President-elect Barack Obama unveiled his top intelligence leaders – CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta and Director of National Intelligence-designate Admiral Dennis Blair – and discussed the economic crisis in this Friday press conference in Washington.
** THE ABSENT VOTER TREND CONTINUES. George Mason University’s voting project reports that 30% of US voters cast their ballots before the November election or by absentee ballot. That’s up sharply from 20% in 2004
In California, the figure was a whopping 45%. And in Florida, 52%.
** BUSH DELIVERS FAREWELL ADDRESS ON THURSDAY. President George W. Bush delivers a farewell address to the nation on Thursday night in the East Room of the White House. Not every president does this. I don’t think this is a very good idea on his part. It’s his last scheduled public event before Barack Obama’s inauguration day.
** CIA: THE PANETTA PICK AND THE FEINSTEIN FACTOR. President-elect Barack Obama named his top intelligence leadership team on Friday. And, as I expected, new Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein rather quickly backed down from her opposition to Leon Panetta and championing of a CIA insider for the post, of only a few days ago. The whole exercise was very instructive in old and new political dynamics. … From my new column.
** BIG LIVE AUDIENCE EXPECTED FOR OBAMA INAUGURAL FESTIVITIES. According to the latest Republican Rasmussen poll, 75% of US voters say they will watch all or part of Barack Obama’s inauguration as president and the activities surrounding it on January 20th. 28% say they will watch everything. Enthusiasm is greatest amongst younger voters and least amongst older voters.
21% say they won’t watch any of the Obama Inaugural – 25% of men but only 18% of women.
** NATURAL GAS FLOWS TO EUROPE START UP AGAIN TUESDAY MORNING. Ukraine has backed down on amendments to its deal with Russia on natural gas pipeline shipments to and through the former Soviet republic, paving the way for those shipments to resume Tuesday morning. With an arctic front over the continent, Ukraine in arrears on its own payments and Russia seeking to force the country away from the US and NATO, Moscow seized the opportunity to precipitate a crisis reminding both it and most of Europe about how dependent they are on Russian energy.
The Morning Column: MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
An eventful week on tap in presidential politics, geopolitics, and California politics. President-elect Barack Obama finds a new commerce secretary, tweaks his economic revival program, and monitors the confirmation proceedings on his appointees and several global crises. Oh, and works on that first inaugural address business.
All the while, geopolitical crises continue to percolate.
In the Mumbai crisis, Pakistan’s army has moved one of its two divisions in the remote Islamist hotbed of Waziristan to its border with India, as India continues to be unimpressed by the Pakistani government’s actions in the wake of acknowledging a substantial Pakistani role in the terrorist siege of India’s commercial capital.
In the Gaza crisis, Israel’s army has escalated its offensive against Hamas, with both sides now refusing a UN Security Council call for ceasefire. But Israel says it is close to achieving its objectives, whatever they are, which I think is tied to the Obama inauguration on the 20th.
And in the Ukraine crisis, Russia is declinining to renew natural gas shipments through its former Soviet republic neighbor, and hence to the rest of Europe, saying that Ukraine is trying to renegotiate a deal reached before the weekend. It’s getting pretty cold in Europe. Don’t expect the current pro-US Ukrainian government to last much longer.
Vice President-elect Joe Biden is in Iraq today, meeting with the Iraqi leadership. He’s wrapping up a tour of the Middle East and South Asia, having told the Pakistani leadership earlier it’s time for more cooperation with India on Mumbai. He’ll meet with Obama and the top national security and intelligence leadership team this week to discuss what he’s found.
In California politics, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders continue trying to find a solution of sorts to California’s chronic budget crisis. Schwarzenegger gives his state of the state address on Thursday, which I doubt he intends to be solely on the budget.
Speaking of which, there are some signs that some Republicans are getting ready to go along with tax increases. They haven’t presented a budget alternative which does the job without them. Schwarzenegger is pushing his latest combination of tax increases, program cuts, and borrowing, having rejected the Democratic alternative which refashions tax hikes as fee hikes to get around California’s unusual two-thirds legislative vote requirement. The legislative analyst has called both Schwarzenegger’s and the Democratic plan risky – Schwarzenegger because of a few assumptions, the Democrats because of the legal issue around the tax-as-fee gambit.
President George W. Bush gave what may be his final press conference as president early this morning in Washington, admitting mistakes on the economy and geopolitics in a sometimes defiant performance.
** OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues work on his transition in Washington. He meets with Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton, whose confirmation hearing is tomorrow, after refusing something of a demand from the New York Times that he provide the newspaper with monthly reports on former President Bill Clinton’s activities.
Obama also meets with Mexican President Felipe Calderon. It’s traditional that a new American president hold his first foreign head of state meeting with the president of Mexico. They actually have a great deal to talk about, as Mexico’s stability is in increasing question with the increasingly bold advent of powerful drug cartels corrupting and assassinating the country’s security services with apparent impunity.
Vice President-elect Joe Biden is on the last leg of his tour of the Middle East and South Asia, meeting with Pakistani President Jalal Talabani today in Baghdad. Biden has been getting the lay of the land out there in his guise as outgoing Senate Foreign Relations Committe chairman. John Kerry takes over tomorrow to preside over Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearing.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has private meetings and discussions in and around the Capitol today around his state of the state address on January 15th and California’s chronic budget crisis.
** CIA: PARSING THE PANETTA PICK. … From my Monday column.
** OBAMA: VACATION’S END. … From my January 2nd Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new 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, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, 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.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included.
Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $37 to $38 per barrel range, down three dollars since its Friday close on fresh signs of weak demand.
The drop of $110 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.
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