Hillary Clinton Speaks at AFSCME Convention In San Francisco

Senator Clinton came today to San Francisco for three scheduled events including two private fundraisers that aim at retiring her campaign debt. The other was a speech at the Moscone Center to the annual convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employee (AFSCME). She came to thank AFSCME for their endorsement and their support of her candidacy. She also urged her supporters to rally behind the candidacy of Senator Obama.

Here’s the San Francisco Chronicle report on her visit:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a rousing call to thousands of union workers in San Francisco on Thursday to put Sen. Barack Obama in the White House come fall - but it was a bittersweet moment for some of her most loyal supporters, particularly women, who said they are still deeply pained she’s not the Democratic candidate.

“I’m having a hard time,” said an emotional Cheryl Reynolds, a retired union librarian from Pennsylvania, after watching Clinton’s address, which was met with cheers and a prolonged standing ovation from a crowd of 3,000 at the international convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees at Moscone Center.

For both Reynolds and her husband, Dean, who spent more than six weeks on the road in states like Iowa and Indiana working for Clinton during the primaries, the New York senator’s appearance to boost Obama was hard to take.

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With Senator Obama’s numbers sinking in the key battleground state of Ohio, Governor Strickland, a Clinton supporter in the primaries, offered a candid but less than enthusiastic appraisal of Obama’s chances in the Buckeye state.

“I cannot deliver the state but I have already been trying to be helpful to Senator Obama and I will continue to do that.”

Translation: don’t blame me when Obama does not win in Ohio. While most polls of registered votes still show Obama leading in Ohio, his lead has been steadily narrowing. The latest Quinnipac University poll has Obama leading by four percentage points down two from a six point lead three weeks ago. It appears that Obama received no bounce from his overseas ‘facting-finding/campaign’ trip.

One of the key takeaways of the Quinnipac poll is the degree to which energy issues are now front and center. More voters in Ohio said candidates’ energy policies are more important than their Iraq policies by 48 to 43 percent. On who has the best energy policy, Ohioans are split: a third say McCain, another third say Obama, with the final third undecided. I wonder how many of Ohioans know that Obama voted for the Bush-Cheney Energy Policies and that John McCain didn’t. It does seem clear to this observer that McCain has a winning issue in energy policy.

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A peanut butter paste fortified with milk and vitamins called Plumpynut is helping to save the lives of thousands of malnourished children in a few countries in Africa including Niger, Malawi and the Darfur region of the Sudan. It was orginally created by Nutriset SAS, a French maker of therapeutic foods.

Plumpynut

Plumpynut is a peanut-based paste with the nutrition value of F-100 milk formula but unlike F-100 milk formula, plumpynut requires no preparation with clean water, a commodity generally not readily available in rural sub-Saharan Africa. Tasting like a slightly sweeter kind of peanut butter, it is also far more palatable to children than earlier efforts at a food based treatment for malnutrition. Plumpynut is eaten right from its pouch and is categorized by WHO as a Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF). It is also cheap, running about a dollar per day per child. Still beyond the means of most in rural Africa, where many live earn less than two dollars per day, but for aid agencies, it is affordable and represents an alternative to standard packages of food aid.

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It is reassuring to see that at least one state employee has the courage to stand up to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger over his unprecedented executive order that would slash the pay of all state employees to the Federal minimum wage of $6.55 until a state budget is passed.

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,

I understand that today you signed an executive order (Order) demanding the salaries of more than 200,000 civil servants who are covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) be cut to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour.

To the extent that the Order attempts to govern the constitutional duties for which I was independently elected to perform and, because it is based on faulty legal and factual premises, I will not comply with the Order.

Your Order to reduce the salaries of these civil servants, making them bear the brunt of the budget stalemate, appears to be based in part upon what you perceive to be a conclusive and unequivocal determination by the California Supreme Court in the case, White v. Davis (May 1, 2003) 30 Cal. 4th 528, that my authority to issue warrants to employees in the absence of a budget is limited to the minimum wage.

One of the main purposes of the FLSA in creating a minimum wage standard was to protect vulnerable employees from employer wage exploitation. In furtherance of that objective, and in order to afford employees some level of protection, Congress set a minimum salary level for all employees covered by the Act. The FLSA does not, in any way, prevent an employer from paying more than the minimum wage.

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Every summer California endures the madness of Sacramento’s inability to pass a budget on time and this summer has been no better. California has been operating without a budget now for a month. Last year, it took nearly two months before a budget was signed. Today, Governor Schwarzenegger took the unprecedented step of slashing 20,000 temporary state employees and cutting the pay of all state employees until a budget is passed.

From Agence France-Presse:

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday axed 20,000 temporary state employees and slashed the pay of 200,000 more workers in the latest twist to a budget stand-off.

Schwarzenegger told a news conference he had signed an executive order to implement the personnel and pay cuts amid ongoing wrangling over how to reduce California’s 15.2-billion-dollar budget deficit.

“Today I am exercising my executive authority to avoid a full-blown crisis and keep our state moving forward,” the actor turned Republican politician said in a statement.

“This is not an action I take lightly, but we do not have a budget, and as governor, I have a responsibility to make sure our state has enough money to pay its bills.”

It was not clear how Schwarzenegger’s executive order would work in practice. State financial controller John Chiang, a Democrat, has already vowed not to implement the pay cuts, saying to do so would likely risk legal action.

Schwarzenegger’s move comes after lawmakers failed to approve a budget at the start of the state’s new fiscal year on July 1.

Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads over how to narrow the multi-billion-dollar deficit, leaving the state unable to pay contractors and legislative employees.

The Governor states that it is his responsibility to ensure that California enough money to pay its bills. What about the employees whose wages have been slashed to the Federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour. What about their mortgages and rent payments? Their ability to feed their families? It is callous and dangerous politics. Pass a budget. That’s your job.

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Gabriel Culma Ortiz, alias ‘Guillermo’, a FARC guerrilla leader, has been extradited by the government of Venezuela to Colombia where he is wanted on charges of rebellion, kidnapping and murder. This marks the first tangible evidence that the government of Hugo Chávez has turned the corner on its support of the FARC. Gabriel Culma Ortiz, 38, was detained on July 26th in the Venezuela state of Amazonas.

Gabriel Culma Ortiz, un jefe de las FARC, fue deportado de Venezuela a Colombia, donde es reclamado por los delitos de rebelión, secuestro y asesinato. Gabriel Culma Ortiz, alias “Guillermo”, fue detenido el 26 de julio por la Guardia Nacional en el estado fronterizo de Amazonas, portando “documentos falsos en donde solicitaba la regulación de su nacionalización”. Esto marca la primera vez que el gobierno de Hugo Chávez mantiene su palabra de aportar la guerrilla colombiana en territorio venezolano.

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The Obama campaign released a television ad late Wednesday evening accusing the the McCain campaign of taking the “low road.” The ad is a response to the McCain’s camp’s ad attacking Obama as a celebrity and out of touch with the American public.

As per the charge in this ad that Obama is going to take on the oil companies, that seems highly unlikely given Senator Obama’s close association with the sector. Senator Obama voted for the Bush-Cheney Energy Policies and has received more contributions from the oil & gas sector than all other candidates combined. Who is kidding whom? On the subject of energy from the view of this observer, Obama has little credibility.

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The National Debt of the United States

The US national debt as of March 2008 stands at $9.4 trillion USD (that’s 12 zeros to the right of the decimal). This equates to over $30,000 USD per man, woman and child in the U.S. population or a little over $60,000 USD per head of the US working population. The US national debt has grown by $3 trillion USD (50%) since 2000, when it was $6 trillion. In 2007 alone, it grew by $500 billion, from $8.7 to $9.2 trillion. In 2005, it was 67% of U.S. GDP, up from 51% in 1988. The Office of Management and Budget projects that total debt will rise to $12.3 trillion in 2013.

Of the $4.7 trillion USD denominated debt in private hands, $2.4 trillion (51%) is held by foreign investors. Japan holds around $600 billion (24%) and China holds $500 billion (around 20%). U.K., Brazil and the oil exporting countries own about 6%. Middle Eastern and Russian holdings may be higher as off shore holdings (8%) may be vehicles for investments by oil-exporting countries wishing to avoid disclosure.

You may want to actually talk about issues that matter. And you may want to remind those running for office of this rather inconvenient fact.

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Here is the Thursday, July 31st, 2008 edition of interesting reads from around the world.

More on the Turkish Verdict
Der Spiegel covers indepth the decision of Turkey’s highest court not to ban Turkey’s Islamist and governing party, the AKP.

Turkey’s highest court said on Wednesday that it will not ban the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), a decision that avoids plunging Turkey into a political crisis.

The Constitutional Court in Ankara instead handed down a warning to the governing party. The presiding judge Hasim Kilic said after three days of deliberations those against the ban had narrowly won out. Six of the 11 judges had wanted to ban the AKP for allegedly trying to steer the country toward Islamic rule. The ban would have required the votes of seven justices. The court did, however, decide to strip the party of half of its state funding.

SAAARC Meeting in Colombo
The Foreign Ministers of South Asian Association for Regional Corporation (SAAARC) meet this week in Colombo, Sri Lanka against the backdrop of terrorism in India and Sri Lanka, continued uncertainty over Nepal and now Line of Control gunfire exchanges in Kashmir. The Hindu previews the meeting.

Famine in North Korea
North Korea is heading toward its worst food crisis since the 1990s because of flooding, successive crop failures and worldwide inflation for staples such as rice and corn, the United Nations World Food Program said Wednesday. The agency shied away from predicting another famine like the one that killed as many as 2 million people in the 1990s, but said its field staff was observing some of the same warning signs. Details in the Los Angeles Times.

Former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra’s Wife Convicted
In the first verdict in a series of corruption cases that target the former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, his wife was convicted Thursday of tax evasion and sentenced to three years in prison. More from the UK Guardian.

Kenya’s New Constitution Not Ready Yet
The meditation talks officially ended with chief mediator Prof Oluyemi Adeniji saying Kenyans will have to wait a little longer for a new Constitution. Oluyemi said the fate of a new Constitution now rested squarely with Kenya’s Parliament. More from the East Africa Standard.

Al-Qaeda Revived in Afghanistan
The Asia Times reports on Al-Qaeda’s improving fortunes in Afghanistan.

Abu-Yazid, a native of Egypt, once again emphasized al-Qaeda’s lessons-learned capability - this in regard to excessive Muslim casualties in attacks by al-Qaeda and its allies - and described the increasingly positive situation the mujahideen face in Afghanistan. Other media reporting shows Abu-Yazid’s optimism is understandable: both the growing numbers of non-Afghan Muslim fighters entering Afghanistan and the July 25-26 terrorist strikes in India - which will increase Pakistan-India tensions - contribute to the insurgency’s brightening prospects.

Russia Will Develop Turkmenistan Gas Fields
In the geopolitics of energy security, nothing like this has happened before. The United States has suffered a huge defeat in the race for Caspian gas. The question now is how much longer Washington could afford to keep Iran out of the energy market. Gazprom, Russia’s energy leviathan, signed two major agreements in Ashgabat on Friday outlining a new scheme for purchase of Turkmen gas. Details in the Asia Times.

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