in the US are pushing for a congressional resolution to authorize US military action against Iran, ostensibly as a tool to convince Iran that the military option is a real option and that Tehran can’t simply tough out the sanctions regime and get to nuclear weapons capability.
That would seem quite reasonable as a tool of leverage, but for the fact that the very same people made the very same argument in the run-up to the Iraq War.
Authorize military action as a tool to force Saddam Hussein to back away from his weapons of mass destruction program. (Which, er, didn’t really exist.) Then he will take our position seriously.
What happened is that the congressional authorization was used to, wait for it, legitimize the invasion of Iraq.
Which certainly has backfired, among other things removing the most important check on Iranian power in the region and thus playing a major role in creating the present crisis.
Which is not to say that Iran is not in need of serious containment, or that its nuclear program should be viewed as peaceful and benign in intent.
But it is to say that it is rather amazing that the media isn’t noticing the remarkable sameness in argumentation here, as we slide closer to a war with Iran that has not been gamed out or thought through.
As this happens, Iran is preparing to host the 120 nations in the Non-Aligned Movement, spurred by the Cold War, led by nations who, at least ostensibly, didn’t want to be affiliated with either the Free World or the Communist bloc.
It’s Iran’s turn, by sheer chance, but it doesn’t look like anyone is staying away. So much for Iran becoming totally isolated in the world.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Syria, Iraq, AfPak, and the South China Sea.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is ten hours ahead of Pacific time and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time. The time in Manila, on the South China Sea, is fifteen hours ahead of Pacific time.
Video streaming by Ustream In his Space Day talk at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Governor Jerry Brown enunciated some of the key themes of his governorship.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events.
No public word yet on a public pension reform bill emerging from the California state legislature, looking at leaving for the year with the upcoming holiday weekend. It’s merely needed to make sure that the Proposition 30 revenue initiative passes. Tick tock, sports fans.
Yes, it can be disorienting when a rice bowl moves. But not nearly as disorienting as when a rice bowl disappears.
No, that is not a koan, merely common sense.
The legislature will be in session for just one more week.
** 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.
In his weekend video/radio address President Barack Obama, keeps the spotlight on his opponents’ plans to privatize Medicare.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in major military operations in the region, and the Arab awakening underway, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. 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.
** 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 from the Russia Today channel. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the state-run 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 $96.15 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $62 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down about $18 per barrel from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Embattled Congressman Todd Akin, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Missouri who witlessly claimed that only “legitimate rape” can result in pregnancy, reaffirmed his commitment to his campaign Friday, buttressed by thousands of new contributions from the party’s conservative base and the staunch support of 2008 Republican presidential runner-up Mike Huckabee. Not exactly what the GOP expected for the run-up to a more moderate-friendly national party convention.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … SPACE, THE RACE, AND JERRY BROWN’S PLACE.
** QUICK HITS.No public word yet on a public pension reform bill emerging from the California state legislature, looking at leaving for the year with the upcoming holiday weekend. It’s merely needed to make sure that the Proposition 30 revenue initiative passes. Tick tock, sports fans. … What sort of hat would you imagine that Governor Jerry Brown would wear? … Yes, I know about Lance Armstrong. It’s a disappointing situation surrounding a global icon of sport, and one that is hard to be glib about. … Apple today won a swift and massive court victory over Samsung, successfully arguing that the South Korean electronics giant ripped off its smart phone and tablet designs, winning over a billion in damages in a San Francisco Bay Area court and setting the stage for affected Samsung products to be taken off the market.
** NEW POLL: OBAMA LEADS ROMNEY ON MOST MEASURES (IN POLL WHICH HAS SOME BUILT-IN ROMNEY ADVANTAGES).A new Gallup Poll survey shows President Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney on nearly all measures of support.
Except on the economy, that is.
Which I don’t believe is due to backing for Romney’s ideas nearly so much as it is ongoing economic distress being laid at Obama’s doorstep.
Not that Obama is blamed for the economy per se. That’s George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, as we know from other polls. But don’t expect polls to make perfect logical sense.
Anyway, I digress. But only a bit.
As the two-week period of back-to-back presidential nominating conventions gets underway next Monday, an Aug. 20-22 USA Today/Gallup poll underscores the strengths and weaknesses of each of the two candidates at this point in the campaign. Barack Obama retains a significant edge over Mitt Romney on personal dimensions, particularly in terms of his “likability,” while Americans still believe Romney is better able to handle the economy. …
Obama has double-digit leads on four of the dimensions, including likability, cares about the needs of people like you, honesty, and “would stand up to special interests.” Obama’s lead is smaller in terms of being perceived as a strong and decisive leader, working well with both parties, and the aforementioned dimension of being able to manage the government effectively. …
Conservative Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney today raised the discredited rumor that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States and is thus ineligible to be president. “Nobody ever asked to see my birth certificate!” Romney was joined by running mate Paul Ryan in this Michigan appearance. Yesterday Romney opined that big business is doing very well in America, in part because of its access to offshore tax havens.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … SPACE, THE RACE, AND JERRY BROWN’S PLACE.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington, DC and Maryland.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefing and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 3 PM Pacific, he departs the White House for the Camp David presidential retreat in the Maryland countryside.
“The show must go on,” say organizers of the next week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, where an incipient hurricane is bearing down on the already windy confab. Hmm, this is becoming almost interesting enough to tune in for. Having been to many conventions, I have never had the slightest interest in attending this one.
But now the hurricane seems to be veering away from Tampa, though it will likely deliver wild storm conditions for the convention’s Monday opening.
Remember the “Ron Paul Revolution?” The, er, revolution will not be televised. Paul will neither speak nor be nominated at the convention he and his zealous compatriots and backers insisted he would have a major role at.
Meanwhile, Romney is putting his foot in it again.
Above you can see his latest venture into Obama birtherism. In addition to his comments today, his son in December made similar remarks.
And of course Romney’s victory event when he numerically clinched the Republican nomination was a big Las Vegas fundraiser at the Vegas Strip casino of the most famous birther of all, Donald Trump.
Trump vehemently defended his birtherism in media interviews earlier that day, but Romney never made a peep of protest about his patron’s bizarre and dishonest actions.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Syria, Iraq, AfPak, and the South China Sea.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is ten hours ahead of Pacific time and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time. The time in Manila, on the South China Sea, is fifteen hours ahead of Pacific time.
** AN INSULAR ROMNEY STRUGGLES WITH HIS SURPRISINGLY HEARTFELT VEEP PICK AFTER STRIKING OUT INTERNATIONALLY.Mitt Romney has very big problems as he contemplates rolling into Florida’s hurricane country for an even windier than usual GOP confab. Frankly, he’s fortunate that he’s not already set to lose by a landslide.
For all Romney’s complaints about the tone of the campaign, he really has done nothing to elevate. In fact, quite the opposite. That’s the only reason he won the nomination, even against that entertaining yet bizarre crew we saw in the primaries.
His international tour was a joke and a bust, an exercise in ugly Americanism in London (where he doubted his hosts’ ability to put on the smashing Olympics that were about to result) and pandering to the right-wing of the Likud in Israel (where he pledged to adopt the current Israeli government’s highest national security priority as America’s), as well as the hoariest anti-Russian cliches of the Cold War in Poland.
He has nothing of any seriousness to say about either end of America’s big geopolitical pivot — the US is shifting from over-engagement with the Islamic world of the Middle East and Central Asia to increased engagement with Asia and the Pacific — from the Gulf crisis, which he exacerbates with his urgings for war with Iran even as opposition solidifies among national security leaders and professionals in Israel, to the South China Sea and now East China Sea crises. Where he wants the US to, you know, “get tough.” (And? And crickets.)
As for Paul Ryan, his would-be partner a heartbeat from the Oval Office? He’s an Ayn Rand character in search of a novel, his John Galt-oriented fiscal plans as fictitious as his heroine’s.
Romney tries so hard to hide who he is behind his trademark chameleon nature that he reveals himself all the more dramatically when his true nature does poke through the bland facade … the Iowa Fair comments about corporations as people, the blithe $10K bet (in the midst of a presidential debate!) with ex-poor kid Rick Perry, the heated declarations that criticism of Bain Capital or any of Wall Street’s practices in any way equals socialism.
This guy should be at least 10 points behind and falling. Yet, though there have been polls in which he is close to that, and he may yet lose big, he still hangs in.
There are several problems for Obama, all of which he should be able to surmount, absent a massive geopolitical X factor.
Because, looked at from another angle, he should have been trailing Romney all along. Only Romney’s obvious inauthenticity and radical capitalist agenda have prevented that, and as a result, he’s never had anything like a real lead.
America is still decidedly not well. Obama himself has been decidedly imperfect. The country is increasingly divided on hyper-partisan lines, with a big built-in vote for anyone against Obama. And huge amounts of money are mobilizing against Obama.
In a way, it’s like 1896 all over again, when the super-rich of the Gilded Age, organized by Mark Hanna, flocked to the banner of William McKinley.
Something like that is happening now with the unlimited super PAC phenomenon and big gains for Romney fundraising, with some of the forces of hyper-capital mobilizing against Barack Obama as if he were William Jennings Bryan reborn, crossed with Che Guevara. Which, of course, he is anything but.
So Romney still looks competitive. But the chimes of impending disaster are sounding if one cares to hear.
The new Romney/Ryan ticket is scrambling to get the campaign back on track after a well-orchestrated if not well-conceived announcement and roll-out of the young congressman as would-be vice president.
A campaign which was supposed to be about the shortcomings of Obama, and the rocky and very uneven economic recovery, is instead mostly about Ryan’s very controversial budget plan and his Ayn Rand-inspired views of the role for government, as well as about Romney’s still very murky wealth. And of course Romney keeps getting tripped up as leader of a party which has become profoundly anti-Enlightenment.
The new Romney-Ryan Republican ticket, seeing the running mate pick turning the election into a matter of ideology rather than efficacy, is busy complaining that Obama and Joe Biden are conducting a negative campaign.
Lots of luck with that, boys.
Of course, it’s only annoying if you have no taste for irony. Romney won his nomination with a relentlessly negative campaign, one that was frequently fact-free. …
Video streaming by Ustream Governor Jerry Brown spoke to Jet Propulsion Lab Mission Control directors and staffers on Wednesday in LA. JPL runs the Mars exploration missions, including the new Curiosity rover mission, as indeed it does all deep space exploration missions for the US.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events.
A very late blooming bid to seriously alter the California Environmental Quality Act came to an end yesterday, with action deferred until next year when it can be considered with a bit more sunlight on the matter.
CEQA, as it’s known, is not infrequently abused by various interests as a means to delay and block projects without regard to overall environmental benefit.
But much of the environmental community reacted with great alarm to a bid to change it all at the last minute.
The pro-development interests which most want to alter CEQA are going to have to come to grips with the fact that the basic themes underlying CEQA are very strong.
And the environmentalists who back CEQA as a paramount achievement are going to have to come to grips with the NIMBY-ism and sheer oppositionism which, too often, animate its actual use.
In any event, Brown has bigger fish to fry at the moment.
Namely, the legislature still hasn’t come up with public pension reform legislation, and the end of the legislative session is looming. There needs to be significant progress on that front to buttress the passage of the Proposition 30 revenue initiative.
Naturally, the public employee unions who fund much of the Democratic legislative majority are not anxious to give in to changes in the positioning of their rice bowls, either, no matter how much sense it makes in the big picture.
** 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 AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in major military operations in the region, and the Arab awakening underway, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. 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.
** 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 from the Russia Today channel. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the state-run 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 is trading around $96 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $62 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down about $18 per barrel from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Conservative Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said today in New Mexico that his pledge to make the US energy independent by 2020 by unleashing the oil companies is not “some pie in the sky” idea. Romney’s plan depends heavily on California offshore drilling and leaves out the big hole his rollback of fuel efficiency standards would cause. It also ignores the fact that oil is a global market, meaning that it is not independent on price. Naturally, Romney ignores climate change.
** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … INSULAR ROMNEY STRUGGLES WITH HIS SURPRISINGLY HEARTFELT VEEP PICK AFTER STRIKING OUT INTERNATIONALLY and SPACE AND JERRY BROWN’S PLACE.
** QUICK HITS.“The show must go on,” say organizers of the next week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, where an incipient hurricane is bearing down on the already windy confab. Hmm, this is becoming almost interesting enough to tune in for. Having been to many conventions, I have never had the slightest interest in attending this one. … Remember the “Ron Paul Revolution?” The revolution will not be televised. Paul will neither speak nor be nominated at the convention he and his zealous compatriots and backers insisted he would have a major role at. … A very late blooming bid to seriously alter the California Environmental Quality Act came to an end today, with action deferred until next year when it can be considered with a bit more sunlight on the matter. CEQA, as it’s known, is not infrequently abused by various interests as a means to delay and block projects without regard to overall environmental benefit. …
** NEW SURVEY: BIG DOUBTS ABOUT EDUCATION. A new Gallup Poll survey has bad news for the education community.
There are widespread doubts about all levels of education with regard to their effectiveness in preparing students for work and life.
But at least a majority believe that college graduates are prepared.
However, it is not exactly an overwhelming majority.
Americans have significant doubts that high school dropouts as well as high school graduates are adequately prepared for the working world, but close to half also believe college graduates lack this preparation. While 54% either strongly or somewhat agree that college graduates are ready for work, 17% disagree, and 29% are neutral on the question. …
While parents of school-aged children share the doubts of all Americans about the workplace readiness of high school dropouts and graduates, they are more optimistic about college graduates’ readiness than are people without children in school. Twenty percent of parents with children in public school strongly believe that higher education makes students job-ready, whereas 11% of those without school-aged children think likewise. …
Next week’s Republican National Convention in one of the world’s garden spots, Tampa, Florida, is increasingly threatened by an incipient hurricane called Isaac. Florida Governor Rick Scott, a conservative Republican, says the party is on its own on deciding whether to postpone or cancel its quadrennial presidential nominating event.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … AN INSULAR ROMNEY, STRUCK OUT ON THE GLOBAL STAGE, STRUGGLES WITH HIS SURPRISINGLY HEARTFELT VEEP PICK.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden received the daily intelligence and economic briefings this morning.
Returned from two days of campaigning in Nevada, Ohio, and New York, Obama has no scheduled public events today, attending meetings at the White House.
On Friday, he will also attend meetings at the White House.
Obama has some disappointing jobs numbers to absorb today. The ranks of those seeking unemployment assistance went up slightly by 4000 people over the past week. Hardly a disaster if more than a statistical hiccup, it is a sign of how rickety this recovery is. And a reminder why the Federal Reserve and other global central banks are looking at more stimulus activities.
Which of course flies in the face of what the Romney/Ryan ticket, focused on austerity, cuts, and tax breaks for the well-off is focused on.
But Obama is the president, whom people look to for progress.
Obama also has the bubbling crises in the Gulf, the South China Sea, and now the East China Sea to manage.
Over the longer term, the US is looking at expanding missile shield capability in the Asia Pacific, ostensibly to protect against North Korea but really a check against China’s ability to overawe as it seeks to avoid multilateral negotiation over its increasingly expansive territorial claims.
In the short term, Obama must decided on some moves to deal with China’s accelerated operations in the South China Sea, premised in part on the US being tied down in the Gulf crisis.
Obama must also deal with something of a diplomatic setback, though not one that comes as any surprise.
While the US and allies work to isolate Iran internationally as part of squelching its nuclear program, Iran will next week host the summit of the Non-Aligned Nations Movement.
High-ranking representatives of some 120 nations will gather in Tehran in what will be a clear coup for the Iranian regime.
It was Iran’s turn to host the NAM, but it comes at a fortuitous time for the ayatollahs.
And UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon will be on hand, though Israel strongly urged him not to go. But with 120 nations, over half the UN General Assembly, participating, he hardly had any choice in the matter.
What he says and does there will be most interesting, given how Iran has routinely thwarted the UN nuclear watchdog agency.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Syria, Iraq, AfPak, and the South China Sea.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is ten hours ahead of Pacific time and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time. The time in Manila, on the South China Sea, is fifteen hours ahead of Pacific time.
NASA has finally released video of the Mars rover Curiosity landing in the Red Planet. This takes the spacecraft, directed from the Jet Propulsion Lab in LA, from the jettison of the head shield to the beginning of the final “sky crane” maneuver, last phase of the flight before touchdown on the planet’s surface.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events.
“Ad astra per aspera,” argued Brown, citing the Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid, yesterday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Brown was on hand for the Mars rover Curiosity’s first test drive on Mars and to speak to the assembled staffers at America’s deep space exploration mission headquarters.
Brown was named an honorary member of the JPL Mission Control team. He even has a nifty blue t-shirt, which the crew urged him to wear next time he addresses the state legislature.
Brown pointed out, as you might guess, that it makes little sense to stop thinking long and building for the future just because there are some budget difficulties, which, as he noted, are much worse at the federal level than they are at the state level.
Brown was especially bullish about the prospects for the California Republic as compared to the Roman Republic. Which took 700 years to collapse.
A new poll, conducted online for USC and Policy Analysis for California Education has mostly good news for Brown and his November revenue initiative. It shows Prop 30 leading by 19 points, 55-36. And rival/zombie initiative Prop 38, funded with mega-millions by heiress Molly Munger, is losing, 40-49, despite its patroness already spending millions on ads.
When a web video favoring Prop 30 is played opposite a radio ad opposing it, Prop 30 drops from a 19-point lead to, well, an 18-point lead. Which some reporters opined today shows it to be “very shaky.” Well, there’s something that’s shaky.
** 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 AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in major military operations in the region, and the Arab awakening underway, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. 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.
** 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 from the Russia Today channel. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the state-run 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 is trading around $96 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $62 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down about $18 per barrel from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
The NASA rover Curiosity made its first test drive today on the ancient soil of Mars. The rover moved forward about 15 feet, rotated to a right angle and reversed a short distance. Governor Jerry Brown, who today visited the Jet Propulsion Lab in LA, which runs the Mars exploration mission, declared Wednesday to be Space Day in California.
** QUICK HITS.“Ad astra per aspera,” argued Governor Jerry Brown, citing the Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid, today at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Brown was on hand for the Mars rover Curiosity’s first test drive on Mars and to speak to the assembled staffers at America’s deep space exploration mission headquarters. He pointed out that it makes little sense to stop thinking long and building for the future just because there are some budget difficulties, which, as he noted, are much worse at the federal level than they are at the state level. … Brown was especially bullish about the prospects for the California Republic as compared to the Roman Republic. Which took 700 years to collapse. … A new poll, conducted online for USC and Policy Analysis for California Education has mostly good news for Brown and his November revenue initiative. It shows Prop 30 leading by 19 points, 55-36. … And rival/zombie initiative Prop 38, funded with mega-millions by heiress Molly Munger, is losing, 40-49, despite already spending millions on ads. … When a web video favoring Prop 30 is played opposite a radio ad opposing it, Prop 30 drops from a 19-point lead to, well, an 18-point lead. Which some reporters opined today shows it to be “very shaky.” Well, there’s something that’s shaky.
** NEW SURVEY: BIGGEST CONCERN FOR WORKFORCE? BENEFITS CUTS. A new Gallup Poll survey indicates that fear of having benefits cut trounces concern about being laid off or having one’s income reduced.
While job security is lessened, there is not a pervasive sense of job insecurity.
Worry about any of the possible bad outcomes is down by a few points in the past year.
Forty percent of American workers are worried that their benefits will be reduced in the near future, more than say they are worried about being laid off, having their wages reduced, or having their hours cut back. …
Americans’ worry about all items other than having their job moved overseas spiked in 2009, after the financial crisis, and has remained elevated since. The relative rank-order of job worries has been fairly consistent over this time, with possible benefit cuts always generating the most worry. …
U.S. workers continue to worry more about being laid off or having their compensation cut than they did before the financial crisis of late 2008 and early 2009. However, still less than a majority is worried about any such loss.
That means most American workers feel secure about their employment situation, even during one of the slower economic times in U.S. history — perhaps helping to maintain consumer spending enough to prevent a second recession.
U.S. workers feel their benefits are most at risk, which may be the first place employers seek to cut back during difficult economic times. And workers may be willing to accept such cuts over more severe measures like pay cuts or layoffs. …
Talking about education and funding for teachers at an appearance early this morning in Las Vegas, President Barack Obama told the crowd not to boo when he mentioned Republicans. Instead, he told them to vote. Obama focused especially on Congressman Paul Ryan for his leadership for public education cuts. The Romney/Ryan plan, Obama noted, will cut US investment in public education by 20%.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … AN INSULAR ROMNEY, STRUCK OUT ON THE GLOBAL STAGE, STRUGGLES WITH HIS SURPRISINGLY HEARTFELT VEEP PICK.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Nevada, New York, and Washington, DC.
Obama participated in a roundtable discussion with teachers early this morning at Canyon Springs High School in Las Vegas.
At 10:50 AM Pacific, Obama departs Las Vegas on Air Force One en route New York City.
At 3:05 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in New York City.
At 4:35 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York.
At 6:45 PM Pacific, Obama attends a campaign event at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York.
At 8:35 PM Pacific, Obama departs New York on Air Force One en route Joint Base Andrews.
At 9:30 PM Pacific, Obama lands at Joint Base Andrews, where he boards Marine One.
At 9:45 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
Obama has a weather eye peeled on several bubbling crises while he campaigns against the very conservative ticket of Romney and Ryan.
There’s the Gulf crisis, in which Israel’s prime minister and defense minister continue talking up an attack on Iran even as much/most of the rest of the country’s national security establishment shies away, in some cases very vehemently.
And in which Iran is stirring the pot further, debuting what it says is an improved medium range ballistic missile and talking about the destruction of Israel.
There’s the South China Sea crisis, at the other end of the geopolitical pivot, joined now by an East China Sea crisis with Japan and China increasingly going at it over disputed islands.
And there is the evergreen Afghan War crisis.
In the latest development, President Hamid Karzai blames “foreign intelligence agencies” for the spate of “green on blue” attacks, i.e., Afghan soldiers and police attacking US and NATO colleagues.
Campaigning this morning in Roanoke, Virginia, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said the economy has not improved and criticized President Barack Obama’s “imaginary recovery.”
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Syria, Iraq, AfPak, and the South China Sea.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is ten hours ahead of Pacific time and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time. The time in Manila, on the South China Sea, is fifteen hours ahead of Pacific time.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Southern California and Northern California.
In the morning, he campaigns in San Francisco for the Proposition 30 revenue initiative.
At 1:15 PM, he delivers remarks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
Brown will be briefed in on the Mars rover mission, meet with the mission controllers, and to make remarks about JPL’s lead role in deep space exploration and, I assume, his own longstanding call for the exploration of Mars.
The Mars rover Curiosity, with computer software successfully upgraded and rebooted, is getting ready for its first test drive today. Brown, a longtime advocate of Mars exploration, will be on hand for this at JPL, which is mission control for this and all other deep space exploration missions.
With rampant talk of impending last minute legislative alterations in the California Environmental Quality Act, sometimes used simply to stall projects rather than protect the environment, a few dozen Democratic legislators have signed a letter opposed to any changes. I’d say they’re covered.
The issue is complicated somewhat by Steve Glazer, Brown’s day-to-day campaign manager in 2010, signing on as a consultant to the change CEQA coalition of businesses and some labor interests and appearing at its press conference earlier this week.
I don’t know Glazer, so can’t assess the situation fully.
Should CEQA be repealed? Of course not. Should it be adjusted? Probably, in my view, though it’s not something I’ve focused on.
It is, however, clearly being used by NIMBY interests and by political opponents of projects to stall, delay, obfuscate, what have you. This is, ironically, especially true with regard to projects which will improve the overall environment; namely, those promoting the new energy economy of renewable energy and new transit.
With clear signs of ongoing improvement in the California economy, save for development projects which drive construction employment, some CEQA adjustments do seem timely.
Brown declared today to be Space Day in California. I’ll have a lot more on this in an upcoming piece.
WHEREAS, the challenge and the promise of outer space unites all of humanity in a shared sense of curiosity, hope and wonderment; and
WHEREAS, our quest to explore space has yielded innumerable advances in technology, engineering and every scientific field; and
WHEREAS, California’s universities, research institutions and aerospace businesses have made the Golden State a world leader in space science and exploration; and
WHEREAS, space satellites have brought us all closer together by enabling telecommunications and gathering remote-sensing imagery to map the entire surface of the earth; and
WHEREAS, the recent mission of the Mars Science Laboratory, which has successfully landed the rover Curiosity on Mars, represents a significant step forward in our journey to the stars; and
WHEREAS, the leadership of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of California Institute of Technology has been central to the success of Curiosity’s mission; and
WHEREAS, the new images of the Red Planet sent home by Curiosity and the technological genius inherent in the mission have captivated the world’s imagination and reinvigorated our commitment to reach for the stars;
NOW THEREFORE I, EDMUND G. BROWN JR., Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim August 22, 2012, as Space Day.
** 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 AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in major military operations in the region, and the Arab awakening underway, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. 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.
** 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 from the Russia Today channel. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the state-run 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 is trading around $97 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $63 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down about $17 per barrel from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Congressman Paul Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee-designate, is trying to play culture warrior, today criticizing President Barack Obama for a remark he made four years ago at a private San Francisco fundraiser about some voters supposedly clinging to guns and religion. “I’m a Catholic deer hunter, I am happy to be clinging to my guns and my religion,” Ryan declared.
** QUICK HITS.Republicans continued to struggle today with their Missouri Senate candidate’s bizarre opinion that pregnancy hardly ever occurs as a result of “legitimate rape.” Er, say what? The mind boggles in imagining what he means, but he ain’t quitting. Democrats are happy to keep him around, naturally. … The Mars rover Curiosity, with computer software successfully upgraded and rebooted, is getting ready for its first test drive on Wednesday. Governor Jerry Brown, a longtime advocate of Mars exploration, will be on hand at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in LA, which is mission control for this and all other deep space exploration missions. … With rampant talk of impending last minute legislative alterations in the California Environmental Quality Act, sometimes used simply to stall projects rather than protect the environment, a few dozen Democratic legislators have signed a letter opposed to any changes. I’d say they’re covered. … The issue is complicated by Steve Glazer, at times a consultant to Governor Jerry Brown, signing on as a consultant to the CEQA change coalition and appearing at its press conference.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … AN INSULAR ROMNEY, STRUCK OUT ON THE GLOBAL STAGE, STRUGGLES WITH HIS SURPRISINGLY HEARTFELT VEEP PICK.
** NEW SURVEY: HUNGER IS A BIG PROBLEM IN CONSERVATIVE-RUN AMERICAN STATES. A new Gallup Poll survey of the 50 US states reveals that nearly all of the states in which the highest numbers of residents say they struggle to buy food are run by conservative Republican administrations.
At the very top of the list?
Mississippi. Which was run until recently by Governor Haley Barbour, a former Republican national chairman and relative darling of the chattering classes. Longtime Clinton fundraiser and campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe spurred what turned out to be some misdirected wonderings about who the Clintons really back for president the month before last when he engaged in a Fox News cable chat lovefest with Barbour about how effective and enlightened his administration in Mississippi had been.
The Barbour-McAuliffe routine continued at the recent Bohemian Grove retreat.
But there’s not too much joviality in Mississippi, where one in four residents say they struggle to buy food, and recount that there was at least one time in the past year when they have had to go without.
The top 10 in America for biggest worries about having enough food to eat?
Mississippi, Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Nevada, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Louisiana.
Mitt Romney and his Ayn Rand-loving running mate, Paul Ryan, will, most ironically, carry at least eight of those states in November.
In another great irony, most of the hardest hit states will be hit even harder by the effects of the drought — caused by greenhouse era climate change — on the South.
One in four Mississippi residents report there was at least one time in the past 12 months when they did not have enough money to buy the food they or their families needed — more than in any other state in the first half of 2012. Residents in Alabama and Delaware are also among the most likely to struggle to afford food. Residents of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont are among the least likely to have this problem. …
There are wide disparities across states and regions so far in 2012 in the percentage of residents who at times lacked the money to purchase the food they or their families needed. While nearly one in four Mississippi residents say they could not afford to buy the food they needed in the past 12 months, only one in 10 North Dakota residents say the same.
In 2012, the worst drought since the 1950s has affected nearly 80% of agricultural land in the United States, which may drive up the cost of food in the months ahead. While Americans are no more likely to struggle to afford food thus far in 2012 than in the past, more residents may face problems as the drought-related crop damage results in a shortage of inputs in the food supply and begins to affect retail prices.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts that consumers will notice price increases within two months for beef, pork, poultry, and dairy, but the full effects of the increase in corn prices for packaged and processed foods will likely take 10 to 12 months to appear on supermarket shelves. States in the Mountain Plains and Midwest regions, which have the largest corn yield in the nation, will likely continue to have the lowest percentages of residents who lack enough money to buy food. Those in the South will likely be hardest hit, as they are already the most likely in the nation to report struggling to afford food.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey is safe after Taliban rocket fire damaged his C-17 command post aircraft at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Dempsey left Afghanistan on another aircraft.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … AN INSULAR ROMNEY, STRUCK OUT ON THE GLOBAL STAGE, STRUGGLES WITH HIS SURPRISINGLY HEARTFELT VEEP PICK.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington, DC, Ohio, and Nevada.
Obama received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He then flew on Air Force One to Columbus, Ohio.
At 10 AM Pacific, Obama delivered remarks at a rally at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio.
Obama then departed Columbus, Ohio on Air Force One en route Reno, Nevada.
At 3:55 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in Reno, Nevada.
At 5 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada.
At 6:40 PM Pacific, Obama departs Reno, Nevada on Air Force One en route Las Vegas, Nevada.
At 7:45 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in Las Vegas.
Obama will remain overnight in Henderson, Nevada.
President Barack Obama says that deep cuts in college aid that conservative Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would make are the moral equivalent of telling youngsters, “Tough luck, too bad, you’re on your own.”
On Wednesday, Obama will hold campaign events in Las Vegas and New York City, returning to the White House in the evening.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Syria, Iraq, AfPak, and the South China Sea.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is ten hours ahead of Pacific time and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time. The time in Manila, on the South China Sea, is fifteen hours ahead of Pacific time.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
On Wednesday, Brown will be at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena to be briefed in on the Mars rover mission, meet with the mission controllers, and to make remarks about JPL’s lead role in deep space exploration and, I assume, his own longstanding call for the exploration of Mars.
Brown campaigned in San Diego on Monday for his Proposition 30 revenue initiative.
He was joined at San Diego City College by high school and college leaders. They all warned that big cuts are coming at all levels of public education if Prop 30 is defeated.
Brown has called a special legislative session for the end of the year so that California can move to next steps in implementing the Obama national health care plan.
Clearly, he’s not anticipating an immediate Romney rollback.
** 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 AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in major military operations in the region, and the Arab awakening underway, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. 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.
** 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 from the Russia Today channel. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the state-run 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 is trading around $96 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $62 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down about $18 per barrel from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Campaigning Saturday morning in swing state New Hampshire, President Barack Obama again criticized Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan over their proposals to change Medicare. Obama says that his GOP challengers want seniors to pay more for their health care so the wealthy can get a tax break.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … AN INSULAR ROMNEY, FAILED ON THE GLOBAL STAGE, STRUGGLES WITH HIS SURPRISINGLY HEARTFELT VEEP PICK.
** OBAMA THIS WEEKEND. President Barack Obama is in Washington and New Hampshire.
Obama received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He then flew up to Manchester, New Hampshire on Air Force One, then proceeded to Windham, New Hampshire, where he delivered remarks at a campaign event at Windham High School.
At 1:35 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event at Rochester Commons in Rochester, New Hampshire.
At 3:05 PM Pacific, Obama departs Manchester, New Hampshire on Air Force One en route Joint Base Andrews.
At 4:30 PM Pacific, Obama arrives Joint Base Andrews, where he boards Marine One.
At 4:45 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
Here’s what the week ahead looks like for Obama.
He has even more flexibility than usual built into his schedule, both to work on managing geopolitical crises and to react to events.
The political side of it sees him campaigning in swing states Ohio and Nevada and fundraising in Manhattan.
On Monday, Obama will attend meetings at the White House.
On Tuesday, Obama will travel to Columbus, Ohio and Reno, Nevada for campaign events. The President will remain overnight in Henderson, Nevada.
On Wednesday, Obama will travel to Las Vegas, Nevada and New York City for campaign events. Obama will return to the White House in the evening.
The new Romney/Ryan ticket is scrambling to get the campaign back on track after a well-orchestrated if not well-conceived announcement and roll-out of the young congressman as would-be vice president.
A campaign which was supposed to be about the shortcomings of Obama, and the rocky and very uneven economic recovery, is instead about Ryan’s very controversial budget plan and his Ayn Rand-inspired views of the role for government, as well as about Romney’s still very murky wealth.
Meanwhile, in more serious matters …
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, not stepping lightly through the ongoing Gulf crisis with Israel and the US, declared that the existence of Israel is “an insult to humankind.” He was speaking Friday at the annual Quds Day holiday, on which Iran urges the return of Jerusalem from Israeli control.
Ahmadinejad’s comments came as Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak seem to have become more defiant in their advocacy of a potential attack on Iran even as opposition mounts internally, especially among former and current leaders of Israel’s armed forces and intelligence services.
With families preparing to send their kids back to school, President Barack Obama, in his weekend video/radio address, says that Congress should support his plan to hire teachers.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Syria, Iraq, AfPak, and the South China Sea.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is ten hours ahead of Pacific time and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time. The time in Manila, on the South China Sea, is fifteen hours ahead of Pacific time.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events on the weekend.
Brown will campaign in San Diego on Monday for his Proposition 30 revenue initiative.
Brown has called a special legislative session for the end of the year so that California can move to next steps in implementing the Obama national health care plan.
Clearly, he’s not anticipating an immediate Romney rollback.
The California state PTA, the only major endorser for heiress Molly Munger’s sort of rival but really zombie income tax hike for nearly all initiative, reacted somewhat defensively Friday to a brush-back pitch letter from Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer decrying some still rather mild Munger criticism of Brown’s initiative. They did so in a methinks protests too much response letter. Which means they heard the message, whether Munger and her well-paid consultants did or not.
Brown got some good news at the end of the week with the new report on job growth in California.
For the 12th straight month, the state’s economy added a significant number of new jobs.
The number of new jobs in June was also upgraded.
As a result, California has now added over 365,000 jobs over the past year, which is the most since 2000.
California’s job growth rate of 2.6% over the past 12 months is double the national average of 1.3%.
I wonder what the denialists, as Brown calls them, or the professional grumps, as I think of them, will try to say now. I’m sure it will be especially clever, as always.
** 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.
Tensions ratcheted upward in the movie-going world of the US this weekend as the Carmike Cinema chain received bomb threats against several of its theaters, especially those showing The Expendables 2.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in major military operations in the region, and the Arab awakening underway, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. 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.
** 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 from the Russia Today channel. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the state-run 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 $96.01 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $62 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down about $18 per barrel from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
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