New West Notes

General David Petraeus, who commanded US forces in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, retired this morning from the Army. He takes over as director of the Central Intelligence Agency next week, replacing veteran California political figure Leon Panetta, who is now secretary of defense.

** QUICK HITS. Governor Jerry Brown’s appointee to the California Supreme Court, UC Berkeley Law Professor Goodwin Liu, was confirmed today by the judicial appointments commission on a 3-0 vote. Brown will swear Liu into office at noon tomorrow in the Capitol Rotunda. … Amazon.com, which has poured over $5 million already into a signature drive to force a referendum on California’s new online sales tax, is reportedly interested in making a deal to avoid the tax and a statewide vote on it. This comes as Democrats, backed by in-state businesses, work to circumvent a referendum by passing a new version of the law with a few Republican votes. Under the deal, Amazon would create new distribution centers in California bringing 7,000 new jobs. That would be in lieu of the $200 million per year for state coffers. I’m sure that Democrats would prefer to have the revenue. But they could lose on everything.

** TEAM O: TOO CLEVER BY HALF. During his briefing today, White House press secretary Jay Carney didn’t really offer a reason why President Barack Obama would be delivering his much anticipated economic address on Wednesday, September 7th before a joint session of Congress at the same time that the Republican presidential debate would be taking place at the Reagan Library in California.

Just a coincidence, of course.

But the White House seems to have forgotten that it does not control Congress, and that the president must be invited to address a joint session of Congress. (It may be unprecedented not to go along with the president, but it’s not out of line with the rules. I don’t know if it’s unprecedented for a president to schedule a speech to scuttle a debate, but I suspect it is.) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s willing to go along with the gag, naturally. But House Speaker John Boehner is not.

He’s told the White House that because of blah blah blah reason, it won’t be possible for the president to speak to Congress on the same night as the Republican debate. But they sure would be interested in hearing from Obama the next night.

Well, that doesn’t work too well, does it?

There are two nights left next week. Tuesday night, which is the first night after Labor Day. I wonder if many members of Congress might be straggling then. And Friday night, which is not optimal.

Obama seems to have cut this one too close. There’s a reason why the Republican debate is next Wednesday night. And a reason why Boehner doesn’t seem inclined to play into Team O’s reindeer games.

Obama is supposed to be positioning himself as the grown-up in the equation. His opposition is virtually ceding that spot to him, because of their own demons. Why look like a kid in the schoolyard now?

And how smart is it in the first place to clutter the message of a major speech with gamesmanship around a Republican debate? If the Republicans rolled over, that would be a big part of the story. If they went ahead with the debate and Obama gave his speech — which he can certainly do from the White House, or most anywhere else, for that matter — why share the spotlight?

** NEW POLL: PERRY CLEAR PICK IN REPUBLICAN FIELD ON “POSITIVE INTENSITY” AS ROMNEY, BACHMANN FADE. A new Gallup Poll survey indicates that Texas Governor Rick Perry, the new Republican presidential frontrunner, has a big edge over his leading rivals when it comes to positive intensity.

Perry has also gained dramatically in name ID over the past three weeks, moving from 54% to 75%. He is still significantly less well known among Republican voters than former frontrunner Mitt Romney.

These developments come as President Barack Obama has decided to make his much anticipated major address on the economy to a joint session of Congress on the evening of September 7th.

Which just happens to be the same night as the Reagan Library debate, the first Republican debate to include Perry.

White House press secretary Jay Carney made unconvincing sounds about why this move is not designed to knock the Republicans off-stride, which no one in the briefing room seemed to buy.

Among the trailing Republicans, Jon Huntsman hit a new low in his positive intensity score. But Newt Gingrich had a bit of a resurgence.

Herman Cain and Rick Perry continue to generate strongly favorable impressions among Republicans familiar with them. Meanwhile, those familiar with Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, and Ron Paul express less intensely positive opinions of those candidates now than at any point this year. The result is a clear separation of 12 percentage points between the top and middle tiers of Republican presidential candidates in Gallup’s Positive Intensity Score from Aug. 15-28 Gallup Daily tracking. The average Positive Intensity Scores show much smaller gaps between the current top- and middle-tier candidates. …

Now, Perry enjoys some separation between himself and his most likely challengers in both positive intensity and support for the nomination (given his 12-point lead over Romney in the latest update), marking him as the clear front-runner at this point in the campaign.

>>>>>>LIVE VIDEO NETCAST

At 9 AM Pacific, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing. The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes.

** 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.

President Barack Obama yesterday addressed the annual national conference of the American Legion in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he praised “an extraordinary decade of military service by the 9/11 Generation.”

** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Minnesota.

He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.

He then met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.

Following that, Obama held an event in the Rose Garden to call on Congress to move forward in a bipartisan way to pass a clean extension of the Surface Transportation Bill.

At 9 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.

You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.

Obama flew yesterday to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he addressed the annual conference of the American Legion, the veterans organization for those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces during time of war, of which I am a member.

He began laying out what will be the geopolitical/national security/foreign policy framework of his 2012 re-election message.

In the process, Obama thanked what he has dubbed “the 9/11 generation” for its service with America under attack, not so subtly likening it to “the greatest generation” that fought World War II. Which is an imperfect analogy, given the much more limited, though nonetheless quite real, threat posed by jihadists compared to that posed by expansive global fascism.

In not unrelated news, General David Petraeus retires today from the U.S. Army. Next week, the former head of Central Command and U.S. commander in the Iraq War and the Afghan War becomes director of the CIA.

Meanwhile, the Commission on Wartime Contracting, created by Congress to examine the massive expansion of contracting surrounding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will report today that as much as $60 billion has been lost to fraud and waste.

Obama and his team are still working on his big economic speech for shortly after Labor Day. Its shape and scope remain somewhat unclear.

One thing that is clear is Obama calling for extension of the federal gas tax to maintain highway programs and related jobs.

The Obama Administration is also moving to block AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile, on anti-trust grounds. Anti-trust, what’s that? It’s hard to recall a time when that was a major factor, so far has the pendulum swung to deregulation and massive corporate structures.

Dark horse Republican candidate Jon Huntsman will unveil his economic agenda today in New Hampshire. Huntsman, the former Utah governor and U.S. ambassador to China, will emphasize a renewal of American manufacturing. To promote that, he will call for a major restructuring of the U.S. tax code, phasing out the capital gains tax among other things in what he says would be a revenue neutral fashion.

With more polling showing Texas Governor Rick Perry opening up a sizable lead over former frontrunner Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential race, Romney — who has been running a Rose Garden-style campaign — is beginning his attacks on Perry.

Addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention yesterday in San Antonio, Texas, Romney attacked “career politicians” — Perry quickly became a Texas state legislator not terribly long after his Texas A&M days — and called himself a lifelong jobs generator.

Of course, Perry’s stint between college and politics was serving as an officer in the U.S. Air Force — in which he flew cargo planes in various spots around the world — and Romney (who never wore the uniform) was in the leveraged buyouts business.

Romney also painted a dark picture of foreign policy and security failures, in contrast to Obama’s tale of hard-won successes balanced by ongoing challenges.

Meanwhile, in Libya, an example of Obama policy success about which Romney has little to say, the Libyan rebels are closing their perimeter around deposed dictator Moammar Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, readying an assault and negotiating with officials inside the city. If they don’t surrender, the rebels promise an attack this weekend, right after the end of Ramadan.

Obama is monitoring a variety of other geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, and Iraq.

War Zone Times: Libya is nine hours ahead of Pacific time, Iraq is ten hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … JERRY BROWN MOVES BEHIND THE SCENES, BREAKS COVER ON THE ECONOMY, BUT NEEDS TO BREAK BIGGER.

** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

Brown spoke yesterday, as reported here, at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, his first out-of-state trip since his new/renewed governorship began in January.

In addition to his presentation and panel discussion, Brown met privately with Vice President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and other notables.

But he did not dally amidst the very bright lights of Las Vegas, one of predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s more favored cities in North America.

Brown was back in California in the early evening.

Meanwhile, his 99-year old Aunt Connie passed away over the weekend in San Francisco.

Constance Brown Carlson, a lifelong San Franciscan, was the sister of Governor Pat Brown. She was a very sprightly attendee of her nephew Jerry’s third inauguration as governor this past California. Like Brown himself, she was an alumnus of the University of California at Berkeley. She worked for many years as a teacher and lived alone until a recent fall caused a decline in her health.

Her 73-years young nephew introduced her as a living representation of the early Californians who braved many difficulties in building the Golden State. Her grandfather, August Schuckman, emigrated from Germany to San Francisco with the advent of the great California Gold Rush in the middle of the 19th century.

Brown took no little glee in pointing out his aunt’s age as a humorous discouragement of those Democrats who would seek to replace him.

Click here for my compendium of articles laying out the re-emergence of Jerry Brown as governor of California.

** OBAMA’S BIG DISCONNECT. There’s no question that President Barack Obama is an outstanding orator, able to articulate important messages. But he has a big disconnect going on the biggest issue for most Americans. Even on some things that he has actually focused on of great importance, like energy prices.

Through all of 2010, as I wrote in my November 2010 election “pre-mortem”, “Obama’s Big Mistake,” here on the Huffington Post, Obama was just about to “pivot” to the economy. But it never quite happened. … From my August 22nd column.

But Perry is a different kind of deal. He’s the governor of a big state, the second biggest, in fact. He has to be a serious figure. Right? I mean, he’s got that whole Texas Mirage, er, Miracle thing going and all. … From my August 18th essay.

** HARRY POTTER: A CONFESSION, AND AN APPRECIATION. … From my August 11th essay.

** LESS THAN MEETS THE EYE: THE BIG BUDGET DEAL AND OBAMA’S REAL PROBLEM. … From my August 8th essay.

** JERRY BROWN MAKES SOME MOVES. … From my August 1st essay.

** OVER AND OUT, ABOVE AND BEYOND: IS THE SPACE AGE OVER OR JUST BEGINNING? … From my July 28th essay.

** FROM GOVERNATOR TO MOONBEAM. … From my January 3rd, 2011 feature.

** 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’s second lunar orbiter, having completed its Moon mission, is now embarking on a mission into deeper space.

** 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 $89 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $55 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.

Libyan rebel forces continue to gather around Sirte, the home town of deposed dictator Moammar Gaddafi. They have set a deadline of Saturday for Gaddafi loyalist forces to surrender or be attacked.

** QUICK HITS. Gaddafi regime loyalists holed up in the deposed dictator’s home town of Sirte have not answered Libyan rebels’ demand for a declaration of intent to surrender by Saturday. Gaddafi himself has not been heard from since making some defiant remarks several days ago on a Tripoli radio station. … Conservative Republicans opposed to the new California Citizens Redistricting Commission’s new districts today filed a referendum against the new congressional districts, companion to the referendum previously filed against state Senate districts. The plans were approved by a majority of Republicans on the commission. …

** JERRY-RIGGING: IN VEGAS, BROWN REITERATES FOCUS ON RENEWABLES AND CLIMATE CHANGE AND TALKS ABOUT A NEW SOLUTION ON THE FARM WORKER QUESTION. Governor Jerry Brown, once a globe-trotter and now something of a homebody, ventured to the not entirely ascetic confines of Las Vegas today for his first trip out of state since beginning his third term as governor. Brown was lured from his lairs by the invitation of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to his annual National Clean Energy Summit.

Accompanied by a few state Capitol reporters, Brown, traveling as usual on Southwest Airlines, found time to meet privately with Reid and with Vice President Joe Biden. He also made it clear, once again, that he will chart an aggressive course for California on developing renewable energy sources and on dealing with the greenhouse effect, cause of global climate change.

“Climate change has become more obvious, and we see great opportunity in investing in wind, solar and energy efficiency, or ‘negawatts,’” Brown said. “This is like the computer industry when it first started. It starts small and it keeps growing. We’re not going to ever not need energy.”

Brown pioneered the renewable energy path in the 1970s and 1980s. He joined his predecessor, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has addressed this gathering in past years, in committing California to requiring that 33% of its electric power be generated by renewable energy sources.

The state looks like it’s on track to meet that mandate.

“Last year,” noted Brown, who was inaugurated in January, “we permitted 5,000 megawatts of wind and solar, and we have applications for 70,000 megawatts. The 33% goal has stimulated real investment. The entrepreneurs that made the computer revolution are the same people investing in renewable energy. Google is investing. These companies will grow.”

Brown also told the San Jose Mercury News that he’s going to talk up climate change, very much a linked issue. He spoke of the spate of extreme weather events and linked greenhouse deniers with those who once claimed that tobacco wasn’t harmful.

“Climate change will create floods, droughts, forest fires of greater intensity and regularity, and with far greater devastation, he said. “Climate denial propaganda is very powerful, but California is standing against it. Part of my job is to advance the truth of science.”

Brown also told his persistent shadow, the Sacramento Bee’s clever young reporter David Siders, that he is coming up with an alternative to the United Farm Workers’ card check legislation, which he vetoed at the end of June.

The UFW is staging a march up the Central Valley, and plans a weekend rally at the Capitol to pressure Brown to sign future legislation. A decades-long close ally of Brown, the union is issuing various statements along the way invoking the history of it all. This the UFW noted some Brown family history; namely that Brown argued with his father, then Governor Pat Brown, on behalf of the union cause when the UFW first marched on the Capitol in 1966, with the younger Brown urging his father to join the farm workers as they presented their grievances.

“This is not a time for fundamental changes in a law that has only been changed once since I signed it in 1975,” Brown, governor before from 1975 to 1983, told The Bee before speaking at a green energy conference in Las Vegas.

He said, “If people want more far reaching changes, those should be the subject of more deliberation that involves workers, growers … academics, and other interested parties.”

** NEW POLL: RICK PERRY OPENS UP A BIG LEAD IN THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL RACE. Texas Governor Rick Perry has opened up a big lead over former frontrunner Mitt Romney the rest of the field in the Republican presidential race.

In a new CNN poll, the far right fave (a particular darling of California conservatives, who see the second coming of a harder-edged Reagan), Perry leads Romney, 32% to 18%.

Michele Bachmann is third at 12%, a hanging in there Newt Gingrich is at 7%, and Ron Paul is at 6%. The rest are in the low single digits.

The results are little altered when CNN tossed Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani into the mix.

Under that unlikely scenario, Perry leads Romney 27-14, with Palin at 10% and Bachmann and Giuliani tied at 9%.

The poll also indicates that there isn’t much support for a primary challenger to President Barack Obama, and that sentiment for it — a constant trope among some ultra-liberal bloggers, columnists, and other would-be experts — has already topped out.

According to the survey, Perry supporters tend to be older and have higher incomes, but the longtime Texas governor also tops the list, albeit by smaller margins, among lower-income Republicans and those under 50 years old. …

Meanwhile, the survey indicates that number of Democrats and independents who lean towards the Democratic party who would like the party to nominate someone else besides President Barack Obama has topped out after months of steady growth. Seventy-two percent of Democrats want to see Obama re-nominated, with 27 percent wanting a different candidate. That’s virtually unchanged since early August, although it is higher than in June.

Was she kidding or not? Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann drew lots of fire when she seemed to say that God visited Hurricane Irene on America because federal spending is too high. She says she was joking, but could be said to have actually repeated the sentiment in the course of her clarification.

** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Minnesota.

He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.

Obama then flew to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he addressed the annual conference of the American Legion, the veterans organization for those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces during time of war.

At 10:15 AM Pacific, Obama departs Minneapolis, Minnesota on Air Force One en route Joint Base Andrews.

At 12:30 PM Pacific, Obama arrives at Joint Base Andrews, where he boards Marine One.

At 12:45 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.

Obama and his team are still working on his big economic speech for shortly after Labor Day. Its shape and scope remain somewhat unclear.

Meanwhile, of course, the tromp of impending economic doom has been stilled, the media’s hysterical fixations having moved on to the hurricane, which is now over.

In the end, Hurricane Irene killed some 40 people. The scope of the damage is still being determined, but millions are still without power.

With word of more polling showing Texas Governor Rick Perry opening up a sizable lead over former frontrunner Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential race, Romney — who has been running a Rose Garden-style campaign — is readying an attack on Perry.

He’ll hit Romney for being too conservative to win, a threat to seniors for his apparent views on Social Security, a hypocrite who rails against government but has been on the public payroll all his adult life. (Perry was an Air Force officer prior to getting into politics.)

But is Romney someone who can deliver attacks about hypocrisy?

Libyan rebels are closing their perimeter around deposed dictator Moammar Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, readying an assault and negotiating with officials inside the city. It’s not clear if Gaddafi himself is in there.

Gaddafi’s wife and three of his grown children fled to Algeria yesterday, where they were granted a safe haven. His daughter Aisha reportedly gave birth today.

National Transitional Council officials have given Gaddafi regime loyalists in Sirte and other pockets of resistance until Saturday to signal their intention to give up.

Libyan rebels have established a perimeter around deposed dictator Moammar Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, as seen with this skirmish at a checkpoint outside the remaining stronghold.

Russian space officials still haven’t determined the cause for the destruction of last week’s cargo ship shortly after its launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome to the International Space Station. The debris rained down upon remote Siberian forests.

The accident has already caused a delay in the next crew rotation for the ISS. If it lasts into October, the space station may have to be evacuated.

Obama is monitoring a variety of other geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, and Iraq.

War Zone Times: Libya is nine hours ahead of Pacific time, Iraq is ten hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.

** JERRY BROWN MOVES BEHIND THE SCENES, BREAKS COVER ON THE ECONOMY, BUT NEEDS TO BREAK BIGGER.

** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in California and Nevada.

Brown flew from Sacramento to Las Vegas at 6:30 AM.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is hosting Brown at the annual National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas.

At 2 PM, Brown will join Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and Washington Governor Christine Gregoire for a panel discussion on how the West’s leadership in clean energy can impact technological innovation and national and international policy-making.

Former White House chief of staff John Podesta of the Center for American Progress will moderate the event, which takes place at Aria Resort and Casino at CityCenter in Las Vegas.

The National Clean Energy Summit 4.0 is co-sponsored by Reid, the Center for American Progress, the Clean Energy Project, MGM Resorts International, and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Brown’s predecessor, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has previously taken part in the summit.

Other noteworthy speakers this year include Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus.

Brown took part in a media conference call last month discussing the summit with Reid and Mabus.

Click here for my compendium of articles laying out the re-emergence of Jerry Brown as governor of California.

** OBAMA’S BIG DISCONNECT. There’s no question that President Barack Obama is an outstanding orator, able to articulate important messages. But he has a big disconnect going on the biggest issue for most Americans. Even on some things that he has actually focused on of great importance, like energy prices.

Through all of 2010, as I wrote in my November 2010 election “pre-mortem”, “Obama’s Big Mistake,” here on the Huffington Post, Obama was just about to “pivot” to the economy. But it never quite happened. … From my August 22nd column.

But Perry is a different kind of deal. He’s the governor of a big state, the second biggest, in fact. He has to be a serious figure. Right? I mean, he’s got that whole Texas Mirage, er, Miracle thing going and all. … From my August 18th essay.

** HARRY POTTER: A CONFESSION, AND AN APPRECIATION. … From my August 11th essay.

** LESS THAN MEETS THE EYE: THE BIG BUDGET DEAL AND OBAMA’S REAL PROBLEM. … From my August 8th essay.

** JERRY BROWN MAKES SOME MOVES. … From my August 1st essay.

** OVER AND OUT, ABOVE AND BEYOND: IS THE SPACE AGE OVER OR JUST BEGINNING? … From my July 28th essay.

** FROM GOVERNATOR TO MOONBEAM. … From my January 3rd, 2011 feature.

** 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 $87 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $53 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.

A United Nations planning document for post-Gaddafi Libya has surfaced, including military observers and UN police and elections within nine months.

** QUICK HITS. Deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi still hasn’t been caught. But his wife and three of his grown children fled to Algeria today, according to the Algerian Foreign Ministry. … Meanwhile, Libyan rebel forces have surrounded Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, and are trying to negotiate a peaceful resolution. … Texas Governor Rick Perry, the Republican presidential frontrunner, today picked up the endorsement of the leading greenhouse denier in American politics, Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe. … Meanwhile, a group of English adventurers are rowing to the North Pole through the no longer ice-locked Arctic Sea. … Another leading Republican presidential candidate, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, says now that she was joking when she said over the weekend that Hurricane Irene and the Virginia earthquake were God’s warning to cut federal spending. … Governor Jerry Brown joins Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and Washington Governor Chris Gregoire for a panel presentation tomorrow afternoon at the National Clean Energy Summit at Aria Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. … California’s Citizens Redistricting Commission says that conservative Republican opponents to its new state Senate districts — adopted by commission super-majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents — have presented a misleading argument in their petition drive for a referendum to suspend the new plan and want signature gathering to be held in abeyance.

** NEW POLL: RATING INSTITUTIONS — COMPUTER INDUSTRY AT THE TOP, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AT THE BOTTOM. A new Gallup Poll indicates that the record low ratings for the new Congress have probably caused the federal government to be rated the lowest of a few dozen institutions tested.

Even lower than the oil industry, the health care industry, and the banks. This is the first time that the oil industry has not been at the bottom of the list.

At the top?

The computer industry.

We like our laptops, tablets, and smart phones far better than we like our politicians, it seems.

And we like food better than politics, too.

Who knew?

Americans view the computer industry the most positively and the federal government the least positively when asked to rate 25 business and industry sectors. All five of the top-rated sectors this year are related to either computers or food. …

The bad image of the real estate industry most likely reflects the housing crisis that has beset the country in recent years, and the poor image of the healthcare industry may reflect the rising cost of healthcare and uncertainly about access issues. Americans continue to view banks poorly, which clearly reflects lingering concerns from the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent failure of many banks around the country. Lawyers and the legal field have never had positive images.

Hurricane Irene, the latest in a record string of extreme weather events, though less devastating than feared, killed over 20 people and caused billions in damages.

MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.

A short but consequential week in presidential politics and California politics, as Labor Day weekend approaches.

President Barack Obama is back a little early from his summer vacation, during which dictator Moammar Gaddafi’s fearsome stronghold of Tripoli fell swiftly to the Libyan rebels and the East Coast was hit by an earthquake which shut down the Washington Monument and a hurricane which caused the evacuation of Wall Street and lower Manhattan. Want to know when big, surprising things will happen? Just see when Obama goes on vacation.

Meanwhile, in California politics, Governor Jerry Brown heads to Las Vegas for the National Clean Energy Summit. And the state legislature is down to the last two weeks of its yearly session, with very little to show for it other than big budget cuts early in the year. We’ll see if it gets anything at all done on revitalizing the economy, even as its attention seems elsewhere, focused on the new redistricting (which naturally affects their careers), a proposed football stadium in LA, the fate of a tiny unknown LA area city called, amusingly, Vernon, shark fin soup, and so on.

Hurricane Irene fortunately weakened as it hit some of the nation’s most populous areas, most notably New York City. This after massive warnings from Obama on down. But as the saying goes, better safe than sorry. And there is more than enough sorrow to go around as it is, with billions in damages and more than 20 killed.

Unlike the situation with Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FECMA) is winning widespread praise for its assistance to state and local government. But, quite bizarrely, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, the libertarian hero and a leading Republican presidential candidate, said over the weekend that FEMA isn’t necessary.

Obama is putting the finishing touches on his big speech on the economy, set for shortly after Labor Day. And he has a new chief economic advisor, Princeton Professor Alan Krueger, a notable labor economist.

But while he works on that, Obama will make a stop in potential swing state Minnesota for the annual American Legion convention, at which you can bet he will talk about some recent geopolitical and security successes.

In other action, Tripoli is quiet now, with mopping up actions having succeeded as anticipated. Gaddafi forces have been either suppressed or have fled from their remaining pockets of resistance.

Libyan rebels are driving toward Gaddafi’s remaining stronghold, his home town of Sirte. Erstwhile Gaddafi regime Information Minister Moussa Ibrahim, who — after the fashion of the hapless Iraqi information minister of 2003 — insisted that the rebels were about to be crushed in a trap as they moved into Tripoli just last weekend, now says that Gaddafi wants to work a deal for a transition from power.

The rebels, naturally, are not interested in that.

While UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon urged a smooth transition to the new Libyan government over the weekend in a New York speech, and rebel fighters have largely suppressed organized resistance in Tripoli, the African Union followed South Africa’s lead in refusing to recognize the Libyan rebels. South African President Jacob Zuma, a longtime Gaddafi ally, argued that the outcome in Libya is still in doubt. Which it is not.

This move, which is holding up release of substantial frozen Libyan assets to the rebels, could be a gambit to give Gaddafi some deal-making leverage as his forces continue from his remaining stronghold, home town Sirte. Though the 54-member African Union, co-founded and financed by Gaddafi, did not recognize the Libyan rebels, 20 of its member states have.

Statements subsequent to the African Union’s demurral by remaining Gaddafi regime figures calling for a “transitional government” bears this out.

Incidentally, though Libya has major nation-building needs, one very good thing is that the fighting has not significantly damaged the oil infrastructure, and the rebels will honor all pre-war contracts. This is not Iraq.

Meanwhile, the National Transitional Council has moved from Benghazi to Tripoli, setting up its new seat of government. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ventures to Paris for a critical Thursday meeting of the International Contact Group on Libya, following on last week’s Libya Contact Group meeting in Istanbul.

The Arab League also called on Syria to cease its bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. And it called for prompt democratic elections in Syria.

Both calls were rejected on Sunday by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Another big win for Obama’s anti-jihadist operations in the fight against Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda’s new second-in-command has reportedly been killed in Pakistan’s Waziristan province. Atiyah Abd al-Rahman was a confidant of Osama bin Laden who moved up in the ranks after the Navy SEAL raid which took down the Al Qaeda founder in May. He was killed by a U.S. drone strike on August 22nd.

Al-Rahman was Al Qaeda’s emissary to Iran. Evidence of his role as Al Qaeda’s operations officer was found in bin Laden’s Pakistan compound.

Afghan Taliban fighters killed over two dozen Pakistani soldiers and police along border checkpoints on Sunday.

The other shoe finally dropped in Japan, with discredited Prime Minister Naoto Kan resigning in the wake of the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear power disaster. Japan has a new prime minister, now former Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda. He is the fifth prime minister in six years.

Japanese politics, once largely a matter of consensus under the long ruling Liberal Democratic Party, is now trending toward the historic disarray of Italian politics, which long had a revolving door of leaders. This is a bad sign for the world’s third largest economy.

Speaking of dysfunctional politics …

In California politics, the state legislature is doing some important things, but nothing exactly central. It all keeps the lobbyists richly rewarded, with lots of bustling activity and even some breathless coverage. But it doesn’t mean much for the overall picture, or to most Californians.

Governor Jerry Brown’s proposal last week to change the corporate tax structure, in a complex tax swap that would, in a revenue neutral sort of way, redirect tax advantages from larger corporations that may not be investing much in California to other companies that are growing jobs here, is clever but probably a political non-starter, given heavy lobbying forces and the reluctance of latter-day Republicans to do anything with taxes besides cut them.

It sets up the politics of 2012 pretty nicely for Brown and Democrats, though. But if Brown wants to do something more immediate to help the economy, he can move on bonding authority won by predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2006 infrastructure initiatives and get some shovel-ready projects rolling.

He can also move on his promised pruning of regulation. To streamline, not eliminate.

California Republicans are starting a referendum drive to block the Citizens Redistricting Commission’s revamp of state Senate districts. But, despite ex-Governor Pete Wilson jumping in to try to help spearhead the drive, fundraising is sparse so far, with four GOP senators contributing less than $100,000, and backers have barely ten weeks to gather the needed signatures. And signature gatherers will, per Attorney General Kamala Harris, have to carry a fairly lengthy packet describing the measure they seek to overturn.

Death penalty opponents, having seen their legislation to eliminate capital punishment shelved in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, are moving ahead with a promised anti-death penalty initiative. Prospects can best be described as very iffy.

And labor and liberal opponents of a conservative Republican gambit to place various initiatives and referenda on the June 2012 statewide primary election ballot — on which there may or may not be a contested GOP presidential race but, in any event, will have little to draw Democratic voters — may pursue legislation to declare that a statewide primary election is not a general election. By which they mean that it does not qualify as the next repository of qualifying statewide initiatives.

Would such a move fly legally? I suspect that the weight of law, as demonstrated by the very common practice of the state in election after election, would be against it. In any event, it’s merely a rumor at this point. But since so little of major import is happening in California’s legislature, I mention it in passing.

President Barack Obama this morning appointed labor economist Alan Krueger to chair the President’s Council on Economic Advisors. Krueger, a Princeton professor, was previously chief economist at the Treasury Department and chief economist at the Labor Department.

** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.

He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.

Obama then appointed Princeton Professor Alan Krueger to be the new chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors in a Rose Garden announcement.

Obama then met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.

At 9:45 AM Pacific, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet for lunch in the Private Dining Room.

Obama is monitoring a variety of other geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, and Iraq.

War Zone Times: Libya is nine hours ahead of Pacific time, Iraq is ten hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.

** JERRY BROWN MOVES BEHIND THE SCENES, BREAKS COVER ON THE ECONOMY, BUT NEEDS TO BREAK BIGGER.

** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Sacramento.

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

Click here for my compendium of articles laying out the re-emergence of Jerry Brown as governor of California.

** OBAMA’S BIG DISCONNECT. There’s no question that President Barack Obama is an outstanding orator, able to articulate important messages. But he has a big disconnect going on the biggest issue for most Americans. Even on some things that he has actually focused on of great importance, like energy prices.

Through all of 2010, as I wrote in my November 2010 election “pre-mortem”, “Obama’s Big Mistake,” here on the Huffington Post, Obama was just about to “pivot” to the economy. But it never quite happened. … From my August 22nd column.

But Perry is a different kind of deal. He’s the governor of a big state, the second biggest, in fact. He has to be a serious figure. Right? I mean, he’s got that whole Texas Mirage, er, Miracle thing going and all. … From my August 18th essay.

** HARRY POTTER: A CONFESSION, AND AN APPRECIATION. … From my August 11th essay.

** LESS THAN MEETS THE EYE: THE BIG BUDGET DEAL AND OBAMA’S REAL PROBLEM. … From my August 8th essay.

** JERRY BROWN MAKES SOME MOVES. … From my August 1st essay.

** OVER AND OUT, ABOVE AND BEYOND: IS THE SPACE AGE OVER OR JUST BEGINNING? … From my July 28th essay.

** OBAMA KABUKI: THE BUDGET AND THE POLITICS OF POSITIONING. … From my July 13th column.

** FROM GOVERNATOR TO MOONBEAM. … From my January 3rd, 2011 feature.

** 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.

Defending World and Olympic 100 meter dash champion Usain Bolt, whose times are years ahead of world record projections, ran afoul of the new no false starts rule as he sought to defend his title in the World Championship final Saturday night in Daegu, South Korea.

** 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 $87 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $53 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.

Hurricane Irene continued to wreak havoc on Sunday, but the worst fears of New Yorkers have not been realized. Nevertheless, there are substantial risks of further flooding.

** 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 today.

Obama is, of course, very closely monitoring the advance of Hurricane Irene up the Eastern Seaboard.

The hurricane fortunately weakened as it hit some of the nation’s most populous areas, most notably New York City. But as the saying goes, better safe than sorry. Being safe includes the recognition that flooding will continue even as the hurricane itself passes. And there is more than enough sorrow to go around as it is, with billions in damages and more than a dozen people killed.

Unlike the situation with Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FECMA) is winning widespread praise for its assistance to state and local government. But, quite bizarrely, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, the libertarian hero and a leading Republican presidential candidate, said over the weekend that FEMA isn’t necessary.

In other action, Tripoli is relatively quiet as the weekend comes to an end, with Gaddafi forces either suppressed or fled from their remaining pockets of resistance.

Libyan rebels are driving toward Gaddafi’s remaining stronghold, his home town of Sirte. Erstwhile Gaddafi regime Information Minister Moussa Ibrahim, who — after the fashion of the hapless Iraqi information minister of 2003 — insisted that the rebels were about to be crushed in a trap as they moved into Tripoli just last weekend, now says that Gaddafi wants to work a deal for a transtion from power.

The rebels, naturally, are not interested in that.

Late on Saturday, the Arab League welcomed the rebels’ National Transitional Council to the body as a full member and the legitimate member representing Libya.

The Arab League also called on Syria to cease its bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. And it called for prompt democratic elections in Syria.

Both calls were rejected today by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Obama is monitoring a variety of other geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, and Iraq.

War Zone Times: Libya is nine hours ahead of Pacific time, Iraq is ten hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.

** JERRY BROWN MOVES BEHIND THE SCENES, BREAKS COVER ON THE ECONOMY, BUT NEED TO BREAK BIGGER.

** FROM THE JERRY FILES – SUNDAY. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

Click here for my compendium of articles laying out the re-emergence of Jerry Brown as governor of California.

In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama pays tribute to the first responders, those who have served in the military, and those who lost their lives ten years ago in Al Qaeda’s September 11th attacks on New York and Washington.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … WHY OBAMA WAS RIGHT ON LIBYA AND BIN LADEN, AND WRONG ON AFGHANISTAN.

** OBAMA TODAY- SATURDAY. 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 today.

Obama is, of course, very closely monitoring the advance of Hurricane Irene up the Eastern Seaboard.

Al Qaeda’s new second-in-command has reportedly been killed in Pakistan’s Waziristan province. Atiyah Abd al-Rahman was a confidant of Osama bin Laden who moved up in the ranks after the Navy SEAL raid which took down the Al Qaeda founder in May. He was killed by a U.S. drone strike on August 22nd.

Al-Rahman was Al Qaeda’s emissary to Iran. Evidence of his role as Al Qaeda’s operations officer was found in bin Laden’s Pakistan compound.

Meanwhile, Afghan Taliban fighters killed over two dozen Pakistani soldiers and police along border checkpoints today.

While UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon urged a smooth transition to the new Libyan government today in a New York speech, and rebel fighters have largely suppressed organized resistance in Tripoli, the African Union late yesterday followed South Africa’s lead in refusing to recognize the Libyan rebels. South African President Jacob Zuma, a longtime Gaddafi ally, argued that the outcome in Libya is still in doubt. Which it is not.

This move, which is holding up release of frozen Libyan assets to the rebels, could be a gambit to give Gaddafi some deal-making leverage as his forces continue from his remaining stronghold, home town Sirte. Though the 54-member African Union, co-founded and financed by Gaddafi, did not recognize the Libyan rebels, 20 of its member states have.

Incidentally, though Libya has major nation-building needs, one very good thing is that the fighting has not significantly damaged the oil infrastructure, and the rebels will honor all pre-war contracts. This is not Iraq.

While mopping up operations continue in Tripoli — where intense firefights have essentially ended — Libyan rebels, helped by NATO air power, are beginning a move on the last big Gaddafi stronghold, his home town of Sirte. They are also clearing a key road/supply line into the country and engaging in mopping up operations elsewhere in the country.

New York Governor Andrew Cumo, deploying the National Guard in advance of the arrival of Hurricane Irene, urged New Yorkers not to dally in the face of repeated warnings.

Meanwhile, the National Transitional Council has moved from Benghazi to Tripoli, setting up its new seat of government.

Obama is monitoring a variety of other geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, and Iraq.

War Zone Times: Libya is nine hours ahead of Pacific time, Iraq is ten hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is eleven 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.

California Republicans are starting a referendum drive to block the Citizens Redistricting Commission’s revamp of state Senate districts. But, despite ex-Governor Pete Wilson jumping in to try to help spearhead the drive, fundraising is sparse so far, with four GOP senators contributing less than $100,000, and backers have barely ten weeks to gather the needed signatures. And signature gatherers will, per Attorney General Kamala Harris, have to carry a fairly lengthy packet describing the measure they seek to overturn.

Click here for my compendium of articles laying out the re-emergence of Jerry Brown as governor of California.

** OBAMA’S BIG DISCONNECT. There’s no question that President Barack Obama is an outstanding orator, able to articulate important messages. But he has a big disconnect going on the biggest issue for most Americans. Even on some things that he has actually focused on of great importance, like energy prices.

Through all of 2010, as I wrote in my November 2010 election “pre-mortem”, “Obama’s Big Mistake,” here on the Huffington Post, Obama was just about to “pivot” to the economy. But it never quite happened. … From my August 22nd column.

But Perry is a different kind of deal. He’s the governor of a big state, the second biggest, in fact. He has to be a serious figure. Right? I mean, he’s got that whole Texas Mirage, er, Miracle thing going and all. … From my August 18th essay.

** HARRY POTTER: A CONFESSION, AND AN APPRECIATION. … From my August 11th essay.

** LESS THAN MEETS THE EYE: THE BIG BUDGET DEAL AND OBAMA’S REAL PROBLEM. … From my August 8th essay.

** JERRY BROWN MAKES SOME MOVES. … From my August 1st essay.

** OVER AND OUT, ABOVE AND BEYOND: IS THE SPACE AGE OVER OR JUST BEGINNING? … From my July 28th essay.

** OBAMA KABUKI: THE BUDGET AND THE POLITICS OF POSITIONING. … From my July 13th column.

** FROM GOVERNATOR TO MOONBEAM. … From my January 3rd, 2011 feature.

** 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 closed on Friday at $85.37 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.

This is up about $51 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.

President Barack Obama, who is cutting short his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, urged residents in the projected path of Hurricane Irene along the Eastern Seaboard, including New York, to promptly take all precautions.

** QUICK HITS. While UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon urged a smooth transition to the new Libyan government today in a New York speech, and rebel fighters have largely suppressed organized resistance in Tripoli, the African Union followed South Africa’s lead in refusing to recognize the Libyan rebels. South African President Jacob Zuma, a longtime Gaddafi ally, argued that the outcome in Libya is still in doubt. Which it is not. This move, which is holding up release of frozen Libyan assets to the rebels, could be a gambit to give Gaddafi some deal-making leverage as his forces continue from his remaining stronghold, home town Sirte. … Though the 54-member African Union, co-founded and financed by Gaddafi, did not recognize the Libyan rebels, 20 of its member states have. … Incidentally, though Libya has major nation-building needs, one very good thing is that the fighting has not significantly damaged the oil infrastructure, and the rebels will honor all pre-war contracts. This is not Iraq. … California Republicans are starting a referendum drive to block the Citizens Redistricting Commission’s revamp of state Senate districts. But, despite ex-Governor Pete Wilson jumping in to try to help spearhead the drive, fundraising is sparse so far, with four GOP senators contributing less than $100,000, and backers have barely ten weeks to gather the needed signatures. And signature gatherers will, per Attorney General Kamala Harris, have to carry a fairly lengthy packet describing the measure they seek to overturn. … Governor Jerry Brown today appointed a new inspector general of the sprawling California Department of Corrections, Republican Robert Barton, a former Kern County deputy DA and senior assistant inspector general in the department. In addition, Brown picked a new director of the Fish and Game Department, Chuck Bonham, state director of Trout Unlimited and a former commercial outdoors trip leader in the Carolinas and Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa. …

** NEW POLL: RICK PERRY CONSOLIDATES THE FAR RIGHT OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND CUTS INTO ITS RELATIVE MODERATES. The new Republican presidential frontrunner, Texas Governor Rick Perry, who will continue his buckraking adventures in the Golden State when he’s here for the Reagan Library debate on September 7th, has more good news from the Gallup Poll.

Perry’s announcement in the place where the Civil War began, on the day of the Iowa Straw Poll, has turned out to be a political masterstroke.

He has a big lead now among Tea Party supporters, eclipsing Iowa Straw Poll winner Michele Bachmann, and he is tied with former frontrunner Mitt Romney among non-TP types.

Three in five Republicans, incidentally, say they are Tea Party supporters.

He also has an edge over Romney among Republican voters who say they want a strong manager for business and the economy, supposedly Romney’s hole card.

And best of all for Perry, he is doing all this while still having substantially lower name ID than the former Massachusetts governor.

Rick Perry’s candidacy has attracted strong initial support from Republicans who identify themselves as supporters of the Tea Party movement. Perry leads by 21 percentage points over the closest contenders among this group, Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann. Among Republicans who say they do not support the Tea Party movement, Romney and Perry are essentially tied. …

Perry has immediately become the preferred Republican nomination candidate of Tea Party movement supporters and, by extension, those who view government spending and power as the most important issue. He also demonstrates strong appeal to moral values voters, and is competitive with Romney among Republicans rating business and the economy as the most important issue. …

** OBAMA SCHEDULE UPDATE — PRESIDENT CUTS SHORT VACATION IN FACE OF HURRICANE IRENE. President Barack Obama and his family are cutting short their vacation on Martha’s Vineyard and returning to the White House.

Hurricane Irene, about which Obama said “all indications point to this being a historic hurricane,” poses a grave threat to the Eastern Seaboard, which was just rocked a few days ago by an earthquake that left the Washington Monument closed indefinitely.

Obama had this to say in an unscheduled appearance:

I want to say a few words about Hurricane Irene, urge Americans to take it seriously, and provide an overview of our ongoing federal preparations for what’s likely to be an extremely dangerous and costly storm.

To sum up, all indications point to this being a historic hurricane. Although we can’t predict with perfect certainty the impact of Irene over the next few days, the federal government has spent the better part of last week working closely with officials in communities that could be affected by this storm to see to it that we are prepared. So now is the time for residents of these communities — in the hours that remain — to do the same. And FEMA and Craig Fugate, the director of FEMA, will be keeping people closely posted in the next 24, 48 hours.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan, Japan’s fifth premier in four years, resigned today in the wake of the country’s earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power disaster. Kan was the second prime minister of Japan’s newly ascendant Democratic Party, seen not so long ago as a fresh alternative to the more conservative Liberal Democratic Party.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … WHY OBAMA WAS RIGHT ON LIBYA AND BIN LADEN, AND WRONG ON AFGHANISTAN.

** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts.

He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings at Blue Heron Farm on Martha’s Vineyard.

Obama is on family vacation there till the end of the month, though he is expected to participate in the dedication ceremony for the new Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington on Sunday. Assuming that, that the event is not disrupted by Hurricane Irene.

He has no scheduled public events today.

While mopping up operations continue in Tripoli — where intense firefights have continued, though in a diminished tempo — and Libyan rebels begin a move on the last big Gaddafi stronghold, his home town of Sirte, the hunt is on for the deposed dictator.

Meanwhile, the National Transitional Council has moved from Benghazi to Tripoli.

And the 54–member African Union is strongly considering recognizing the Libyan rebels as Libya’s legitimate government. Which would seem entirely unremarkable but for the fact that Gaddafi is the African Union’s co-founder, and was the organization’s largest financial backer.

He enjoyed a particularly close relationship with South Africa, which has used its present perch on the UN Security Council to slow efforts to move financial assets into rebel control.

The other shoe finally dropped in Japan today, as Prime Minister Naoto Kan resigned today. His job approval rating was well under 20% in the wake of the country’s multiple disasters and its opaque handling of them, especially the nuclear crisis in which many more times radioactivity was released than was produced in the nuclear bomb attack on Hiroshima.

His new party, which rose on the promise of being better than the long entrenched Liberal Democratic Party, is also discredited.

Obama is monitoring a variety of other geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, and Iraq.

War Zone Times: Libya is nine hours ahead of Pacific time, Iraq is ten hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.

A horrific attack on the inaptly named Casino Royale in Monterrey, Mexico which killed 53 people may signal a further uptick in drug cartel violence. While California and other border states have largely escaped this violence, its increasing scope is a bad sign.

** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

Brown’s tax swap job creation plan, discussed at length here yesterday, doesn’t seem to be picking up any needed Republican legislative support, though Brown is a crafty character and has clearly been doing things behind the scenes on a number of fronts. It certainly gives him a major political talking point going forward.

In the meantime, though, he might be better served by moving on some of the infrastructure bonds authorized by predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s successful 2006 initiatives to help jump start the state’s economic recovery.

While the right-wing is not pleased with Brown, neither are elements of the left.

United Farm Workers Arturo Rodriguez, now leading a march up the Central Valley to pressure Brown into supporting card check legislation he vetoed earlier this summer, put out a statement yesterday from along Highway 99 criticizing Brown’s appointment of Sylvia Torres Guillen as new general counsel of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board as an insufficient move.

Here it is:

“The General Counsel of the ALRB is supposed to be the top prosecutor of those who violate farm-labor laws –and the chief advocate for California’s farm workers. The mission of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, as stated in its preamble, is to ‘ensure peace in the agricultural fields by guaranteeing justice for all agricultural workers and stability in labor relations.’ The ALRA further states ‘it is the policy of the State of California to encourage and protect the right of farm workers to act together to help themselves’ and to balance the historic imbalance of power between agricultural worker and agricultural employer.

“No impartial observer could accurately state that there is justice for today’s agricultural workers.

“We are hopeful Ms. Guillen can use her legal experience to be a top advocate for farm workers, but sadly, we believe Ms. Guillen will soon be as frustrated as we are with the flaws in the laws she will try to enforce.

“The reality is that the laws in the books are not the laws in the fields – even when well-intentioned people oversee the departments responsible for enforcing those laws. While investigating two more recent deaths of farm workers from possible heat illness, Cal-OSHA has been unable to ensure that many other farm workers receive water and shade this summer. The agency’s continued failure under the Brown administration to protect farm workers demonstrates that government enforcement by itself is inadequate.

“What Governor Brown referred to in his veto message of SB 104 as ‘the process’ he wants to protect in the Agricultural Labor Relations Act is really a ‘loophole’ that expensive lawyers can exploit. Regrettably, we were unable to convince the Governor that the law he is stubbornly proud of does not work.

“Farm workers acting together to help themselves by marching for Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Now deserve the best tools and the strongest advocate. We hope that Governor Brown will sign the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act when it again reaches his desk. Its enactment would give Ms. Guillen the tools to enforce the ALRA, and help restore the ALRA’s mission of balancing the historic imbalance of power between agricultural worker and agricultural employer.”

Click here for my compendium of articles laying out the re-emergence of Jerry Brown as governor of California.

** OBAMA’S BIG DISCONNECT. There’s no question that President Barack Obama is an outstanding orator, able to articulate important messages. But he has a big disconnect going on the biggest issue for most Americans. Even on some things that he has actually focused on of great importance, like energy prices.

Through all of 2010, as I wrote in my November 2010 election “pre-mortem”, “Obama’s Big Mistake,” here on the Huffington Post, Obama was just about to “pivot” to the economy. But it never quite happened. … From my August 22nd column.

But Perry is a different kind of deal. He’s the governor of a big state, the second biggest, in fact. He has to be a serious figure. Right? I mean, he’s got that whole Texas Mirage, er, Miracle thing going and all. … From my August 18th essay.

** HARRY POTTER: A CONFESSION, AND AN APPRECIATION. … From my August 11th essay.

** LESS THAN MEETS THE EYE: THE BIG BUDGET DEAL AND OBAMA’S REAL PROBLEM. … From my August 8th essay.

** JERRY BROWN MAKES SOME MOVES. … From my August 1st essay.

** OVER AND OUT, ABOVE AND BEYOND: IS THE SPACE AGE OVER OR JUST BEGINNING? … From my July 28th essay.

** OBAMA KABUKI: THE BUDGET AND THE POLITICS OF POSITIONING. … From my July 13th column.

** FROM GOVERNATOR TO MOONBEAM. … From my January 3rd, 2011 feature.

** 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 $84 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $50 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.

What’s next for Apple? The once rather cultish purveyor of the Macintosh, reworked into a global tech juggernaut rivaling Exxon Mobil as the nation’s most valuable company, is adjusting to the sudden resignation of its legendary co-founder Steve Jobs as CEO.

** QUICK HITS. As the hunt for deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi intensifies, the UN Security Council today agreed to the release of $1.5 billion for the Libyan rebels. Over $100 billion is reportedly at play in accounts around the world. … A bill to kill California’s death penalty was shelved today in a state Assembly committee. Despite its problems, the penalty of capital punishment for premeditated murder is still heavily backed by voters, including this writer. … The same committee also shelved legislation which would have brought the controversial high-speed rail project directly under the Brown Administration. The governor reiterated his support for the program and recently made two high-profile appointments to its board.

** JERRY-RIGGING: BROWN SERVES UP A TAX SWAP JOB CREATION PLAN. Governor Jerry Brown today rolled out part of what he’s been discussing privately with regard to creating jobs in California’s still distressed economy. He did not get into pruning the thicket of regulations today, but he did go down the path of public-private partnerships to stimulate economic development.

His venture today centered on changing the business tax structure, proposing to close one complex corporate tax break (which your political analyst admittedly does not fully understand) granted as part of the hard-won big state budget deal of 2009 and redirect that revenue to another form of “tax expenditure,” this in the form of more targeted tax incentives to create jobs. This is in keeping with his approach during his first stint as governor, in which he pursued targeted tax cuts and credits to help the then developing high tech industry. The difference being that this move is revenue neutral.

It’s a clever move, that has the effect of gaining support from significant elements of the business community while others stand in opposition. Will it pass? My default answer still has to be no, since the dominant philosophy among Republican legislators is always in favor of tax cuts only, and this is a rejiggering of tax cuts which some corporations will experience as a tax increase.

In illustration of my theory, the California Republican Party immediately hit Brown for “proposing tax increases at the same time that he is proposing tax breaks.”

Brown was joined by Democratic legislative leaders Darrell Steinberg and John Perez, and executives from biotech giant Genentech, aerospace giant Boeing, electric car leader Tesla, Abbott Labs, SunPower, and the Teamsters.

The restoration of the revenues cut during the 2009 budget deal would be used to expand a tax credit for small businesses worth hundreds of millions of dollars by expanding both the eligibility level for the businesses (from 20 employees t 50) and the tax credit for each new hire (from $3000 to $4000). And it would provide some $1 billion in tax relief to businesses that purchase new manufacturing equipment, exempting start-ups in their first three years from the state portion of the sales tax (roughly half) and an exemption of 3 percent for all other firms.

Brown’s plan would do this by requiring a “mandatory single sales factor,” a term of art meaning the ending of the ability of corporations to pick the basis on which they calculate their tax liability, limiting it to sales earned in California rather than basing it on sales, employees and investments in California. California is one of two states allowing corporations to pick the basis of their tax liability, which they can do each year in order to pick the lowest amount of tax.

But it may all be moot, at least as long as Republicans barely hang on to a third of each house of the state legislature.

The Washington Monument has been closed indefinitely after structural engineers found cracks near the top following the Virginia earthquake. Now a hurricane is about to hit the East Coast.

** NEW POLL: BUSH STILL BLAMED FAR MORE THAN OBAMA ON ECONOMY. A new poll for the Associated Press indicates that, despite the fiscal earthquake occasioned by the deficit/debt deal near debacle, former President George W. Bush is still held responsible for the nation’s economic woes by far more than those who blame President Barack Obama.

51% blame Bush. Only 31% blame Obama.

But perspectives on the economy have sunk sharply, nonetheless, over the last month, so Obama has no laurels to rest upon.

Yet his re-elect number is holding up, at an even 47%. Which is better than where some previously re-elected presidents were at this point.

In addition, Congressional Democrats fare markedly better than their Republican counterparts on the economy, 44% to 36%, an ominous sign for the new House majority.

“Though more Americans see the economy in bad shape than did at the beginning of the summer, their views of whether to re-elect President Barack Obama have barely changed – and a majority blame George Bush for the problems, a new [AP/GFK] poll says,” Politico writes.

“More than 6 in 10 — 63 percent — disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy. Nearly half, or 48 percent, “strongly” disapproved. Approval of his economic performance now stands at just 36 percent, his worst approval rating on the issue in AP-GfK polling.”

A one million pound bounty has been placed on the head of deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi. Meanwhile, British SAS commandos are reportedly involved in the search.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … WHY OBAMA WAS RIGHT ON LIBYA AND BIN LADEN, AND WRONG ON AFGHANISTAN.

** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts.

He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings at Blue Heron Farm on Martha’s Vineyard.

Obama is on family vacation there for the rest of the month, though he is expected to participate in the dedication ceremony for the new Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington on Sunday. Assuming that, that the event is not disrupted by Hurricane Irene.

He has no scheduled public events today.

While mopping up operations continue in Tripoli, and Libyan rebels contemplate a move on the last big Gaddafi stronghold, his home town of Sirte, the hunt is on for the deposed dictator. (Mopping up, incidentally, is no stroll in the park. More people will die and there will be some intense bursts of combat.)

A big bounty has been placed on Gaddafi’s head by Libyan merchants, some one million pounds. And people who won’t be able to claim the prize are on the hunt for him as well; namely special forces troops from Britain, France, Jordan, and Qatar.

As this is underway, Gaddafi’s son Saadi announced that he is looking for a total ceasefire. But it’s unclear how much influence he has over the remaining command and control infrastructure of the regime.

Meanwhile, the International Contact Group on Libya — comprised of more than 30 nations as well as representatives of the UN, EU, Arab League, and Gulf Cooperation Council — is meeting today in Istanbul, Turkey to find ways to get immediate nation-building assistance to the Libyan rebels.

New Republican presidential frontrunner Rick Perry announced that he will take part in the Reagan Library debate on September 7th in Simi Valley outside Los Angeles, his maiden voyage at the presidential campaign debate level. If he holds up well there, he will be in strong shape.

Obama is monitoring a variety of other geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, and Iraq.

War Zone Times: Libya is nine hours ahead of Pacific time, Iraq is ten hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.

Steve Jobs, in my view easily the most important figure in the technology business, resigned yesterday afternoon as CEO of Apple.

** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Sacramento.

At 11 AM, Brown joins with with business, labor, and legislative leaders to announce a proposal on job growth at an event in the Governor’s Press Conference Room in the state Capitol.

The event will be webcast on Brown’s website, gov.ca.gov.

Part of what he will announce is a rather complicated tax proposal trading single sales factor on corporate taxes for sales tax exemptions and jobs tax credits.

Brown’s old friend, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced yesterday afternoon that he is stepping down as head of the company immediately, due to his undisclosed medical condition. Jobs, who previously underwent treatment for pancreatic cancer and had a liver transplant, has been on medical leave since January, though he has been very involved in product announcements. Jobs, seen as a latter day wizard when it comes to technology and entertainment markets, will be Apple’s chairman of the board and chief operating officer Tim Cook steps up to the CEO slot.

Brown appointed Jobs to the California Commission on Industrial Innovation during his first governorship.

After he left the governorship, Brown created the non-profit National Commission on Industrial Innovation, on which Jobs also served.

I’ll have a lot more about Steve Jobs, whom I met when I was assistant to the chairman of Apple’s then marketing and public relations firm, Regis McKenna Inc. McKenna also served as president of the National Commission on Industrial Innovation, chaired by Brown, on which Jobs served.

Click here for my compendium of articles laying out the re-emergence of Jerry Brown as governor of California.

** OBAMA’S BIG DISCONNECT. There’s no question that President Barack Obama is an outstanding orator, able to articulate important messages. But he has a big disconnect going on the biggest issue for most Americans. Even on some things that he has actually focused on of great importance, like energy prices.

** JERRY BROWN MAKES SOME MOVES. … From my August 1st essay.

** OVER AND OUT, ABOVE AND BEYOND: IS THE SPACE AGE OVER OR JUST BEGINNING? … From my July 28th essay.

** OBAMA KABUKI: THE BUDGET AND THE POLITICS OF POSITIONING. … From my July 13th column.

** FROM GOVERNATOR TO MOONBEAM. … From my January 3rd, 2011 feature.

** 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 $84 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $50 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.

Here’s a look inside the now captured compound of deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi.

** QUICK HITS. Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced this afternoon that he is stepping down as head of the company immediately, due to his undisclosed medical condition. Jobs, who previously underwent treatment for pancreatic cancer and had a liver transplant, has been on medical leave since January, though he has been very involved in product announcements. Jobs, seen as a latter day wizard when it comes to technology and entertainment markets, will be Apple’s chairman of the board and chief operating officer Tim Cook steps up to the CEO slot. … Governor Jerry Brown will join with business, labor, and legislative leaders to announce a proposal on job growth at an event tomorrow morning in the Capitol. … Brown also appointed his new senior jobs advisor, former BankAmerica vice chairman Michael Rossi, to the board of the California High Speed Rail Authority, his second such appointment in as many weeks. Brown intends to pursue high-speed rail. .. A Russian cargo ship for the International Space Station crashed today not long after take-off. This may delay the next change-out in ISS personnel, scheduled for next month.

** POWER OUTAGE: MEG WHITMAN AND CARLY FIORINA. You’ll be happy to know that billionaire Meg Whitman’s net worth hasn’t gone down, despite spending over $150 million from her personal accounts on her losing bid for governor of California last year. Yes, it’s one of the characteristics of the times. While most are worse off in the vast economic slowdown, billionaires are flourishing.

But not where Whitman wants to flourish.

Forbes Magazine has its annual list of the most powerful women and Whitman, along with fellow former tech titan Carly Fiorina, the ex-CEO of Hewlett Packard, is off the list entirely this year after figuring prominently last year.

But as you’ll see, she has high hopes for a return to power. Via her mentor, the man who talked her into running for governor, Mitt Romney.

Whitman may want to consult the latest Gallup Poll. Her sure thing Republican nominee Romney — who would be anything but a sure thing for the White House if he did get the nomination after all — is now well behind Texas Governor Rick Perry in the Republican race.

Not that Whitman, who repeatedly touted the so-called “Texas Miracle” during her campaign, doesn’t have a line into Perry, too. But given how hard she’s working as Romney’s finance chair, and how hard a campaigner Perry is, it’s not an especially golden line.

Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina: both former tech-execs who put their millions to work last fall, running for political seats in California. Whitman notable spent $150 million of her own cash on her gubernatorial bid—but it wasn’t enough. She lost to Jerry Brown by a margin of 13 points. Fiorina too, found herself without office in November. Without the media buzz of the election cycle and the promise of political might in the year to come, they ended up on the cutting room floor of this year’s list.

But it’s not all bad—both have got projects in the works. Fiorina regularly stops by CNBC to share her opinion on the state of both the economy and the tech industry. After a post-election break Whitman took a strategic advisor gig at VC Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byer in March, focusing on developing new entrepreneurial talent. She’s talking to the media again too—letting reporters into her home for an unprecedentedly personal interview in July. Why now? The rumor mill is quietly buzzing that the former eBay chief might not be done with politics after all. When asked about her support for friend and fellow Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential bid, her eyes had a certain VP glow when she coyly answered: “ I would do anything for Mitt [Romney]…If he wins he’ll have to decide how he wants to set up his administration…I’d be happy to do almost anything he wants me to do.”

** NEW POLL: RICK PERRY TAKES BIG LEAD IN THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL RACE. A brand new Gallup Poll confirms what other earlier polls by different organizations showed. Texas Governor Rick Perry has zoomed to the top of the Republican presidential race.

Here are the numbers: Rick Perry 29%, Mitt Romney 17%, Ron Paul 13%, Michele Bachmann 10%, Herman Cain 4%, Newt Gingrich 4%, Rick Santorum 3%, and Jon Huntsman 1%.

Perry’s rise has taken from Bachmann, and to a lesser extent, Gingrich, as well as former frontrunner Romney.

Last month, before Perry declared, Romney still led him, 23-18.

The reality is that Perry’s wacky remarks, which I’ve written about, since declaring have not hurt him a bit in the Republican primaries.

Perry’s announcement, made to the RedState bloggers conference in the city where the Civil War began, clearly overshadowed the ballyhooed Iowa Straw Poll.

In fact, he’s even tied with President Barack Obama.

Incidentally, adding Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin to the poll does not change its result. Perry is still the leader under those scenarios, as well.

Shortly after announcing his official candidacy, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has emerged as rank-and-file Republicans’ current favorite for their party’s 2012 presidential nomination. Twenty-nine percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents nationwide say they are most likely to support Perry, with Mitt Romney next, at 17%. …

In addition to liberals and moderates, Perry is also relatively weak among young Republicans and those residing in the East. Paul continues to demonstrate stronger appeal to young Republicans, and limited appeal to those aged 50 and older.

Countries at the United Nations are drafting a resolution to unfreeze Libyan assets and end sanctions now that the Gaddafi regime has been ousted from power.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … WHY OBAMA WAS RIGHT ON LIBYA AND BIN LADEN, AND WRONG ON AFGHANISTAN.

** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts.

He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings at Blue Heron Farm on Martha’s Vineyard.

Obama is on family vacation there for the rest of the month.

He has no scheduled public events.

If we want to know when big, mostly unexpected, things are going to happen, we need only look to when Obama chooses to go on “vacation.” The death of Ted Kennedy, the Christmas bomber over Detroit. This summer is hardly an exception.

In addition to the fall of Tripoli, and the assorted new headaches that attend that momentous event, Obama had yesterday’s East Coast earthquake, largest in the region since 1944. No one was killed and there seems to be relatively little damage, but it was very disruptive, especially in Washington.

And what’s on tap in the next few days? Hurricane Irene, likely the first hurricane to hit the US since 2008, and likely also to strike unusually up along the East Coast.

Back to the acts of human nature.

In another sign of his regime’s fall, loyalists of deposed dictator Moammar Gaddafi abruptly released nearly 40 international journalists they had been holding hostage in Tripoli’s luxury Rixos Hotel. The regular retinue of Gaddafi regime security guards, translators, and other minders turned into captors over the weekend, dropping any pretense that journalists were free to leave.

But today, the journos were released. I’m sure a deal was cut.

Mopping up action continues in Tripoli, where Gaddafi has not been found. He gave a speech via a phone hook-up to a radio station very early this morning, making his usual sorts of vows. But I doubt that he intends to be a 70-year old guerrilla leader.

The rebels are in clear control of most of the city, though some areas of opposition remain. But not many.

Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, who bribed his way out of rebel captivity and showed up at the Rixos Hotel to proclaim his leadership of a big public counter-offensive, has completely disappeared.

Look for deals.

Mitt Rommney, hitting the road in New Hampshire (not far from his East Coast vacation home, actually), is the only Republican candidate campaigning today.

He will release his economic strategy after Labor Day in an event in Nevada, attempting to upstage Obama’s own speech on the subject.

Obama is monitoring a variety of other geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, and Iraq.

War Zone Times: Libya is nine hours ahead of Pacific time, Iraq is ten hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is eleven 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.

Brown’s old friends and allies, the United Farm Workers, began a march on Sacramento yesterday morning from the Central Valley town of Madera. The marchers will trek some 167 miles by their estimation, with their plan to arrive on September 4th at the Capitol.

It’s a move very reminiscent of 2002′s march up the Central Valley to pressure then Governor Gray Davis to sign mediation and arbitration legislation, then said to be the key to facilitating fair representation. I covered that march extensively from on the road.

But that legislation resulted in little change, so the union now is pushing card check legislation, which Brown just vetoed this summer, allowing union representation upon presentation of cards signed by a majority of workers in a bargaining unit.

Yesterday afternoon, Brown appointed a new general counsel to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. His aim is to make enforcement of existing law more aggressive.

Sylvia Torres-Guillen, 45, of Los Angeles, has served as a deputy federal public defender for the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Los Angeles since 1993. The UC Berkeley-educated Torres-Guillen is the co-chair of the Hispanic National Bar Association’s Latina Commission, co-president of the Latina Lawyers Bar Association, and vice-president of the Mexican American Bar Foundation.

Torres-Guillen, incidentally, defended one Debbie Hoffman, who, as then Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona’s mistress was caught up in the corruption charges surrounding him.

Click here for my compendium of articles laying out the re-emergence of Jerry Brown as governor of California.

** OBAMA’S BIG DISCONNECT. There’s no question that President Barack Obama is an outstanding orator, able to articulate important messages. But he has a big disconnect going on the biggest issue for most Americans. Even on some things that he has actually focused on of great importance, like energy prices.

** JERRY BROWN MAKES SOME MOVES. … From my August 1st essay.

** OVER AND OUT, ABOVE AND BEYOND: IS THE SPACE AGE OVER OR JUST BEGINNING? … From my July 28th essay.

** OBAMA KABUKI: THE BUDGET AND THE POLITICS OF POSITIONING. … From my July 13th column.

** FROM GOVERNATOR TO MOONBEAM. … From my January 3rd, 2011 feature.

** 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.

The biennial Summer Universiade (known in the US and UK as the World University Games), which drew student athletes from 152 nations in 24 sports, held its closing ceremony in Shenzhen, China on Tuesday. Host China and perennial power Russia dominated the overall medals count.

** 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 $86 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $52 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.

After fierce fighting today, Libyan rebels have captured longtime dictator Moammar Gaddafi’s central compound in Tripoli, the famed Bab al-Aziziyah. But Gaddafi himself has not materialized.

** QUICK HITS. In the wake of the capture of his Tripoli compound, still no sign of now deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi, though he made a middle-of-the-night address on a radio station vowing “martyrdom or victory.” … A category 5.8 earthquake in rural Virginia, which would merely be alarming in California, disrupted much of the East Coast today, causing evacuations of the Pentagon and the White House and stopping air traffic in New York. … A judge in New York today unsurprisingly granted the Manhattan DA’s request to drop rape charges against former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Straus Kahn, whose efforts to settle Europe’s financial crisis and frontrunning candidacy for the French presidency were derailed by the charges. His accuser’s credibility was too low to continue. Oops. … Two legislative committees today backed Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to consolidate a pair of state personnel agencies. .. Brown also created an interagency council to coordinate veterans services. … And with the United Farm Workers beginning a march up the Central Valley today to pressure him on card check legislation, Brown appointed a new general counsel of the Farm Labor Board. More on that tomorrow.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … WHY OBAMA WAS RIGHT ON LIBYA AND BIN LADEN, AND WRONG ON AFGHANISTAN.

** NEW POLL: CONSUMER CONFIDENCE STILL WEAK, BUT STABILIZING. A new Gallup Poll survey indicates that consumer confidence, which was sinking dramatically earlier this summer, has stabilized recent.

This despite last week’s dizzying roller coaster ride on global markets.

But they have stabilized at the lowest level since just a few months into the Obama Presidency, as the economy halted its years-long slide into depression.

At this point, “not worse” is good news.

The precipitous slide in mid-July and in late July, of course, coincided with the utterly preposterous debate over the DC debt/deficit deal.

Americans’ confidence in the economy is weak but stable after ratcheting sharply downward in July. The Gallup Economic Confidence Index registered -53 for the week of Aug. 15-21, identical to the first two weeks of August but well below the -34 of July 4-10 and 20 percentage points below where it stood a year ago. …

Both of these measures dipped slightly in mid-July, but then fell by even larger amounts in the last week of July. This occurred as Congress engaged in its final negotiations over legislation to raise the federal debt ceiling, finally passed on Aug. 2.

In a shock, Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, the longtime dictator’s London School of Economics-educated chosen heir, showed up on the streets in Tripoli last night after the Libyan rebels and the International Criminal Court announced he was in custody. But his presence, and defiance, looks anomalous today.

** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts.

He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings at Blue Heron Farm on Martha’s Vineyard.

Obama is on family vacation there for the rest of the month.

He has no scheduled public events.

Gaddafi loyalists in Tripoli reminded overnight and today that mopping up actions aren’t simply a matter of showing up.

As you see in the video clip above, Seif al-Islam Gaddafi showed up at the Rixos Hotel, the one housing foreign journalists, still held by Gaddafi troops in what looks to me like a thinly veiled hostage situation, to claim that not only is he not in custody, contrary to earlier reports, but was sparking a counter-offensive against the rebels.

In another serious glitch, Gaddafi’s oldest son, Muhammed, who had been under house arrest as you say in a video clip here over the weekend, somehow escaped.

How did Gaddafi’s sons escape the grasp of rebel troops. Probably a matter of bribery.

Where is Seif now? He seems to have disappeared again.

Meanwhile, Gaddafi loyalists held out in several neighborhoods, snipers kept rebel forces pinned down in several other areas, including an ostensible city command post, and mortar fire rained down in several locations. But NATO air power is still in play and rebel ground forces have regrouped.

Right now heavy fighting is centered on Bab al-Azizyah, the central Gaddafi compound, which is guarded by tanks, anti-aircraft guns, and machine guns. The rebels have managed to breach its perimeter and have entered the compound grounds.

Vice President Joe Biden, on an extended visit to Asia, met today with survivors of the Japanese tsunami disaster.

Al Jazeera has begun broadcasting from just inside the Gaddafi compound grounds, as you can see by clicking on the ever present live link here on NWN.

But where is the dictator himself? A Russian official has reportedly spoken with Gaddafi, who says he is in Tripoli.

His Tripoli compound is only partly above ground. There is a vast labyrinth of underground complexes beneath. But it seems unlikely that he is awaiting the rebels in an underground bunker, for he has to know that the compound will fall.

His home city Sirte remains in loyalist hands, and a few Scud missiles have been launched from it, though intercepted by NATO air assets. Is he there?

Who knows. Wherever he is, my guess is that he is scheming to achieve a relatively happy ending, somewhere or another. He doesn’t strike me as a suicidal character, his goofball rhetoric notwithstanding.

Obama is monitoring a variety of other geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, and Iraq.

War Zone Times: Libya is nine hours ahead of Pacific time, Iraq is ten hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is eleven 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.

Brown’s old friends and allies, the United Farm Workers, begin a march on Sacramento this morning in the dusty Central Valley town of Madera. They will trek some 167 miles by their estimation, somewhat farther than the drive up the middle of the state as they have to use some backroads and service roads along the way.

Their plan is to arrive on September 4th at the Capitol.

Oh, their goal?

To pressure their old friend the governor into supporting card check legislation, which he just vetoed this summer, allowing union representation upon presentation of cards signed by a majority of workers in a bargaining unit.

Click here for my compendium of articles laying out the re-emergence of Jerry Brown as governor of California.

** OBAMA’S BIG DISCONNECT. There’s no question that President Barack Obama is an outstanding orator, able to articulate important messages. But he has a big disconnect going on the biggest issue for most Americans. Even on some things that he has actually focused on of great importance, like energy prices.

** JERRY BROWN MAKES SOME MOVES. … From my August 1st essay.

** OVER AND OUT, ABOVE AND BEYOND: IS THE SPACE AGE OVER OR JUST BEGINNING? … From my July 28th essay.

** OBAMA KABUKI: THE BUDGET AND THE POLITICS OF POSITIONING. … From my July 13th column.

** FROM GOVERNATOR TO MOONBEAM. … From my January 3rd, 2011 feature.

** 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 $85 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $51 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.

President Barack Obama, vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, spoke cautiously today on the collapsing Gaddafi regime in Libya, and the role of the US and NATO in assisting the Libyan rebels. Gaddafi himself is still missing.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … WHY OBAMA WAS RIGHT ON LIBYA AND BIN LADEN, AND WRONG ON AFGHANISTAN.

** QUICK HITS. On October 13th, Governor Jerry Brown will join Michael Milken on-stage for a one-on-one discussion about California and its prospects at the Milken Institute’s annual State of the State conference in Los Angeles. … Amazon put another $2.25 million into its drive to knock out California’s online sales tax at the end of last week. That makes $5.25 million so far pushing its referendum drive. … But backers of a referendum campaign to block Brown’s anti-redevelopment agencies move have backed off, dropping the campaign. … California Attorney General Kamala Harris today filed a brief in the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis backing the national health care law and affirming its constitutionality.

** NEW POLL: OBAMA IN CLOSE RACES AGAINST REPUBLICANS. A new Gallup Poll indicates that President Barack Obama is in statistical ties against most of the leading Republican presidential candidates.

What do I think of this?

I think that the poll is presently all about Obama, and not at all about his prospective opponents. (A very safe assumption when Obama is only four points ahead of, say, Michele Bachmann.)

Which of course is not how an election campaign plays out.

And I think that Democratic critics from the left of Obama should gain some needed perspective on the nature of American politics.

Clearly the recent crisis-ridden caterwauling from both ends of the ideological spectrum and the shocking DC dysfunction around the debt/deficit deal have taken a big toll, at least for now. And just as clearly, that’s why Mitt Romney stayed out of the fray.

It’s Obama 46, Romney 48. Obama 47, Perry 47. Obama 47, Ron Paul 45. Obama 48, Bachmann 44. (And no, that is not Richard Bachman, aka Stephen King.)

President Barack Obama is closely matched against each of four possible Republican opponents when registered voters are asked whom they would support if the 2012 presidential election were held today. Mitt Romney leads Obama by two percentage points, 48% to 46%, Rick Perry and Obama are tied at 47%, and Obama edges out Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann by two and four points, respectively. …

In August 1979, incumbent President Jimmy Carter was tied with former California Gov. Reagan — each getting 45% of the vote. Reagan ultimately defeated Carter by 10 points.

** OBAMA’S BIG DISCONNECT. There’s no question that President Barack Obama is an outstanding orator, able to articulate important messages. But he has a big disconnect going on the biggest issue for most Americans. Even on some things that he has actually focused on of great importance, like energy prices.

I don’t get it. It’s not like the oil companies are for Obama, since they mostly hate his environmental policies and his sweeping new standards on vehicle fuel efficiency. Or that big oil states, notably Texas, are likely to go for Obama. …

From my new column.

Muammar Gaddafi’s near 42-year reign over Libya was no less fascinating for being so erratic. He began as a self-styled Pan-Arab socialist and ended as an eccentric autocrat.

MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.

It’s an historic week in presidential politics, even with President Barack Obama on vacation. Not so much in California politics, though there is some action, mostly not connected to the return of the state legislature last week from its month-long summer recess.

Over the weekend, as you may have heard, Tripoli suddenly fell to Libyan rebel forces and the 42-year reign of dictator Moammar Gaddafi came to an end. The cagy colonel hasn’t been found yet, at least publicly, and there is still substantial mopping up to do in Tripoli, where there are snipers and some pockets of resistance.

The largest of which is the Gaddafi compound in Tripoli, Bab al-Azizyah, where loyalists with heavy weapons are holed up.

Perhaps they can be negotiated out. As rebel forces approached the capital, and as a Tripoli underground secretly supplied with weapons rose up on Saturday, many regime forces, including most of Gaddafi’s presidential guard, simply surrendered or melted away.

Developments came with stunning swiftness, even for those of us who expected Obama’s policy to work in the end, even in the near term. As Sunday began, a tougher end game seemed likely.

Libyan rebel forces late on Saturday made a spectacular move inside Tripoli, with special forces linking up with rebels rising up inside the city using weapons smuggled in by boat.

Longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi made an address to the populace very early Sunday morning, Libyan time, over state TV, which I watched live on Al Jazeera (on the live link here on NWN). He spoke via a very scratchy telephone hook-up, making his whereabouts quite mysterious, though he did correctly name the date and time on two occasions.

Gaddafi was rambling and near nonsensical, blaming it all on NATO, claiming that “the rats,” i.e. Libyan rebels inside Tripoli, had already been eliminated, closing with an imprecation to his followers to “march on.”

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reported that Libyan rebels moving to link up with the forces inside Tripoli captured the base of the Khamis Brigade, an elite Gaddafi unit 15 miles outside Tripoli, named after its commander, one of Gaddafi’s sons. The rebels availed themselves of the base’s vast ammunition and fuel supplies, left there for the the taking, before moving on into the city.

As the day began, I noted that as the fighting centered on Tripoli, a vast cityscape, NATO air power became more problematic for such close-in work where it is hard to distinguish between combatant and civilian. That’s why rebel leaders — on Sunday morning — were urging that low-flying, slower-moving Apache helicopter gunships be employed by NATO.

There have been, as readers know, no US or NATO casualties during the entirety of the Libyan War, quite contrary to the fears and fantasies of many critics.

President Bill Clinton deployed Apache helicopter gunships for use in the Kosovo War, but opted against using them for fear of such casualties. In the end, they were not needed to force Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic to end the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.

But Gaddafi is a rougher and less rational customer than the brutal Milosevic, so a longer holdout seemed very possible. But most of his troops, who would have to do the actual fighting and, likely, dying, didn’t agree.

Libyan rebel forces approaching by land entered Tripoli, encountering mostly light resistance, and drove immediately to within a few miles of the city center, a position which they captured a few hours later.

It turned out there was an amphibious operation staged from Misrata up the coast involving hundreds of rebel special forces who traveled by ship and then by small boat to join with insurgents inside Tripoli, bringing them more weapons.

The end game in Libya, where Obama’s very controversial policy is on the verge of vindication, still has several big moves left.

And the denouement, in which we see how well the rebels can run this large nation of only six million people, will be even more interesting. NATO leaders say they are pushing to avoid the mistakes of Iraq. Let’s hope so.

The fall of Tripoli triggered a night of tumultuous celebration.

As Obama monitors the suddenly winding down Libyan War, his Republican opponents are up to a few things.

Putative frontrunner Mitt Romney is quadrupling the size of his Southern California vacation home. The better to make it a Western White House? Or the better to make it an even more luxurious retirement abode?

Romney is planning to bulldoze his 3,000 square foot La Jolla beachfront house and replace it with an 11,000 square foot mansion.

Romney is fundraising as the week begins, and doing remarkably little to engage the rise of Texas Governor Rick Perry.

And Jon Huntsman, relatively silent of late, blazed into the conversation over the weekend with an appearance on ABC’s This Week and a series of tweets in which he spoofed and excoriated Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann for their incredible anti-science attitudes.

Huntsman has apparently decided to see if there is a market for engaged reasoning in the Republican primaries. He doesn’t have much to lose. And if he does lose this time, he may position himself for a more rational period ahead in Republican politics, assuming that time comes.

Meanwhile, the US stock market has seen its biggest four weeks of losses since March 2009. Concerns about a faltering US economy are being more than compounded by bad news from Europe.

The overall market lost about $3 trillion of value over the past month, a drop of approximately 16%.

However, while Asian markets fell earlier today on recession fears, troubled European markets — whose woes are at the center of global economic concerns — actually rose.

With the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting of heads of state coming up in just one month in New York, Israel reacted to the Palestinian move to gain national recognition there by cracking down on Hamas in Gaza, having launched a series of air strikes over the past few days.

As a result, Hamas declared that its de facto ceasefire with Israel was over. And rockets were launched into Israel.

But after strikes and counter-strikes over the weekend, both sides agreed to another ceasefire.

Back in California politics, where things are far more sedate and folks have to gin up controversy, a few things are happening.

Jerry Brown has begun moving on water policy, deciding to block the previous appointments of two Republicans, including former state Senate Republican leader Dave Cogdill, to the California Water Commission. Brown intends to proceed with a big water program, a version of which was wrestled through the legislature by predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger after decades of gridlock, but wants to put his own stamp on it, especially in this time of greater austerity.

He will push for a less expensive version of the $11.1 billion water bond program passed by Schwarzenegger awaiting enactment in a popular initiative.

Prior to Schwarzenegger getting his program through the Legislature, the last governor to push a major water program was Brown, who was unsuccessful at the ballot box with his Peripheral Canal plan.

Brown also moved late last week to begin revitalizing the drive for high-speed rail in California, appointing former advisor Dan Richard to the agency’s board.

I wrote about this at some length last week.

Former Governor Pete Wilson has joined with right-wing Republicans in backing a redistricting referendum to block the districts produced by the Citizens Redistricting Commission, including majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents. They just don’t like the reality that Republicans are sharply declining in California, and so should their representation.

Wilson and company have just over 10 weeks to gather the signatures, using a party apparatus that has little in the way of resources.

There’s still some buzzing about Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s speech last week calling for higher taxes on commercial property owners, a call that Brown is not joining. Brown, of course, is working on forging a business-labor-citizens coalition to deal with the revenue side of the state budget solution in the 2012 elections. He figures that moving to change Prop 13 will not work, but will kill any coalition efforts.

Villaraigosa won a very underwhelming re-election against a parade of nobodies and oddballs before dropping out of the Democratic primary against Brown. Now, having gotten himself elected head of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, he is termed out of office and looking at future moves. I can tell you that a primary race against Brown in 2014 won’t be one of those moves.

And there is a lot of talk that Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom is feeling a bit bent out of shape by Brown’s announcement of a new senior jobs advisor, about whom I wrote at some length last week. This talk was prompted in part by his press secretary telling a newspaper writer that the Newsom crew felt “blindsided” by the announcement, a comment later said to have been thought to be off the record.

Newsom wasn’t consulted on the timing (though I’m told he was aware of the appointment itself). Which some evidently feel he should have been, given the warmed-over collection of economic ideas he presented as an economic strategy earlier in the summer.

Not that the ideas were bad. Many of them looked like things I wrote in similar reports a few decades ago. But they were mostly obvious, and relatively small-bore, and in any event highly reminiscent of, among other things, old Jerry Brown ideas.

Is Newsom really mad? I’m told he’s not. Is Brown really focused on snubbing Newsom? To ask that question implies a belief that anyone views the lieutenant governor, whose office has been repeatedly downgraded by previous governors to next to nothing, as being in charge of economic policy.

Brown made it clear months ago that he would appoint someone to an economic advisor/coordinator post. I wrote last Monday that he would do it in a few days, which he did. There was no mystery about it.

But such is the level of drama in California politics these days.

Mixed market tidings, with Asia down on recession fears but troubled Europe up later in the day.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA’S BIG DISCONNECT.

** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts.

He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings at Blue Heron Farm on Martha’s Vineyard.

Obama is on family vacation there for the rest of the month.

He has no scheduled public events.

Obama is monitoring a variety of other geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, and Iraq.

War Zone Times: Libya is nine hours ahead of Pacific time, Iraq is ten hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.

** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.

Brown appears tonight at the Citizen Hotel in Sacramento at a private fundraiser for the California Democratic Party and efforts to increase permanent vote by mail registrants.

Click here for my compendium of articles laying out the re-emergence of Jerry Brown as governor of California.

** OF “A THEORY THAT’S OUT THERE,” GOP STRAW POLLS, MARTHA’S VINEYARD VACATIONS, AND OTHER FOLLIES. Who says that August is the silly season?

Cool. Because it’s good for kids to be able to pick and choose between science. And anti-science. … From my August 18th essay.

** HARRY POTTER: A CONFESSION, AND AN APPRECIATION. I’m a bit behind the curve on Harry Potter. The last movie in the series has, astonishingly, grossed over $1 billion in worldwide box office after only its third weekend in release. In fact, having just passed the final Lord of the Rings picture, it’s the highest grossing movie around the world not directed by that James Cameron guy. But I haven’t seen it yet.

** JERRY BROWN MAKES SOME MOVES. … From my August 1st essay.

** OVER AND OUT, ABOVE AND BEYOND: IS THE SPACE AGE OVER OR JUST BEGINNING? … From my July 28th essay.

** OBAMA KABUKI: THE BUDGET AND THE POLITICS OF POSITIONING. … From my July 13th column.

** FROM GOVERNATOR TO MOONBEAM. … From my January 3rd, 2011 feature.

** 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.

** UNIVERSIADE LIVE. You can watch a live feed of events of the biennial Universiade, also known as the World University Games, taking place in Shenzhen, China, a major new city outside Hong Kong, where the time is 15 hours ahead of Pacific time, through August 23rd. The Universiade is bringing together student athletes from more than 150 nations competing in 24 sports.

** 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 $83 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $49 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.

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 eldest son of longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi surrendered to rebel forces late on Sunday in Tripoli.

1945 PACIFIC UPDATE: LIBYAN PRIME MINISTER FLEES COUNTRY, OBAMA ISSUES STATEMENT.

Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi has fled to Tunisia, according to Al Jazeera.

But Moammar Gaddafi’s location is still unclear, at least publicly.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama released this statement tonight:

“Tonight, the momentum against the Gadhafi regime has reached a tipping point. Tripoli is slipping from the grasp of a tyrant. The Gadhafi regime is showing signs of collapsing. The people of Libya are showing that the universal pursuit of dignity and freedom is far stronger than the iron fist of a dictator.

“The surest way for the bloodshed to end is simple: Moammar Gadhafi and his regime need to recognize that their rule has come to an end. Gadhafi needs to acknowledge the reality that he no longer controls Libya. He needs to relinquish power once and for all. Meanwhile, the United States has recognized the Transitional National Council as the legitimate governing authority in Libya. At this pivotal and historic time, the TNC should continue to demonstrate the leadership that is necessary to steer the country through a transition by respecting the rights of the people of Libya, avoiding civilian casualties, protecting the institutions of the Libyan state, and pursuing a transition to democracy that is just and inclusive for all of the people of Libya. A season of conflict must lead to one of peace.

“The future of Libya is now in the hands of the Libyan people. Going forward, the United States will continue to stay in close coordination with the TNC. We will continue to insist that the basic rights of the Libyan people are respected. And we will continue to work with our allies and partners in the international community to protect the people of Libya, and to support a peaceful transition to democracy.”

FLASH — 1655 PACIFIC UPDATE: TRIPOLI’S CITY CENTER HAS FALLEN TO THE LIBYAN REBELS.

Al Jazeera has just begun broadcasting from the middle of Green Square, Tripoli’s historic city center and site of countless Moammar Gaddafi rallies since the veteran dictator seized power in a coup 42 years ago.

The Libyan Transitional National Council is renaming the center Martyrs’ Square to honor those killed in the uprising against Gaddafi.

The White House has announced that President Barack Obama, who naturally is monitoring events very closely on yet another of his distracted vacations, is preparing a statement to the country on the events in Libya.

It was just over five months ago that Obama committed US air and naval forces to the coalition effort, as the United Nations Security Council acted to block Gaddafi’s vow to massacre his opponents in Benghazi.

As for Gaddafi, he has given several rambling speeches over Libyan state TV, vowing to fight on and calling on his supporters to rise up against NATO “imperialists.” Where is he? It’s not clear. His speeches were audio only, delivered over crackling phone lines.

LIBYAN WAR UPDATE: 1400 PACIFIC, 8/21. According to multiple reports, Libyan rebel forces approaching by land have entered Tripoli, encountering mostly light resistance, and have driven to within a few miles of the city center.

In addition, there are multiple reports that Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, the longtime dictator’s most powerful son, has been captured and that most members of Gaddafi’s presidential guard have surrendered.

Incidentally, Congressman Dennis Kucinich called today, yes, today, in a Guardian op-ed for an immediate NATO ceasefire.

Fabulous sense of timing.

Al Jazeera reports that Libyan rebels in the capital have taken control of several neighborhoods inside Tripoli, the stronghold of longtime dictator Moammar Gaddafi. Meanwhile, rebel forces outside the city continue their push forward, with a major Gaddafi base 15 miles from the city falling to the rebels on Sunday.

** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts.

He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings at Blue Heron Farm on Martha’s Vineyard.

Obama is on family vacation there for the rest of the month.

He has no scheduled public events.

But his Republican opponents are up to a few things.

Putative frontrunner Mitt Romney is quadrupling the size of his Southern California vacation home.

The better to make it a Western White House? Or the better to make it an even more luxurious retirement abode?

Romney is planning to bulldoze his 3,000 square foot La Jolla beachfront house and replace it with an 11,000 square foot mansion.

And Jon Huntsman, relatively silent of late, blazed into the conversation today and over the weekend with an appearance on ABC’s This Week and a series of tweets in which he spoofed and excoriated Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann for their incredible anti-science attitudes.

Libyan rebel forces late on Saturday made a spectacular move inside Tripoli, with special forces linking up with rebels rising up inside the city using weapons smuggled in by boat.

Longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi made an address to the populace very early Sunday morning, Libyan time, over state TV, which I watched live on Al Jazeera (on the live link here on NWN). He spoke via a very scratchy telephone hook-up, making his whereabouts quite mysterious, though he did correctly name the date and time on two occasions.

Gaddafi was rambling and near nonsensical, blaming it all on NATO, claiming that “the rats,” i.e. Libyan rebels inside Tripoli, had already been eliminated, closing with an imprecation to his followers to “march on.”

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports that Libyan rebels moving to link up with the forces inside Tripoli have captured the base of the Khamis Brigade, an elite Gaddafi unit 15 miles outside Tripoli, named after its commander, one of Gaddafi’s sons. The rebels are availing themselves of the base’s vast ammunition and fuel supplies, left there for the the taking.

As the fighting centers on Tripoli, a vast cityscape, NATO air power becomes more problematic for such close-in work where it is hard to distinguish between combatant and civilian. That’s why rebel leaders are urging that low-flying, slower-moving Apache helicopter gunships be employed by NATO.

There have been, as readers know, no US or NATO casualties during the entirety of the Libyan War, quite contrary to the fears and fantasies of many critics.

President Bill Clinton deployed Apache helicopter gunships for use in the Kosovo War, but opted against using them for fear of such casualties. In the end, they were not needed to force Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic to end the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.

It will be interesting to see what NATO, and the Obama Administration, decide in this end game for the Libyan War.

Obama is also monitoring a variety of other geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, and Iraq.

War Zone Times: Libya is nine hours ahead of Pacific time, Iraq is ten hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is eleven 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.

Click here for my compendium of articles laying out the re-emergence of Jerry Brown as governor of California.

FLASH — LIBYAN WAR — 1600 PACIFIC, 8/20 UPDATE: You may want to click on the Al Jazeera live link below for live coverage of a major development.

Reports are sketchy, but the gunfire sounds continuous, reportedly involving an uprising from within the city fueled by weapons delivered by sea, backed up by Libyan rebel special forces.

In his weekend video/radio address, recorded a few days ago at a farm in Illinois, President Barack Obama talks about putting country ahead of party.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA’S BIG DISCONNECT.

** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is in Massachusetts.

He has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings at Blue Heron Farm on Martha’s Vineyard.

Obama is on family vacation there for the rest of the month.

He has no scheduled public events.

Meanwhile, the US stock market has seen its biggest four weeks of losses since March 2009. Concerns about a faltering US economy are being more than compounded by bad news from Europe.

The overall market lost about $3 trillion of value over the past month, a drop of approximately 16%.

In other action, the Libyan rebels are continuing gains against the Gaddafi regime in an ongoing offensive.

According to Al Jazeera, they have secured all of Zawiya and have taken the strategic coastal city of Zlitan, which should allow for an advance down the coastal highway to Tripoli.

And they have seized the last major oil refinery providing finished petroleum products to the Gaddafi regime.

Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi’s one-time second-in-command, Abdel Salam Jalloud, defected yesterday to the Libyan rebels. Jalloud, who seemed to fall out of favor in recent years, was an original member of the junta which took over Libya during the Gaddafi-led coup in 1969.

This follows the defections earlier in the week of Oil Minister Omrane Boukraa and a senior security official, Nasser al-Mabruk Abdullah.

The rebels now have Gaddafi forces boxed in on three sides, with NATO controlling the fourth side with its naval forces.

Rebel forces have moved forward far more methodically than in their previous mad dashes ahead and even more mad dashes to the rear, which marked their activities in the spring. As a result, they are able to hold what they take as they, and NATO air power, wear down Gaddafi’s forces and pinch his supplies.

Now the rebels say they are prepared to move on Tripoli in the next few weeks.

After days of heavy fighting, the Libyan capital is surrounded by rebel forces as key towns and cities across the west of the country have now been won. The next big battle could be for Tripoli itself.

How did Syria react to Thursday’s concerted move by the US, UK, France, Germany, and European Union calling for President Assad to resign?

By killing more than 30 protesters. And the crackdown reportedly is continuing today.

With the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting of heads of state coming up in just one month in New York, Israel is reacting to the Palestinian move to gain national recognition there by cracking down on Hamas in Gaza, having launched a series of air strikes over the past few days.

As a result, Hamas declared that its de facto ceasefire with Israel is over. And rockets are being launched into Israel.

Meanwhile, Egypt has withdrawn its ambassador to Israel in the wake of a shadowy border incident in which several Egyptian security guards were killed by Israeli troops.

After criticizing Egypt earlier, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak apologized today for the incident.

Obama is also monitoring a variety of other geopolitical crises, mostly related to the Arab awakening, AfPak, and Iraq.

War Zone Times: Libya is nine hours ahead of Pacific time, Iraq is ten hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time.

Two University of California at Berkeley alums, arrested by Iranian security forces after cleverly hiking around the border between Iraq and Iran, have been sentenced to eight years in prison for purported espionage and border violations.

** FROM THE JERRY FILES – SATURDAY. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

Jerry Brown began moving on water policy yesterday, deciding to block the previous appointments of two Republicans, including former state Senate Republican leader Dave Cogdill, to the California Water Commission. Brown intends to proceed with a big water program, a version of which was wrestled through the legislature by predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger after decades of gridlock, but wants to put his own stamp on it, especially in this time of greater austerity.

He will push for a less expensive version of the $11.1 billion water bond program passed by Schwarzenegger awaiting enactment in a popular initiative.

Prior to Schwarzenegger getting his program through the Legislature, the last governor to push a major water program was Brown, who was unsuccessful at the ballot box with his Peripheral Canal plan.

Click here for my compendium of articles laying out the re-emergence of Jerry Brown as governor of California.

** OF “A THEORY THAT’S OUT THERE,” GOP STRAW POLLS, MARTHA’S VINEYARD VACATIONS, AND OTHER FOLLIES. Who says that August is the silly season?

* DISASTER MOVIE! While Perry, who’s taken the lead over Mitt Romney in a national Rasmussen poll, vehemently counts himself as a greenhouse denier, the National Weather Service reports that 2011 has already tied the record for most extreme weather events in a year causing billion dollar disasters. And hurricane season is still to come. But, hey, why worry, I’m sure Perry knows what he’s talking about. … From my August 18th essay.

** HARRY POTTER: A CONFESSION, AND AN APPRECIATION. I’m a bit behind the curve on Harry Potter. The last movie in the series has, astonishingly, grossed over $1 billion in worldwide box office after only its third weekend in release. In fact, having just passed the final Lord of the Rings picture, it’s the highest grossing movie around the world not directed by that James Cameron guy. But I haven’t seen it yet.

I lost the thread of the movie series two movies back. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was the absence of John Williams’ wonderful scoring, which enabled me to sit through Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Perhaps the renewed Doctor Who had taken up the British fantasy series space in my head. Who knows? … From my August 11th essay.

** LESS THAN MEETS THE EYE: THE BIG BUDGET DEAL AND OBAMA’S REAL PROBLEM. … From my August 8th essay.

** JERRY BROWN MAKES SOME MOVES. … From my August 1st essay.

** OVER AND OUT, ABOVE AND BEYOND: IS THE SPACE AGE OVER OR JUST BEGINNING? … From my July 28th essay.

** OBAMA KABUKI: THE BUDGET AND THE POLITICS OF POSITIONING. … From my July 13th column.

** FROM GOVERNATOR TO MOONBEAM. … From my January 3rd, 2011 feature.

** 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.

** UNIVERSIADE LIVE. You can watch a live feed of events of the biennial Universiade, also known as the World University Games, taking place in Shenzhen, China, a major new city outside Hong Kong, where the time is 15 hours ahead of Pacific time, through August 23rd. The Universiade is bringing together student athletes from more than 150 nations competing in 24 sports.

** 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 $82.26 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Energy markets are closed on the weekend

This is up about $48 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.