President Barack Obama says a multi-billion dollar settlement between mortgage lenders and states over foreclosure abuses “will begin to turn the page on an era of recklessness that has left so much damage in its wake.”
** RICKROLLED: ROMNEY WILL BE “INEVITABLE” AGAIN WHEN …So, when will Mitt Romney be “inevitable,” again? And why are his weaknesses and failures a constant source of surprise?
Romney will be the inevitable challenger to Barack Obama when and if he walks on stage in Tampa to deliver his acceptance speech. A good start would be winning somewhere with a positive message, rather than the avalanche of negativity he’s relied on so far in taking only three of the first eight states, losing three in embarrassing landslides.
As to why the ever “inevitable” Romney’s repeated belly flops come as surprise, well, chalk it up to a sort of hive media phenomenon.
Romney, naturally, is doing what he always does.
His new move, having lost three states in Tuesday night’s big blow-out, is to attack Rick Santorum. As “an insider.” (Actually, he is a far right neocon fundamentalist.) Like Romney is an “outsider?”
The “outsider” Romney is in Washington Thursday raising money from lobbyists. He’s even designating “Industry Finance Chairs” for the oil and energy, finance, and defense sectors. So much for being an “outsider.” …
** NEW SURVEY: “LIFE RATINGS” AT HIGHEST LEVEL IN NEARLY A YEAR. A new Gallup Poll survey shows “life ratings” to be at their highest point in the US in 11 months.
This is guardedly good news for President Barack Obama, because of the trend of improvement, especially since the fall, and because the rating is far higher than it was during the height of the great global recession.
Americans rated their lives better in January than in any month since March of last year, with their collective Life Evaluation Index score increasing to 50.1 from 48.4 in December. Americans’ life ratings have been steadily recovering since October, when they dropped to their lowest level in more than two years (46.8). …
Americans’ life ratings, which Gallup and Healthways started tracking in January 2008, reached a new high in January 2011 (51.0), but then started steadily sinking in the summer and fall, at the same time that economic confidence tumbled and as Americans became more pessimistic about their personal finances. But, the U.S. Life Evaluation score is now almost back to its all-time high level and remains far higher than it was amid the 2008 and 2009 economic crisis.
The Life Evaluation Index, part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, classifies Americans as “thriving,” “struggling,” or “suffering” according to how they rate their current and future lives on a ladder scale with steps numbered from 0 to 10 based on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale. The overall Life Evaluation Index score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of suffering Americans from the percentage of thriving Americans.
The percentage of Americans who rate their lives well enough to be classified as thriving increased to 53.4% in January, up from 51.9% in December, and is the highest since May of last year.
At the same time, the percentage of Americans who are struggling declined last month to 43.3%, from 44.6% in December. The percentage suffering stayed about the same at 3.3%, compared with 3.5% in December. …
A US Army colonel with multiple Afghan War tours has accused the American military of painting a misleading picture of progress in the war in Afghanistan while glossing over the Afghan government’s many failings. Growing numbers of members of Congress, including former California Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, are calling for declassification of scathing intelligence assessments of Afghan progress.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … RICKROLLED: ROMNEY WILL BE “INEVITABLE” AGAIN WHEN …
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
He received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 9:15 AM Pacific, Obama makes a statement on the housing settlement with banks just agreed to by most state attorneys general.
At 11:45 AM Pafic, Obama welcomes Prime Minister Mario Monti of Italy to the White House.
At 4:10 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a fundraiser in a private residence.
As expected, Mitt Romney’s next move, having lost three states in Tuesday night’s big blow-out, is to attack Rick Santorum. As “an insider.” (Actually, he is a far right neocon fundamentalist.) Like Romney is an “outsider?” People are getting paid a great deal of money for this counsel.
Romney’s super PAC is busy attacking Newt Gingrich now in Ohio, where the former House speaker leads.
Romney is now also adjusting his positive message, realizing that he not only needs one, but needs one that is more than simply asserting his superiority as a manager of the economy.
It’s a more humble message, a matter of positioning really, asserting that he comes from humble beginnings because his father was once a laborer who rose to the heights of running a major car company and being governor of Michigan.
Of course, that is his father’s story, not his. Romney is a scion of great privilege.
So he will talk more about his own religious work with the downtrodden and otherwise distressed as a Mormon missionary and as a lay pastor. Romney was a Mormon missionary in France in lieu of serving in the US Armed Forces. And he was actually a bishop in the Mormon Church.
He’s also talking up his time as head of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, which he rescued from the embarrassment it was shaping up to be for his home state and its dominant religion.
The Republican candidates will all appear on Friday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. Look for Romney to try to win more support from the far right there.
Meanwhile, Obama is dealing with major geopolitical crises.
The Assad regime continues its assault on protesters, despite Tuesday’s visit from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Russia, which joined China in vetoing a UN Security Council resolution adopted by the other 13 UNSC members calling for change in Syria, said it would bring a halt to the violence in its longtime ally.
Thousands gathered today in Baghdad celebrating the pullout of US troops from Iraq. The US embassy operation there, once set to be truly massive — the better to operate at the major new base for US operations in the Middle East — is being seriously downsized with security now very difficult for diplomatic personnel.
But it has failed.
Turkey is joining the call for the formation of an International Contact Group on Syria, not unlike the International Contact Group on Libya.
Talk continues of Israeli air strikes on Iran, with more saying that they are inevitable by summer.
There are also fresh signs of deterioration in Iraq and Afghanistan, as you see in the news video reports.
Obama is monitoring a variety of geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, Iraq, Iran and Israel.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is eleven hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is twelve and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California and Los Angeles.
At 7 PM, Brown arrives at the Tesla Los Angeles Design Studio in Hawthorne.
At 8 PM, Brown will speak at Tesla Motors Model X “vehicle premiere.”
Tesla Motors, probably the world’s most famous electric car company and a particular favorite of Brown’s predecessor, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is best known for its halo car, the Tesla Roadster.
“California families will finally see substantial relief after experiencing so much pain from the mortgage crisis,” said Attorney General Kamala Harris, the state’s negotiator, in a statement this morning. “Hundreds of thousands of homeowners will directly benefit from this California commitment.”
“This outcome is the result of an insistence that California receive a fair deal commensurate with the harm done here. We insisted on homeowner relief for Californians and demanded enforceability so homeowners actually see a benefit that will allow them to stay in their homes, and preserved our ability to investigate banker crime and predatory lending,” Harris went on.
California will also be able to pursue further investigations into banking misconduct, including a joint investigative project with Nevada’s attorney general.
** NEWTONIAN MOTION, THE BIG NEVADA BUST, THE ROAD AHEAD (AND THE RISE OF RICK?).The bust that was the Nevada Republican presidential caucuses revealed much about brewing Republican swing state problems and the decided limitations of both Mitt Romney’s candidacy and that of his most persistent pursuer, Newt Gingrich. Which in the latest twist may redound to the benefit of the unsung winner of Iowa, Rick Santorum. … From my February 7th essay.
** ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT SILVER: HOW NEVADA AND THE WEST GOT SHORT-CHANGED.One of the major untold stories in this wacky election season is how far off plan the Republican presidential primaries have gotten.
The Republican Party planned to copy what the Democrats did in their 2008 election cycle. Stage four early contests, spaced out over time, with one state from each of the major regions, with each of the selected states small enough that prior fame and big money on the part of some competitors would not overwhelm a candidate’s ability to break through.
In the process, the candidates would be forced to learn about regional issues that were not part of the usual Beltway/East Coast “national” media lexicon, and develop a way to appeal to voters in key regions. … From my February 3rd column.
** WHAT LIGHT FROM THE SUNSHINE STATE?What light has been shed by the Florida Republican presidential primary? It’s not easy to see how Newt Gingrich wins. And it’s not hard to see how Mitt Romney falls. … From my February 2nd column.
** 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 three wars 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. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 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 $100 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $66 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 $14 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.
In today’s briefing, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the US is not planning military intervention or the arming of rebels in dealing with the Syrian crisis.
** QUICK HITS. As expected, Mitt Romney’s next move, having lost three states in last night’s big blow-out, is to attack Rick Santorum. As “an insider.” (Actually, he is a far right neocon fundamentalist.) Like Romney is an “outsider?” People are getting paid a great deal of money for this counsel. … Romney’s super PAC is busy attacking Newt Gingrich now in Ohio, where the former House speaker leads. … Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, setting up his next movie, The Tomb, in which he will star with old rival-turned-pal Sylvester Stallone, had shoulder surgery to deal with the impact of various stunts in his just wrapped The Last Stand. Ouch. So it’s not all getting international environmental awards in exotic locales. More to follow. …
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … RICKROLLED: ROMNEY WILL BE “INEVITABLE” AGAIN WHEN …
** JERRY-RIGGING: PUBLIC PENSION REFORM FALLS, BROWN MOVES ON REVENUE INITIATIVE. The word was that proponents of California public pension reform via the ballot box this year were having trouble raising big money. The other shoe dropped today when they announced the end of their bid, citing the ballot designation and description from Attorney General Kamala Harris’s office as too much to overcome.
The end of the drive won’t help Governor Jerry Brown’s more measured public pension reform proposal. Having something harsher on the ballot is a good argument for action to help head it off.
Brown still has the argument that voters will want to see more efficiencies in government before agreeing to more taxes this November. But that may not be as powerful.
In any event, Brown’s proposal isn’t very popular with public employee unions, either. Though I’m not sure it’s as unpopular as some reporting makes it out to be. That reporting, like so much in the increasingly flattened world of journalism, relies on a statement from one labor-backed anti-pension reform group. Is the re-tweeted surface impression entirely accurate? Probably not.
Meanwhile, Brown moves forward on several fronts, raising money from the business community for his November revenue initiative and working to dissuade backers of potential rival measures.
One big source of business money for his initiative is proving to be a number of Indian casino tribes.
Brown yesterday appointed a new Governor’s tribal advisor. She is Cynthia Gomez, most recently the chief justice of Miwok Indians Tribal Court and before that assistant secretary of environmental justice and tribal governmental policy for the California Environmental Protection Agency during the Schwarzenegger Administration, with 20 years of prior experience in state government, much of it liaising with tribal interests.
There’s not going to be any repeat of Schwarzenegger’s early war with the casino tribes — much of it sparked by their massive and unprecedented bankrolling of Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante’s gubernatorial campaign — in this administration.
Brown, incidentally, will speak Thursday night in Southern California at the “vehicle premiere” of Tesla Motors’ Model X. Tesla, of course, is arguably the world’s most famous electric car company, best known for its stylish and swift roadster.
** NEW POLL: VOTER APPROVAL OF CONGRESS REACHES NEW RECORD LOW. So how is that congressional takeover by right-wing Republicans working out?
Not that Democratic members of Congress, as a group, are held in high esteem, either, mind you.
Nor that Republicans view Congress well, either.
It’s interesting that Congress continues to decline, from already record low ratings, since the mood of the country is somewhat better, economic confidence is increasing to a degree, and President Barack Obama is on a rising trend.
A record-low 10% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, down from 13% in January and the previous low of 11%, recorded in December 2011. Eighty-six percent disapprove of Congress, tying the record high for disapproval set in December. …
The new-low 10% approval rating is based on a Gallup survey conducted Feb. 2-5, about two weeks after President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address and the reconvening of the U.S. House and Senate.
Congressional approval averaged 17% for all of 2011. The highest reading last year was 24% in May. More broadly, Gallup’s highest approval rating for Congress is 84% in October 2001, a month after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.
It is difficult to pinpoint any specific recent actions that may have led to the continuing deterioration in Congress’ image, particularly because much of the political attention in January and early February has focused on the Republican presidential race. Congress at this point is again wrangling over the extension of the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits — both of which were temporarily extended late last year in a short-term fix that expires at the end of February. It is notable that President Obama has continued to make criticism of Congress a part of his broad presidential re-election strategy.
Congress’ current low ratings continue a generally negative trend. The 17% annual average for 2011 is by one percentage point the lowest yearly average Gallup has recorded. More broadly, the average congressional job approval rating since 1974 is 34%, signifying the generally poor esteem in which the American people have held Congress over the past decades. …
>>>>>>LIVE VIDEO NETCAST
At 9:45 AM Pacific, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing. The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.
** LIVE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.
With massive geopolitical events swirling and the 2012 presidential race unfolding, the White House is increasingly a pivot point for the day’s events. Live streaming of key presidential events is now available as a matter of course here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.
NWN will continue to present other live netcasts in full streaming mode, as it did with the Ronald Reagan Centennial events from the Reagan Library, as they emerge and are technically available and as significance dictates.
Can you say “inevitable?” Rick Santorum won all three states yesterday — Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado — from supposedly inevitable Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney. The first two contests were landslides; the latter was a state that Romney won in a landslide in 2008.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … RICKROLLED: ROMNEY WILL BE “INEVITABLE” AGAIN WHEN …
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
He received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 9:45 AM Pacific, press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing in the James S. Brady Briefing Room.
The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes.
At 11 AM Pacific, Obama attends the Democratic Senate Caucus Retreat at Nationals Park, the home of the Washington Nationals baseball team.
At 1 PM Pacific, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.
Big wins for Rick Santorum last night, taking all three states from putative Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney.
I described what was likely to happen, and why, in yesterday morning’s piece linked below.
Mitt Romney’s campaign released a memo yesterday rationalizing expected setbacks in today’s caucus and primary contests.
“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” But Romney is no Jedi, and the would-be mind trick only works on weak-minded chroniclers, not the voters themselves.
Romney was thoroughly humiliated last night, losing in huge blow-outs in Minnesota, where he was supposed to be no worse than second but finished third, and in Missouri.
He even lost in Colorado, a state that was supposed to be a lock.
In Missouri, Santorum pulverized Romney, 55-25, with Ron Paul a distant third at 12% and Newt Gingrich not on the ballot.
In Minnesota, Santorum whipped Romney 45-17, with Paul pulling into second with 27% and Gingrich fourth with 11%.
And in Colorado, which Romney won with 60% in 2008, Santorum beat Romney, 40-35, with Gingrich a distant third at 13% and Paul, supposedly strong there, last with 12%.
Romney has now lost five of the first eight contests, despite his massive financial and organizational advantages, three of them in epic landslide fashion. This is one very deeply flawed frontrunner. As I may have mentioned once or twice in the past several months.
I’ll get into all this in detail, and what it means going forward.
Meanwhile, Obama is dealing with major geopolitical crises.
The Assad regime continues its assault on protesters, despite yesterday’s visit from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Russia, which joined China in vetoing a UN Security Council resolution adopted by the other 13 UNSC members calling for change in Syria, said it would bring a halt to the violence in its longtime ally.
But by the evidence of today, it has failed.
Despite a visit from Russia’s foreign minister, the Assad regime continued its assault on pro-democracy protesters today. The onslaught in the Syrian city of Homs has prompted Turkey to call for an international conference.
This will further spur the formation of an International Contact Group on Syria, not unlike the International Contact Group on Libya.
Indeed, Turkey is calling for such an international conference now in the wake of the failure of the Lavrov mission to Damascus to bring an end to the violence.
Obama announced new sanctions on Iran’s central bank on Monday, with Iran engaged in a new round of military exercises and lots of recent talk of Israeli air strikes against Iran’s nuclear program.
Talk continues of Israeli air strikes on Iran, with more saying that they are inevitable by summer.
Are we drifting to war?
Meanwhile, the crisis in Egypt continues, with officials of NGOs — including various Americans, among them the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood — charged with political crimes. LaHood and other Americans are safe in the US Embassy. They have been helping pro-democracy activists in Egypt, those who brought an end to the Mubarak regime and helped give rise to another sort of dictatorship, which they continue to oppose.
Is a potential hostage situation developing?
Obama is monitoring a variety of geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, Iraq, Iran and Israel.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is eleven hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is twelve and a half 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.
As expected, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday upheld a federal district court ruling that the 2008 initiative is unconstitutional, which of course will set up an appeal to the US Supreme Court by its sponsors.
But they may appeal to the full 9th Circuit first.
Brown, then California’s attorney general, joined then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in refusing to defend Prop 8 in the courts, a decision later reaffirmed by Attorney General Kamala Harris.
** NEWTONIAN MOTION, THE BIG NEVADA BUST, THE ROAD AHEAD (AND THE RISE OF RICK?).The bust that was the Nevada Republican presidential caucuses revealed much about brewing Republican swing state problems and the decided limitations of both Mitt Romney’s candidacy and that of his most persistent pursuer, Newt Gingrich. Which in the latest twist may redound to the benefit of the unsung winner of Iowa, Rick Santorum. … From my February 7th essay.
** ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT SILVER: HOW NEVADA AND THE WEST GOT SHORT-CHANGED.One of the major untold stories in this wacky election season is how far off plan the Republican presidential primaries have gotten.
The Republican Party planned to copy what the Democrats did in their 2008 election cycle. Stage four early contests, spaced out over time, with one state from each of the major regions, with each of the selected states small enough that prior fame and big money on the part of some competitors would not overwhelm a candidate’s ability to break through.
In the process, the candidates would be forced to learn about regional issues that were not part of the usual Beltway/East Coast “national” media lexicon, and develop a way to appeal to voters in key regions. … From my February 3rd column.
** WHAT LIGHT FROM THE SUNSHINE STATE?What light has been shed by the Florida Republican presidential primary? It’s not easy to see how Newt Gingrich wins. And it’s not hard to see how Mitt Romney falls. … From my February 2nd column.
** 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 three wars 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. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 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 $98 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $64 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 $16 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.
In an awesome demonstration of the future of American high technology, President Barack Obama and a young science fair participant used an air cannon to shoot a marshmallow across the East Room of the White House.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … ROMNEY WILL BE INEVITABLE WHEN …
** QUICK HITS. A relatively quiet day in presidential campaign politics as Mitt Romney’s campaign released a memo rationalizing expected setbacks in today’s caucus and primary contests.“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” … Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who will not do nearly as well as Rick Santorum tonight, will speak the last weekend in February at the California Republican Party convention in the San Francisco Bay Area. … Gingrich naturally denounced today’s federal appeals court ruling that California’s same sex marriage ban is unconstitutional, calling the ruling an “affront to Judeo-Christian civilization.”
A federal appeals court today declared California’s same-sex marriage ban to be unconstitutional, putting the bitterly contested, voter-approved law on track for a likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
** AS EXPECTED, 9TH CIRCUIT COURT DECLARES PROP 8 ANTI-SAME SEX MARRIAGE INITIATIVE UNCONSTITUTIONAL, SETTING UP APPEAL.A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, well-known as one of the most liberal in the country, announced at 10 AM today in San Francisco that it finds California’s anti-same sex marriage Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional, upholding an earlier ruling by now retired federal Judge Vaughn Walker.
The ruling came on a 2-1 vote of the panel, which crafted its decision narrowly so as to apply only to California and said that same sex marriages in the Golden State — which had been authorized by the California Supreme Court before the Prop 8 vote in 2008 — cannot resume until a deadline for appeal to the entire 9th circuit court passes.
“Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently. There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted,” the ruling states.
Prop 8 backers say they will appeal to the US Supreme Court, decrying today’s ruling as “a San Francisco decision” prodded by a “Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage.”
“Today’s ruling is a victory for fairness, a victory for equality and a victory for justice,” declared California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who followed the path of her predecessor, now Governor Jerry Brown and then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in refusing to defend Prop 8 in court.
Brown issued a brief statement on the ruling: “The court has rendered a powerful affirmation of the right of same-sex couples to marry. I applaud the wisdom and courage of this decision.”
In contrast, Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, who is not a player in these maneuverings, put out a lengthy statement and called a press conference on the matter.
“Today’s decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stands as a victory for the fundamental American principle that all people are equal, and deserve equalrights and treatment under the law. This is the biggest step that the American judicial system has taken to end the grievous discrimination against men and women in same-sex relationships,” Newsom opined, “and should be highly praised.”
Newsom briefly and unilaterally declared same sex marriage legal in San Francisco while its mayor in 2004.
In 2008, after the California Supreme Court declared same sex marriage legal, Newsom notoriously gave a sneering speech in which he declared same sex marriage to be inevitable, “Whether you like it or not.”
That speech, along with his decision to host a same sex wedding at San Francisco City Hall attended by the young schoolchildren taught by the celebrants at the height of the campaign, made Newsom the star of the highly successful Yes on 8 advertising campaign.
Admiral Bill McRaven, head of U.S. Special Operations Command, said today that special operations forces in Afghanistan are preparing for a possible expanded role as overall US forces begin to draw down after a decade of war.
** NEWTONIAN MOTION, THE BIG NEVADA BUST, THE ROAD AHEAD (AND THE RISE OF RICK?).The bust that was the Nevada Republican presidential caucuses revealed much about brewing Republican swing state problems and the decided limitations of both Mitt Romney’s candidacy and that of his most persistent pursuer, Newt Gingrich. Which in the latest twist may redound to the benefit of the unsung winner of Iowa, Rick Santorum.
Let’s start with Gingrich, who has turned Romney’s seemingly smooth march to the Republican presidential nomination into, at best, a choppy and awkward procession dependent almost entirely on overwhelming spending and record blizzards of negative advertising.
Twice now, Gingrich has been in position to take command of the race, and twice now — first in the run-up to Iowa, after he declared himself the inevitable nominee, and then in Florida, after he came back and blitzed Romney in South Carolina — he has faltered.
After losing in Florida, Gingrich had the opportunity to show his ability to swiftly adapt to changing circumstances. After all, as co-founder of the Congressional Military Reform Caucus, Gingrich, along with my old friend Gary Hart, was champion of the Boyd Cycle — Observation-Orientation-Decison-Action — developed by the late Col. John Boyd which holds that the ability to rapidly adjust and decisively act in changing circumstances is the key to victory.
But instead of moving swiftly, decisively, and accurately, Gingrich spent the week seeming adrift, bouncing from misstep to mishap.
He ran a dreadful campaign in Nevada, starting at the last minute in a place he should have been stealing a march on as he roared up in the South Carolina polls, running no TV ads at all despite the affordability of Nevada media in its easy to handle two markets, having no surrogate operation or field operation to speak of, and holding only five candidate events after the Florida primary.
There were plenty of opportunities on which to capitalize, starting with Romney’s view that homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages — Nevada is the national leader in this — should be allowed to drown, extending to Romney’s view that he needn’t concern himself with the poor since they have welfare and his embrace of billionaire birther Donald Trump, a national symbol of self-aggrandizing excess.
But Gingrich apparently expected Trump to endorse him! Which was merely a continuation of the comedy of errors beginning with Gingrich blowing off a meeting with popular Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, who had earlier endorsed now Gingrich-backer Rick Perry.
Still, Gingrich’s errant non-campaign beat Ron Paul, who supposedly had a big operation in the Silver State. Supposedly.
Both beat Rick Santorum, who had already moved on to Colorado and Minnesota, which hold caucuses today, and Missouri, which has a beauty pageant primary. Had he dropped out, and had Gingrich mounted a decent campaign, Gingrich would have had a shot at Romney in the Silver State.
But Santorum, who was screwed by bad reporting out of his Iowa victory — which I warned about early on — isn’t getting out of the race. In fact, according to Monday night’s Public Policy Polling survey, he has a slight lead in the Minnesota caucuses and appears to be ahead in Missouri, which is a primary allocating no delegates. …
Russia’s foreign minister arrived in Syria for talks with President Bashar al-Assad as the Syrian army’s deadly bombardment of the city of Homs enters its fifth day.
** 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.
Obama then viewed science fair projects in the State Dining Room.
Following that, Obama delivered remarks at the White House Science Fair in the East Room.
At 9:45 AM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet for lunch in the Private Dining Room.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in the Oval Office.
Obama campaign manager Jim Messina announced last night in this column on the Huffington Post, and elsewhere, that the president’s forces will not unilaterally disarm in the face of the rise of the super PACs. Which, as we’ve seen in the Republican presidential race, have come close to supplanting the roles of the formal campaigns, especially with Mitt Romney emerging as the clear candidate of Wall Street.
So Messina is calling on Obama backers to help support Priorities USA, a nascent super PAC which to date has drawn major support only from director Steven Spielberg and a few others.
Meanwhile, the Republican nomination fight continues, with Romney clearly worried that he may lose one and quite possibly two of today’s contests in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado.
Only in the latter state is Romney likely to win, in today’s caucuses. In the other two, he trails Rick Santorum, according to late polling from Public Policy Polling.
I discuss all this in the essay excerpted and linked above.
Obama announced new sanctions on Iran’s central bank yesterday, with Iran engaged in a new round of military exercises and lots of recent talk of Israeli air strikes against Iran’s nuclear program.
The administration is moving to assembly a nascent International Contact Group on Syria in the wake of the dual Russia/China veto of the UN Security Council resolution on Saturday.
To cool the situation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Damascus today to seek a quelling of the violence. But the Assad regime’s highly lethal assault on protesters continued for a fifth straight day.
Obama is monitoring a variety of geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, Iraq, Iran and Israel.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is eleven hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is twelve and a half 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.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals is set to issue its ruling on the Proposition 8 banning of same sex marriage in California at 10 AM.
I expect the court to uphold a federal district court ruling that the 2008 initiative is unconstitutional, which of course will set up an appeal to the US Supreme Court by its sponsors.
Brown, then California’s attorney general, joined then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in refusing to defend Prop 8 in the courts, a decision later reaffirmed by Attorney General Kamala Harris.
So the proponents are forced to defend it themselves.
In other action, the Obama Administration yesterday disallowed Brown’s attempted austerity move to force co-payments from low-income health care recipients, creating a small budget hole
And former Governor Pete Wilson endorsed Mitt Romney for president.
** ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT SILVER: HOW NEVADA AND THE WEST GOT SHORT-CHANGED.One of the major untold stories in this wacky election season is how far off plan the Republican presidential primaries have gotten.
The Republican Party planned to copy what the Democrats did in their 2008 election cycle. Stage four early contests, spaced out over time, with one state from each of the major regions, with each of the selected states small enough that prior fame and big money on the part of some competitors would not overwhelm a candidate’s ability to break through.
In the process, the candidates would be forced to learn about regional issues that were not part of the usual Beltway/East Coast “national” media lexicon, and develop a way to appeal to voters in key regions.
In the 2008 cycle, with the firm backing of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who represents the Silver State, the Democrats elevated Nevada into the First Four, along with traditional one and two Iowa and New Hampshire, and South Carolina, as a way to get their candidates ready to compete in the West, a growing area targeted for competition. … From my February 3rd column.
** WHAT LIGHT FROM THE SUNSHINE STATE?What light has been shed by the Florida Republican presidential primary? It’s not easy to see how Newt Gingrich wins. And it’s not hard to see how Mitt Romney falls.
Florida answered several key questions about the race. Would Gingrich blow it (again)? Would Romney buy it? Would the negative out-weigh the positive? Would Gingrich give up if he lost? … From my February 2nd column.
** 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.
Basejumper Felix Baumgartner will attempt to break the speed of sound by freefalling from the edge of space, nearly 23 miles up, above Roswell, New Mexico.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in three wars 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. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 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 $98 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $64 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 $16 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 US today shut down its embassy in Damascus and recalled its ambassador to Syria in the wake of continued violence there and the UN Security Council resolution vetoed by Russia and China. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrives in Syria on Tuesday, reportedly to try to convince the Assad regime to stop the violence for which Russia is increasingly blamed.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … NEWTONIAN MOTION, THE BIG NEVADA BUST, THE ROAD AHEAD (AND THE RISE OF RICK?).
** QUICK HITS. President Barack Obama announced new sanctions on Iran’s central bank today, with Iran engaged in a new round of military exercises and lots of recent talk of Israeli air strikes against Iran’s nuclear program. … In California politics, the Obama Administration is disallowing Governor Jerry Brown’s attempted austerity move to force co-payments from low-income health care recipients. … And former Governor Pete Wilson today endorsed Mitt Romney for president.
** JERRY-RIGGING: DRAMATIC POSTURING TODAY FROM WOULD-BE INITIATIVE LEADERS. Leaders of the “Millionaire Tax” initiative, which would ramp up income taxes permanently on millionaires to pay for schools and some social programs, launched their signature-gathering drive today with a media conference call and some street theater. The latter in the form of some freeway banners.
Several, including California Calls leader Anthony Thigpenn, a former Black Panther, and Courage Campaign head Rick Jacobs, who directed Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in California, said that they met with Governor Jerry Brown in late December and he did not try to dissuade them from their course. Brown, of course, is working to clear potentially competing measures from a November ballot on which he prefers that only his temporary income tax on the rich/sales tax initiative appears as a measure dealing with the income tax.
But there were three other potential competitors in that category. One, an elaborate plan from the Think Long Committee to cut tax rates for the wealthy and corporations, among other things, has fallen by the wayside as I predicted here early on.
But the “Millionaire Tax” and another income tax-related measure, this by heiress Molly Munger — now a civil rights lawyer, she is a player in this because her father is Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner — are still out there.
Munger spoke today before the state PTA conference in Sacramento, and reportedly told the crowd and reporters that she is moving forward with her plan to raise income taxes for most everyone to fund the schools. Something which does not poll particularly well, as you might imagine.
Munger, who has never been involved in a campaign before, to my knowledge, and whose existence I was unaware of prior to the announcement of her brainstorm, says she has internal polling showing that her initiative is popular, and that both her initiative and Brown’s can pass. In which case, she told reporters, her initiative would supersede the governor’s. Pass the salt.
She apparently said she might make some changes in her initiative, but also said that she will spend whatever it takes to qualify the measure.
The Millionaire Tax crew, which does not have anything like those sorts of resources, was more vague about its financing.
This morning’s conference call was to announce the start of the petition campaign and to announce the support of the California Nurses Association, a group which is quite theatrical and always highly-publicized, but not one of the big labor funders of state politics. Their representative was noncommittal about financial commitments.
But he did deliver a spiel echoing the Occupy Wall Street rhetoric about why a permanent big tax hike on millionaires is a great idea, and talked up grassroots organizing.
The California Federation of Teachers, the state’s smaller teachers union — the giant California Teachers Association backs Brown’s initiative — has joined with a left-liberal coalition called California Calls to put together about $700,000. Any numbers beyond that, aside from a goal of $10 million, were left vague.
The CFT rep did claim that the union took the lead on Proposition 25, the 2010 initiative which changed the state budget to a majority vote. (But not the revenue aspects.) That may come as news to consultant Gale Kaufman, who ran that campaign and is the chief strategist for the California Teachers Association.
Brown’s concern, of course, is that more than one initiative in the same vein will confuse voters and lead to defeat. The Millionaires Tax folks denied that, citing some evidence that is interesting but not definitive.
Both initiative campaigns are at the brave early stage of maneuvering. Where they end up may be another matter entirely.
** NEW SURVEY: ECONOMIC CONFIDENCE IN THE STATES. OR LACK OF SAME. A new Gallup Poll survey reveals that economic confidence was down year-on-year in every state in the Union last year. Which should be no particular surprise.
And that confidence was highest in the District of Columbia, not technically a state, and not surprising given its status as the base of the federal government, and lowest in perpetually hard scrabble West Virginia.
How about California?
Well, the not so Golden State is about average in economic confidence, despite having the second highest unemployment rate in the country. It dropped from -29 to -36.
This actually placed California 12th highest in terms of the smallest decline in economic confidence.
You know when you are talking about which states have the smallest declines in economic confidence that it is a decidedly non-good situation.
Towards the end of the year, of course, California’s prospects perked up, with notable declines in the unemployment rate and continued strength in exports and GDP growth.
Nevada, long ballyhooed as the beneficiary of California’s supposedly strangling business climate, has the country’s worst unemployment rate and mortgage crisis by far. And Texas, a supposed economic exemplar on the far right, dropped out of the top 10 most economically confident states.
In 2011, Americans remained pessimistic about the national economy, but residents of the District of Columbia, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska were less pessimistic. Economic confidence was lowest among West Virginia and Maine residents. …
Nationally, the Economic Confidence Index was -37 in 2011, down from -28 in 2010. The Index is based on the average differences between Americans’ assessments of current conditions (11% excellent or good and 48% poor in 2011) and their views of whether the economy is getting better (29%) or worse (66%). The Index has a theoretical range of -100 to +100, with negative scores indicating respondents are more negative than positive about the economy. For the full results on the components of the index by state, see page 2.
There are no clear patterns in the states that rank in the top and bottom 10 in economic confidence. For example, the top 10 states vary by region and political leanings, including the most (Hawaii, along with D.C.) and least (Utah) Democratic states. …
The composition of the 10 most economically confident states is similar to last year’s, with Delaware and Texas the only states dropping out, and Utah and Nebraska moving in. After the District of Columbia, South Dakota and Hawaii had the highest economic confidence scores in 2009 and 2010, respectively. North Dakota ranked first in 2008.
West Virginia has ranked as the least economically confident state in both 2010 and 2011. It was third worst in 2009, behind Wyoming and Michigan. Rhode Island was least confident in 2008. …
Best Super Bowl ad for the Obama re-elect. Halftime in America, featuring Clint Eastwood for Chrysler and the successfully bailed-out US auto industry.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … NEWTONIAN MOTION AND THE BIG NEVADA BUST.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
Another big week in presidential politics, but not so much due to the Republican presidential contest. And an intriguing and quieter week in California politics, where Governor Jerry Brown fine-tunes the plan for the first phase of high-speed rail in America (a project that will last for decades), deals with near-term budget problems, and works on his November initiative plans.
Mitt Romney won the Nevada caucuses easily on Saturday, though he got fewer votes this time than when Nevada was a minor after-thought four years ago and took some big self-induced hits in the process. The race moves on to caucuses this week in Colorado, Minnesota, and Maine, and a beauty contest primary with no delegates at stake in Missouri, and Romney has some problems ahead. But, while that race goes on, and I’ll get back to it, the bigger developments involved President Barack Obama.
Though he has some more encouraging economic news, big geopolitical crises are again looming, around Syria and Iran and Israel.
Obama authorized Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — appearing in Bulgaria, once a Soviet bloc state — to speak out vehemently Sunday against Saturday’s dual veto by Russia and China of a UN Security Council resolution to urge Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to halt the violence against pro-democracy protesters and step away from power.
The vote was 13 to 2, but since the two no votes were cast in the form of vetoes by two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the other three being the US, UK, and France, all strong supporters of the resolution — the resolution was defeated.
Clinton described the UN Security Council as “neutered” by Russian and Chinese intransigence. She vowed to expose those countries still supplying weapons to the Assad regime, which almost certainly includes Russia, and to move to establish new international sanctions and actions against the Assad regime outside of the UN framework.
I suspect that Clinton is on the verge of calling for an International Contact Group on Syria, like the same grouping which formed on Libya.
For days, the United Nations Security Council struggled behind the scenes for a resolution condemning the Syrian regime that wouldn’t be vetoed by Russia. Friday’s State Department briefing was a study in the diplomatic dance.
But on Saturday, with some 250 protesters reportedly massacred the day before by Assad regime forces in Homs, on the 30th anniversary of massacres infamously carried out by his father, the US, UK, France, and Arab League pressed ahead with their resolution calling for Assad to step away from the presidency.
The resolution garnered all the votes on the UN Security Council save two. But because those two are Russia and China, and they are among the five permanent members of the Security Council, the resolution failed despite winning numerically, 13-2.
US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice delivered a blistering statement to the Security Council in the wake of the vetoes. Russia, as Rice bitterly noted in her remarks, continues to sell weapons to the Assad regime.
So why are Russia, which has borne the brunt of criticism, and China — which emerged from the closet to join in the unusual dual veto at the Security Council — protecting the Assad regime?
Both countries’ leaderships are deeply unsettled by the Arab Awakening. Why? Because it is sweeping away longtime allies, such as Gaddafi in Libya and now, quite possibly, Assad in Syria, who is Russia’s most important ally in the ME.
And because both countries have nascent protest movements which the ruling parties find deeply troubling.
Russia’s gets more publicity because the news media, both domestic and international is afforded more freedom of coverage there. But China is, if anything, even more repressive, freely shutting down Internet access, for example, in ways which would not be tolerated in Russia, and simply blocking international news media from access in some instances.
None of this is new for China. It is a bit new for Russia, which had opened much more to the West during Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency, which is now drawing to an end. With the return of Vladimir Putin, whom I’ve met and is one steely son of a gun, to the presidency, the friendly face of the Kremlin is being replaced.
And with the US slowly but surely disentangling itself from its Iraq and Afghanistan entanglements, US interests are more apt to bump up against those of China — as we are seeing in the Asia Pacific region — and Russia, which has been quite helpful in Afghanistan.
So both Russia and China are against establishing a humanitarian interventionist rationale in the internal affairs of countries, a rationale which they fear over the long term could be applied against themselves. And as a result are developing a narrative, as you can see by watching Russia Today, that the US, NATO, and selected Arab powers are engaged in a new imperialist conspiracy.
But Syria is only one place where the big powers are running up against one another.
Another potential flash point exists around Iran.
With talk of Israeli air strikes on Iran again spiking, red hots on the ultra-left are positing an Obama Administration conspiracy with the Jewish state to wage war on the peace-loving Islamic republic while red hots on the far right see the administration as cravenly selling out plucky Zionists taking on the necessary civilizational struggle. Heaven deliver us from loons of both persuasions.
Iran embarked on another set of military exercises on Saturday. Initially, at least, they are land and air-based, not naval. Iran has threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. But it also warned the US not to have an aircraft carrier in the Gulf, and USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group confidently steamed right back in there. Not that the Iranians couldn’t present some problems in that bathtub.
China is an advocate of Iran, again receiving little notice in the tunnel vision US media, flatly refusing US and European Union entreaties to stop buying Iranian oil as a means of leveraging more pressure on the Islamic republic to drop its nuclear weapons program.
Russia, as one of the world’s leading oil powers, has no interest in buying Iranian oil. And its interests are more complex, since I don’t believe that the Kremlin wants Iran, a current ally of a sort but a rival over the sweep of history, to become a nuclear power, either. Yet it does not want the US and its allies to have their way in the Middle East, either.
While these growing crises play out, the rather absurd Nevada Republican presidential caucuses went down this weekend.
And down is where they went.
Although this was planned to be a major event, one of the first four contests in the Republican nomination race, it devolved into a sparsely attended sideshow.
In fact, fewer Republicans voted this time than four years ago, when it was an afterthought event taking place on the same day as the South Carolina primary.
Mitt Romney swept to a big victory, with about 50%. Newt Gingrich was second with 21%, followed by Ron Paul with 19% and Rick Santorum with 10%.
Romney’s numbers are undoubtedly inflated by a disproportionate number of Mormons taking part in the caucuses. With lower turnout, the Mormon vote, which should be about 20% in a Nevada Republican contest — Mormons are 11% of the state’s population — is even more significant.
Gingrich ran a dreadful campaign in Nevada, starting at the last minute, running no TV ads at all despite the affordability of Nevada media, having no surrogate operation or field operation to speak of, and holding only five candidate events since Florida.
Still, he beat Ron Paul, who supposedly had a big operation in the Silver State.
Now the circus moves on.
Meanwhile, someone who has won not one but two Nevada presidential caucuses, albeit as a Democratic rather than Republican presidential candidate, Jerry Brown, has a lot of work this week, mostly behind the scenes.
My cadre of taxi driver advisors, naturally swearing me to secrecy as to their identities, tell me a variety of arguably colorful things about what Brown must do/can’t do/isn’t doing on high-speed rail. But I’m already forgetting them.
In pushing forward with high-speed rail, Brown and Obama — for California is the only place in the country still moving on this priority for forward-thinking Democrats in the wake of Tea Partyism — find themselves vehemently opposed by the old energy economy, and its reflexive advocates in the lobbying and media worlds, which seeks to strangle high-speed rail in its American crib while 14 other advanced industrial nations look at the US in the rear view mirror.
Brown, like his predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger before him, seeks to rise above the leveling and mediocrity inherent in a political and media culture in which splitting the difference between hyper-partisan extremes is viewed as statesmanship.
Brown also needs a plan showing how the first phase of the project, the “spine” down the Central Valley, is relevant both for development of the Valley and Valley transit and for the future phases of the project. And he needs to keep on communicating the nature of very big public works projects in America, which are very frequently opposed both by lobbies for the old order of things and by those who can see only increments of what they are already familiar with.
The same sorts of folks who criticize Brown on high-speed rail derided his pioneering efforts on energy efficiency and renewable energy decades ago.
Meanwhile, with the current state budget creaking under strain and Democratic legislators opposing more near-term budget cuts (while Republicans oppose tax hikes), Brown signed legislation last week allowing nearly $900 million in internal borrowing from specialized funds.
Too many Republicans see improving revenues from economic recovery and a Facebook IPO as a reason to eschew any new revenues, and too many Democrats seize on the same rationale for avoiding needed budget cuts.
Speaking of which, the California Democratic Party convention is this coming weekend in San Diego. Party Chairman John Burton is continuing his pattern of avoiding having big Obama Administration officials play major roles, instead inviting left-liberal heroes to deliver stemwinders.
Last year it was Senator Bernie Sanders, the only avowed socialist in the upper house in a great many years. This year it is comedian-turned-Senator Al Franken.
Brown will also speak, as will Senator Dianne Feinstein, who still has not drawn any serious Republican opposition to her re-election this year, and the various other statewide elected officials and legislative leaders.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeal may add a yeasty element this week with a decision on the constitutionality of the state’s Prop 8 ban on same sex marriage. The 2008 initiative has been declared unconstitutional in federal district court.
Here’s what Obama’s week looks like. You’ll note the big gaps in public appearances, the better for him to focus on the crises surrounding Syria, Iran and Israel.
On Monday, Obama will attend meetings at the White House. On Tuesday, Obama will host the second White House Science Fair celebrating the student winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions from across the country. He will announce various measures to promote science and math education. On Wednesday, Obama will attend meetings at the White House.
On Thursday, he will host Prime Minister Mario Monti of Italy at the White House. The two will discuss steps the Italian government is taking to deal with its fiscal crisis. They will also consult about preparations for the 2012 G8 and NATO Summits that the United States will host in Chicago. And on Friday, Obama will attend meetings at the White House.
In the wake of the Chinese and Russian veto of a UN Security Council resolution, Syrian soldiers are today again shelling the central city of Homs, bombing houses and a temporary medical clinic. The government is attacking opposition targets across the country but the Syrian military is concentrating its attacks on Homs, to try and break the back of the opposition.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
At 11:30 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
Obama is monitoring a variety of geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, Iraq, Iran and Israel.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is eleven hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is twelve and a half 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.
Heiress Molly Munger, funding a rival revenue initiative that would raise income taxes on most everyone in the state to benefit education — an idea which does not, needless to say, poll well — addresses the state Parent Teachers Association conference in Sacramento today.
The other rival revenue initiative, by the smaller of the state’s two teachers unions and a coalition of left-liberal groups including the publicity shy California Nurses Association (that’s a little joke) holds a conference call today to mark the beginning of a signature gathering drive for its Millionaires Tax initiative. Only the California Federation of Teachers has substantial funds, and generally not enough to be one of the big players in elections.
Most of the state’s major unions back Brown’s initiative.
** ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT SILVER: HOW NEVADA AND THE WEST GOT SHORT-CHANGED.One of the major untold stories in this wacky election season is how far off plan the Republican presidential primaries have gotten.
The Republican Party planned to copy what the Democrats did in their 2008 election cycle. Stage four early contests, spaced out over time, with one state from each of the major regions, with each of the selected states small enough that prior fame and big money on the part of some competitors would not overwhelm a candidate’s ability to break through.
In the process, the candidates would be forced to learn about regional issues that were not part of the usual Beltway/East Coast “national” media lexicon, and develop a way to appeal to voters in key regions.
In the 2008 cycle, with the firm backing of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who represents the Silver State, the Democrats elevated Nevada into the First Four, along with traditional one and two Iowa and New Hampshire, and South Carolina, as a way to get their candidates ready to compete in the West, a growing area targeted for competition.
It worked.
The first forum, in 2007, with the Democratic presidential candidates took place not in Washington or New York or even Iowa or New Hampshire, but in little Carson City, the capital of Nevada. Hosted by George Stephanopoulos, who memorably mispronounced Nevada in the process, drawing hoots from the crowd, it drew much of the East Coast-based national political media away from their usual haunts.
Las Vegas went on to host some stirring debates between the Democratic presidential contenders.
And on the day of the 2008 Democratic presidential caucuses in Nevada, no less than former President Bill Clinton personally lobbied caucus-goers in a raucous display inside one of the voting gatherings in a casino on the Las Vegas Strip. … From my February 3rd column.
** WHAT LIGHT FROM THE SUNSHINE STATE?What light has been shed by the Florida Republican presidential primary? It’s not easy to see how Newt Gingrich wins. And it’s not hard to see how Mitt Romney falls.
Florida answered several key questions about the race. Would Gingrich blow it (again)? Would Romney buy it? Would the negative out-weigh the positive? Would Gingrich give up if he lost? … From my February 2nd column.
** 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.
China has released a high-resolution, full-coverage image of the Moon. The photo, from China’s second lunar orbiter, is the first of its kind to be so detailed.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in three wars 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. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 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 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.
Speaking on Sunday in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called yesterday’s vote in the UN Security Council a “travesty.” Russia and China vetoed a resolution supporting an Arab League plan aimed at ending the violence in Syria.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He has no scheduled public events.
Obama authorized Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — appearing in Bulgaria, once a Soviet bloc state — to speak out vehemently today against Saturday’s dual veto by Russia and China of a UN Security Council resolution to urge Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to halt the violence against pro-democracy protesters and step away from power.
The vote was 13 to 2, but since the two no votes were cast in the form of vetoes by two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the other three being the US, UK, and France, all strong supporters of the resolution — the resolution was defeated.
Clinton described the UN Security Council as “neutered” by Russian and Chinese intransigence. She vowed to expose those countries still supplying weapons to the Assad regime, which almost certainly includes Russia, and to move to establish new international sanctions and actions against the Assad regime outside of the UN framework.
I suspect that Clinton is on the verge of calling for an International Contact Group on Syria, like the same grouping which formed on Libya.
While this growing crisis plays out, the rather absurd Nevada Republican presidential caucuses went down this weekend.
And down is where they went.
Although this was planned to be a major event, one of the first four contests in the Republican nomination race, it devolved into a sparsely attended sideshow.
In fact, fewer Republicans voted this time than four years ago, when it was an afterthought event taking place on the same day as the South Carolina primary.
Mitt Romney swept to a big victory, with 47.6%. Newt Gingrich was second with 22.7%.
Ron Paul was a distant third at 18.6%, followed by Rick Santorum with 11.1%.
Romney’s numbers are undoubtedly inflated by a disproportionate number of Mormons taking part in the caucuses. With lower turnout, the Mormon vote, which should be about 20% in a Nevada Republican contest, is even more significant.
Gingrich ran a dreadful campaign in Nevada, starting at the last minute, running no TV ads at all despite the affordability of Nevada media, having no surrogate operation or field operation to speak of, and holding only five candidate events since Florida.
With no Nevada debate, he had no opportunity to make much of a splash, and he made the least of what opportunities he had.
Still, he beat Ron Paul, who supposedly had a big operation in the Silver State.
What Paul really has there is a strange crew. A late caucus was held in Las Vegas for orthodox Jews celebrating the sabbath during the day. But it was “won” by Ron Paul, whose campaign told voters of all persuasions that they could vote there if they’d missed out earlier, even though the caucus was specifically set up only for orthodox Jews.
Santorum had already moved on to Colorado. Had he dropped out, and had he mounted a decent campaign, Gingrich would have had a shot at Romney in the Silver State.
Obama is monitoring a variety of geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, Iraq, Iran and Israel.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is eleven hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is twelve and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES – SUNDAY. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and with the San Francisco 49ers missing the game by the narrowest of margins — a very bad officiating call and two inexplicable turnovers, the second in overtime — Brown, not the biggest of sports fans at the best of times, has had nothing to say.
I don’t have a big rooting interest, though the New York Giants are certainly annoying with all their big talk. In a game like this without a clear personal favorite, I usually let the game start before I’m taken by one team or another.
But this time I think the New England Patriots are my slight favorite. Actually, I like quarterback Tom Brady, who’s a San Francisco Bay Area guy (I competed against his high school when I was in high school) and is now a neighbor of former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in Los Angeles. He’s a great player and a classy act.
Yet I like Giants quarterback Eli Manning, too. (Just not his loudmouth teammates.) Still, Brady has a great chance to win his fourth Super Bowl today, which would tie him with Joe Montana. And he was there in Candlestick Park — as a four-year old! — when Montana connected with Dwight Clark on one of the greatest plays of all-time, “The Catch,” putting the 49ers into their first Super Bowl.
On the day after several hundred protesters were reportedly massacred by regime forces, Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution backing an Arab League peace plan that calls for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. The vote was 13-2 in favor of the resolution. In blistering remarks, Ambassador Susan Rice says the US is “disgusted” by the vetoes.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He has no scheduled public events.
For days, the United Nations Security Council struggled behind the scenes for a resolution condemning the Syrian regime that wouldn’t be vetoed by Russia. Yesterday’s State Department briefing was a study in the diplomatic dance.
But today, with some 250 protesters reportedly massacred yesterday by Assad regime forces in Homs, on the 30th anniversary of massacres infamously carried out by his father, the US, UK, France, and Arab League pressed ahead with their resolution calling for Assad to step away from the presidency.
The resolution garnered all the votes on the UN Security Council save two. But because those two are Russia and China, and they are among the five permanent members of the Security Council, the resolution failed despite winning numerically, 13-2.
US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice delivered a blistering statement to the Security Council in the wake of the vetoes, as you can see above.
Obama issued a very strong statement today prior to the UN vote, as you can see below.
“Thirty years after his father massacred tens of thousands of innocent Syrian men, women, and children in Hama, Bashar al-Assad has demonstrated a similar disdain for human life and dignity. Yesterday the Syrian government murdered hundreds of Syrian citizens, including women and children, in Homs through shelling and other indiscriminate violence, and Syrian forces continue to prevent hundreds of injured civilians from seeking medical help. These brutal killings take place at a time when so many Syrians are also marking a deeply meaningful day for their faith. I strongly condemn the Syrian government’s unspeakable assault against the people of Homs and I offer my deepest sympathy to those who have lost loved ones. Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now. He must step aside and allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately.
“The Syrian people demonstrated in large numbers across Syria yesterday to participate in peaceful protests commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Hama massacre. They labeled the protests, “We are Sorry, Hama – Forgive Us.” We owe it to the victims of Hama and Homs to learn one lesson: that cruelty must be confronted for the sake of justice and human dignity. Every government has the responsibility to protect its citizens, and any government that brutalizes and massacres its people does not deserve to govern. The Syrian regime’s policy of maintaining power by terrorizing its people only indicates its inherent weakness and inevitable collapse. Assad has no right to lead Syria, and has lost all legitimacy with his people and the international community.
“The international community must work to protect the Syrian people from this abhorrent brutality. Earlier this week, our Arab partners called on UN Security Council members to take action to support a political solution to the crisis in Syria and stop Assad’s “killing machine.” The Council now has an opportunity to stand against the Assad regime’s relentless brutality and to demonstrate that it is a credible advocate for the universal rights that are written into the UN Charter.
“We must work with the Syrian people toward building a brighter future for Syria. A Syria without Assad could be a Syria in which all Syrians are subject to the rule of law and where minorities are able to exercise their legitimate rights and uphold their identities and traditions while acting as fully enfranchised citizens in a unified republic. The United States and our international partners support the Syrian people in achieving their aspirations and will continue to assist the Syrian people toward that goal. We will help because we stand for principles that include universal rights for all people and just political and economic reform. The suffering citizens of Syria must know: we are with you, and the Assad regime must come to an end.”
And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, meeting today on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, pushed hard for a breakthrough, but got nowhere.
In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama discussed fairness and prosperity as he continued to push his “An America Built To Last” theme, focusing on the housing/mortgage crisis.
Russia, as Rice bitterly notes in her remarks, continues to sell weapons to the Assad regime.
So why are Russia, which has borne the brunt of criticism this week, and China — which emerged from the closet to join in the unusual dual veto at the Security Council — protecting the Assad regime?
Both countries’ leaderships are deeply unsettled by the Arab Awakening. Why? Because it is sweeping away longtime allies, such as Gaddafi in Libya and now, quite possibly, Assad in Syria, who is Russia’s most important ally in the ME.
And because both countries have nascent protest movements which the ruling parties find deeply troubling.
Russia’s gets more publicity because the news media, both domestic and international is afforded more freedom of coverage there. But China is, if anything, even more repressive, freely shutting down Internet access, for example, in ways which would not be tolerated in Russia, and simply blocking international news media from access in some instances.
None of this is new for China. It is a bit new for Russia, which had opened much more to the West during Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency, which is now drawing to an end. With the return of Vladimir Putin, whom I’ve met and is one steely son of a gun, to the presidency, the friendly face of the Kremlin is being replaced.
And with the US slowly but surely disentangling itself from its Iraq and Afghanistan entanglements, US interests are more apt to bump up against those of China — as we are seeing in the Asia Pacific region — and Russia, which has been quite helpful in Afghanistan.
So both Russia and China are against establishing a humanitarian interventionist rationale in the internal affairs of countries, a rationale which they fear over the long term could be applied against themselves. And as a result are developing a narrative, as you can see by watching Russia Today, that the US, NATO, and selected Arab powers are engaged in a new imperialist conspiracy.
But Syria is only one place where the big powers are running up against one another.
Another potential flash point exists around Iran.
With talk of Israeli air strikes on Iran again spiking, red hots on the ultra-left are positing an Obama Administration conspiracy with the Jewish state to wage war on the peace-loving Islamic republic while red hots on the far right see the administration as cravenly selling out plucky Zionists taking on the necessary civilizational struggle. Heaven deliver us from loons of both persuasions.
Iran embarked on another set of military exercises today. Initially, at least, they are land and air-based, not naval. Iran has threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. But it also warned the US not to have an aircraft carrier in the Gulf, and USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group confidently steamed right back in there. Not that the Iranians couldn’t present some problems in that bathtub.
China is an advocate of Iran, again receiving little notice in the tunnel vision US media, flatly refusing US and European Union entreaties to stop buying Iranian oil as a means of leveraging more pressure on the Islamic republic to drop its nuclear weapons program.
Russia, as one of the world’s leading oil powers, has no interest in buying Iranian oil. And its interests are more complex, since I don’t believe that the Kremlin wants Iran, a current ally of a sort but a rival over the sweep of history, to become a nuclear power, either. Yet it does not want the US and its allies to have their way in the Middle East, either.
While all this goes, Nevada’s Republicans are holding their rather sad afterthought presidential caucuses today.
With Newt Gingrich’s Silver State campaign in evident disarray and Ron Paul’s strength decidedly less than advertised, Mitt Romney is poised for a big Nevada win.
Obama is monitoring a variety of geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, Iraq, Iran and Israel.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is eleven hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is twelve and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES – SATURDAY. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
With the current state budget creaking under strain and Democratic legislators opposing more near-term budget cuts (while Republicans oppose tax hikes), Brown signed legislation yesterday allowing nearly $900 million in internal borrowing from specialized funds.
** ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT SILVER: HOW NEVADA AND THE WEST GOT SHORT-CHANGED.One of the major untold stories in this wacky election season is how far off plan the Republican presidential primaries have gotten.
The Republican Party planned to copy what the Democrats did in their 2008 election cycle. Stage four early contests, spaced out over time, with one state from each of the major regions, with each of the selected states small enough that prior fame and big money on the part of some competitors would not overwhelm a candidate’s ability to break through.
In the process, the candidates would be forced to learn about regional issues that were not part of the usual Beltway/East Coast “national” media lexicon, and develop a way to appeal to voters in key regions.
In the 2008 cycle, with the firm backing of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who represents the Silver State, the Democrats elevated Nevada into the First Four, along with traditional one and two Iowa and New Hampshire, and South Carolina, as a way to get their candidates ready to compete in the West, a growing area targeted for competition.
It worked.
The first forum, in 2007, with the Democratic presidential candidates took place not in Washington or New York or even Iowa or New Hampshire, but in little Carson City, the capital of Nevada. Hosted by George Stephanopoulos, who memorably mispronounced Nevada in the process, drawing hoots from the crowd, it drew much of the East Coast-based national political media away from their usual haunts.
Las Vegas went on to host some stirring debates between the Democratic presidential contenders.
And on the day of the 2008 Democratic presidential caucuses in Nevada, no less than former President Bill Clinton personally lobbied caucus-goers in a raucous display inside one of the voting gatherings in a casino on the Las Vegas Strip. … From my February 3rd column.
** WHAT LIGHT FROM THE SUNSHINE STATE?What light has been shed by the Florida Republican presidential primary? It’s not easy to see how Newt Gingrich wins. And it’s not hard to see how Mitt Romney falls.
Florida answered several key questions about the race. Would Gingrich blow it (again)? Would Romney buy it? Would the negative out-weigh the positive? Would Gingrich give up if he lost?
** Would Gingrich blow it (again)?
Let us count the ways. Or, mercifully, let us not. I’m not a fan of the media culture’s rampant practice of distance psychoanalysis, though my long-ago psychology minor undoubtedly qualifies me. (That’s a little joke.) But the ex-House speaker does not seem to thrive when he is in the leading role. Perhaps he is more comfortable as the anti-hero, notwithstanding his constant comparisons of himself to some of the most famous protagonists in history.
Gingrich had the chance to take command of the race in November and December. Instead, he declared himself the nominee and then allowed Romney and others to take him down.
In Florida, after he trounced Romney in the state that no Republican nominee has ever lost, Gingrich delivered two meandering debate performances, failed to deliver a consistent positive message, failed to deliver a focused negative message, and allowed the attacks of his enemies to derail him into the defensive politics of personal aggrievement.
** Would Romney buy it? Of course he would. After all, he made his vast fortune as a corporate takeover specialist. … From my February 2nd column.
** 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.
Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback and world class track star Robert Griffin III (aka RG3) of Baylor University in Texas closed out the National Prayer Breakfast, where he was the personal guest of President Barack Obama, on Thursday. He promised not to dunk on the president in any basketball game they might play.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in three wars 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. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 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 $97.84 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $64 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 $16 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.
Birther billionaire and self-publicist extraordinaire Donald Trump’s endorsement of Mitt Romney yesterday in Las Vegas continues to reverberate as the signature event of the disappointing Nevada Republican presidential caucuses.
** QUICK HITS. The United Nations Security Council is still struggling behind the scenes for a resolution condemning the Syrian regime that won’t be vetoed by Russia. Today’s State Department briefing was a study in the diplomatic dance. … With talk of Israeli air strikes on Iran again spiking, red hots on the ultra-left are positing an Obama Administration conspiracy with the Jewish state to wage war on the peace-loving Islamic republic while red hots on the far right see the administration as cravenly selling out plucky Zionists taking on the necessary civilizational struggle. Heaven deliver us from loons of both persuasions. … In California politics, with the current state budget creaking under strain and Democratic legislators opposing more near-term budget cuts (while Republicans oppose tax hikes), Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation allowing nearly $900 million in internal borrowing from specialized funds.
** NEW SURVEY: CONSUMER SPENDING DECLINES IN JANUARY, POST-HOLIDAYS. After a new jobs report that is so good that Fox News has buried the news, some more routine economic news is contained in a new Gallup Poll survey.
Consumer spending dropped in January.
As expected.
The drop is similar to what has occurred in recent years every month after the holidays. And it was nowhere near what it was in 2009.
This is pretty routine news. But it is important to show that consumers haven’t retrenched in any out of the ordinary way after a promising holiday season.
Americans’ self-reported daily spending averaged $63 in January, down from $76 in December but similar to the January spending levels in each of the last three years. Further, the $13 decline in average daily spending between December 2011 and January 2012 is typical of the post-holiday shopping season decline that Gallup has seen since 2010. …
January spending in 2009 dropped by $25 — more than Gallup has typically seen in four years of tracking this metric daily. This echoed the decline in Americans’ confidence in the economy around the same time as problems in the labor, housing, and stock markets ensuing from the global financial crisis dominated economic news. Spending has largely been subdued ever since, and the spikes in self-reported spending seen each December have quickly ended each January. …
** ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT SILVER: HOW NEVADA AND THE WEST GOT SHORT-CHANGED.One of the major untold stories in this wacky election season is how far off plan the Republican presidential primaries have gotten.
The Republican Party planned to copy what the Democrats did in their 2008 election cycle. Stage four early contests, spaced out over time, with one state from each of the major regions, with each of the selected states small enough that prior fame and big money on the part of some competitors would not overwhelm a candidate’s ability to break through.
In the process, the candidates would be forced to learn about regional issues that were not part of the usual Beltway/East Coast “national” media lexicon, and develop a way to appeal to voters in key regions.
In the 2008 cycle, with the firm backing of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who represents the Silver State, the Democrats elevated Nevada into the First Four, along with traditional one and two Iowa and New Hampshire, and South Carolina, as a way to get their candidates ready to compete in the West, a growing area targeted for competition.
It worked.
The first forum, in 2007, with the Democratic presidential candidates took place not in Washington or New York or even Iowa or New Hampshire, but in little Carson City, the capital of Nevada. Hosted by George Stephanopoulos, who memorably mispronounced Nevada in the process, drawing hoots from the crowd, it drew much of the East Coast-based national political media away from their usual haunts.
Las Vegas went on to host some stirring debates between the Democratic presidential contenders.
And on the day of the 2008 Democratic presidential caucuses in Nevada, no less than former President Bill Clinton personally lobbied caucus-goers in a raucous display inside one of the voting gatherings in a casino on the Las Vegas Strip. …
President Barack Obama hailed a new jobs report out today as more good news about the economy. But he cautioned that the unemployment rate may still go up and down in the coming months.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Virginia.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
Obama then met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
Following that, Obama delivered remarks on the economy at Fire Station #5 in Arlington, Virginia.
At 11:45 AM Pacific, Obama attends a fundraiser at The Jefferson Hotel in Washington.
Obama got some very good news this morning.
The US unemployment rate has fallen for the fifth straight month with a surge in hiring during January.
The Labor Department says that employers added 243,000 jobs in January. That’s the most in nine months.
The unemployment rate dropped to 8.3% from 8.5% in December. Which is the lowest in three years.
All of which is very good news for Obama.
Now for the bad news.
Talk of an Israeli strike on Iran is ramping up again. Ramped up by a variety of comments from Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who says he doesn’t think that sanctions are stopping the Iranian nuclear weapon program.
So Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ventured forth today in Tehran, addressing a rally to warn Israel and the US of harsh consequences for any such attack and vowing ongoing support to the various enemies of Israel.
Which was an unusual public confirmation of Iran’s role in international terrorism.
Iran will help any nation or group that confronts the “cancer” Israel, the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said today in Tehran. He also warned that any military strike by Israel or the US would only make Iran stronger.
Of course, the Iranians believe that Israel is behind a spate of assassinations and other attacks on its citizens engaged in the Iranian nuclear program.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes maneuvering at the UN continues over Syria, and Russia’s refusal to go along with a move calling for a new president.
Today should see some resolution around, er, a resolution for the UN Security Council. The US, Britain, and France have enough votes to pass language drafted by the Arab League calling for the ouster of the Assad regime. But Russia threatens to veto any such resolution.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is off to the annual Munich Security Conference, where these and other such matters are very much on the agenda.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is meeting in Brussels with NATO defense ministers.
Obama is monitoring a variety of geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, Iraq, Iran and Israel.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is eleven hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is twelve and a half 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.
Yesterday, he appointed his longtime friend and close advisor Tom Quinn to the Little Hoover Commission, which serves as a governmental watchdog and promoter of efficiencies.
Quinn was senior advisor in Brown’s latest campaign, and was his first campaign manager, dating back to his 1969 run for the LA Community College Board, his 1970 run for California secretary of state, and his 1974 election as governor of California.
Quinn, who is in the radio business, served in the first Brown administration as an environmental secretary and head of the Air Resources Board.
NWN revealed his involvement in Brown’s 2010 campaign, which had previously been secret — Quinn is a very senior member of what I call the Network — when he showed up with the then attorney general for a meeting with then Governor Arnold Schwarznegger prior to a key debate with Meg Whitman.
The Millionaires Tax initiative is about to hit the streets in a signature-gathering bid in California. The California Nurses Association, adept at getting controversial publicity but not a major funder, has joined a coalition of left-liberal groups of which the deepest pocket is the California Federation of Teachers, also not one of the big labor funders.
The big unions, such as the main teachers union, which play much more of a role in winning elections are coming on board with Governor Jerry Brown’s initiative, which also raises taxes on the rich but is less likely to draw business opposition.
Brown sent language to the California legislature yesterday afternoon on public pension reform, which drew fire from a labor-backed group opposed to any further reforms of a system judged by most to be very troubled.
While Brown wrestles with the problems of governance in California, his predecessor, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has wrapped up a trip to India.
There, in the capital city New Delhi, Schwarzenegger addressed the annual Delhi Sustainable Development Summit on Thursday.
The DSDS is organized by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) — headed by UN climate chief Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, who has taken part in California conferences hosted by Schwarzenegger and Brown — and has emerged as an important forum on global sustainability issues.
This is part of the run-up to the Earth Summit later this year in Rio de Janeiro.
** WHAT LIGHT FROM THE SUNSHINE STATE?What light has been shed by the Florida Republican presidential primary? It’s not easy to see how Newt Gingrich wins. And it’s not hard to see how Mitt Romney falls.
Florida answered several key questions about the race. Would Gingrich blow it (again)? Would Romney buy it? Would the negative out-weigh the positive? Would Gingrich give up if he lost?
** Would Gingrich blow it (again)?
Let us count the ways. Or, mercifully, let us not. I’m not a fan of the media culture’s rampant practice of distance psychoanalysis, though my long-ago psychology minor undoubtedly qualifies me. (That’s a little joke.) But the ex-House speaker does not seem to thrive when he is in the leading role. Perhaps he is more comfortable as the anti-hero, notwithstanding his constant comparisons of himself to some of the most famous protagonists in history.
Gingrich had the chance to take command of the race in November and December. Instead, he declared himself the nominee and then allowed Romney and others to take him down.
In Florida, after he trounced Romney in the state that no Republican nominee has ever lost, Gingrich delivered two meandering debate performances, failed to deliver a consistent positive message, failed to deliver a focused negative message, and allowed the attacks of his enemies to derail him into the defensive politics of personal aggrievement.
** Would Romney buy it? Of course he would. After all, he made his vast fortune as a corporate takeover specialist. … From my February 2nd column.
** REPUBLICANS LOSE BIG ON REDISTRICTING GAMBLE, BROWN MOVES FORWARD.California is in the midst of a big experiment in political reform, which has already led to a huge defeat for an increasingly right-wing Republican Party. Open primaries have replaced partisan primaries and redistricting has been taken away from the politicians, with each disrupting comfy old arrangements. Though these moves, adopted by initiative, were heavily backed by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, they’ve been heavily opposed by most Republicans.
The California Republican Party put most of its remaining marbles on a desperate bid to derail the Citizens Redistricting Commission. The effort went on for more than a year, first to undermine and try to de-legitimize the work of the commission set up by initiative to take legislative and congressional redistricting out of the hands of the legislators — a commission which, mind you, had an over-representation of Republicans on it — and then to block the state Senate districts by a referendum. …
Meanwhile, Brown keeps moving ahead with his revenue initiative for the fall, and on other major fronts. … From my January 30th essay.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
NASA has released the first ever moving images of the dark side of the Moon, filmed by the spacecraft GRAIL, run out of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in three wars 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. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 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 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.
Mitt and Ann Romney were thrilled to be on hand at noon time today in Las Vegas to receive Donald Trump’s endorsement. This event took place at Trump’s resort casino and hotel on the Vegas Strip. You already know what it’s called.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT SILVER: HOW NEVADA AND THE WEST GOT SHORT-CHANGED.
** QUICK HITS.Good news on the economic front, US jobless claims have dropped again. … The Millionaires Tax initiative is about to hit the streets in a signature-gathering bid in California. The California Nurses Association, adept at getting controversial publicity but not a major funder, has joined a coalition of left-liberal groups of which the deepest pocket is the California Federation of Teachers, also not one of the big labor funders. … The big unions, such as the main teachers union, which play much more of a role in winning elections are coming on board with Governor Jerry Brown’s initiative, which also raises taxes on the rich but is less likely to draw business opposition. … Brown sent language to the California legislature today on public pension reform, which drew fire from a labor-backed group opposed to any further reforms of a system judged by most to be very troubled.
** SILVER STATE SIDESHOW: AFTER FIRST SIGNALING A GINGRICH ENDORSEMENT, DONALD TRUMP ENDORSES MITT ROMNEY AT HIS VEGAS CASINO (TRUMP’S CASINO, THAT IS). This is just sad. Nevada, ignored for months despite its careful placement in the first four Republican presidential contests, officially became a rather freakish sideshow today when Donald Trump endorsed Mitt Romney for president at his eponymous casino on the Vegas Strip.
After first signaling a Newt Gingrich endorsement.
The whole idea of having Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina go first — a concept completely disrupted by Florida barreling in there — is to have four states from the Midwest, the East, the West, and the South in which candidates can compete without having to have megabucks. And to force the candidates and their campaigns to embrace and deal with regional concerns.
It hasn’t happened. I’ll get into the why in the upcoming essay.
Mitt Romney accepted the Donald’s endorsement in the lobby of Trump’s glittering golden tower on the Las Vegas Strip.
“There are some things you just can’t imagine in your life,” Romney said as he accepted the endorsement. “This is one of them.”
Trump, who has been a household name thanks to his television show “The Apprentice,” became a force in the presidential fray when he toyed with a presidential bid of his own. Ever the publicity man, he stoked speculation about that potential bid through the Florida primary – but his endorsement of Romney Thursday appeared sincere and emphatic.
“It’s my honor, real honor, and privilege to endorse Mitt Romney,” Trump told a group of about 80 guests and a gaggle of press in his hotel. “He’s smart. He’s sharp. He’s not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country we all love. So Governor Romney, go out and get ‘em. You can do it.”
Trump refrained from using any of his stock catch phrases – “you’re fired” – or engaging in any self-promotion while offering his support to Romney.
But no matter what Trump says, the main challenge of a Trump endorsement is making it about the candidate, not Trump.
“Of course, I’m looking for the endorsement of the people of Nevada,” Romney said immediately after thanking Trump for his endorsement – which he then parsed for the crowd in practical terms.
“Donald Trump has shown an extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works. He’s done it here in Nevada, he’s done it across the country,” Romney continued. “I spent my life in the private sector — not quite as successful as this guy, but successful nonetheless. Sufficiently successful that I understand what it takes to get America to be the most attractive place in the world for innovators, entrepreneurs and business, job creators.”
Romney’s Nevada supporters spun Trump’s endorsement in the same manner, with a reserved appreciation for the humorous light in which a Trump endorsement will be received.
GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, saying his is a campaign of “people power vs. money power,” criticized rival Mitt Romney’s comment that he was, “Not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.” In Las Vegas, Gingrich touted his own plan to put the unemployed to work.
** NEW SURVEY: DEMOCRATS’ EDGE IN PARTISAN I.D. DOWN IN MORE STATES. A new Gallup Poll survey contains some sobering news for those who imagine that the destructive shenanigans of the far right in last year’s Congress has led to a rebound in support for Democrats across the country.
In fact, the Democratic edge in partisan identification — which takes into account the leanings of independent voters when pushed to go Democratic or Republicans — disappeared in more states last year.
(An example of partisan identification: California has an electorate with 44% Democratic registration, 30% Republican registration, and 21% independent or “decline to state” registration. That is a record for independents. When Gallup pushes Californian voters to choose Democratic or Republican as a partisan identifier, it’s 47% Democratic to 34% Republican. Independents essentially split, in defiance of a consistent trope among highly partisan Democrats who insist that most independents are really Democrats.)
This continued a big trend in the states away from Democratic-identifying states since the smashing Democratic victories of 2008.
Democrats have lost their solid political party affiliation advantage in 18 states since 2008, while Republicans have gained a solid advantage in 6 states. A total of 17 states were either solidly Republican or leaning Republican in their residents’ party affiliation in 2011, up from 10 in 2010 and 5 in 2008. Meanwhile, 19 states including the District of Columbia showed a solid or leaning Democratic orientation, down from 23 in 2010 and 36 in 2008. The remaining 15 states were relatively balanced politically, with neither party having a clear advantage.
>>>>>>LIVE VIDEO NETCAST
At 10:30 AM Pacific, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing. The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.
** LIVE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.
With massive geopolitical events swirling and the 2012 presidential race unfolding, the White House is increasingly a pivot point for the day’s events. Live streaming of key presidential events is now available as a matter of course here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.
NWN will continue to present other live netcasts in full streaming mode, as it did with the Ronald Reagan Centennial events from the Reagan Library, as they emerge and are technically available and as significance dictates.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT SILVER: HOW THE WEST GOT SHORT-CHANGED.
** WHAT LIGHT FROM THE SUNSHINE STATE?What light has been shed by the Florida Republican presidential primary? It’s not easy to see how Newt Gingrich wins. And it’s not hard to see how Mitt Romney falls.
Florida answered several key questions about the race. Would Gingrich blow it (again)? Would Romney buy it? Would the negative out-weigh the positive? Would Gingrich give up if he lost?
** Would Gingrich blow it (again)?
Let us count the ways. Or, mercifully, let us not. I’m not a fan of the media culture’s rampant practice of distance psychoanalysis, though my long-ago psychology minor undoubtedly qualifies me. (That’s a little joke.) But the ex-House speaker does not seem to thrive when he is in the leading role. Perhaps he is more comfortable as the anti-hero, notwithstanding his constant comparisons of himself to some of the most famous protagonists in history.
Gingrich had the chance to take command of the race in November and December. Instead, he declared himself the nominee and then allowed Romney and others to take him down.
In Florida, after he trounced Romney in the state that no Republican nominee has ever lost, Gingrich delivered two meandering debate performances, failed to deliver a consistent positive message, failed to deliver a focused negative message, and allowed the attacks of his enemies to derail him into the defensive politics of personal aggrievement.
** Would Romney buy it? Of course he would. After all, he made his vast fortune as a corporate takeover specialist. …
A leaked NATO report claims the Taliban are preparing to retake control of Afghanistan when the alliance’s troops leave in 2014. The top secret report, which Britain’s ‘The Times’ newspaper claims was compiled by the US military, also says Pakistan’s intelligence service has been helping the Taliban mount attacks against foreign forces.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He then delivered remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton, where he was joined by First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback and world class track star Robert Griffin III (RG3!), and others.
At 9 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 10 AM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet for lunch in the Oval Office.
At 10:30 AM Pacific, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing in the James S. Brady Briefing Room.
The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes.
At 11 AM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.
Obama and Clinton are in the midst of some complex maneuvers around Syria and Iran.
At 11:30 AM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner in the Oval Office.
As discussed here on NWN yesterday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that the US will end combat operations in Afghanistan in 2013, a year earlier than previously thought.
Campaigning last night in Las Vegas, Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney denounced the move, saying that we must fight on in the Afghan War.
A poll for the Las Vegas Review-Journal shows Romney leading Newt Gingrich heading into Saturday’s Nevada presidential caucuses, 45-25, with Rick Santorum and Ron Paul trailing far behind with 11% and 9%, respectively.
Paul is seriously under-performing his previous Nevada strength here.
Back in what we laughingly call the real world, John McCain also denounced the Afghan War move, saying it is a mistake to let the enemy know when combat operations will end.
But the Obama Administration has been signaling for some time its desire to wind down the Afghan War, which is not going well, coordinating with Qatar’s efforts to have the Taliban set up a “foreign office” in Doha the better to facilitate negotiations.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes maneuvering at the UN continues over Syria, and Russia’s refusal to go along with a move calling for a new president.
Yeseterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a chummy meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in which the Kremlin bete noire, whose little nation fought an ill-considered war with Russia in 2008, said of his meeting Monday with President Barack Obama that he is “totally elated because I heard everything I wanted to hear.”
The US, UK, and France have all united with the Arab League behind a resolution saying Assad must go. But Russia, feeling burned by the regime change of Libya and loathe to lose another ally in Arab world — and loathe to allow the doctrine of humanitarian intervention to take hold — remains opposed.
Obama is monitoring a variety of geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, Iraq, Iran and Israel.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is eleven hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is twelve and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.
As Facebook’s boss Mark Zuckerberg unveiled plans for the biggest ever initial public offering of shares by an internet company he also made it clear he will continue to exercise almost complete control over the company, leaving investors with little say.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
Lieutenant Governor GavinNewsom said yesterday that Governor Jerry Brown “lacks the vision for greatness.” This after Brown is coming under fire for thinking very big in his State of the State despite the state’s chronic budget crisis. Odd. Newsom, who dropped out in 2009 from his 2010 primary race against Brown, has consistently found ways to screw up his relationship with the governor.
As expected, Facebook announced its IPO, for sometime in the spring, saying it will sell between $5 billion and $10 billion worth of stock, valuing the social network service at $75 billion to $100 billion.
Naturally, Republican legislators immediately said that anticipated revenue from the deal means that the state doesn’t need new ongoing revenue for use in ending its chronic budget crisis.
And Democratic legislators said that Brown doesn’t need to pursue near-term budget cuts.
There must be something inducing stupidity in Sacramento’s water supply.
** REPUBLICANS LOSE BIG ON REDISTRICTING GAMBLE, BROWN MOVES FORWARD.California is in the midst of a big experiment in political reform, which has already led to a huge defeat for an increasingly right-wing Republican Party. Open primaries have replaced partisan primaries and redistricting has been taken away from the politicians, with each disrupting comfy old arrangements. Though these moves, adopted by initiative, were heavily backed by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, they’ve been heavily opposed by most Republicans.
The California Republican Party put most of its remaining marbles on a desperate bid to derail the Citizens Redistricting Commission. The effort went on for more than a year, first to undermine and try to de-legitimize the work of the commission set up by initiative to take legislative and congressional redistricting out of the hands of the legislators — a commission which, mind you, had an over-representation of Republicans on it — and then to block the state Senate districts by a referendum. …
Meanwhile, Brown keeps moving ahead with his revenue initiative for the fall, and on other major fronts. … From my January 30th essay.
** NEWTONIAN MOTION: WILL GINGRICH BLOW IT (AGAIN)?Most in the media and political worlds are now adjusting to the reality that Mitt Romney is not “inevitable.” But that doesn’t mean that Newt Gingrich can’t blow it. Again.
After all, as I pointed out last week here on the Huffington Post, before Gingrich’s landslide win in South Carolina, the supposedly politically dead ex-House speaker has blown golden opportunities to put Romney away before.
Romney is a hollow man, whose only consistent ideology is radical capitalism, as he showed when he denounced any criticism of his financialized capitalism as tantamount to socialism, and notions of his own success. He’s been an accident waiting to happen for a long time, notwithstanding endless hype to the contrary.
But Gingrich is a political Bibendum, a Michelin Man, someone who, too frequently, becomes puffed up like an alarmingly over-inflated tire at high speeds. … From my January 26th essay.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in three wars 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. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 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 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 chief UN nuclear inspector has declared that there is still “a lot of work” to be done regarding Iran, as he returned from a visit to the country.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … WHAT LIGHT FROM THE SUNSHINE STATE?
** QUICK HITS. As behind the scenes maneuvering at the UN continues over Syria, and Russia’s refusal to go along with a move calling for a new president, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a chummy meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in which the Kremlin bete noire, whose little nation fought an ill-considered war with Russia in 2008, said of his meeting Monday with President Barack Obama that he is “totally elated because I heard everything I wanted to hear.” … In California politics, Lieutenant Governor GavinNewsom said today that Governor Jerry Brown “lacks the vision for greatness.” This after Brown is coming under fire for thinking very big in his State of the State despite the state’s chronic budget crisis. Odd. Newsom, who dropped out in 2009 from his 2010 primary race against Brown, has consistently found ways to screw up his relationship with the governor. … Brown today appointed Kimiko Burton, daughter of state Democratic chairman John Burton, to the personnel board. … As expected, Facebook announced its IPO today, for sometime in the spring, saying it will sell between $5 billion and $10 billion worth of stock, valuing the social network service at $75 billion to $100 billion. If it only weren’t such an irritating and privacy-intruding waste of time …
** FIRST IRAQ, NOW AFGHANISTAN: U.S. REDEPLOYMENT FOR FUTURE CONTINGENCIES ACCELERATES WITH PANETTA ANNOUNCEMENT.Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced today that the US will move out of its combat role in Afghanistan in 2013, transitioning to a training and advisory role only with Afghan government forces a year earlier than most had expected.
The move comes in the wake of France seeming to upset the apple cart the other day with its announcement that it is pulling back immediately from active operations in Afghanistan following the latest murder of NATO troops — in this case four French soldiers shot to death by one Afghan — by Afghan soldiers under their direction and training.
It also comes a few months after President Barack Obama journeyed to the Asia Pacific region to declare it — and other contingencies such as a nuclear weaponized Iran — to be the major new focus of US geopolitical strategy after a decade of largely fruitless war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Panetta’s remarks to reporters traveling with him to a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels showed how the foreign military role in Afghanistan is expected to evolve from the current high-intensity fight against the Taliban to a support role with Afghans fully in the lead. The timeline fits neatly into the U.S. political calendar, enabling President Barack Obama to declare on the campaign trail this year that in addition to bringing all U.S. troops home from Iraq and beginning a troop drawdown in Afghanistan, he also has a target period for ending the U.S. combat role there. …
Although Panetta made no mention of it, U.S. Marines in Afghanistan already are making that transition out of a combat role. They are operating in Helmand province in southwestern Afghanistan, where the Taliban have been greatly weakened, and are on track to reduce their numbers significantly this year. Panetta’s remarks indicated that this switch into a support role will be applied across Afghanistan, assuming no major setbacks against the Taliban and continued progress in training Afghan forces.
Many U.S. forces already are training and advising Afghan forces.
Marine Gen. John Allen, the overall commander of international forces in Afghanistan, has been talking publicly since last fall about converting the military role from combat to what he has called “security assistance.” But Panetta went further in identifying mid- to late-2013 as the target for completing this conversion countrywide.
Panetta was in Brussels to attend a NATO meeting at which this and other issues related to the war in Afghanistan are expected to top the agenda. The session is intended to help pave the way for key decisions to be announced at a summit meeting of NATO heads of government in Chicago in May.
** NEW POLL: DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS AGREE ON TAX BREAKS TO BRING JOBS HOME AND GETTING TOUGH WITH CHINA ON TRADE, BUT LITTLE ELSE. A new Gallup Poll reveals some agreement between Democrats, Republicans, and independents on economic policy.
But it’s on only two of five major issue areas.
On the other three, Republicans are far out of step with not only Democrats but, much more crucially, independents.
And many party financial elites are opposed in the two areas in which rank-and-file Republicans agree with independents and Democrats.
Incidentally, I wrote this item up earlier, at greater length, only to find it missing.
Among five specific economic proposals, both Republicans and Democrats are in favor of giving tax breaks to corporations that bring manufacturing jobs back from overseas and pressuring China for fairer trade. They are sharply divided about increasing federal income taxes on upper-income Americans, increasing federal spending to help the long-term unemployed find jobs, and increasing federal spending on the development of alternative energy sources. The majority of independents favor all five proposals. …
In this case, large majorities of Democrats and independents — and at least 4 in 10 Republicans — favor each of the proposals Gallup asked about, pushing national support for each of the five well above the majority level. Overall support is highest for tax incentives to encourage corporations to bring back manufacturing jobs and for increasing federal spending to help the unemployed find jobs.
After losing to Newt Gingrich by 13 points in South Carolina, Mitt Romney beat him by 14 points in Florida.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Virginia.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He then delivered remarks on the economy at the James Lee Community Center in Falls Church, Virginia.
Obama outlined a plan to provide some relief to homeowners struggling in the ongoing mortgage crisis.
At 10 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
After his forces spent more on advertising in the Florida primary than John McCain spent in the entire 2008 Republican nomination race, Mitt Romney won a blowout victory over Newt Gingrich, with Rick Santorum a distant third and Ron Paul an after-thought fourth.
It’s Romney 46%, Gingrich 32%, Rick Santorum 13%, and Ron Paul 7%.
Gingrich’s 13-point landslide win in South Carolina was answered by Romney’s 14-point landslide win in Florida.
In many respects, Romney simply bought a victory in Florida, and did so in strikingly negative fashion. I’m told upwards of 90% of his ads were negative attacks on Gingrich, who also ran a largely negative campaign, repeatedly getting off his meandering positive message with complaints about Romney’s tactics and attacks of his own.
With the chips are down, Romney antes up. That is fitting for someone whose entire career is, literally, about money.
It’s a profound weakness of his candidacy, especially considering the obvious problems with his public attitudes about finance and the realities of how he became so phenomenally wealth.
But it would be an even bigger problem if Gingrich didn’t have financial woes in his own campaign, which is getting close to running on empty again after raising more than $5 million last month.
Fortunately for him, he’s heading into a rather sparse stretch of lower cost/lower key contests in February. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t have much momentum as he does so.
But again fortunately for him, these are all proportional representation contests, allowing him to easily hold on in striking distance in the delegate race until things head south early next month on Super Tuesday. Unlike Florida, which is winner-take-all.
Or is it?
It was supposed to be proportional. It was also supposed to be in February. But Florida broke party rules, jumping ahead of Nevada and declaring itself a winner-take-all state. This could easily be the subject of a legal challenge down the line.
President Barack Obama, outlining a new housing plan, said this morning that the nation’s housing crisis is damaging not only the US economy, but also what it means to be middle class in America.
While negotiations continue, Russia yesterday eschewed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal plea today for the UN Security Council to urge the replacement of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The US, UK, and France have all united with the Arab League behind a resolution saying Assad must go. But Russia, feeling burned by the regime change of Libya and loathe to lose another ally in Arab world — and loathe to allow the doctrine of humanitarian intervention to take hold — remains opposed.
We’ll see if a compromise is available as the week goes on.
Obama is monitoring a variety of geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, Iraq, Iran and Israel.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is eleven hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is twelve and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
At 6:05 PM, Brown will appear on Current TV’s The War Room with Jennifer Granholm.
The host is the former governor of Michigan.
New voter registration numbers in California show another advance for independents, who now number 21%, with Democrats at 44% and Republicans down to 30%.
More good news for Democrats?
With millions wasted by Republicans on the desperate bid to derail the state’s redistricting reform, the California Republican Party has only about $400,000 in the bank heading into this critical election year.
The California Democratic Party, in contrast, has approximately $9 million.
As last night’s legislative deadline arrived, the California Senate overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) streamlining bill yesterday, but the state Assembly with one vote to spare reversed field from Monday and passed a bill to modify the 3-strikes sentencing law.
The state’s local redevelopment agencies, targeted by Brown early last year for a redirection of tax revenues, died last night at last when the deadline for any legislation leading to their revival to move from a house of origin came and went.
Facebook is set to file its IPO, largest ever for an Internet company, on Wednesday.
That should result in a revenue bonanza for the state. The question is how big, and when?
** REPUBLICANS LOSE BIG ON REDISTRICTING GAMBLE, BROWN MOVES FORWARD.California is in the midst of a big experiment in political reform, which has already led to a huge defeat for an increasingly right-wing Republican Party. Open primaries have replaced partisan primaries and redistricting has been taken away from the politicians, with each disrupting comfy old arrangements. Though these moves, adopted by initiative, were heavily backed by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, they’ve been heavily opposed by most Republicans.
The California Republican Party put most of its remaining marbles on a desperate bid to derail the Citizens Redistricting Commission. The effort went on for more than a year, first to undermine and try to de-legitimize the work of the commission set up by initiative to take legislative and congressional redistricting out of the hands of the legislators — a commission which, mind you, had an over-representation of Republicans on it — and then to block the state Senate districts by a referendum. …
Meanwhile, Brown keeps moving ahead with his revenue initiative for the fall, and on other major fronts. … From my January 30th essay.
** NEWTONIAN MOTION: WILL GINGRICH BLOW IT (AGAIN)?Most in the media and political worlds are now adjusting to the reality that Mitt Romney is not “inevitable.” But that doesn’t mean that Newt Gingrich can’t blow it. Again.
After all, as I pointed out last week here on the Huffington Post, before Gingrich’s landslide win in South Carolina, the supposedly politically dead ex-House speaker has blown golden opportunities to put Romney away before.
Romney is a hollow man, whose only consistent ideology is radical capitalism, as he showed when he denounced any criticism of his financialized capitalism as tantamount to socialism, and notions of his own success. He’s been an accident waiting to happen for a long time, notwithstanding endless hype to the contrary.
But Gingrich is a political Bibendum, a Michelin Man, someone who, too frequently, becomes puffed up like an alarmingly over-inflated tire at high speeds. … From my January 26th essay.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in three wars 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. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 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 $98 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $64 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 $16 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.
Game Change, based on a best-selling gossipy book (which I largely panned) on the 2008 presidential race, has been adapted for an HBO movie coming in March, focusing largely on the John McCain campaign.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … WHAT LIGHT FROM THE SUNSHINE STATE?
** NEW POLL: DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS AGREE ON TAX BREAKS FOR BRINGING JOBS BACK AND GETTING TOUGHER WITH CHINA, BUT LITTLE ELSE. A new Gallup Poll reveals some rare consensus between Democrats, independents, and Republicans around two general economic policy proposals.
But on three other issues, Republicans very sharply from Democrats and, notably, independents.
Republicans are thus on the distinctly unpopular end of three big policy proposals: Raising taxes on the rich, developing renewable energy, and helping the unemployed.
But they are in tune with changing the tax code to provide incentives for corporations to create jobs at home, rather than abroad, and in pushing China for fairer trade practices. Which run counter to the dominant radical capitalist ideology of many Republican elites.
Large majorities of Democrats and independents — and at least 4 in 10 Republicans — favor each of the proposals Gallup asked about, pushing national support for each of the five well above the majority level. Overall support is highest for tax incentives to encourage corporations to bring back manufacturing jobs and for increasing federal spending to help the unemployed find jobs. …
Americans’ views of these economic proposals can be partially explained by their specific economic concerns. The two most popular proposals — giving tax breaks to companies that bring manufacturing jobs back from overseas, and increasing government spending for education and job training for the long-term unemployed — directly address what Americans clearly perceive as one of the most important problems facing the country — jobs and unemployment. …
It is also worth noting that despite the large Democratic-Republican divide on increasing taxes on upper-income Americans, federal funding for the development of alternative sources of energy, and education and job training for the long-term unemployed, a majority of independents favor each of these proposals. Further, lawmakers should expect widespread support for legislation that gives tax breaks to corporations that bring back manufacturing jobs from overseas and efforts to pressure China for fairer trade.
** QUICK HITS. With his forces spending more on advertising in the Florida primary than John McCain spent in the entire 2008 Republican nomination race, Mitt Romney is heading toward a blowout win over Newt Gingrich, with Rick Santorum a distant third and Ron Paul an after-thought fourth. … While negotiations continue, Russia today eschewed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s personal plea today for the UN Security Council to urge the replacement of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. … New voter registration numbers in California show another advance for independents, who now number 21%, with Democrats at 44% and Republicans down to 30%. … With tonight’s deadline looming, the California Senate overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan CEQA (environmental) streamlining bill today, but the state Assembly with one vote to spare reversed field from yesterday and passed a bill to modify the 3-strikes sentencing law. … Facebook is set to file its IPO, largest ever for an Internet company, on Wednesday.
** AND THE STAR OF GAME CHANGE IS … STEVE SCHMIDT!Game Change, a gossipy book on the 2008 presidential race which I reviewed and largely panned in January 2010 has been adapted into an HBO movie focusing on John McCain’s presidential campaign and the melodrama around vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
The trailer for the film, which debuts on HBO on March 10th, is just out today and as you can see, it appears that the star of the show is Woody Harrelson as McCain campaign director (and former Arnold Schwarzenegger campaign manager) Steve Schmidt, now a vice chairman of Edelman, the global PR firm, and an MSNBC analyst.
Ed Harris, memorable for his military officer figures in The Right Stuff and The Rock, plays McCain and multiple Academy Award nominee Julianne Moore plays Sarah Palin.
I’ll have a lot more on this as we go, of course. But the trailer is quite striking for zeroing in on Schmidt telling McCain that we live in a rather bizarre media culture (I’m paraphrasing here) and that he, a genuine American hero trailing a man of seemingly little accomplishment, has to do something drastic and dramatic in order to win.
Enter the dramatic stroke: Sarah Palin.
But all does not go well.
I don’t think that’s a spoiler.
The film is directed by Jay Roach, best known for the Austin Powers pictures.
** NEW SURVEY: SLIGHTLY IMPROVED ECONOMIC CONFIDENCE PERSISTS. According to a new Gallup Poll survey, the recent spate of somewhat improved tracking on economic confidence is holding up since the beginning of the new year.
According to a new Gallup Poll survey, confidence in the US economy is holding steady over the past three weeks, and up substantially still from where it was over the summer.
But it’s still only at the same level it was in May 2011.
And it is still lower than it was a year ago.
The Gallup Economic Confidence Index was -27 for the week ending Jan. 29, similar to the average rating in each of the prior three weeks. Confidence is up compared with December, and much improved over the highly negative readings of last fall and late summer. …
Longer term, Americans’ economic confidence at the start of 2012 is not quite as upbeat as it was a year ago, but is comparable to confidence in January 2010 — at the start of President Obama’s second year in office — and in January 2008, prior to the global financial collapse. Confidence today is far better than in January 2009, when the country was still reeling from the Wall Street crisis and the government’s response to it. …
** REPUBLICANS LOSE BIG ON REDISTRICTING GAMBLE, BROWN MOVES FORWARD.California is in the midst of a big experiment in political reform, which has already led to a huge defeat for an increasingly right-wing Republican Party. Open primaries have replaced partisan primaries and redistricting has been taken away from the politicians, with each disrupting comfy old arrangements. Though these moves, adopted by initiative, were heavily backed by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, they’ve been heavily opposed by most Republicans.
The California Republican Party put most of its remaining marbles on a desperate bid to derail the Citizens Redistricting Commission. The effort went on for more than a year, first to undermine and try to de-legitimize the work of the commission set up by initiative to take legislative and congressional redistricting out of the hands of the legislators — a commission which, mind you, had an over-representation of Republicans on it — and then to block the state Senate districts by a referendum. …
Meanwhile, Brown keeps moving ahead with his revenue initiative for the fall, and on other major fronts. …
At 10 AM Pacific, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing. The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.
** LIVE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.
With massive geopolitical events swirling and the 2012 presidential race unfolding, the White House is increasingly a pivot point for the day’s events. Live streaming of key presidential events is now available as a matter of course here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.
NWN will continue to present other live netcasts in full streaming mode, as it did with the Ronald Reagan Centennial events from the Reagan Library, as they emerge and are technically available and as significance dictates.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … REPUBLICANS LOSE BIG ON REDISTRICTING GAMBLE, BROWN MOVES FORWARD.
With Russia saying it will veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for regime change in tumultuous Syria, President Barack Obama pointedly met yesterday with President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia. Saakashvili foolishly goaded Russia into a 2008 war disastrous for his country, now seeking ongoing security assurances from the US which he may be getting.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
He then held a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room.
At 10 AM Pacific, press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing in the James S. Brady Briefing Room.
The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in the Oval Office.
At 4:15 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel.
At 6:10 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a fundraiser in a private residence.
Late polling still shows Mitt Romney leading Newt Gingrich in today’s Florida Republican presidential primary, though perhaps not by the blowout margin Romney backers are anticipating.
Romney forces have spent more money on ads in Florida alone than John McCain spent in his entire 2008 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. And they are virtually negative attacks on Gingrich.
Rick Santorum and Ron Paul trail far behind the two leading candidates.
Iowa Republican Party chairman Matt Strawn, who consistently spun a credulous press corps into believing that Romney won the Iowa caucuses when in fact he did not, deliberately blocking and then dragging his heels on any recount, then refusing at first to acknowledge that Santorum actually finished first will resign next week.
Strawn’s performance was simply disgraceful, and shows the danger in relying on party establishment figures to act as honest brokers in an election process.
Had the Iowa process been honest, the false narrative of an historic Iowa/New Hampshire sweep by Romney would not have been established for two weeks in the news media and Santorum would have had a fairer chance to compete after his first place showing in Iowa.
While campaign shenanigans, and their aftermaths, play out, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in New York City, pushing for the United Nations Security Council to adopt a resolution developed by the Arab League and backed by Britain, France, and the US demanding that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad step down.
Russia is threatening to use its veto power to block the move, which will play out over the next few days during ongoing negotiations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been ducking phone calls from Clinton for more than a day now.
The Kremlin, backing its longtime Syrian ally, is undoubtedly not very happy about Obama taking the disagreement to another level on Monday by holding high-profile talks with the president of Georgia, which Russia views as its “near abroad.”
Obama is monitoring a variety of geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, Iraq, Iran and Israel.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is eleven hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is twelve and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.
Oakland’s historic City Hall reopened Monday after protestors stormed inside the building and caused extensive damage during violent weekend Occupy Oakland protests that resulted in more than 400 arrests.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
California’s redevelopment agencies, who fought hard against reform efforts last year and in the past, are on track for the dust bin of history, come midnight tonight.
There is no sign of legislation to revive them, and of course Brown, who fought successfully to redirect revenues from the agencies’ often gold-plated development projects to basic services, would not sign the bill in any event.
Legislation to amend California’s three-strikes law was defeated today in the California Assembly. For those following along at home, with the defeat of single-payer health care legislation last week in the state Senate, California Democrats are reducing their target profile in a critical election year.
** NEWTONIAN MOTION: WILL GINGRICH BLOW IT (AGAIN)?Most in the media and political worlds are now adjusting to the reality that Mitt Romney is not “inevitable.” But that doesn’t mean that Newt Gingrich can’t blow it. Again.
After all, as I pointed out last week here on the Huffington Post, before Gingrich’s landslide win in South Carolina, the supposedly politically dead ex-House speaker has blown golden opportunities to put Romney away before.
Romney is a hollow man, whose only consistent ideology is radical capitalism, as he showed when he denounced any criticism of his financialized capitalism as tantamount to socialism, and notions of his own success. He’s been an accident waiting to happen for a long time, notwithstanding endless hype to the contrary.
But Gingrich is a political Bibendum, a Michelin Man, someone who, too frequently, becomes puffed up like an alarmingly over-inflated tire at high speeds. … From my January 26th essay.
** NEWTONIAN MOTION: UNDERLYING THE DECIDEDLY UNDEAD.Back from the dead. Again. Newt Gingrich. Amazing, isn’t it?
What’s actually amazing is that Gingrich was “dead” in the first place.
The fact is that the ex-House speaker had the Republican race in his hands last month and then proceeded to blow it.
And Mitt Romney is one of the most hollow, and hyped, political figures to come down the track in some time. He’s a consultant culture dream candidate: Big money and heavily into “messaging.” However, messaging, i.e., constantly repeating crafted talking points, is often not the same as having a message, which is why what he says is so malleable and chameleon-like. It’s obvious that there is very little that interests Romney besides success.
It’s a combination of unforced Gingrich errors, erroneous media coverage, and Romney’s nature peeking out all too often from behind the slick facade that has led to these seemingly shocking twists and turns. … From my January 20th column.
** 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 three wars 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. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 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 $101 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $67 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 $13 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.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend a United Nations Security Council meeting Tuesday in New York to lend her support to the Syrian opposition and a resolution calling for the end of the Assad regime.
** QUICK HITS.California’s redevelopment agencies, who fought hard against reform efforts last year and in the past, are on track for the dust bin of history, come midnight on Tuesday. There is no sign of legislation to revive them, and of course Governor Jerry Brown would not sign the bill in any event. … Legislation to amend California’s three-strikes law was defeated today in the California Assembly. For those following along at home, with the defeat of single-payer health care legislation last week in the state Senate, California Democrats are reducing their target profile in a critical election year. … Oakland City Hall re-opened today after city workers cleaned up extensive damage caused by Occupy demonstrators over the weekend.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … REPUBLICANS LOSE BIG ON REDISTRICTING GAMBLE, BROWN MOVES FORWARD.
** U.S. TO PUSH FOR END OF ASSAD REGIME IN SYRIA. After days of behind the scenes maneuvering, and in the midst of widespread fighting in Syria following months of bloody crackdown against pro-democracy protesters, the Obama Administration will join forces with Britain and France to push a UN Security Council resolution on Tuesday in New York which will promote the ouster of longtime Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
These three permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia and China being the rest of the Perm 5, are uniting behind language emanating from the Arab League urging that Assad leave office and turn over power to a deputy in a transitional governance arrangement for Syria, long one of the lynchpins of the Arab world and presently a key ally of Iran.
Russia, Syria’s longtime ally, calls this the beginning of a regime change move by Western powers allied with various Arab states and vows to veto the measure.
But the BBC reports that the resolution has the support of at least 10 of the 15 members of the UN Security Council. With that much support, only a veto by a permanent Security Council member state can block a resolution.
The Arab League finally pulled its monitors out of Syria two days ago after the Assad regime repeatedly violated its pledge to stop visiting violence upon its opponents.
The Assadists say they have no choice, that the suddenly blossoming Free Syrian Army — which is based in part in Turkey — is too strong to ignore. Indeed, the regime has struggled to disperse these organized armed forces from several places they’ve seized, including suburbs of storied Damascus itself.
The head of the Arab League and the prime minister of Qatar, which has called for Arab countries to send troops into Syria, will be in New York to lobby for the resolution.
Could we be headed for another Libyan scenario, this time involving a key ally of Iran, thus linking the scenario to a much more complex and potentially deadly situation?
A resurgent Mitt Romney and mistake-plagued Newt Gingrich battle in the Florida Republican presidential primary.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
A big week on tap in presidential politics, and a quieter one in California politics.
The Republicans fight on in their race for the presidential nomination — with the Florida primary on Tuesday and the Nevada caucuses on Saturday — while President Barack Obama positions himself against their increasingly conservative positions and deals with geopolitical crises. For his part, Governor Jerry Brown, with added support over the past few days for his big revenue initiative and Republicans scrambling to regroup after a huge defeat on redistricting, moves forward with his agenda but has a renewed problem to deal with in his adopted home town of Oakland.
Mitt Romney continues to lead Newt Gingrich in all polls, by varying margins, heading into Tuesday’s Florida Republican presidential primary. Rick Santorum, who actually narrowly won the Iowa caucuses, a victory of which he was robbed by bad reporting of a Romney win there, is fading out of the picture. And Ron Paul, whose main effect thus far in the race has been to help Romney tear down Gingrich, has done little of late.
Gingrich has made quite a few mistakes, and Romney has benefited from a coordinated counter-attack on the former House speaker from many elements of the political and media establishments, conservative and otherwise.
Gingrich has also been blitzed on the airwaves in the Sunshine State, with the Romney super PAC (which still has not divulged its funders) driving a negative campaign against the ex-House speaker which has seen him outspent by 4-to-1, with an stunning $16 million spent for Romney. The pro-Gingrich Winning Our Future super PAC, having spent about $3 million, does not appear to have committed over $3 million it had been expected to spend in Florida.
As was the case with Romney’s first TV ad of the campaign, built around a false attack on Obama, much of what Romney and company are doing is distorted.
Romney and Gingrich’s negatives with independents have skyrocketed in the course of the campaign, as each has struggled to define himself as a true conservative.
Whatever the outcome in Florida, Gingrich, who crushed Romney in South Carolina little more than a week ago, vows to continue for the long term. The vehemence and, in his view, unfairness, of the attacks against him by Romney and by various establishment elements may guarantee a result that the pro-Romney crew fears nearly as much as losing to Gingrich.
Meanwhile, there has been heavy fighting in the suburbs of Damascus and other parts of the country as Syrian regime forces battle insurgent Free Syrian Army forces. Indications are that the Assad regime, with its superior firepower, has gained the upper hand and has quelled the uprising just outside the capital.
Russia says it will not support a UN Security Council move to impose further sanctions on the Assad regime as the Arab League, having withdrawn its monitors following ongoing regime crackdowns on protesters, again denounced the regime’s behavior.
Iran, the Assad regime’s last ally in the Middle East, is focusing, at least in public, not so much on the woes of its friend but on the ongoing stand-off with the US over its nuclear weapons program, demanding that the US release an Iranian semiconductor scientist apparently being held in a federal facility in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Dublin for violating US export laws.
It continued for a second day to send mixed signals over an earlier threat to swiftly stop oil sales to European nations in advance of the European Union embargo going into effect.
Meanwhile, France, in the wake of an incident in which four of its troops were killed by an Afghan solider under their training, has ended all front-line military activities in Afghanistan and will pull out a year earlier than previously scheduled, at the end of 2013.
And outgoing Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, one of the principal targets of Arab Spring protests, arrived in New York on Saturday, ostensibly for medical treatment, the transition to a new government underway.
How long will he be in the US? Who knows?
Syria’s military has launched its toughest offensive yet to keep rebel forces out of the capital, activists say.
The Occupy Wall Street movement continues to flail in counter-productive ways, the latest evidence coming Saturday in Oakland.
Nearly 400 protesters were arrested during a wild sequence of events that began with a march outside Oakland City Hall to the closed Henry Kaiser Convention Center, where protest leaders directed that fences be torn down and the now vacant facility, established in 1914, be occupied as a new headquarters for Occupy Oakland.
Police blocked the move to take over the old convention center, prompting a fallback to Plan B of a building takeover, a march to the YMCA, where hundreds of protesters burst in on exercising members before being forced out of the building.
Later, Occupy Oakland protesters broke in to Oakland City Hall. While there, they vandalized the lobby and burned an American flag.
Protesters are threatening to shut down the Port of Oakland (which they have done very briefly on occasion) and Oakland International Airport. Which seems a brilliant way to alienate much of the 99% while doing very little to harm the 1%.
This is all quite stupid, reflective of a mindset that thought it clever to try to disrupt the annual Christmas Tree lighting in San Francisco’s Union Square.
As I mentioned in my “Ocupado” essay at the beginning of November, there is a large reserve force of fringe lefties in the Bay Area. Put that together with a major anarchist presence and a movement that essentially excuses such tactics on the cop-out rationale of “diversity of tactics” and you get dunderheaded thinking and bad results.
Brown and Democrats won a big victory late last week when the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of using the Citizens Redistricting Commission’s state Senate maps for the 2012 elections, despite a referendum against the plan that may yet qualify for the November ballot.
The Republican Party and its right-wing allies have spent millions to try to block the redistricting reform, which is eliminating the effects of the incumbent protection act of a decade ago.
Their strategy, one of the few keys left to them, has failed.
On Friday morning, Brown appeared on KGO and KCBS radio in the San Francisco Bay Area to discuss his budget and public pension reform plans. In the course of that, he strongly defended the state’s high-speed rail program, which his administration is revamping in the wake of various managerial issues and controversies, saying that he will not allow California to slip into “third world” status and that it must continue to be a leader inside the US, despite the budget problems he is working on.
Brown noted that 14 other advanced industrial nations have high-speed rail, but it has been consistently blocked in the US in favor of old energy economy approaches.
He also said that the program won’t cost as much as current estimates have it and that revenue from the state’s greenhouse gas cap and trade program can be used to help fund future segments of it.
Also on Friday, the California Air Resources Board unanimously approved new rules requiring that 15% of new cars sold in California by 2025 run on electricity, hydrogen or zero or ultr-low emissions systems. Given California’s role as a very large strategic market in the US, this could help transform the auto industry.
Meanwhile, Brown, who is working to gain business support for his initiative and neutralize business opposition, picked up big backing in the past few days from the California Teachers Association and the Service Employees International Union. While I’ve expected this all along, it should help dissuade backers of two remaining competing tax hike measures.
With the Think Long group of billionaires and former officeholders already, as predicted, dissuaded from their own tax initiative, two measures competitive with Brown’s are still out there. One by heiress Molly Munger would raise the income tax for most everyone in the state and, needless to say, does not poll well. Another by a coalition of left-liberal groups would establish a big tax hike on millionaires, which does poll well but lacks resources. Both tout benefits for education. But with CTA backing the Brown plan, they will find the going even tougher.
Legislators have till the end of Tuesday to move bills along from their houses of origin. One much hyped bill that is not moving along, the latest bid to establish a single-payer health care system in California, was defeated last week in the state Senate. It had previously passed, sans any funding mechanism, that is, only to be vetoed by then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Brown, who backed single-payer in his 1992 presidential campaign, is neutral this time on the issue.
This week may also see Facebook’s initial public offering of stock, likely the largest Internet IPO ever and potentially a large revenue boon for the state.
Here’s what Obama’s week looks like, in public, that is.
On Monday, Obama will welcome President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia to the White House. As the White House pointedly notes with regard to this country which fought a notably unsuccessful war with Russia in 2008: “This year marks the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Republic of Georgia and the two Presidents will discuss further strengthening the U.S. – Georgia Charter on Strategic Partnership by enhancing cooperation in the fields of trade, tourism, energy, science, education, culture, and security. President Obama will underscore the importance of our defense cooperation with Georgia, including Georgia’s substantial contributions to international security operations in Afghanistan. The President will reconfirm U.S. support for the integrity of Georgia’s territory within its internationally recognized borders.”
Attention, Vladimir Putin.
On Tuesday, Obama will attend meetings at the White House. On Wednesday, he will deliver remarks on the economy in Northern Virginia. On Thursday, Obama will deliver remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. And on Friday, he will attend meetings in, yes, the White House.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 11:15 AM Pacific, Obama welcomes President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia to the White House.
The two will meet in the Oval Office.
At 12:15 PM Pacific, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama host the Diplomatic Corps Reception in the East Room.
At 2:30 PM Pacific, Obama participates in an interview with YouTube and Google+ to discuss his State of the Union Address from the Roosevelt Room.
Obama is monitoring a variety of geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, Iraq, Iran and Israel.
Military Crisis Zone Times: The Arabian Gulf is eleven hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is twelve and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.
Occupy Oakland’s disruptive moves may complicate life for Governor Jerry Brown.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
** NEWTONIAN MOTION: WILL GINGRICH BLOW IT (AGAIN)?Most in the media and political worlds are now adjusting to the reality that Mitt Romney is not “inevitable.” But that doesn’t mean that Newt Gingrich can’t blow it. Again.
After all, as I pointed out last week here on the Huffington Post, before Gingrich’s landslide win in South Carolina, the supposedly politically dead ex-House speaker has blown golden opportunities to put Romney away before.
Romney is a hollow man, whose only consistent ideology is radical capitalism, as he showed when he denounced any criticism of his financialized capitalism as tantamount to socialism, and notions of his own success. He’s been an accident waiting to happen for a long time, notwithstanding endless hype to the contrary.
But Gingrich is a political Bibendum, a Michelin Man, someone who, too frequently, becomes puffed up like an alarmingly over-inflated tire at high speeds. … From my January 26th essay.
** NEWTONIAN MOTION: UNDERLYING THE DECIDEDLY UNDEAD.Back from the dead. Again. Newt Gingrich. Amazing, isn’t it?
What’s actually amazing is that Gingrich was “dead” in the first place.
The fact is that the ex-House speaker had the Republican race in his hands last month and then proceeded to blow it.
And Mitt Romney is one of the most hollow, and hyped, political figures to come down the track in some time. He’s a consultant culture dream candidate: Big money and heavily into “messaging.” However, messaging, i.e., constantly repeating crafted talking points, is often not the same as having a message, which is why what he says is so malleable and chameleon-like. It’s obvious that there is very little that interests Romney besides success.
It’s a combination of unforced Gingrich errors, erroneous media coverage, and Romney’s nature peeking out all too often from behind the slick facade that has led to these seemingly shocking twists and turns. … From my January 20th column.
** 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 three wars 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. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 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 $99 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $65 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 $15 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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