No, it’s not recently shirtless Russian President Vladimir Putin,
it’s Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now. “Some day this war is gonna end.”
Perhaps. After years of avoiding the comparison, President Bush
invokes Vietnam as the reason to stay the course in Iraq.
** SCHWARZENEGGER TO SIGN CALIFORNIA STATE BUDGET AT NOON TOMORROW. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign the state budget at noon tomorrow in the ornate Rotunda of the state Capitol. The event will be webcast live.
What is striking is the downward trend for John McCain among Republicans and John Edwards among Democrats. In addition, the early momentum for Fred Thompson, now expected to declare his candidacy for the Republican nomination shortly after Labor Day, has stalled.
For his part, Ken Khachigian, the very conservative Republican who ran the campaign against Brown last year, said that he’s studied Brown “like Patton studied Rommel.” Although with quite different results.
The piece, which came together very quickly, was prompted by two things. First, there was Brown’s victory in the state budget struggle, in which a faction of very conservative state senators unsuccessfully sought to curb his power as attorney general to cajole and persuade local governments to include greenhouse gas emissions in their planning processes. Second was Brown’s appearance at a meeting of the paper’s Capitol bureau, at which he allowed as how he isn’t “closing the door” on a bid to regain the office he first won at the age of 36 back in the 1970s.
Bee editor Rick Rodriguez, who covered Gary Hart’s presidential campaign as a junior reporter in the 1980s, jumped on that and dispatched reporter Andy Furillo to a somewhat routine Brown press conference at which the two-term Oakland mayor and two-time Democratic presidential runner-up (1976 and 1992) announced the appointment of veteran Sacramento County Undersheriff George Anderson as director of the state Department of Justice’s division of law enforcement. From discussions of gang suppression techniques and law enforcement technologies, we got into other areas such as his plans for further action on climate change in fast-growing Placer County and around the state, using as a model his settlement with San Bernardino County, the largest county in the continental US. I’ll be getting into all that in a future piece.
Brown’s first election as governor was fairly close. His re-election was a 20-point landslide, just a bit more than his landslide last November. But it’s not clear he is going to run.
One other very interesting factoid is a major difference by partisan orientation toward one’s confidence in the ballot. Republicans are the most trusting, with 56% having a great degree of confidence in the voting system. In contrast, only 32% of independents express much confidence, with Democrats coming in between the two groups with only 41% expressing great confidence.
** BACK TO VIETNAM. Some factions of conservative Republicans seem bent on reviving the battles of the 1970s. In California, a small group of right-wing state senators held up the state budget for weeks in a failed effort to curb the powers of resurgent former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, invoking a past Brown who exists mostly in their fevered imaginings and faulty memories. (They were also trying to express their anger with the popular centrism of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.)
And with America mired in an ongoing conflict in Iraq, in which some recent military progress may be as evanescent as it is costly, and what had been political progress has actually regressed to a dramatic degree, President George W. Bush yesterday invoked the specter of Vietnam as justification for staying the (latest) course in Iraq. After years of denying the analogy, Bush has now embraced it, saying that America must remain or the nation that he used to say we have been successfully building there will collapse in an orgy of bloodshed. Needless to say, he’s provoking a firestorm of controversy, as well as some reasoned analysis.
Or, as Colin Powell put it: “You break it, you bought it.”
** SCHWARZENEGGER MOVES ON REDISTRICTING REFORM, LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING. Moving on several fronts this week even before the predictable passage of the state budget, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today hits it on redistricting reform. This morning he meets in Los Angeles with former Republican Governor Pete Wilson, former Democratic Governor Gray Davis and leaders of Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, and other members of the Voices of Reform coalition. The live webcast goes at 9:25 AM.
The former action movie superstar is bent on producing a redistricting reform plan before the end of this legislative session. And Democratic leaders have a similar priority. Because without redistricting reform, Schwarznenegger will not support the term limits change initiative slated for the February 5th presidential primary ballot. That initiative would reduce the total number of years of allowed legislative service from 14 to 12, but allow members to serve all 12 in one house, thus keeping several legislative leaders in office.
Sticking points on redistricting reform — California is plagued by gerrymandered districts, which allow un-pragmatic hyperpartisans to exercise disproportionate influence — include the form of the redistricting commission and whether Congress is included. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn’t want to upset the delicate balance of her narrowly attained leadership.
Schwarzenegger has had this in mind since before seeking the governorship, and lost a poorly-conducted initiative campaign in 2005. At the time, Democratic leaders promised that it would be done via legislation, only to allow a bill to fail last year in a keystone kops’ style caper.
Republican pollster Frank Luntz’s focus group during last Sunday’s
Iowa Democratic presidential debate showed Barack Obama to be the winner.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 101st day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
Bush has studiouly avoided any comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam in the past. But today, speaking before the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City, in advance of the launch of a $15 million advertising campaign put together by his friends and allies to try to sway US public opinion on his new Iraq policy, Bush gave a new reason for insisting that US troops should remain in Iraq. If they leave, he said, a bloodbath will ensue in the fractured country.
“He said we left Vietnam too soon,” Biden said in Nevada. “I don’t know what planet he was on.”
Bush told the VFW convention: “One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like ‘boat people,’ ‘re-education camps’ and ‘killing fields.”
In response, Biden said the only analogy he sees between Vietnam and Iraq is that Americans in Iraq will be in greater danger the longer U.S. troops are there.
“I predict if we continue down President Bush’s path, we are going to see the repeat of helicopters over the top of the embassy with people hanging on the ladders trying to get out,” he said.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET REFORM ON TAP. In the wake of the curious California budget stall — which ended yesterday with a deal that was readily available a month earlier, and the state’s small band of right-wing senators and activists on the losing end — top Democrats are recommending budget reforms.
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez has in mind an initiative for November 2008 to change the state’s requirement of a two-thirds vote to pass the budget. Only two other states have that requirement. An initiative to do that was defeated a few years ago. But that initiative also would have done away with the two-thirds requirement on tax increases.
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, who had to deal with the would-be heroes of the right, sees even deeper problems, and wants to convene a commission to begin dealing with the reality that most of California’s spending is in fact locked on autopilot, thanks to strictures forced by state ballot propositions and the federal government.
As it happens, I think the right-wing Republicans have some decent points. But as is generally the case in California, pursued them in a less than wise fashion. Spooked, perhaps quite predictably, by the dramatic resurgence of their old bete noire Jerry Brown, the former governor-turned-attorney general, they chose to base their stand on a clearly spurious and quite unpopular and politically untenable stance against Brown getting local governments to account for greenhouse gas emissions in their planning processes.
In so doing, because of their ideology, and their fear of the former presidential candidate, they chose to focus on a thoroughly unserious objection while allowing very serious questions about the state’s financial future to go unaddressed. I’ll write about this in the near future.
** RICHARDSON IN NEVADA. New Mexico Governor and former UN Ambassador Bill Richardson, who’s been slowly but steadily closing in on third place Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards in Nevada, has two days of events in the Silver State today and tomorrow. He meets with labor and other constituency groups and holds organizing sessions.
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joe Biden is also in Nevada, campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination and promoting a book.
To me, invoking the Vietnam analogy seems a strategy to shore up base support — much of the right-wing has long believed that America would have prevailed in Vietnam, if only enough blood and treasure continued to be expended there — as well as an attempt to buy time with younger voters who have no sense of the history of the era. Polling shows that most Americans have judged the Vietnam War to have been a profound mistake. But that judgment is less set among younger voters.
In American politics today, a sense of history means what happened in the 1990s. Beyond that, the past is largely an undiscovered country.
For example, one fairly prominent reporter for one of the biggest newspapers in the US was on a campaign tour by John McCain, the Vietnam War hero and longtime senator and Republican presidential candidate. He asked what the Tet Offensive was. Then there are the reporters who don’t understand the concept of nuclear deterrence. Which doesn’t stop them from citing it in their articles.
** CALIFORNIA HEALTH CARE BILL MOVES. Following after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who actually showed up and went on early, for those tuning in via webcast, at that seniors lobby health care rally at the Capitol, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez also appeared. Nunez promoted the bill he is co-sponsoring with state Senate leader Don Perata, AB 8, which moved through another Senate committee this morning. This version of health care reform would cover more of the uninsured, but not all, through an employer mandate. If employers don’t provide health insurance, they would have to pay into a state pool for insurance. Unlike Schwarzenegger’s plan, not all Californians would have to have insurance.
One is a climate change research plan for the nation, due every three years. That’s now four years overdue. The other is the climate change impacts report, due every four years. That’s now three years overdue. It was last completed in 2000, during the Clinton Administration.
** SCHWARZENEGGER HITS HEALTH CARE REFORM TODAY, LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING. With the state budget in hand, thanks in no small measure to state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger talks up plans to reform California’s ailing health care system in a rally this morning on the West Steps of the state Capitol. Schwarzenegger joins members of AARP (American Association of Retired People). The event will be webcast live at 11 AM.
** FIELD POLL ON CALIFORNIA HEALTH CARE.The latest portion of the latest Field Poll of California voters has been released. It shows large and growing dissatisfaction with the current health health care system, skepticism that state government will do anything major on it this year, and an increased minority in favor of the single-payer system.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 100th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
With the state’s budget stall ended, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (here in this NWN video with Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines, Senate President Don Perata, and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez) and legislative leaders are back on track to move on redistricting reform, health care, and water.
So the state budget stall is finally over, with the holdout conservatives acquiescing to a deal they could have had a month ago, their unlikely quest to stop efforts by former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown to get local governments to account for greenhouse gas emissions a failure, with Brown turning now to Placer County, having just won a deal with San Bernardino County.
The Senate Republican holdouts, backed by oil industry and development allies who also contacted Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office, wanted a delay of any efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions until after the California Air Resources Board has finished developing and promulgating the specifics of the state’s plan, which is as much as five years away.
In his online column, the right-wing senators’ intellectual leader, Tom McClintock, expressed his unhappiness, writing: “Yesterday (Monday) rumors of a “deal” circulated but were denied by the Republican leadership. This afternoon, with very little notice, a bare majority of the Senate Republican caucus decided that further negotiations were unlikely to produce any additional progress. Abel Maldonado and Richard Ackerman ultimately combined with the Democrats and voted out this budget.”
But he expressed a spurious satisfaction. “The transportation and housing bond funds,” he wrote, “are to be exempt for two years from the impact of the Governor’s AB 32, which makes the use of concrete all but impossible due to its release of massive quantities of carbon dioxide.
Actually, McClintock makes several factual errors here. Brown never sued or threatened to sue on the infrastructure bonds package passed last November, for which he campaigned and which McClintock himself opposed. The face-saving deal for Republicans did not include the housing bonds, contrary to McClintock’s representation. And “the Governor’s AB 32″ simply does not make the use of concrete impossible.
It was strange that this quest to stop efforts from including local planning processes in the climate change fight became, essentially, the one constant for the right-wing holdouts, amidst changing numbers for overall cuts, not to mention changing notions about how to go about effecting those cuts. For the attempt to change the California Environmental Quality Act to prevent Brown and environmental organizations from making sure that local governments address greenhouse gas emissions in their planning processes, which was their demand for weeks, simply had nothing to do with the budget.
It took awhile for the centrality of this demand to become apparent, because the conservatives’ move was undertaken initially in stealth. It’s easy to understand why, because for all the bravado on a few hyperpartisan web sites which oddly claim that climate change does not exist, the Republicans’ own voters very much disagree. The polls show, as I’ve reported for many months, that most Republicans believe that our climate is changing as a result of the greenhouse effect, that it is largely caused by human activity, and that government at every level has to do more before it is too late.
The right-wing budget holdouts in the Senate all voted against California’s landmark climate change law. They said that Brown would use his power as attorney general to stop last year’s big new infrastructure package from going into effect. Their late-blooming concern for the infrastructure bonds is intriguing.
Most of the budget holdouts also voted against the infrastructure bonds. McClintock, who was supposedly Arnold Schwarzenegger’s running mate, campaigned against the package. Now, however, he says he’s concerned for it.
As it happens, Brown supported the big infrastructure bonds. He campaigned publicly for the bonds with Schwarzenegger. His conservative Republican opponent, then Senator Chuck Poochigian, did not. He also strongly opposed the climate change bill, and lost by nearly 20 points to Brown after running a campaign of relentless attacks.
Throughout what became the Republicans’ budget debacle, Brown told me that he had no intention of stopping the state’s infrastructure development. His one lawsuit and many letters of inquiries were all to local governments, dealing with their planning processes.
Brown totally dismissed the talk from McClintock — who lost his fourth straight statewide race last November — and others that he wants to stop the building of needed infrastructure in the state, not to mention new development to accommodate a growing population.
“That’s all nonsense,” Brown told me. “I campaigned for the infrastructure program. They were against it, just like they are against doing anything on climate change.”
“What happened,” says Brown, “is they were trying to do some favors under cover of darkness for backward elements that want to do nothing about climate change. Now it’s out in the light. The responsible business community is with us. I’m not against business. I was for business as mayor of Oakland. What we’re doing is working with San Bernardino County (which he has sued) and other folks around the state to make sure that greenhouse gas emissions are addressed when they do their planning. That’s what this is about. Local government has to be part of the solution. I was just in local government, and there’s a lot of creativity there that we need to harness.”
Yet the right-wingers persisted in saying that Brown wanted to use the law to stop development in California. That he would block highway construction under last year’s big infrastructure bonds package. That he would stop dams from being built, because they require cement and the production of cement leads to the emission of greenhouse gases. That Brown is responsible for all the state’s woes for shutting down highway construction during his governorship.
Familiar arguments from the campaign last year, as it happens. And rejected in that campaign, as Brown won the attorney generalship by the biggest landslide in any contested race, including Arnold Schwarzenegger’s devastation of the hapless Democrat, Phil Angelides.
He insisted that he is not against highway construction. Nor was against building water storage facilities. “Of course we need more highway construction with all these people here now,” he said. “We need more water storage to capture the early run-off with global warming. The question is where.”
“I was the governor who got a Peripheral Canal bill through the Legislature, so don’t tell me I’m against water. This stuff McClintock is saying is ridiculous. And there were more miles of highway built in my administration than during the 16 years of George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson. There are a lot of rhetorical builders out there. But we are going to have to address growth in this state.”
His goal, he noted throughout, was to make sure that counties account for greenhouse gas emissions in their planning processes. Within reason, it’s up to them to come up with a plan to do so. In fact, he was holding settlement meetings with San Bernardino county officials well before the state budget stall began.
Brown argued that local governments can and should begin now to address the impact of development decisions that they are making now. “These projects can add tremendously to the build-up of greenhouse gases. All I’m saying is that they need to address it and begin coming up with creative solutions. All that carbon is going to be in the atmosphere for a long time.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki discusses the execution of Saddam Hussein, which was shown here on NWN. The current and former chairs of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee want Maliki replaced.
** WHAT’S NEXT IN CALIFORNIA POLITICS? Now that the state budget is finally done, expect action on health care reform, water, and redistricting reform. Those doom and gloom stories about nothing happening you’ve seen recently in the daily newspapers? Forget about that.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET: CONSERVATIVE SENATE HOLDOUTS LEFT WITH THE DEAL THEY COULD HAVE HAD A MONTH AGO. I’ve been out of pocket most of the day on the road, as I’m sure you’ve gathered. The state Legislature passed the California budget this afternoon, 51 days late.
The deal was as outlined below, except for the conservatives getting more money for suburban schools. It’s the same deal that was available a month ago. The conservative Senate holdouts ended up with nothing extra. I’m told that the core group, several right-wing senators, celebrated last night at a Capitol eatery called Chops their momentary defeat of the budget proposal. Cigars and all. I don’t frequently miss hanging around the state Capitol scene late at night, but it would have been amusing for me to have been around for that.
I’ll have a lot more on this.
** BROWN ANNOUNCES GREENHOUSE GAS SETTLEMENT WITH LARGEST COUNTY IN CONTINENTAL U.S. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown has announced a settlement of his lawsuit against San Bernardino County which will identify sources of greenhouse gas emissions and set feasible reduction targets for the county.
“San Bernardino now sets the pace for how local government can adopt powerful measures to combat oil dependency and climate disruption. This landmark agreement establishes one of the first greenhouse gas reduction plans in California. It is a model that I encourage other cities and counties to adopt,” Brown said in a press conference in downtown LA.
Under today’s agreement, the county will embark upon a 30-month public process aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions attributable to land use decisions and county government operations. The plan mandates the following:
• An inventory of all known, or reasonably discoverable, sources of greenhouse gases in the county.
• An inventory of the greenhouse gas emissions level in 1990, currently, and that projected for the year 2020.
• A target for the reduction of emissions attributable to the county’s discretionary land use decisions and its own internal government operations.
San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman Gary Ovitt noted: “Only a handful of California counties and cities have formally addressed climate change issues, and San Bernardino County will lead the way in the implementation of strategies and steps to enhance our future and serve as a model for others.”
Under California law, Brown observed, the state is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and then reducing 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Currently, he said, California generates approximately 500 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, significantly above 1990 levels. To achieve the 2020 target, California must reduce current emissions by at least 25%.
“Local government action to combat global warming is absolutely essential to meet the goals which Governor Schwarzenegger and the California Legislature set forth in AB 32,” Brown asserted.
To date, the Attorney General has submitted formal comments, under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), to San Bernardino, San Diego, Sacramento, Orange County, Merced, Kern, Fresno, San Joaquin, Contra Costa, and Yuba counties, along with the cities of Richmond and San Jose.
On their own, the attorney general noted, a number of communities in California are already initiating measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They are Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sonoma, Santa Monica, Berkeley, Marin, Palo Alto, Chula Vista, Modesto and Healdsburg.
Feasible mitigations, according to the attorney general’s office, include the following:
• High-density developments that reduce vehicle trips and utilize public transit.
• Parking spaces for high-occupancy vehicles and car-share programs.
• Electric vehicle charging facilities and conveniently located alternative fueling stations.
• Limits on parking.
• Transportation impact fees on developments to fund public transit service.
• Regional transportation centers where various types of public transportation meet.
• Energy efficient design for buildings, appliances, lighting and office equipment.
• Solar panels, water reuse systems and on-site renewable energy production.
• Methane recovery in landfills and wastewater treatment plans to generate electricity.
• Carbon emissions credit purchases that fund alternative energy projects.
** SCHWARZENEGGER AND FEINSTEIN DISCUSS CALIFORNIA WATER POLICY AND THE SACRAMENTO RIVER DELTA THIS MORNING IN LIVE WEBCAST. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein do a live webcast with industrial, consumer, and environmental stakeholders in a “Delta Summit” in a live webcast this morning at 11:30 AM in Los Angeles. The issue is discussed in yesterday’s Non-Random Notes.
But the Bush Administration is struggling to keep him in power. Above you see Maliki trying to explain his precipitous decision to execute Saddam Hussein just before the New Year, in an event — shown on NWN — which turned into an impromptu demonstration for the forces of pro-Iranian leader Moqtada al-Sadr, whose militia was then killing American soldiers.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET DEAL CLOSE. The deal to end California’s budget stall which appeared ready to go during a “Big 5″ meeting late yesterday between Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic and Republican legislative leaders stalled out again last night with holdout conservative Senate Republicans insisting on more funding for suburban school districts.
Their previous big hangup — an attempt to stop former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown from using lawsuits and the threat of lawsuits to make sure local governments address greenhouse gas emissions in their planning processes — had turned into something else. Namely, a brief moratorium on lawsuits to halt projects from the big transportation bond measure passed just last November. Passed, incidentally, with the strong support of Brown himself, who campaigned with Schwarzenegger for the measure. Brown has filed or threatened no lawsuits to block the transportation bonds.
Last night, it appeared that some right-wing Republicans wanted the deal to include lawsuits against the flood control bonds also passed last November as part of Schwarzenegger’s Big Bang Bonds infrastructure package. Also an area in which Brown has filed or threatened no lawsuits.
Brown crushed former state Senate Republican Caucus chairman Chuck Poochigian by nearly 20 points last November, the biggest landslide of any contested statewide election in California.
Meanwhile, as all this intrigue played out yesterday, the hyperpartisan right-wing blogs hyped in a few daily newspapers as spearheading a “movement” against the budget deal — the Flash Report and state Senator Tom McClintock’s California Republic — garnered only two comments from readers between them.
** JERRY BROWN TO DISCUSS POSSIBLE SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY GREENHOUSE GAS SETTLEMENT. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown will this morning in Los Angeles discuss a possible settlement of his lawsuit against sprawling San Bernardino County, largest county in the continental US, for its failure to address greenhouse gas emissions in its planning processes. County officials will have a statement later in the morning, following the attorney general.
Hillary Clinton, saying the Iraq surge “is working,” says: “Prepare
to fight the new war.”
The new Field Poll shows a very marginal level of support for the concept, notwithstanding its touting by a few conservative pundits and bloggers. It starts out with only 47% support. History shows that initiatives need to begin in the high 50s to have a realistic chance of victory.
Writes Sorensen: “Obama is not the first young senator running for president to discomfort the Washington foreign-policy establishment by speaking frankly on a subject displeasing to an American ally. Fifty years ago this summer, a 40-year-old first-term senator, John F. Kennedy, called on the Senate floor for the U.S. government to pressure its French ally into halting its war against Algerian independence.”
“The response from all quarters — both French and American, both Republican and Democratic — was swift and overwhelmingly negative. Kennedy’s critics used words such as ‘juvenile’ (former Truman Secretary of State Dean Acheson), ‘brashly political and damaging’ (Vice President Richard Nixon), an ‘oversimplification’ (President Eisenhower), and ‘immature’ (a senior congressional ally of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson). A New York Times columnist called Kennedy a ‘well-intentioned but amateur statesman.’”
** WOZ CAUGHT ON I-5 IN 105 MILE PER HOUR PRIUS. Another old acquaintance, Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak — he’s the Steve that actually invented the first commercial personal computer, the legendary Apple II — showed recently that Al Gore’s kid isn’t the only one who can make a Toyota Prius run like crazy. Well, not compared to how I drive, but I’m not driving a Prius, a car that, not to put too fine a point on it, for all its undoubted environmental merits looks like something produced in Eastern Europe during the darkest days of the Cold War. Wozniak’s (relatively) high-speed adventure occurred while he was driving from Silicon Valley to LA to visit a favorite Bob’s Big Boy.
** PERSONAL NOTE. I’m traveling a good part of today.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 99th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
** SCHWARZENEGGER MEETING WITH LEGISLATIVE LEADERS ON BUDGET DEAL, SETS WATER CAMPAIGNING FOR TOMORROW IN L.A. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic and Republican legislative leaders began meeting about 15 minutes after their scheduled 4:30 PM Big 5 session on the state budget deal discussed below.
Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger will be in Los Angeles tomorrow to campaign for his water development package. The former action movie superstar will join U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein and some 30 “stakeholders” in a “Delta Summit” at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City. They’ll discuss what Schwarzenegger’s press secretary Aaron McLear calls “a long-term, sustainable Delta fix that includes ecosystem restoration, improved conveyance (possible code for the Peripheral Canal proposed in the 1980s by then Governor Jerry Brown), increased storage and additional water conservation.”
The Delta refers to the Sacramento River Delta at the top of San Francisco Bay, where the state’s biggest river meets the outlet to the Pacific Ocean, a complex system of farms, wildlife, and a huge amount of the state’s water resources.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE: IS THAT A PUFF OF WHITE SMOKE OVER THE CAPITAL DOME? As NWN has been reporting in recent days, significant progress seemed to have been made at ending the state’s budget stall. Now a deal appears to be at hand, which would entail Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger using his line item veto authority to cut an additional $700 million, do away with some trailer legislation, and place a temporary moratorium of sorts on environmental lawsuits against the state’s new infrastructure bonds, passed just last November in overwhelming popular votes. While the right-wing faction of the state Senate, which has been holding the budget one vote short of passage following its bipartisan adoption by the Assembly last month, has been demanding that former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown be forbidden from using the threat of lawsuits to get local governments to account for greenhouse gas emissions in their planning, Brown has not filed or threatened any lawsuit to stop the infrastructure bonds, for which he campaigned. Which most of his critics did not.
McCain’s campaign sent out the text of his address to the staunchly conservative veterans organization in advance of his appearance. If Clinton’s campaign sent sent out the text of her address, I haven’t gotten it.
According to the AP, the New York senator and former first lady said: “People have to root for America,” she said. “They have to want to be on our side.”
“I do not think the Iraqis are ready to do what they have to do for themselves yet,” she said. “I think it is unacceptable for our troops to be caught in the crossfire of a sectarian civil war while the Iraqi government is on vacation.”
“It‘s working. We‘re just years too late in changing our tactics,” she said. “We can‘t ever let that happen again. We can‘t be fighting the last war. We have to keep preparing to fight the new war.”
Nunn had been talked of as a running mate for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the media multi-billionaire and ally of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who recently switched his registration from Republican to independent. But Bloomberg sounds as if he’s backing away, after commissioning a serious exploration, and Nunn says he doesn’t want to be vice president.
Nunn decries the “fiasco” in Iraq, talks of the importance of dealing with climate change while noting that most environmentalists don’t support nuclear power, and discusses the need for America to work in the world within a multilateral framework respectful of other nations.
NWN readers know that, while the independent voter trend is very powerful in California and in much of the US, I’m skeptical about possible independent candidacies such as those of Bloomberg, Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, and this.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE. The state Legislature is back in session today following its summer recess, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is spending the day in and around the Capitol in private meetings. Progress has been made on moving the stalled budget, which passed the Assembly last month on a bipartisan vote and hangs one vote short of passage in the state Senate. California is one of only three states that requires a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature, and the dominant right-wing faction of the minority Senate Republican caucus has succeeded thusfar in getting all but one of its members to agree not to vote for a budget unless a majority of its members agree. The right has had a shifting set of demands, to the extent that they were changing even up till their presentation last month. One is a strictly non-budgetary matter, a demand to change the state’s environmental laws.
** FROM JOHN MCCAIN’S VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS ADDRESS:I do not mean to dismiss the virtues of the professional soldier. I consider my inclusion in their ranks to be one of the great honors of my life. The Navy was and still remains the world I know best and love most. The Navy took me to war.
Unless you are a veteran you might find it odd that I would be indebted to the Navy for sending me to war. You might conclude mistakenly that the secret bond veterans share is that we enjoyed war. But as most veterans know, war is an experience we would not trade and we would rather not repeat.
We do share a secret, but it is not a romantic remembrance of war. War is awful. When nations seek to resolve their differences by force of arms, a million tragedies ensue. Nothing, not the valor with which it is fought nor the nobility of the cause it serves, can glorify war. War is wretched beyond all description. Whatever gains are secured, it is loss the veteran remembers most keenly. Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the cruel and merciless reality of war.
Neither do we share nostalgia for the exhilaration of combat. That exhilaration, after all, is really the sensation of choking back fear. We might be proud to have overcome the paralysis of terror. But few of us are so removed from the experience to mistake it today for a welcome thrill.
What we share is something harder to explain. It is in part appreciation for having sacrificed for a cause greater than ourselves; relief for having your courage and honor tested and affirmed in the fearsome crucible of combat; pride for having replaced comfort and security with misery and deprivation and not been broken by the experience. But the most important thing we share, the bond that it is ours alone is very difficult for others who have not shared our experience to understand. …
As we meet, in Iraq and Afghanistan, American soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen are fighting bravely and tenaciously in battles that are as dangerous, difficult and consequential as the great battles of our armed forces’ storied past. As we all know, the war in Iraq has not gone well, and the American people have grown sick and tired of it. I understand that, of course. I, too, have been made sick at heart by the many mistakes made by civilian and military commanders and the terrible price we have paid for them. But we cannot react to these mistakes by embracing a course of action that will be an even greater mistake, a mistake of colossal historical proportions, which will and I am as sure of this as I am of anything seriously endanger the country I have served all my adult life. …
Our defeat in Iraq would be catastrophic, not just for Iraq, but for us, and I cannot be complicit in it. I will do whatever I can, whether I am effective or not, to help avert it. That is all I can offer my country. It is not much compared to the sacrifices made by Americans who have volunteered to shoulder a rifle and fight this war for us. I know that and am humbled by it. But though my duty is neither dangerous nor onerous, it compels me nonetheless to say to my fellow Americans, as long as we have a chance to succeed we must try to succeed.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 98th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
Former Senator and Law and Order star Fred Thompson, seen here addressing the Policy Exchange last month in London, continues gearing up his run for the Republican presidential nomination.
After last week’s flurry of action in California and Nevada, this week in presidential politics the action shifts mostly elsewhere. Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani showed sizeable California leads in the new Field Poll for their respective Democratic and Republican primaries, and second place Democrat Barack Obama began staffing up in the Golden State.
But in second-in-the-nation Nevada, Clinton had a lessening lead as her husband the former president made a pair of campaign stops. And Silver State Republicans found themselves with the fourth poll leader in the state this year, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.
A week without a presidential debate beckons at last as we head deeper into summer. Of course, we just had another on Sunday morning, the Democrats yet again, this time in Des Moines, Iowa. As the three top candidates, Hillary Clinton, Barack, Obama, and even decidedly left-leaning John Edwards, all cautioned that disentangling America from Iraq will be a time-consuming, complex process.
In so doing, they may have presaged one of the major scene-setting developments for the week, the setting of terms for General David Petraeus’s long-awaited report to Congress next month. That, along with Fred Thompson’s continued ramping up of his candidacy, will determine much of what happens after Labor Day.
The White House wants Petraeus to deliver his report on progress, and lack of same, in Iraq in private. Democrats want the general to do it in public. The circumstances will do much to create the political narrative for his report, which is widely expected to be a mixed bag, given such ongoing problems as keeping the electric power on, while showing some progress, at least in the short term, in areas receiving concerted US military attention.
While there will be no debates this week — and we can the Good Lord for that small favor, at least until they turn into real debates — there will be some high profile appearances by groups of candidates.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City will hear from Republicans Fred Thompson and John McCain, and from Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Clinton and McCain address the VFW on Monday. Obama and Thompson address the VFW on Tuesday, with President Bush coming in on Wednesday. McCain is the only veteran of the group.
The VFW is a long-established organization which has heard frequently from presidential candidates. A new organization of American Indian tribes, principally those with highly lucrative casino gambling enterprises, called the Indigenous Democrats Network, will hear from three of the non-frontrunning presidential candidates this week. The event, called Prez on the Rez …
Perhaps Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig will fare better in their
next film together, The Golden Compass.
** SAFE FROM THIS INVASION. The third remake of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers fared far less well than the first two pictures, those of 1956 and 1978, opening well below box office predictions this weekend with only an estimated $6 million domestic gross. This despite having the biggest stars of all the casts, in Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.
But the film, as discussed last weekend, had a very troubled production history, with the original director’s work in large measure discarded and the picture turning from a more psychological thriller into more of an action movie. With Kidman, not Craig, who is, after all, the highly effective new James Bond, in the action hero role. It’s actually a fairly entertaining movie, but nowhere near what the first two classic pictures were. It also lacks the effective political and cultural subtexts that have always marked the “Body Snatcher” stories since the original 1950s novel by Californian Jack Finney. Oh, well.
Kidman and Craig team up again in a movie expected to be one of the holiday blockbusters, the science fantasy epic The Golden Compass.
Meanwhile, The Bourne Supremacy, a terrific action movie that does tap into the political zeitgeist, with Matt Damon in his third outing as the amnesiac ultra-black assassain, continued soaring at the box office, with over $163 million in the US after only its third weekend of release. This weekend it passed the most popular of the Pierce Brosnan James Bond epics, Die Another Day, in domestic box office. In a few days it will pass Craig’s outstanding Casino Royale.
And Michael Moore’s effective agitprop documentary about the woes of the US health care system, Sicko, is nearing the end of its run. It’s done a few million more than his Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine, but is still short of $25 million total. Its backers hoped for a substantially bigger impact.
** ANOTHER DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE. Well, there was yet another Democratic presidential debate this morning, this one in Iowa. I have to confess I didn’t get up to see it.
** CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE RETURNS TOMORROW. The Legislature is back tomorrow, with the state budget just over a month and a half late, and signs that the budget stall is close to resolution.
** ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER … ACTUALLY, NO, THERE ARE NO NEW FIELD POLL RESULTS TODAY. Those will resume tomorrow, with more information being rolled out over the next several days.
Blur with “Song 2″ in a trailer for Starship Troopers. Cool Britannia,
Cali version, got real this week with David Beckham’s injured ankle
finally leading the LA Galaxy to victory in a key SuperLiga game.
** GUCCI NO, LUCCHESE YES. Former Senator Fred Thompson, the former Law & Order star and would-be ultra-masculine Republican presidential candidate, is getting a lot of gas from Fox News (yes, lefties, it’s true!) for his choice of footwear. It seems he wore Gucci loafers to the Iowa State Fair.
Well, when I did Iowa for Gary Hart, I showed up from California in the dead of winter wearing Italian loafers and socks. Senator Hart took one look at me and said: “I don’t think I want you to freeze to death. We’re Westerners, notice that I am wearing cowboy boots.”
So to Senator Thompson I say, as I’ve said to many politicians since. Lucchese.
In any event, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s high degree of popularity continues with hardly a hiccup. His job approval is 57%, disapproval 31%, notwithstanding his taking some hits from his critics in the press and the hyperpartisans of right and left. In March, his numbers were 60% approval, 29% disapproval. His numbers are actually higher in other polls.
The Legislature, however, probably reflecting public dissatisfaction with the present state budget stall, is down. From 42% job approval in March, it’s down to 33% job approval early this month.
** TERM LIMITS CHANGE UP. But what is definitely up is support for the term limits change on next February’s California presidential primary ballot. In March, it led, 53% to 39%. Now it leads by 59% to 30%. Perhaps the fact that it actually cuts the total number of years allowed to be served in the state Legislature from 14 to 12 is a major factor.
The opponents of the initiative, who screamed about Attorney General Jerry Brown’s ballot description and lost two court cases trying to change it, don’t like the fact that it allows legislators to serve all 12 years in one house. The current version of term limits, while allowing 14 years overall in both houses, limits members to six years in the Assembly and eight years in the Senate.
Which, I can tell you from personal experience, has led to a general dumbing down of both houses.
** COOL BRITANNIA. Well, David Beckham and his sprained ankle — injured in June playing for the England national team and leading Real Madrid to the Spanish League championship — are finally playing on a regular basis for the LA Galaxy. He scored one goal and assisted on the other in a big win for the Galaxy over American soccer powerhouse DC United this week, which put the Galaxy into the SuperLiga championship game against Mexico’s national championship club. After a cameo appearance in his debut last month, Beckham has been mostly polishing the bench while his 32-year old ankle recuperated.
It comes at a good time, as his wife, Victoria Beckham, has been struggling to establish herself in the American celebrity pantheon. Her projected NBC reality series — Victoria Beckham Coming To America — became a special which didn’t have special ratings. And, though she is smart and funny, she’s been in danger of being yet another glamour gal relegated to the “troublesome rich chick” category of celebrityhood.
I thought she was much more attractive as a slender brunette rather than her current super-thin blonde persona. But when women best known for being glamorous become thirtyish, these sorts of changes, not for the best, can happen. Now she can join the other Spice Girls in rehearsal for their reunion tour later this year while Beckham does his soccer thing.
Incidentally, Beckham plays an international match for England again next week.
The “Bishkek Declaration” focuses on four main themes. First, member states agreed on the “strengthening of strategic stability, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction” and preventing the use of weapons against “objects in the cosmic space.” Second, they emphasize fighting the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism, and extremism. Next, drug trafficking in Afghanistan — Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, whose country borders on Kyrgyzstan, was a special guest in Bishkek — receives major emphasis, with the SCO setting up a contact group to deal with the problem. Finally, following the theme of an “Energy Club” articulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the SCO agreed that a “reliable and mutually-beneficial partnership in various fields of the energy sector will be conducive to the provision of security and stability on the SCO territory, as well as in the global perspective.”
Security matters dominated yesterday at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, as seen in this Russia Today report.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE. Definite signs of progress today. But I have no details to report.
On a more lighthearted note, the hyperpartisan conservative Flash Report has threatened a recall of state Senator Lou Correa, an Orange County Democrat who supports the budget passed on a bipartisan vote by the Assembly.
In a similar vein, I’m considering making George Galloway prime minister of the UK.
In addition, the Russian government has forced radio stations to eliminate the BBC (British Broadcasting Corp.) World newscast from their air, labeling the BBC news — which some right-wingers in America call anti-American — as “Western propaganda.”
** BILL CLINTON IN NEVADA. While there was some earlier confusion about his schedule, and a Las Vegas stop is now off, former President Bill Clinton campaigns for his wife Hillary tonight in Reno. Doors open at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center at 5 PM.
** NEVADA PRESIDENTIAL POLLS: NEW REPUBLICAN LEADER, LESSER CLINTON LEAD.There’s yet another lead change in the Republican presidential race in second-in-the-nation Nevada. Now the leader is Mitt Romney. He’s the fourth Republican leader in Nevada this year. Meanwhile, the Democratic leader continues to be Hillary Clinton, with a sizeable lead over second place Barack Obama. But Clinton’s lead is substantially less than it was in a Mason-Dixon poll two months ago.
Now it’s Clinton 33%, Obama 19%, John Edwards 15%, and Bill Richardson 11%. On the Republican side it’s Mitt Romney 28%, Fred Thompson 18%, Rudy Giuliani 18%, and John McCain 8%.
In June, the Mason-Dixon poll had it this way: Clinton was first with 39%, Barack Obama second with 17%, John Edwards third with 12%, and Bill Richardson fourth with 7%.
On the Republcian side, Fred Thompson had become the third candidate so far this year to lead in Nevada. He was at 25%, Mitt Romney was at 20%, one-time leader Rudy Giuliani was at 17%, and John McCain, who took a lead there in May, had slid to 8% amidst the immigration controversy (He was co-author of the Senate bill with Ted Kennedy, not a popular figure among many Republican primary/caucus voters).
** SCO SUMMIT HIGHLIGHTS NEW MILITARY ALLIANCE AND OPPOSITION TO U.S. “HEGEMONY.” The summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization — Russia, China, and four Central Asian states previously part of the Soviet Union — held August 16th in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan segued today to a place near Russia’s Ural Mountains, where the SCO held unprecedented joint military maneuvers comprised mainly of Russian and Chinese forces. Billed as an anti-terrorist exercise, the maneuvers, which involved 6500 troops, 80 aircraft and large numbers of armored vehicles, as well as China’s first foreign deployment of paratroopers, had more of a conventional look than that.
The SCO summit adopted declarations on mutual security and economic support. It was also clearly geared against US “hegemony.” The US made a move into Central Asia — which is strategically signficant both for fossil fuel energy reserves, sites for potential pipelines, and proximity to Afghanistan and the Middle East — in the wake of 9/11. But the SCO seems to want the US, which is down to its last base outside Bishkek, out of Central Asia,
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, America looked to intervene in Afghanistan, home base of Al Qaeda, and destroy their headquarters and topple the regime of their close ally, the Taliban. But we had virtually nothing going there. So, along with Britain, which has the most experience in the region, we turned to three countries which had more than a little going there, Russia and Iran and Pakistan. The latter nation because its increasingly Islamist intelligence service had nurtured and serviced the Taliban fundamentalist movement there. Iran because it had tremendous ties to opposition forces there. And Russia, because it is has been the biggest great power player in Central Asia for countless generations, and because it had great ties to opposition forces such as the Northern Alliance.
Pakistan backed off its backing for the Taliban. Iran provided entree to opposition forces. As did Russia. But Russia did something more, in addition to providing up-to-date mapping, intel, and some infrastructure such as helicopters to transport our intelligence/special ops folks in-country. It agreed to allow the establishment of US bases in its sphere-of-influence states in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Until late 1991, Kyrgyzstan was the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic.
Russia did this with no little misgivings. The Russians know — from the hard experience of losing the Cold War and finding their resultant country much less better off, and certainly far less powerful, than it seemed in the days of the Soviet empire — that when Americans intervene in a region, we come heavy and we come long. So allowing American military bases in the territory of the former USSR was not a decision taken lightly. Yet Russia also knows that things play out over time. And that Americans are distractable. And so, over time, the American bases have fallen away in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia which are so close and strategic for the ongoing effort in Afghanistan.
In 2005, the US lost its base in Uzbekistan. Now the last remaining major American base in post-Soviet Central Asia, the Manas air base outside Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, is in trouble.
The parliament of Kyrgyzstan, meeting in the capital city of Bishkek (known during the Soviet Union days as Frunze after the Bolshevik leader), has pushed in the wake of last December’s fatal shooting by a U.S. Air Force security policeman of an ethnic Russian fuel truck driver at a base checkpoint for the removal of the U.S. presence. The U.S. has an important air base in Kyrgyzstan supporting operations in Afghanistan, one of several bases in the region set up in the wake of 9/11.
Manas Air Base, named for a Kyrgyz hero of the distant past, is the last major U.S. base in post-Soviet Central Asia, and is key to U.S. operations in Afghanistan. The U.S. base is actually part of the international airport complex outside the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, which is one of the most remote international airports in the world. While the city is laid out in classic Soviet imperial style, a grid pattern with broad avenues and prominent squares, it is not at all a European city, despite the prevalence of the Russian language.
Kyrgyzstan is a mountainous, landlocked nation of some five million people bordered by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and China. It became part of Imperial Russia 130 years ago and continued in Soviet Russia after Bishkek-born Mikhail Frunze — a close associate of Lenin — pacified it and kept it loyal during the Communist revolutionary period. Although he is, as you might suppose, a less than wildly popular figure among his post-Soviet Kyrgyz brethen, Frunze — a top Soviet commander and military theorist of the Russian Revolution and Civil War who died during Stalin-ordered surgery — had his home town named after him during the Soviet era and continues to have major monuments in the renamed capital city of Bishkek continuing in his honor.
Kyrgyzstan is the last of the five post-Soviet Central Asian republics to have Russian as an official language. An eighth of the population is ethnic Russian. 75% of the population is Muslim, mostly Sunni though not especially devout. 20% is Russian Orthodox.
Although it is much closer to Kabul and Tehran than Moscow, some 2000 miles away as the crow flies, on the infrequent occasions when flights occur, by land a three-day train trip, Kyrgyzstan has longstanding ties to Russia, as the official language suggests. One of the top secondary school science and math academies for outstanding Soviet teenagers was established in Bishkek, then Frunze, and continues today. A Soviet flight school for aspiring Arab fighter pilots was established at the Bishkek airport, now site of the American Manas air base.
Its most recent deposed president, Askar Akayev, an eminent scientist who helped establish that Soviet science and math academy in his academic days, went into exile in Russia two years ago as a professor at a Moscow university after serving more than a decade as the nation’s president, a remarkably stable period.
Putin just upped the ante for the US in Kyrgyzstan, which pays $150 million a year to maintain the base outside Bishkek, by pledging $2 billion more a year in aid to Kyrgyzstan. Absent some slick moves on the part of the US, our time in Central Asia may be winding down as its importance in the world winds up.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 95th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
The Central Asian summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has gotten underway in Bishkek, formerly Frunze, capital of the tumultuous ex-Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan and site of the last US base in the region. The US is not a participant. A riot in the city from the end of 2006 is shown here.
** SCO SUMMIT. Leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summited today in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan. Chinese President Hu Jintao, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon and Uzbek President Islam Karimov all addressed the summit and signed a long-term treaty for greater security and economic cooperation.
Leaders and representatives from SCO’s observer countries — Mongolia, Pakistan, Iran and India — also delivered speeches at the summit before attending a performance of the Kyrgyz Philharmonic Orchestra. But before the cultural festivities, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared the proposed US missile shield in Eastern Europe to be a threat to all of Central Asia.
Iran is not part of Central Asia, but it’s trying to get in the club. A club which Russia is playing a freshy assertive role in, reeling the former Soviet republics of Central Asia back toward the Rodina. It’s also a vehicle for Russia and China to foster a newfound sense of military cooperation. The two countries have had a few joint military exercises in recent years.
Tomorrow the SCO heads of state venture to Russia’s Ural Mountains for the first SCO military exercise on Russian soil. Some 6500 troops will participate, the bulk of them Russian and Chinese. NWN will present video from Russia Today from the Bishkek summit and from Reuters on the military exercise.
The US established two key Central Asian bases after 9/11, but were expelled from Uzbekistan and are hanging on to the base in Kyrgyzstan, which is just outside Bishkek, site of the summit. As it reasserts itself, especially in its near abroad, Russia clearly wants the US base outside Bishkek, at the Manas airport, gone. The politics complex, with Kyrgyz politics corrupt and tumultuous, especially in the aftermath of the shooting of a Russian truck driver by a US Air Force security policeman, and I’ll explain them in detail tomorrow.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE. I’m getting a somewhat sketchy report that a deal is brewing. I have no details.
** A RICHARDSON SETBACK IN NEVADA.The newly-hired Eastern Nevada field director for New Mexico Governor and former UN Ambassador Bill Richardson’s presidential campaign is out. Seems he has outstanding arrest warrants in Los Angeles County for writing bad checks. And he spent two years as registered agent for a legal brothel called Mona’s Ranch. He was also vice chairman of the Elko County Democratic Party. Richardson, who is rising into contention in Nevada, Iowa, and New Hampshire, recently became the first Democratic presidential candidate in half a century to campaign in Elko.
** FRED THOMPSON GEARS UP. Undeclared Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator and Law & Order star, journeys to Iowa tomorrow for the Iowa State Fair. Thompson will make several such forays before finally announcing his candidacy for the Republican nomination in early September.
When Fred Thompson makes his long-delayed entrance into the Republican presidential race, he will not tiptoe quietly.
Instead, he will try to shake up the establishment candidates of both parties by depicting a nation in peril from fiscal and security threats—and prescribing tough cures he says others shrink from offering.
In a two-hour conversation over coffee at a restaurant near his Virginia headquarters, the former senator from Tennessee said that when he joins the battle next month, he “will take some risks that others are not going to take, in terms of forcing a dialogue on our entitlement situation, our military situation and what it’s going to cost” to ensure the nation’s future.
** OBAMA STAFFS UP IN CALIFORNIA WITH STATE DIRECTOR MITCHELL SCHWARTZ. Senator Barack Obama has appointed Mitchell Schwartz as his California state campaign director. Schwartz was Bill Clinton’s 1992 New Hampshire primary director and has worked for the campaigns of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, former Governor Gray Davis, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. He served in the Clinton State Department.
Schwartz is president of the board of the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters. He’ll work closely with Obama’s California co-chairman, former state Controller and eBay honcho Steve Westly, and other leaders of the campaign. Schwartz’s public affairs firm, the Bomaye Group, coordinated the grassroots and online campaign surrounding Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and worked on the Save Darfur Campaign. He should also be familiar to posters in the NWN Forum.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of an 94th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Most crude oil prices are up $73 to $74 per barrel on fears that powerful storms will threaten output and refinery capacity in and around the Gulf of Mexico.
