New West Notes

Questioned by senators with whom he once served, former New Jersey Governor and Senator Jon Corzine and his former colleagues at MF Global told a panel that he never told anyone to “misuse” customer money that vanished when the firm collapsed this fall. An astounding $1.2 billion is missing.

NOTE: With some technical and travel issues, posting will be less frequent than usual for a couple of days.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … JERRY BROWN PULLS A TRIGGER, INVOKES ROME, AND FOCUSES ON CLIMATE AND INITIATIVES.

** QUICK HITS. Governor Jerry Brown released some more details on his Governor’s Conference on Extreme Climate Risks and California’s Future Thursday at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. In addition to Brown, participants will include Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Nobel Prize winner; Sir Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin Group; and Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Topics? California and the Global Climate Challenge, Climate Change’s Human and Economic Impacts on California, A National Perspective on Climate Action, and Climate Solutions to Protect California Communities and Help our Economy. The conference, which begins at 9:30 AM Pacific, will be webcast on Brown’s site, www.gov.ca.gov. … Meanwhile, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll has Newt Gingrich way out front on Mitt Romney, 40% to 23%. Gingrich’s number is the highest for any Republican this year. Ron Paul is a distant third at 9%. … Romney, who only a few days ago shied away from even being associated with criticism of Gingrich, went hard at him in a new Washington Post interview today, saying that the ex-House speaker is “an extremely unreliable leader in the conservative world.” … Then, of course, Romney had to try to explain why he was against the Contract With America, admitting that Gingrich, whose project it was, was right. …

** JERRY-RIGGING: BROWN PULLS THE TRIGGER, ON A SMALLER CALIBER BULLET THAN FEARED, AND DISCUSSES ROME. As long expected, Governor Jerry Brown today found himself having to pull the trigger on mid-fiscal year budget cuts occasioned by lower than forecast California state revenues. But for less than feared following a report last month by the Legislative Analyst Office.

The cuts total about $1 billion, only half what the LAO anticipated. They come after a significant improvement in the last month’s revenue.

As a result, K-12 education, which was projected for a $1.1 billion hit in the LAO assessment, will receive a cut of less than $80 million, thus avoiding the need to reduce the school year. But higher education and health programs take another hit.

Brown had a number of pithy observations to make in the course of presenting this mid-course correction for the state budget in a noon press conference in the State Capitol.

Quoting an old Latin proverb, which he translated and paraphrased as “The state cannot give what it does not have,” Brown noted that he has learned an important lesson since the first time he was governor: That fiscal challenges are a constant in the governorship.

“It’s always going to be managing discontent and rising claims on a reluctant taxpayer,” he said. “That kind of defines the job.”

Discussing the political landscape over which he will wage an initiative campaign to raise $7 billion a year with higher taxes on the wealthy and a half-cent sales tax hike — which the new Public Policy Institute of California poll shows has real promise of success — Brown noted that the public is not in a happy mood.

“The electorate is frustrated, discontent, not too impressed by government at any level,” he said. “We’re pretty polarized across the country,” he observed. “I will find places where we agree when we can.”

He also discussed, in very general terms, ongoing talks with other revenue initiative proponents, saying that at least one group is open to allowing his plan to move forward without a greater degree of confusion. I discussed this yesterday in the Monday Morning Quarterback, based on my own conversations with initiative promoters.

For the first time, Brown specifically addressed the Occupy Wall Street movement, within the context of his initiative drive and the overall political situation.

“America will have a hard time functioning if the inequality continues,” he said. “But reversing it in the face of globalization and technological innovation will be very difficult.”

Then the old UC Berkeley classics major harkened back to the history underlying his Latin education.

“In Rome there was the old fight between the aristocrats and the plebeians,” he noted. “It took a few hundred years for Rome to fall apart.”

Here, incidentally, is the budget trigger cuts document.

** NEW SURVEY: ECONOMIC CONFIDENCE IMPROVES, BUT TRAILS THE LEVEL FROM A YEAR AGO. A new Gallup Poll survey shows signs of economic improvement, but they trail those of a year ago.

Economic confidence is at its highest point since July.

But is is still significantly lower than it was a year ago.

The Gallup Economic Confidence Index is an average of two components: ratings of current economic conditions and Americans’ perceptions of whether the U.S. economy is getting better or getting worse. While both dimensions remain highly negative, at -39 each, they have improved to their best levels since July, with the economic outlook showing the greater improvement. …

Wall Street’s better performance during early December and some optimism that Europe is beginning to address its problems may have played a positive role — although perceptions of the European situation seem extremely volatile from day to day. Consumer optimism may also have increased in response to the improvement in the recent jobless claims reports and the government’s report that the unemployment rate fell to 8.6% in November. …

At 9:45 AM Pacific, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing. The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.

** LIVE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.

With massive geopolitical events swirling and the 2012 presidential race unfolding, the White House is increasingly a pivot point for the day’s events. Live streaming of key presidential events is now available as a matter of course here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.

NWN will continue to present other live netcasts in full streaming mode, as it did with the Ronald Reagan Centennial events from the Reagan Library, as they emerge and are technically available and as significance dictates.

President Barack Obama appeared with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki yesterday to mark the end of US operations in the Iraq War. When Obama took office, there were 150,000 US troops in Iraq. Today only a few thousand remain, and they will be withdrawn by the end of the month.

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

Obama received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.

He was then interviewed by regional television outlets in the Diplomatic Room.

Following that, he delivered remarks at a fundraiser at the Hyatt Regency.

At 9:45 AM Pacific, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing in the James S. Brady Briefing Room.

The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes.

Obama got some good news this morning in the form of increased retail sales for the sixth month in a row.

And mixed news on another domestic front.

On one of the morning chat shows, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani opined that new GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich will actually be a more formidable challenger to Obama than Mitt Romney, due to his superior ability to articulate a message and to the ease with which Romney can be cast as an economic elitist. Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, a notable weathervane, said something similar yesterday.

And former Vice President Dick Cheney, who served with Gingrich, notably did not join into establishment criticism of Gingrich, praising him and lauding him as a major contender in a sort of semi-endorsement.

Plenty of back and forth yesterday between Gingrich and Mitt Romney. The financier and ex-Massachusetts governor hit Gingrich, challenging him to return his fee for working with Freddie Mac. Gingrich said he would think about it as soon as Romney gave back what he made for stripping assets from takeover targets and laying off workers. It went from there.

Romney stopped trying to pretend he had nothing to do with nasty surrogate attacks on the former House speaker’s character. But he was alternately threatening and waffling on whether he would run negative ads, saying at one point that he didn’t want to give Obama ammunition to use against Gingrich.

Gingrich helped elevate dark horse Jon Huntsman, who could be a major factor in New Hampshire, to Romney’s decided detriment, in a debate last night in the Granite State. Reports indicate it was a wonk fest, with a heavy focus on geopolitical matters, and with both men praising one another’s knowledge and expertise.

Today is the 375th anniversary of the founding of the National Guard, which dates back to the original American colonial militia.

The origin of the nation’s state National Guard organizations sprang from the forming of militia in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early 17th century.

At that time, more than 5,000 men, women, and children had made the two-month voyage to the New World from England, settling in Masachusetts.

The military organization we know today as the National Guard came into existence with a direct declaration on Dec. 13, 1636 when the Massachusetts General Court in Salem established that all able-bodied men between the ages of 16 and 60 were required to join the militia.

Just like today. Or not.

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

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

Occupy demonstrators disrupted some operations at a few ports on the West Coast yesterday, but failed in their goal of shutting down the major ports from San Diego to Anchorage.

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

At 12 noon, he holds a press conference in the Capitol with Finance Director Ana Matosantos to discuss revised revenue forecast for the 2011-12 fiscal year, which “will determine the extent to which pre-approved changes to state spending will be implemented beginning on January 1st.”

This refers to the trigger cuts contained in the state budget if revenues fall short of forecasts.

The event will be webcast on www.gov.ca.gov.

The California Republican Party, predictably, already hit Brown on the trigger cuts early this morning, claiming that conservative “reforms” would have made them unnecessary.

Brown got some very good news from the latest Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll yesterday. (The poll was embargoed until 9 PM Pacific, but the Sacramento Bee broke the embargo by a whopping three hours.)

Brown’s tax initiative plan is favored by nearly two-thirds of California voters.

I’ll have a lot more to say about this in an upcoming piece.

Brown’s job approval rating is at 46%, the expected range.

Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s job approval rating in this poll a year ago was at 32%, a recovery from the low 20s where it had been early in the summer. And higher than the oft cited 23%, which is from a late summer Field Poll.

Newt Gingrich leads Mitt Romney now in the Republican presidential primary, 33-25.

And Occupy Wall Street is more popular than the Tea Party.

It’s 46-37 support over oppose for Occupy Wall Street’s aims, and 35-42 for the Tea Party.

Looking to reassure that efficiencies are being implemented, Brown yesterday issued an Executive Order directing the state’s agencies and departments to review the approximately 2,600 annual reports they are required to submit to the Legislature, and identify those that are no longer useful or necessary.

“My administration remains committed to keeping the Legislature informed, but churning out 2,600 annual reports – some ordered more than two decades ago – is a waste of time and money,” Brown said in his statement. “All state agencies and departments have been asked to take a closer look at these reports and will work with the Department of Finance and the Legislature to get rid of those that are no longer needed.”

The Occupy movement yesterday attempted to shut down every major port on the West Coast, from San Diego in the south to Anchorage in the arctic north. They failed. But they did disrupt some port activities. In Oakland, several terminals were shut down for part of the day, to the displeasure of the unions working in the movement of commercial goods. Somewhere along the way, Occupy has lost the thread.

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

** TOP DOG IN THE BIG DES MOINES DOGPILE? IT’S NEWT! They said it was going to be a joint rumble against new frontrunner Newt Gingrich, a veritable dogpile in Des Moines. But the ex-House speaker showed that he is the smartest guy on the stage, that stage. And that all those years of honing his media chops on C-SPAN and his study of media dynamics underlie the game changer in this race.

Media skills were dominant in this debate, and Gingrich has them. He parried every attack from every direction, and turned some of them to his decided advantage. And then there was Romney. Remind me, where did people get the idea he’s a good debater? From “debates,” really joint appearances, in which, oddly, no one asked him tough questions, perhaps? … From my December 11th column.

** NEWTONIAN MOTION: ACTION BEGETS FLAWED REACTION. Mitt Romney sure doesn’t think Newt Gingrich is a “flavor of the month.” The ex-speaker’s Newtonian motion has propelled him into polling leads in all the state polls I’ve seen except for New Hampshire, and he’s closing there. So Gingrich’s action has sparked a strenuous reaction. … From my December 10th column.

** NEWTONIAN MOTION: IN IOWA, A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN FOUR WEEKS. … From my December 6th column.

** JERRY BROWN AND THE 2012 INITIATIVE WARS. … From my December 3rd feature.

** ALTERNEWT: GINGRICH “ALTERNATE HISTORY” NOVELS REVEAL MUCH ON PRESENT POLITICS. … From my December 1st essay.

** A SUBLIME AND RIDICULOUS DAY: MARS MISSION AND AFPAK DEBACLE. … From my November 28th essay.

** SOUND AND FURY: THE UTTERLY UNSURPRISING “SUPER-COMMITTEE” FLOP. … From my November 22nd essay.

** DARWINIAN: OBAMA GOES POST-IRAQ IN OZ, REPUBLICANS RACE TO THE PAST. … From my November 21st essay.

** ALI, FRAZIER, JACKSON, STALLONE: OF IMAGE, RACE, POLITICS, AND MYTH. … From my November 16th essay.

** VETERANS DAY IN A FRACTURED AMERICA. … From my November 12th 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 $100 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $66 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down $14 from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.

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

In his joint press conference today with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to mark the final withdrawal of US forces from the Iraq War, President Barack Obama, in answer to a question, reiterated his desire that Iran return the sophisticated CIA surveillance drone aircraft brought down earlier this month.

** QUICK HITS. Plenty of back and forth today between Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich and former frontrunner Mitt Romney. The financier and ex-Massachusetts governor hit Gingrich this morning on Fox and Friends, challenging him to return his fee for working with Freddie Mac. Gingrich said he would think about it as soon as Romney gave back what he made for stripping assets from takeover targets and laying off workers. It went from there. … Romney stopped trying to pretend he had nothing to do with nasty surrogate attacks on the former House speaker’s character. But he was alternately threatening and waffley on whether he would run negative ads, saying at one point that he didn’t want to give Obama ammunition to use against Gingrich. … The Occupy movement today attempted to shut down every major port on the West Coast, from San Diego in the south to Anchorage in the arctic north. They failed. But they did disrupt some port activities. In Oakland, several terminals were shut down for part of the day, to the displeasure of the unions working in the movement of commercial goods. Somewhere along the way, Occupy has lost the thread. … Governor Jerry Brown’s California Finance Director Ana Matosantos holds a noon briefing tomorrow in the Capitol to discuss revised revenue forecast for the 2011-12 fiscal year, which “will determine the extent to which pre-approved changes to state spending will be implemented beginning on January 1st.” This refers to the trigger cuts contained in the state budget if revenues fall short of forecasts.

** NEW POLL: CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS RATED VERY LOW. (YES, I KNOW, “FILM AT 11.”) A new Gallup Poll survey reveals yet another reason why this Congress is fated to be the lowest rated on record.

A whopping 64% rate the ethics and honesty of members of Congress as low or very low. This ties the record for the lowest rating ever for an American profession.

That record was set by, not surprisingly, the lobbying profession, in 2008.

In contrast, another profession set a record this year for being most highly rated in terms of ethics.

That is the nursing profession. With a whopping 84% rating its practitioners as ethical and honest.

This year’s update, from a Nov. 28-Dec. 1 Gallup poll, finds Americans rating the honesty and ethical standards of 3 medical professions — nurses, pharmacists, and doctors — the highest of the 21 professions tested. At the other end of the spectrum, Americans give the least positive honesty and ethics ratings to members of Congress, lobbyists, car salespeople, and telemarketers. …

** TOP DOG IN THE BIG DES MOINES DOGPILE? IT’S NEWT! They said it was going to be a joint rumble against new frontrunner Newt Gingrich, a veritable dogpile in Des Moines. But the ex-House speaker showed that he is the smartest guy on the stage, that stage. And that all those years of honing his media chops on C-SPAN and his study of media dynamics underlie the game changer in this race.

Media skills were dominant in this debate, and Gingrich has them. He parried every attack from every direction, and turned some of them to his decided advantage. And then there was Romney. Remind me, where did people get the idea he’s a good debater? From “debates,” really joint appearances, in which, oddly, no one asked him tough questions, perhaps? …

From my December 11th column.

A lighter and brighter note to begin a darker and heavier week. President Barack Obama joined the “Christmas in Washington” celebration at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC on Sunday.

MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.

A very big week in presidential politics is on tap, as well as a consequential week in California politics.

This week is the consecration, if you will, by President Barack Obama of the end of the massive US intervention in Iraq, with a visit from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and a visit by Obama to Fort Bragg, home to the Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps, its rapid deployment paratroop command, and U.S. Special Operations Command. There are 6,000 US troops left in Iraq, literally lining up to board convoys headed out of the country. Obama also continues his push for congressional passage of measures to aid the struggling middle class and working class in the form of the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance.

As he does so, his would-be Republican rivals continue their dramatic face-off, with ex-frontrunner Mitt Romney trying to come back against Newt Gingrich, and the whole crew gathering for a final pre-Iowa caucuses debate on Thursday night in lovely Sioux City.

In California politics, Governor Jerry Brown prepares to deal with the eventuality of trigger cuts in the state budget, hosts a major conference on climate change, and continues dealing with 2012 initiative politics.

In my view, Saturday night’s big debate in Des Moines, the biggest so far, was no contest, with Gingrich getting much the best of it, even without Romney betraying his Richie Rich financier roots once again, this time by trying to make a $10,000 bet.

Iowa ain’t Monte Carlo, Mitt. Hmm, Monte Carlo Mitt …

Gingrich has big leads in polls of the South Carolina and Florida primaries. These, of course, were taken before Saturday night’s debate. The NBC News/Marist polls show Gingrich soaring far above Romney.

It’s 42-23 Gingrich in South Carolina and 44-29 Gingrich in Florida.

But Obama has the lead over both Republicans in both states. Which is especially striking with regard to South Carolina, a cradle of the old Confederacy where the Civil War began.

Team Obama has begun attacking Gingrich, dubbing him “the original Tea Partier.”

Which, actually, if you think about it, helps him further in the Republican primaries.

But the Obama crew ought to be careful what they wish for. Gingrich is a formidable debater, and these are unstable times.

Gingrich actually campaigns in Iowa this week — something which has happened far less often than past campaigns not only for him, but most of the candidates this time — after a stint in New Hampshire. His NH push includes an unusual Lincoln-Douglas style debate tonight with Jon Huntsman, who is betting the ranch on a strong showing in the New Hampshire primary. By promoting Huntsman, Gingrich can draw from Romney’s natural yet declining lead in the Granite State.

Romney’s also campaigning this week in New Hampshire and Iowa, in advance of the Thursday night debate in Sioux City, but his schedule is much murkier. It is known to include, however, major stops in New York to replenish his campaign funds from his Wall Street backers.

Meanwhile, in Durban, South Africa, where the United Nations climate summit went into extra innings over the weekend in order to avoid having no agreement in place to extend the fundamentals of the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement was cobbled together.

Nations agreed to establish rules to cut greenhouse gases. But not until 2020. Here in California, we are already working toward major reductions BY 2020.

The UN has another four years to develop the needed regulations. There are, needless to say, many potential slips twixt the cup and lip.

As those desperate moves to avert complete failure in global climate politics, even as the effects of climate change became all the more apparent, played out, there were very big doings over the weekend in Russia.

The Russian weekend saw big protests against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the wake of the disputed narrow victory by the ruling United Russia Party a week earlier.

Moscow saw 50,000 people take to the streets, and sizable demonstrations took place in cities across the nation of nine time zones.

With global news media on hand, Russian security forces stayed their hand.

These are already the biggest protests in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union and its immediate aftermath.

Opposition to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is burgeoning. Mikhail Prokhorov, one of Russia’s richest tycoons and the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, said Monday he will run against Putin in the March presidential election.

Today, more shoes dropped.

Billionaire Mikhail Prokorov, owner of the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, announced that he will challenge Putin in the March presidential election. And former Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who resigned after Putin announced his intention to return to the presidency, said that he will create a new political party.

Signs of promise continue to emanate from Brussels, where European Union leaders worked until early Friday morning to try once again to quell the Eurozone crisis.

France and Germany cobbled together a plan, with most nations agreeing to implement austerity programs and new financial regulations, with a major infusion of funds from the International Monetary Fund.

Nations will submit their budgets to the European Union for a form of approval and agree to new regulations of the financial sector. With the exception of Britain.

Prime Minister David Cameron held out against new regulations on the City of London, the UK’s equivalent of Wall Street.

Cameron is facing big problems now. He may have pleased the UK’s financial industry, but he may also have isolated Britain from the EU, and has potentially shattered his governing coalition in the process.

Deputy Prime Minister Nicholas Clegg of the Liberal Democrats, who may Cameron’s minority Conservative government possible, denounced Cameron’s move. There may need to be new elections in Britain. They may not go so well for Cameron, especially given his government’s links to the ongoing Murdoch phone hacking scandal.

Back in California politics, as Brown deals with the issues I mentioned above, he also has a potential economic disruption on his hands.

The Occupy crowd on the West Coast says it will try to shut down ports from Anchorage to San Diego. Occupy Oakland briefly shut down the Port of Oakland during its unsuccessful general strike. This time around, the longshore workers union is making its opposition to Occupy’s efforts plain from the beginning.

Assuming that California’s export commerce is not paralyzed by demonstrations, Brown can focus on other areas, including potentially competing revenue initiatives.

I expect the Think Long Committee to avoid going to head to head with Brown’s initiative. Think Long can’t win next November with its plan, which cuts taxes for the wealthy and large corporations and extends the sales tax to all manner of services.

I also don’t see how the California Federation of Teachers-led tax the rich initiative moves very far ahead, with the bulk of the labor movement and the Democratic coalition backing Brown.

That leaves the imponderable of heiress Molly Munger’s plan to raise everyone’s income tax to fund the schools. Which also is unlikely to win, but she may not yet understand that.

Brown is analyzing the situation surrounding state budget shortfalls and trigger cuts allowed for in the budget he enacted at the end of June.

He is also prepping for his conference on climate change, taking place, as discussed here quite awhile ago, on December 15th in San Francisco.

This event, at the lovely California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, will be on a smaller scale than former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s three Governors’ Global Climate Summits and will focus on the need to mitigate the effects of climate change as well as efforts to prevent it.

It all comes in the wake of the disappointing UN global climate summit in Durban, South Africa.

Schwarzenegger had been mentioned as a likely attendee there, but did not go. He didn’t go to the UN climate summit last year in Cancun, Mexico, either.

He was last at the annual climate summit in 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark, which was a cobbled-together vague semi-success where Schwarzenegger announced that he would form the R20 group of subnational governments around the world to work on renewable energy and climate change issues.

Here’s what Obama’s week looks like. It is dominated, as you can see, by the end of the Iraq War.

On Monday, Obama welcomes Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to the White House. The two leaders will hold talks on the removal of U.S. military forces from Iraq, efforts to achieve a comprehensive strategic partnership between the United States and Iraq, and honors for the sacrifice of American troops.

On Tuesday, Obama will conduct interviews with local television anchors from across the country about the end of the war in Iraq and the extension of the payroll tax cut.

On Wednesday, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will travel to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina where they will deliver remarks to troops regarding the end of the Iraq War.

On Thursday, Obama will attend meetings at the White House and on Friday, Obama will deliver remarks at the Biennial Convention of the Union for Reform Judaism.

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

Obama received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.

At 6:45 AM Pacific, Obama held an expanded bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq in the Oval Office.

At 7:15 AM Pacific, Obama held a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the Oval Office.

This ran nearly an hour late, throwing off the rest of the day’s schedule.

Obama and Maliki then held a joint press conference in the South Court Auditorium, netcast live here on New West Notes.

Following the press conference, TBA Pacific, Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki attend a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.

At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.

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

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

West Coast ports and law enforcement are preparing for possible disruptions, as Occupy protesters plan to blockade ports from San Diego to Anchorage. Demonstrators briefly closed down the port of Oakland earlier this fall.

** FROM THE JERRY FILES. 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.

** NEWTONIAN MOTION: ACTION BEGETS FLAWED REACTION. Mitt Romney sure doesn’t think Newt Gingrich is a “flavor of the month.” The ex-speaker’s Newtonian motion has propelled him into polling leads in all the state polls I’ve seen except for New Hampshire, and he’s closing there. So Gingrich’s action has sparked a strenuous reaction.

In a quirky sort of way, Gingrich, not Romney, fills the traditional Republican bill for a presidential nominee who is the senior most figure of stature in the field. Plus he has the fire and antagonism to thrill the angry far right base. … From my December 10th column.

** NEWTONIAN MOTION: IN IOWA, A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN FOUR WEEKS. Newt Gingrich. Iowa caucuses. To say it seemed an unlikely prospect that the candidate whose staff famously quit because of disorganization would have what looks like a commanding lead in a state that supposedly requires a premium in organization would be gross understatement.

In four weeks in first-in-the-nation contest state Iowa in 1984, we in the Gary Hart campaign went from fifth to second, as the Colorado senator rocketed into the center of the national scene and set the stage for his big win in the New Hampshire primary eight days later. … From my December 6th column.

** JERRY BROWN AND THE 2012 INITIATIVE WARS. … From my December 3rd feature.

** ALTERNEWT: GINGRICH “ALTERNATE HISTORY” NOVELS REVEAL MUCH ON PRESENT POLITICS. … From my December 1st essay.

** A SUBLIME AND RIDICULOUS DAY: MARS MISSION AND AFPAK DEBACLE. … From my November 28th essay.

** SOUND AND FURY: THE UTTERLY UNSURPRISING “SUPER-COMMITTEE” FLOP. … From my November 22nd essay.

** DARWINIAN: OBAMA GOES POST-IRAQ IN OZ, REPUBLICANS RACE TO THE PAST. … From my November 21st essay.

** ALI, FRAZIER, JACKSON, STALLONE: OF IMAGE, RACE, POLITICS, AND MYTH. … From my November 16th essay.

** VETERANS DAY IN A FRACTURED AMERICA. … From my November 12th 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.

Early Saturday morning saw this total eclipse of the Moon, a once in a decade event.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in three wars in the region, and the Arab awakening underway, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, 2008, crude oil is trading around $98 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $64 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down $16 from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.

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

>>>>>>LIVE VIDEO NETCAST

** 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.

Newt Gingrich turned in a commanding performance in Saturday night’s Republican presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa, while ex-frontrunner Mitt Romney flailed, at one point trying to make a $10,000 bet.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … TOP DOG IN THE BIG DES MOINES DOGPILE? IT’S NEWT!

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

Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.

At 3:25 PM Pacific, Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and daughters Malia and Sasha join with Vice President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden to attend Christmas in Washington at the National Building Museum.

Yesterday, Obama and the Bidens attended the annual Army-Navy football classic, an institution since 1890, held for the first time near the capital city in Landover, Maryland. The Midshipmen held on in a 27-21 thriller, and Obama — who sat on the Navy side of the field for the first half and the Army side for the second — was very well received by the crowd.

He wasn’t nearly so well received late on Saturday in another form of competitive endeavour, the Des Moines Republican presidential debate. But the debate wasn’t really about him this time, it was about new frontrunner Newt Gingrich and the former longtime putative frontrunner, Mitt Romney.

In my view, it was no contest, with Gingrich getting much the best of it, even without Romney betraying his Richie Rich financier roots once again, this time by trying to make a $10,000 bet.

Iowa ain’t Monte Carlo, Mitt. Hmm, Monte Carlo Mitt …

Gingrich has big leads in brand new polls of the South Carolina and Florida primaries. These, of course, were taken before Saturday night’s debate.

The NBC News/Marist polls show Gingrich soaring far above Romney.

It’s 42-23 Gingrich in South Carolina and 44-29 Gingrich in Florida.

But Obama has the lead over both Republicans in both states. Which is especially striking with regard to South Carolina, a cradle of the old Confederacy where the Civil War began.

Team Obama has begun attacking Gingrich, dubbing him “the original Tea Partier.”

Which, actually, if you think about it, helps him further in the Republican primaries.

But the Obama crew ought to be careful what they wish for. Gingrich is a formidable debater, and these are unstable times.

Meanwhile, in Durban, South Africa, where the United Nations climate summit went into extra innings in order to avoid having no agreement in place to extend the fundamentals of the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement was cobbled together.

Nations agreed to establish rules to cut greenhouse gases. But not until 2020.

Here in California, we are already working toward major reductions BY 2020.

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

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

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

Brown is looking at trigger cuts allowed for in the state budget he enacted at the end of June. Revenues have run lower than forecast in the optimistic scenario adopted then in all but the most recent month.

He is also prepping for his conference on climate change, taking place on December 15th at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

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

** NEWTONIAN MOTION: ACTION BEGETS FLAWED REACTION. Mitt Romney sure doesn’t think Newt Gingrich is a “flavor of the month.” The ex-speaker’s Newtonian motion has propelled him into polling leads in all the state polls I’ve seen except for New Hampshire, and he’s closing there. So Gingrich’s action has sparked a strenuous reaction.

In a quirky sort of way, Gingrich, not Romney, fills the traditional Republican bill for a presidential nominee who is the senior most figure of stature in the field. Plus he has the fire and antagonism to thrill the angry far right base. …

From my December 10th column.

>>>>>>LIVE VIDEO NETCAST

At 6 PM Pacific, the Republican presidential field debates for two hours in Des Moines, Iowa on ABC News. The event is netcast live here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.

** REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE SATURDAY NIGHT.

It’s billed by some as the first Republican presidential debate since the emergence of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as the GOP presidential frontrunner.

Actually, it’s the second. But it is the first since it dawned on the political and media establishments that Gingrich’s lead is real.

Will it be a big, nasty rugby scrum? That’s what some expect.

But that would be foolish, especially in Iowa.

The real question is whether anyone — say, longtime supposed frontrunner Mitt Romney — is able to find a deft way to execute a Gingrich takedown without hurting himself in the process.

In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama calls on Congress to extend the payroll tax cut and confirm Richard Cordray to lead a new consumer-watchdog agency that will protect families from dishonest business practices.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … NEWTONIAN MOTION: ACTION BEGETS (FAULTY) REACTION.

** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Maryland.

Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.

At 11:05 AM Pacific, Obama departs the White House on Marine One en route Landover, Maryland.

At 11:15 AM Pacific, Obama arrives Landover, Maryland and proceeds to FedEx Field.

At 11:30 AM Pacific, Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Dr. Jill Biden attend the annual Army vs. Navy football game at FedEx Field.

This is one of the classic rivalries of college football, an annual tradition dating back to 1890, and an event which plays throughout the services around the world.

Traditionally held in Philadelphia, where I attended a classic Army-Navy game at the old John F. Kennedy Stadium, the game will alternate between the City of Brotherly Love and Maryland beginning with this year’s edition.

At 2:25 PM Pacific, Obama departs Landover, Maryland on Marine One en route the White House.

At 2:35 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.

The Republicans who would be president debate tonight at 6 PM Pacific in Des Moines, Iowa.

The focus will be on new frontrunner Newt Gingrich, naturally.

There was some rock ‘em/sock ‘em action yesterday in the Republican presidential race in advance of the debate, with Ann Romney telling voters her husband “won’t abandon you” (I wonder what she’s getting at) and Romney chief attack dog John Sununu (Sr., not Jr.) attacking Newt Gingrich on past personal bad blood between them going back to the late ’80s.

John Sununu is a bad choice by Romney, showing how off-balance he is now.

In typical fashion, Romney tried to slough off the attacks by his surrogates and associates on Gingrich, saying he has nothing to do with it.

For his part, Gingrich talked about Romney “running to the left of Teddy Kennedy” on social issues in their 1994 U.S. Senate race, pointing out that he was against the Contract With America which overturned 40 years of Democratic House control that year and was an independent during the Reagan years.

Then Gingrich, in a classic move, dramatized his backing for Israel by criticizing its opponents and calling the Palestinians “an invented people,” a good way to place the media spotlight back on himself.

Crowds donning white ribbons appeared today in Moscow and other major cities across Russia. Largely made up of a long silent educated middle class, the demonstrators gathered in protest of last weekend’s hotly disputed narrow parliamentary victory by United Russia and its head, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

As these antics play out, Russia today has seen big protests against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the wake of last weekend’s disputed narrow victory by the ruling United Russia Party.

Moscow saw 50,000 people take to the streets, and sizable demonstrations took place in cities across the nation of nine time zones.

With global news media on hand, Russian security forces stayed their hand.

These are already the biggest protests in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union and its immediate aftermath.

Yemen today saw the formation of an interim government in the wake of President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s departure from office. But protests continue.

Signs of promise continue to emanate from Brussels, where European Union leaders worked until early Friday morning to try once again to quell the Eurozone crisis.

France and Germany cobbled together a plan, with most nations agreeing to implement austerity programs and new financial regulations, with a major infusion of funds from the International Monetary Fund.

Nations will submit their budgets to the European Union for a form of approval and agree to new regulations of the financial sector. With the exception of Britain.

Prime Minister David Cameron held out against new regulations on the City of London, the UK’s equivalent of Wall Street.

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

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

The two week-long UN climate change summit in Durban, South Africa, stalled as expected here, has been extended for a day in an effort to reach a new agreement to extend beyond the Kyoto Protocol. Governor Jerry Brown holds a major climate change summit in San Francisco on December 15th.

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

Brown is analyzing the situation surrounding state budget shortfalls and trigger cuts allowed for in the budget he enacted at the end of June.

He is also prepping for his conference on climate change, taking place, as discussed here quite awhile ago, on December 15th in San Francisco.

This event, at the lovely California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, will be on a smaller scale than former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s three Governors’ Global Climate Summits and will focus on the need to mitigate the effects of climate change as well as efforts to prevent it.

It all comes as the UN global climate summit in Durban, South Africa lurches toward likely failure.

Schwarzenegger had been mentioned as a likely attendee there, but has not gone. He didn’t go to the UN climate summit last year in Cancun, Mexico, either.

He was last at the annual climate summit in 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark, which was a cobbled-together vague semi-success where Schwarzenegger announced that he would form the R20 group of subnational governments around the world to work on renewable energy and climate change issues.

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

** NEWTONIAN MOTION: IN IOWA, A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN FOUR WEEKS. Newt Gingrich. Iowa caucuses. To say it seemed an unlikely prospect that the candidate whose staff famously quit because of disorganization would have what looks like a commanding lead in a state that supposedly requires a premium in organization would be gross understatement.

That’s a big problem for Romney. And it’s a further big opportunity for Gingrich, who has taken to posing in front of Christmas trees and playing jovial Uncle Newt as the star of gauzy TV advertising invoking the Norman Rockwell greatness of America’s yesteryear. … From my December 6th column.

** JERRY BROWN AND THE 2012 INITIATIVE WARS. Governor Jerry Brown is in the midst of some major moves this month with regard to California’s chronically troubled finances, all playing out against the backdrop of next year’s likely major ballot initiative wars.

With regard to the fateful 1999 expansion of public pension benefits, premised on an ever-rising stock market rather than actual contributions, said Brown: “I was incredulous at the time, and I’m still incredulous.” … From my December 3rd feature.

** ALTERNEWT: GINGRICH “ALTERNATE HISTORY” NOVELS REVEAL MUCH ON PRESENT POLITICS. … From my December 1st essay.

** A SUBLIME AND RIDICULOUS DAY: MARS MISSION AND AFPAK DEBACLE. … From my November 28th essay.

** SOUND AND FURY: THE UTTERLY UNSURPRISING “SUPER-COMMITTEE” FLOP. … From my November 22nd essay.

** DARWINIAN: OBAMA GOES POST-IRAQ IN OZ, REPUBLICANS RACE TO THE PAST. … From my November 21st essay.

** ALI, FRAZIER, JACKSON, STALLONE: OF IMAGE, RACE, POLITICS, AND MYTH. … From my November 16th essay.

** VETERANS DAY IN A FRACTURED AMERICA. … From my November 12th essay.

** RECALLING JOE FRAZIER: AN APPRECIATION, AND A NOTE OF HORROR. … From my November 10th essay.

** OCUPADO. … From my November 4th 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.

Heisman Trophy finalists met with the media Friday in New York City in advance of Saturday night’s award ceremony at 5 PM Pacific. Spectacular Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III, a gun-slinging passer and world class 400 meter hurdler, will be the winner, upsetting the season-long favorite, Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck.

** 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 $99.41 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.

This is up about $65 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down $15 from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.

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

Last week’s Iranian claim of seizing a US spy aircraft is turning out to be not only true, but a global media bonanza. A high-tech, stealth CIA drone was captured intact by Iranian officials while on a surveillance mission over Iran. The mishap put sophisticated technology in Iranian hands and provided public evidence of the kind of spying that’s been long suspected.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … NEWTONIAN MOTION: ACTION BEGETS (FAULTY) REACTION.

** QUICK HITS. Some rock ‘em/sock ‘em today in the Republican presidential race in advance of a critical Saturday debate in Des Moines, with Ann Romney telling voters her husband “won’t abandon you” (I wonder what she’s getting at) and Romney chief attack dog John Sununu (Sr., not Jr.) attacking Newt Gingrich on past personal bad blood between them going back to the late ’80s. … John Sununu is a bad choice by Romney, showing how off-balance he is now. … Romney tried to slough off the attacks by his surrogates and associates on Gingrich, saying he has nothing to do with it. … For his part, Gingrich talked about Romney “running to the left of Teddy Kennedy” on social issues in their 1994 U.S. Senate race, pointing out that he was against the Contract With America which overturned 40 years of Democratic House control that year and was an independent during the Reagan years. … In California politics, 2012 initiative efforts to, separately, abolish the death penalty and make the state legislature part-time are moving forward.

** JERRY-RIGGING: CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT TURNS DOWN REDISTRICTING REWORK, FOR NOW. Governor Jerry Brown, having been stymied in much of his strategy by the Republican “super-minority” in the state legislature on most revenue matters, clearly feels he needs to get a more workable legislature. And the means for that are tantalizingly close at hand, in the form of the new districts drawn by the Citizens Redistricting Commission created by the 2008 initiative championed by Brown’s predecessor, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

This took redistricting out of the hands of the legislators, upending the incumbent protection plan put in place after the last Census a decade ago.

The result has been districts that seriously reshuffle the game board of California legislative and congressional politics, throwing multiple incumbents into new and precarious positions. And it has deflated the gerrymander that overstated conservative Republican strength in the legislature.

Brown was able to come up with a pair of Republican votes in the state Assembly for his plan to stimulate job growth by ending a big corporate tax advantage, redirecting its benefits to companies and individuals specifically engaged in California. But he came up short, once again, in the Senate, with goose eggs to show for his strenuous efforts with Republicans there.

The new districts look likely enough to change that, quite possibly giving Democrats a two-thirds majority, such that conservative Republicans have mounted an all-out drive to upend the new Senate maps through a referendum.

But their initiative drive came up short of the overwhelming number of signatures needed to gain more rapid qualification, and as the counting drags on the more difficult it is block the new districts from going into effect before the vote next November

That’s the agenda, to at least temporarily nullify the citizens commission’s districts and hope for better districts from “special masters” appointed by the court. Not that they don’t like the old districts, but it would be unconstitutional to use them a decade after the last Census from which they are legally derived.

The California Supreme Court has already rejected a desperate legal argument that the Citizens Commission districts are unconstitutional.

Today it refused to allow the appointment of special masters, i.e., a team of experts, to draw new temporary districts for next year’s election. Instead it ordered opponents and defenders of the new districts to present briefs to and fro in a period beginning five days from now and ending on December 22nd.

It’s all very expedited because the Supreme Court plans to hear oral arguments in the first half of next month and issue an opinion, perhaps, by the end of January.

Now bear in mind that this would not give anyone much time to draw entirely new districts, especially with any credible semblance of public input, of which the Citizens Commission had a great deal. Candidates have to be allowed ample time to determine where they’re running and to make preparations to do so.

The longer this goes on, the likelier it is that the Citizens Commission districts, which have already been held to be constitutional, will be the districts next year even if the referendum finally qualifies for the November ballot.

Of course, had the opponents been able to gather a truly massive number of signatures, this would not be in such doubt. But they were not, even with millions in contributions from an insurance industry honcho.

As what looks increasingly like a last stand for the state Republican Party as we have come to know it, it’s not a very good show.

** NEW POLL: RECORD NUMBERS SAY MOST MEMBERS OF CONGRESS DO NOT DESERVE RE-ELECTION. A new Gallup Poll survey shows a record high of voters saying that most members of Congress do not deserve to be re-elected.

A record, that is, in the 19 years during which the polling organization has asked that question.

And, of course, there is a record low of those saying that most members are deserving of re-election.

The ratio is more than 3 to 1, an index of the incredible level of frustration felt by the electorate.

However, and this is a very big “however,” a majority of voters say that their own member of Congress is deserving of re-election.

Actually, it’s quite a sizable majority.

And yet … the dissatisfaction with Congress is higher than it was right before the Republicans won control of the House last November.

Which indicates that dynamics are in place for a flip back, with good campaigning.

About three-quarters of registered voters (76%) say most members of Congress do not deserve re-election, the highest such percentage Gallup has measured in its 19-year history of asking this question. The 20% who say most members deserve to be re-elected is also a record low, by one percentage point. …

The trends on this measure have been progressively more negative since 2004. Voters were also more negative than positive in response to this measure through most of the early 1990s, but at least half of voters said most members deserved to be re-elected in Gallup polls conducted between 1998 and 2004. …

>>>>>>LIVE VIDEO NETCAST

At 10:30 AM Pacific, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing. The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.

** LIVE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.

With massive geopolitical events swirling and the 2012 presidential race unfolding, the White House is increasingly a pivot point for the day’s events. Live streaming of key presidential events is now available as a matter of course here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.

NWN will continue to present other live netcasts in full streaming mode, as it did with the Ronald Reagan Centennial events from the Reagan Library, as they emerge and are technically available and as significance dictates.

This anti-Newt Gingrich attack ad from the Romney-affiliated “super-PAC” run by his 2008 campaign aides was “inadvertently” published online late yesterday and is said to be a work in progress.

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

Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.

He has no scheduled public events.

At 10:30 AM Pacific, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing in the James S. Brady Briefing Room.

The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes.

Newt Gingrich continues his surge in the Republican presidential race. The contenders hold a big debate Saturday night in Des Moines, with another coming next Thursday in Sioux City, Iowa.

Gingrich has a big lead in another new Republican presidential poll, this one by Fox News, with 36% to Mitt Romney’s 23%. Ron Paul is a distant third at 12%, with no one else in double digits.

Gingrich brushed aside attacks leveled yesterday by Romney surrogates led by former White House chief of staff and New Hampshire Governor John Sununu.

Romney has very little time in which to pull Gingrich down, without doing himself serious damage as well. He may have to let Gingrich win Iowa and hope to rebound in New Hampshire. Or hope that Ron Paul wins in Iowa. But he’s upped the ante by playing so heavily in Iowa.

For Romney, of course, is not sitting back. His closely aligned super-PAC, Restore Our Future, launched a $3.1 million ad buy in Iowa yesterday, of which only a quarter is actually paid for.

The initial spot, as discussed here yesterday, is positive for Romney, but the attack ad above, or some edited version of it — perhaps to avoid the hypocrisy of hitting Gingrich for criticizing the Paul Ryan budget plan which Romney himself was averse to supporting when it came out — is likely in the pipeline.

Super-PACs are the latest scam allowing near unlimited spending and contributions in politics, with only the fig leaf of supposed lack of coordination separating such an entity and the official campaign.

While the super-PAC ad is all about Romney the job creator — which is how he will spin his extraordinarily lucrative background as a leveraged buyout artist — and the perils of four more years of Obama, the new official campaign ad, as discussed and shown on Wednesday presents Romney as a superior human being. It’s an intended contrast with Gingrich’s apparently more messy personal life.

That’s also running heavily in Iowa. I don’t think Romney likes being this exposed as a competitor in Iowa, where he has little chance of winning, but that’s the situation in which he finds himself.

Some promising news comes from Brussels, where European Union leaders worked until early this morning to try once again to quell the Eurozone crisis.

France and Germany cobbled together a plan, with most nations agreeing to implement austerity programs and new financial regulations, with a major infusion of funds from the International Monetary Fund.

But Britain balked, with Prime Minister David Cameron against new regulations on the City of London, the UK’s equivalent of Wall Street.

There were new splits to unity in the European Union Friday as 26 members agreed to an ambitious new, tighter treaty for greater union, but Britain and a few others said no.

So this is a treaty of most of the European Union outside the fundamental treaty establishing the Eurozone.

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

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

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

** NEWTONIAN MOTION: IN IOWA, A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN FOUR WEEKS. Newt Gingrich. Iowa caucuses. To say it seemed an unlikely prospect that the candidate whose staff famously quit because of disorganization would have what looks like a commanding lead in a state that supposedly requires a premium in organization would be gross understatement.

That’s a big problem for Romney. And it’s a further big opportunity for Gingrich, who has taken to posing in front of Christmas trees and playing jovial Uncle Newt as the star of gauzy TV advertising invoking the Norman Rockwell greatness of America’s yesteryear. … From my December 6th column.

** JERRY BROWN AND THE 2012 INITIATIVE WARS. Governor Jerry Brown is in the midst of some major moves this month with regard to California’s chronically troubled finances, all playing out against the backdrop of next year’s likely major ballot initiative wars.

With regard to the fateful 1999 expansion of public pension benefits, premised on an ever-rising stock market rather than actual contributions, said Brown: “I was incredulous at the time, and I’m still incredulous.” … From my December 3rd feature.

** ALTERNEWT: GINGRICH “ALTERNATE HISTORY” NOVELS REVEAL MUCH ON PRESENT POLITICS. … From my December 1st essay.

** A SUBLIME AND RIDICULOUS DAY: MARS MISSION AND AFPAK DEBACLE. … From my November 28th essay.

** SOUND AND FURY: THE UTTERLY UNSURPRISING “SUPER-COMMITTEE” FLOP. … From my November 22nd essay.

** DARWINIAN: OBAMA GOES POST-IRAQ IN OZ, REPUBLICANS RACE TO THE PAST. … From my November 21st essay.

** ALI, FRAZIER, JACKSON, STALLONE: OF IMAGE, RACE, POLITICS, AND MYTH. … From my November 16th essay.

** VETERANS DAY IN A FRACTURED AMERICA. … From my November 12th essay.

** RECALLING JOE FRAZIER: AN APPRECIATION, AND A NOTE OF HORROR. … From my November 10th essay.

** OCUPADO. … From my November 4th 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 $98 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $64 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down $16 from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.

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

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, unlikely allies, have formed a partnership some have dubbed “Merkozy” in seeking to save the Eurozone.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … NEWTONIAN MOTION: ACTION BEGETS REACTION.

** QUICK HITS. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are pushing plans for Eurozone-wide austerity measures and financial regulations, the latter of which is being opposed by Britain, in a bid to save the Euro financial experiment at a European Union summit in Brussels. … Newt Gingrich has a big lead in another new Republican presidential poll, this one by Fox News, with 36% to Mitt Romney’s 23%. Ron Paul is a distant third at 12%, with no one else in double digits. … Gingrich brushed aside attacks leveled earlier in the day by Romney surrogates led by former White House chief of staff and New Hampshire Governor John Sununu. … Romney has very little time in which to pull Gingrich down, without doing himself serious damage as well. He may have to let Gingrich win Iowa and hope to rebound in New Hampshire, but he’s upped the ante by playing so heavily in Iowa. … Meanwhile, the payroll tax cut extension was voted down late today for a second time in the U.S. Senate. But the bill has to be passed or it could be calamitous for Republicans, so the question is what, if anything, they get in exchange for passage.

** JERRY-RIGGING: BROWN ORDERS BUDGET REFORMS AND TEES UP FUTURE TRIGGER CUTS IF HIS REVENUE INITIATIVE FAILS AS RIGHT-WING INITIATIVES MOVE FORWARD. Governor Jerry Brown today issued a sweeping executive order directing the California Department of Finance “to incorporate common sense program-evaluation methods into the budgeting process, in order to fund programs based on their necessity and effectiveness. The Order’s goal is to cut costs and increase efficiency in this and future year state budgets.”

Included in Brown’s executive order are zero-based budgeting, performance measures, strategic planning, audits, cost-benefit analyses, and program reviews.

When Brown vetoed a budgetary reform bill in October, he promised something along these lines, though many did not expect something sweeping.

In an interview with Bloomberg News, Brown said that he would seek more automatic budget cuts if his November 2012 initiative to raise $7 billion a year in increased taxes on the wealthy and on a half-cent sales tax increase were to fail.

Brown said he’ll include projected revenue from the tax increase in the budget he’ll propose next month for the fiscal year that begins July 1, even though voters won’t be able to decide on the higher levies until November. That means if voters say no, it would blow a bigger hole in a budget already facing a $13 billion deficit. Automatic trigger cuts would be needed to eliminate that shortfall, Brown said.

“We’re going balance the budget,” Brown said in an interview in Los Angeles Dec. 6. “We’ll propose cuts and the taxes, and if the taxes don’t materialize, I will propose we have trigger cuts that go into effect immediately.”

Brown said that Republican legislators who opposed his tax extensions earlier this year are “losing touch with the majority of the people.”

He attributed this to the powerful Tea Party influence in the Republican Party, saying of GOP legislators that “Even when we talk to them privately, they’d like to invest in our schools but they’re scared to death of a few of the more extreme elements.”

Meanwhile, state Controller John Chiang announced today that, for the first time in months California’s revenues ran ahead of the optimistic projections contained in the state budget enacted at the end of June. By nearly a half-billion dollars. That means the state is only $1 billion short of revenue projections in the first five months of the fiscal year.

However, spending is running nearly $2 billion higher than anticipated.

Brown and state finance officials are to make an assessment next week about triggered cuts in the current state budget.

Meanwhile, the initiative action continues to heat up.

On Monday, when I was on Warren Olney’s Which Way LA radio show discussing the Brown governorship and California’s crisis with Olney, USC Unruh Institute of Politics director Dan Schnur, and conservative advocate Joel Fox, Fox announced that he and two other professional anti-tax advocates would file a state spending limit initiative on Tuesday in response to Brown’s revenue initiative.

They did just that, and it would hamstring efforts to use any new revenues to make up for looming budget deficits, putting the money toward debt repayment. Did Fox have any ideas on how to solve the chronic budget crisis, aside from his proposal that would make it worse? That would be no.

Aside from the usual boilerplate about getting more revenues by growing the economy through lowering taxes and casting off regulations.

It remains to be seen how this initiative, sponsored by the Fox’s Small Business Action Committee (which fronted anonymous big business contributions last year in advertising against Brown), the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, and the California Taxpayers Association actually does in getting off the ground.

Conservative interests have succeeded in qualifying the latest version of a “paycheck protection” initiative designed to make it harder for public employee unions to raise funds from their members through an automatic payroll deduction.

Previous efforts have failed, but this one might do better, as it has more even-handed language seeming to restrict corporate funding of campaigns. In reality, however, corporations would be able to spend at will on so-called independent expenditure campaigns to attain the same ends.

** THE CALENDAR.

The full Primary and Caucus Calendar for 2012:

January 3, 2012
Iowa (caucus)

January 10, 2012
New Hampshire (primary)

January 21, 2012
South Carolina (primary)

January 31, 2012
Florida (primary)

February 4, 2012
Nevada (caucus)

February 4–11, 2012
Maine (caucus)

February 7, 2012
Colorado (caucus)
Minnesota (caucus)
Missouri (primary)

February 28, 2012
Arizona (primary)
Michigan (primary)

March 3, 2012
Washington (caucus)

March 6, 2012
SUPER TUESDAY
Alaska (caucus)
Georgia (primary)
Idaho (caucus)
Massachusetts (primary)
North Dakota (caucus)
Ohio (primary)
Oklahoma (primary)
Tennessee (primary)
Texas (primary)
Vermont (primary)
Virginia (primary)

March 6-10, 2012
Wyoming (caucus)

March 10, 2012
Kansas (caucus)
U.S. Virgin Islands (caucus)

March 13, 2012
Alabama (primary)
Hawaii (caucus)
Mississippi (primary)

March 17, 2012
Missouri (GOP caucus)

March 20, 2012
Illinois (primary)

March 24, 2012
Louisiana (primary)

April 3, 2012
District of Columbia (primary)
Maryland (primary)
Wisconsin (primary)

April 24, 2012
Connecticut (primary)
Delaware (primary)
New York (primary)
Pennsylvania (primary)
Rhode Island (primary)

May 8, 2012
Indiana (primary)
North Carolina (primary)
West Virginia (primary)

May 15, 2012
Nebraska (primary)
Oregon (primary)

May 22, 2012
Arkansas (primary)
Kentucky (primary)

June 5, 2012
California (primary)
Montana (primary)
New Jersey (primary)
New Mexico (primary)
South Dakota (primary)

June 26, 2012
Utah (primary)

** NEW POLL: REPUBLICAN ENTHUSIASM FOR 2012 ELECTIONS TAKES A BIG DROP. Earlier this year, Republicans had a big edge over Democrats in enthusiasm for the 2012 presidential election and attendant congressional and other races.

But that edge has dropped very significantly.

According to a new Gallup Poll, Republicans who say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting has declined from 58% to 49%.

This coincides with the widespread exposure their presidential field has gained through a raft of debates.

Democrats are no more or less enthusiastic, with 44% describing themselves as more enthusiastic than usual.

Expect Democratic enthusiasm to go up when the choice narrows to Barack Obama or Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney, by far the two most likely GOP nominees.

Obama can cast Gingrich as a Washington influence peddler, and Romney as as Wall Street tool, neither of which is a good thing to be.

These results, from a Nov. 28-Dec.1 Gallup survey, suggest a more even playing field regarding enthusiasm about voting than was the case just two months ago.

Democrats enjoyed a significant enthusiasm advantage in 2008, for example, as they focused on returning a Democrat to the White House after eight years of Republican control. Similarly, Republicans held the edge on this measure in two surveys in early 2000 — an election that followed eight years of Democratic control of the White House. In 2004, as Republican George W. Bush sought re-election, the advantage in enthusiasm among Democrats and Republicans fluctuated during the year, but in Gallup’s final poll in mid-October of that year, enthusiasm was essentially equal.

President Obama in his remarks at Osawatomie High School in Osawatomie, Kansas, site of Teddy Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism” speech a century ago, laid out what looks like his re-election campaign themes.

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

Obama received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.

He then held a meeting with House Democratic Leadership in the Oval Office.

At 10: 50 AM Pacific, Obama is interviewed by regional television outlets in the Map Room.

Obama will appear on WISH Indianapolis, KSNV in Las Vegas, WREG in Memphis, and WCHS in Portland.

At 3 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at the Hanukkah Reception in the Grand Foyer.

The Obama team is reacting to the emergence of Newt Gingrich as the new Republican presidential frontrunner by pointing to him as the originator of Congressional gridlock.

That’s because Gingrich, with his Contract With America in 1994, disrupted the New Deal coalition that had controlled the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. Since then, Republicans have been and out of power in the House.

Romney, of course, is not sitting back. His closely aligned super-PAC, Restore Our Future, is launching a $3.1 million ad buy in Iowa today.

Super-PACs are the latest scam allowing near unlimited spending and contributions in politics, with only the fig leaf of supposed lack of coordination separating such an entity and the official campaign.

While the super-PAC ad is all about Romney the job creator — which is how he will spin his extraordinarily lucrative background as a leveraged buyout artist — and the perils of four more years of Obama, the new official campaign ad, as discussed and shown yesterday presents Romney as a superior human being. It’s an intended contrast with Gingrich’s apparently more messy personal life. I say apparently because I have no idea what Romney’s personal life is really like, though he has been married for more than 40 years.

Romney may not think he can win Iowa, though he has more organization there than Gingrich, but he certainly doesn’t want to slip to third, where he is in a few polls, as he recently upped the ante there by announcing he would compete after months of keeping the first-in-the-nation contest at arm’s length.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie did not, as rumored, emerge as Romney’s attack dog against Gingrich yesterday in Iowa.

But his campaign did unveil two anti-Gingrich attack dogs this morning, former New Hampshire Governor and George H.W. Bush chief of staff John Sununu and former Missouri Senator Jim Talent, who served with Gingrich in the House. I wasn’t particularly impressed by either their identities or what they had to say.

Yesterday Gingrich one-upped his rivals at the gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition, very closely aligned with Israel’s very conservative current government, in Washington, where Mitt Romney and others saber-rattled about war with Iran, by saying he would ask ex-UN Ambassador and noted neocon hawk John Bolton to be secretary of state. Not as risky as it sounds, as Bolton would never be confirmed by the Senate.

Gingrich also said he would move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, an issue I remember very well from presidential politics going back to the ’80s.

Meanwhile, Iran today displayed the US drone surveillance aircraft it took down over its airspace. It’s loaded with secret tech, which will undoubtedly be shared now with China and Russia, in exchange for their continued support, naturally.

While that will be good news in Moscow, continued protests against the Putin-Medvedv government, and Sunday’s parliamentary vote in which the ruling United Russia Party barely won a majority — an outcome in hot dispute — are not welcome in the Kremlin.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who intends to return to the presidency in the March national elections, today accused Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of inciting the protests for questioning the honesty and fairness of the elections.

More frosty news comes from Brussels, where European Union leaders are gathering to try once again to quell the Eurozone crisis.

The European Central Bank has just lowered interest rates, but has not provided more funds for liquidity. A major financial failure in Europe would have a chain reaction effect on the US economy.

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

The deadline for US troops to withdraw from Iraq is little more than three weeks away, and the military is closing down bases across the country. It has now closed down all but five of what were once more than 500 bases.

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

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

At 7 PM, Brown and First Lady/Special Counsel Anne Gust Brown will host the 2011 California Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, in which ten inductees will be honored.

The honorees include Moon-walking astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the Beach Boys, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, community activist Father Gregory Boyle, entrepreneurs and philanthropists Doris and Donald Fisher, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, disability rights advocate and former Brown Cabinet member Ed Roberts, Carlos Santana, novelist Amy Tan and state Supreme Court Justice Roger Traynor.

Previous inductees Clint Eastwood and Chuck Yeager, the man who broke the sound barrier, will also be on hand, as will special guest Rob Lowe, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s old friend and ally, who serves as spokesman for Visit California.

The event will be emceed by Sacramento Mayor and former NBA All-Star Kevin Johnson and TV personality Lisa Ling.

The event this year will be held at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium to accommodate the public.

It will also be webcast on www.gov.ca.gov.

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

** NEWTONIAN MOTION: IN IOWA, A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN FOUR WEEKS. Newt Gingrich. Iowa caucuses. To say it seemed an unlikely prospect that the candidate whose staff famously quit because of disorganization would have what looks like a commanding lead in a state that supposedly requires a premium in organization would be gross understatement.

That’s a big problem for Romney. And it’s a further big opportunity for Gingrich, who has taken to posing in front of Christmas trees and playing jovial Uncle Newt as the star of gauzy TV advertising invoking the Norman Rockwell greatness of America’s yesteryear. … From my December 6th column.

** JERRY BROWN AND THE 2012 INITIATIVE WARS. Governor Jerry Brown is in the midst of some major moves this month with regard to California’s chronically troubled finances, all playing out against the backdrop of next year’s likely major ballot initiative wars.

With regard to the fateful 1999 expansion of public pension benefits, premised on an ever-rising stock market rather than actual contributions, said Brown: “I was incredulous at the time, and I’m still incredulous.” … From my December 3rd feature.

** ALTERNEWT: GINGRICH “ALTERNATE HISTORY” NOVELS REVEAL MUCH ON PRESENT POLITICS. … From my December 1st essay.

** A SUBLIME AND RIDICULOUS DAY: MARS MISSION AND AFPAK DEBACLE. … From my November 28th essay.

** SOUND AND FURY: THE UTTERLY UNSURPRISING “SUPER-COMMITTEE” FLOP. … From my November 22nd essay.

** DARWINIAN: OBAMA GOES POST-IRAQ IN OZ, REPUBLICANS RACE TO THE PAST. … From my November 21st essay.

** ALI, FRAZIER, JACKSON, STALLONE: OF IMAGE, RACE, POLITICS, AND MYTH. … From my November 16th essay.

** VETERANS DAY IN A FRACTURED AMERICA. … From my November 12th essay.

** RECALLING JOE FRAZIER: AN APPRECIATION, AND A NOTE OF HORROR. … From my November 10th essay.

** OCUPADO. … From my November 4th 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 $99 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $65 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down $15 from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.

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

The Romney reaction to a Newt Gingrich ascendancy? He’s a better person, family man, married to the same woman for over 40 years, worked with the same company for decades, etc., as seen in Romney’s brand new ad. Probably to be expected of a former bishop in the Mormon Church.

** QUICK HITS. Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich, one-upping his rivals at today’s gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition, very closely aligned with Israel’s very conservative current government, in Washington, where Mitt Romney and others saber-rattled about war with Iran, said he would ask ex-UN Ambassador and noted neocon hawk John Bolton to be secretary of state. Not as risky as it sounds, as Bolton would never be confirmed by the Senate. … Gingrich also said he would move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, an issue I remember very well from presidential politics going back to the ’80s. Disclosure: I never thought it was a good idea. … Romney is struggling to deal with Gingrich’s ascendancy, with the light dawning that Gingrich won’t fall quickly of his own accord and won’t be taken down by his old colleagues, plenty of whom disliked how he ran things as speaker of the House. You see an emerging response in the new TV ad above, which does not mention Gingrich’s far less orderly life. …

** NEWTMENTUM CONTINUES! GINGRICH DOMINANT IN IOWA, SOUTH CAROLINA, FLORIDA, AND CLOSING ON ROMNEY IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.

New CNN/Time polls of early contest states show a continuing surge for Newt Gingrich. He’s even threatening Mitt Romney in his supposed redoubt of New Hampshire, where the former Massachusetts governor has a home and has campaigned constantly for the past five years.

Iowa: Gingrich 33-20 over Romney.

New Hampshire: Romney 35-26 over Gingrich.

South Carolina: Gingrich 43-20 over Romney.

Florida: Gingrich 48-25 over Romney.

Nevada, unfortunately, is turning into a non-factor. Bad for the West, but especially bad for Romney, who expects to do well in the Silver State with its large Mormon population.

What’s Romney’s problem? He never really moves outside the one-fifth to one-quarter I’ve been noting for months.

And his other problem is an opponent who knows a lot more than he does, is articulate, has real national and geopolitical experience, no matter how controversial it may be, AND is a pugnacious and practiced partisan fighter.

The only other candidate who cracks double digits is Ron Paul, and he only does that in Iowa and New Hampshire.

“In some states, Gingrich scores better among men, or older voters, or born-again Christians, but in other states those advantages disappear. But in each of the four states surveyed, Gingrich has a commanding lead among tea party supporters – by roughly 40 points in the two southern states and by smaller amounts in Iowa and New Hampshire,” adds Holland. “Among likely GOP primary voters who are neutral toward the tea party or oppose it, Gingrich manages no better than a tie in most of those states and loses that group by 20 points to Romney in New Hampshire.”

Rod Blagojevich, the ousted Illinois governor whose three-year battle against political corruption charges became a national spectacle, was sentenced to 14 years in prison today.

** NEW SURVEY: CONSUMER SPENDING UP SO FAR IN NOVEMBER. A new Gallup Poll survey indicates that there is some buoyancy in a mostly flat economy on top of the improved unemployment figures from last week.

Overall consumer spending is up very slightly from a month ago, and significantly from a year ago.

But that’s mainly due to higher spending in the South, from a lower base.

Fears of a double-dip plunge in economic output have receded.

But since we are now in a globalized system, upsets elsewhere, such as in the Eurozone, which will hold yet another summit in Brussels on Friday to try to solve the ongoing crisis, can have a devastating impact.

Despite political and economic chaos in Europe, a fragile U.S. economy, and general lack of economic confidence, it appears Americans are in more of a spending mood this year than in recent holiday seasons. To the extent consumers actually spend more this Christmas, it would be good news for the nation’s retailers and the U.S. economy as a whole.

>>>>>>LIVE VIDEO NETCAST

At 12 noon Pacific, President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper speak to the press. The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes. You can click on the pause button to mute the audio.

** 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.

Today is the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which ushered America into World War II and ended with the US as one of the world’s preeminent powers. The attack occurred at 7:55 AM Hawaiian time, 9:55 AM Pacific time.

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

Obama received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.

He and Vice President Joe Biden then met with Senate Democratic Leadership in the Oval Office.

At 11:15 AM Pacific, Obama holds a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada in the Oval Office.

At 12 noon Pacific, Obama and Prime Minister Harper of Canada deliver statements in the South Court Auditorium.

The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes.

At 1:35 PM Pacific, Obama attends a fundraiser at the Jefferson Hotel.

Today is the 70th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, and oddly Obama is not personally commemorating the occasion, though he issued a proclamation.

That’s been left to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and top military leaders, who have issued various statements and are making appearances.

The event, of course, utterly transformed America. When the Japanese attack came in the early morning of Hawaii, the US was a struggling young giant, still beset by the aftereffects of the Great Depression and possessed of an inherent isolationism even as its interests became more internationalist.

By the end of World War II, the US was the world’s leading superpower.

California in particular was transformed by the events set in motion at Pearl Harbor. For a great many service members, the last sight they saw of home as they embarked on a brutal war in the Pacific was that of the Golden Gate Bridge disappearing behind them over the horizon.

Vast training centers, bases, and industrial organizations were developed in California to sustain the war effort, and California grew as a result.

Obama’s speech yesterday in Ottawatomie, Kansas, site of Teddy Roosevelt’s famed “New Nationalism” speech a century ago, in which TR sounded similar themes about a square deal and the need to rein in private wealth interests, is getting strong reviews from the left and center for its strength. Naturally, the Drudge Report and others are trying to turn Obama’s obvious joke about being back in Texas into a “gaffe” to distract from the substance. No wonder politics is so inane in this country.

Former Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney appeared today before the Republican Jewish Coalition to label Obama “an appeaser” for failing to back the conservative Israeli government in all aspects. And for supporting what he calls an “entitlement economy” as distinguished from the “merit economy” Romney says he’s for.

What Romney means by that is Obama is criticizing Wall Street.

There’s speculation that Romney has dispatched New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to Iowa today to attack surging frontrunner Newt Gingrich. I don’t know that Christie has the standing to do that.

Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh has taken to defending Gingrich.

Straight-shooting Jon Huntsman, trailing by a huge margin and perhaps overestimating a recent George Will column praising him as the great new conservative hope — which was actually an excuse for Will to attack his longtime bete noire Newt Gingrich — yesterday backtracked on his previous position on climate change, saying he’s not sure what caused it and so we shouldn’t do anything about it.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon today voiced major pessimism about the prospects of a comprehensive deal on greenhouse gas emissions at the U.N. Conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa.

Huntsman blasted the party over the summer for becoming “the anti-science party,” citing its dominant greenhouse denialism. As governor of Utah, he joined with former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Western Climate Initiative to battle greenhouse gases.

Today he raised the prospect of a US attack on Iran if the errant Islamic republic doesn’t back off its nuclear program.

Romney did that again as well with the pro-Israel group. Fine. I don’t like Iran. Let’s attack it. But first, let’s explain how that can work without being the ultimate backfire.

Naturally, Romney, who doesn’t know much about these matters, never says.

While Romney and Huntsman and the others struggle to find fresh traction, some more polls have come out showing Newt Gingrich in a strong position with regard to Mitt Romney and the rest of the GOP field, with big leads in Colorado and North Carolina.

The big UN climate change summit in South Africa continues to be stalled, as I wrote in the Monday Morning Quarterback.

China insists on being treated in the same category as a poor African nation, and the US — which is singular in the advanced industrial world in having widespread skepticism about the existence of climate change and its human agency — is in no position to commit to firm cuts.

The Muslim Brotherhood claims further major gains today in Egypt’s complex and unfolding parliamentary elections.

After winning some 40% of the seats allocated to parties in last week’s vote, the group’s political arm today announced that it has won another two-thirds of seats allocated to individual candidates.

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

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

Police in San Francisco cleared the Occupy SF protest site at a downtown plaza early Wednesday, taking down more than 100 tents and making dozens of arrests as they dismantled the nearly two-month-old site.

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

At 4:30 PM, Governor Jerry Brown and First Lady/Special Counsel Anne Gust Brown will join Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson to host the 80th Annual Capitol Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on the West Steps of the State Capitol.

The tree will be decorated with 900 hand-crafted ornaments created by children and adults with developmental disabilities who receive services and support from the state’s development centers and 21 nonprofit regional centers. It will be illuminated by 10,000 ultra-low wattage LED lights.

Brown will be joined by 6-year old Mikayla Jones of Visalia to assist him in lighting the Capitol Christmas Tree.

There will also be various musical performances.

The event will be webcast on www.gov.ca.gov.

Brown got some interesting news from the latest Field Poll, which indicates strong support for his public pension reform proposal.

Intriguingly, however, only 41% of California voters said they think that public pensions are too generous, with a majority saying they’re fine or should be increased.

Brown this morning issued a statement proclaiming today Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in California:

Seventy years ago today, the Imperial Japanese Navy mounted a surprise attack on our nation’s fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii. This assault opened the struggle for control of the Pacific that would claim the lives of over 100,000 Americans. In a speech to Congress the following day, President Roosevelt gave the seventh of December, 1941, its immortal name: “a date which will live in infamy.”

Today, while still deploring the treachery of one country attacking another without provocation, we remember with awe the valor of those who defended Pearl Harbor, and the many more who answered their country’s call in the ensuing mobilization. The 2,402 members of the armed forces who gave their lives that day will always live in our hearts as true American heroes.

NOW THEREFORE I, EDMUND G. BROWN JR., Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim December 7, 2011, as “Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.”

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

** NEWTONIAN MOTION: IN IOWA, A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN FOUR WEEKS. Newt Gingrich. Iowa caucuses. To say it seemed an unlikely prospect that the candidate whose staff famously quit because of disorganization would have what looks like a commanding lead in a state that supposedly requires a premium in organization would be gross understatement.

That’s a big problem for Romney. And it’s a further big opportunity for Gingrich, who has taken to posing in front of Christmas trees and playing jovial Uncle Newt as the star of gauzy TV advertising invoking the Norman Rockwell greatness of America’s yesteryear. … From my December 6th column.

** JERRY BROWN AND THE 2012 INITIATIVE WARS. Governor Jerry Brown is in the midst of some major moves this month with regard to California’s chronically troubled finances, all playing out against the backdrop of next year’s likely major ballot initiative wars.

With regard to the fateful 1999 expansion of public pension benefits, premised on an ever-rising stock market rather than actual contributions, said Brown: “I was incredulous at the time, and I’m still incredulous.” … From my December 3rd feature.

** ALTERNEWT: GINGRICH “ALTERNATE HISTORY” NOVELS REVEAL MUCH ON PRESENT POLITICS. … From my December 1st essay.

** A SUBLIME AND RIDICULOUS DAY: MARS MISSION AND AFPAK DEBACLE. … From my November 28th essay.

** SOUND AND FURY: THE UTTERLY UNSURPRISING “SUPER-COMMITTEE” FLOP. … From my November 22nd essay.

** DARWINIAN: OBAMA GOES POST-IRAQ IN OZ, REPUBLICANS RACE TO THE PAST. … From my November 21st essay.

** ALI, FRAZIER, JACKSON, STALLONE: OF IMAGE, RACE, POLITICS, AND MYTH. … From my November 16th essay.

** VETERANS DAY IN A FRACTURED AMERICA. … From my November 12th essay.

** RECALLING JOE FRAZIER: AN APPRECIATION, AND A NOTE OF HORROR. … From my November 10th essay.

** OCUPADO. … From my November 4th 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 $100 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $66 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down $14 from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.

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

President Barack Obama is taking aim at the nation’s income and wealth disparities, declaring that the middle class faces a “make or break moment.” He told a Kansas audience in the town where Teddy Roosevelt unveiled his “New Nationalism” progressivism a century ago that Republicans embrace a discredited “you’re-on-your own” style of economics.

** QUICK HITS. Straight-shooting Jon Huntsman, trailing by a huge margin and perhaps overestimating a recent George Will column praising him as the great new conservative hope — which was actually an excuse for Will to attack his longtime bete noire Newt Gingrich — today backtracked on his previous position on climate change, saying he’s not sure what caused it and so we shouldn’t do anything about it. … Some more polls have come out since the morning showing Newt Gingrich in a strong position with regard to Mitt Romney and the rest of the GOP field, with big leads in Colorado and North Carolina. … President Barack Obama’s speech in Ottawatomie, Kansas, site of Teddy Roosevelt’s famed “New Nationalism” speech a century ago, is getting strong reviews from the left and center for its strength. Naturally, the Drudge Report and others are trying to turn Obama’s obvious joke about being back in Texas into a “gaffe” to distract from the substance. No wonder politics is so inane in this country. … California Attorney General Kamala Harris and Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto today announced a joint investigation into mortgage abuses by big banks. The Silver State and the Golden State have the highest foreclosure rates in America, with Nevada in the clear lead. … Yesterday when I was on the Which Way LA radio show discussing the Brown governorship and California’s crisis, conservative Joel Fox announced that he and two other professional anti-tax advocates would file a state spending limit initiative today in response to Brown’s revenue initiative. They did, and it would hamstring efforts to use any new revenues to make up for looming budget deficits, putting the money toward debt repayment. Did Fox have any ideas on how to solve the chronic budget crisis, aside from his proposal that would make it worse? That would be no. More to follow. …

** NEWTONIAN MOTION: IN IOWA, A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN FOUR WEEKS. Newt Gingrich. Iowa caucuses. To say it seemed an unlikely prospect that the candidate whose staff famously quit because of disorganization would have what looks like a commanding lead in a state that supposedly requires a premium in organization would be gross understatement.

That’s a big problem for Romney. And it’s a further big opportunity for Gingrich, who has taken to posing in front of Christmas trees and playing jovial Uncle Newt as the star of gauzy TV advertising invoking the Norman Rockwell greatness of America’s yesteryear. …

From my new column.

** NEW POLL: GINGRICH TAKES BIG LEAD OVER ROMNEY IN REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL RACE. Just like that, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has moved into a commanding lead over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the longtime putative frontrunner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

In the new Gallup Poll, it’s Gingrich 37% and Romney 22%.

Gingrich is at the highest level of any Republican in the Gallup Poll this year. Needless to say, it’s a spectacular comeback which has confounded most expectations.

A month ago, Romney led Gingrich, 22% to 13%.

In mid-November, Gingrich had moved into a dead heat, edging Romney, 22% to 21%.

Notice how static Romney’s support is.

As I’ve been saying for months.

Ron Paul is a distant third at 8%, followed by Rick Perry at 7%, Michele Bachmann at 6%, Rick Santorum at 3%, and Jon Huntsman at 1%.

Herman Cain’s support has mostly, as expected, gone to Gingrich. The ex-speaker’s support is highest among the highest propensity Republican voters.

Gingrich’s support among all Republicans this year dropped to as low as 4% in August. Since then, his support has increased at least marginally in each Gallup poll, with the biggest increase in the current update. Gingrich’s current 37% support is the highest Gallup has measured this year for any candidate, perhaps reflecting the narrowing of the field.

At this point, Gingrich’s primary competitor is Romney, whose support level has generally held remarkably stable in the low 20% range all year, even as other candidates have risen and fallen around him. Gingrich’s strength among Tea Party supporters and conservatives suggests that he may have a turnout advantage in early caucus and primary states if these groups display their usual disproportionate participation. Gingrich’s strength in the South may also bode well for his positioning in the crucial early primary states of South Carolina and Florida, while Romney’s Eastern strength plays to his advantage in New Hampshire.

>>>>>>LIVE VIDEO NETCAST

At 10:55 AM Pacific, President Barack Obama speaks at Osawatomie High School in Osawatomie, Kansas. The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.

** LIVE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.

With massive geopolitical events swirling and the 2012 presidential race unfolding, the White House is increasingly a pivot point for the day’s events. Live streaming of key presidential events is now available as a matter of course here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.

NWN will continue to present other live netcasts in full streaming mode, as it did with the Ronald Reagan Centennial events from the Reagan Library, as they emerge and are technically available and as significance dictates.

An unprecedented wave of violence against Shiite worshippers marking a holy day in Afghanistan has killed more than 50 people. In Iraq, five bomb attacks have struck Shiite pilgrims killing at least 21 people.

** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington, Missouri, and Kansas.

Obama received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.

He then flew on Air Force One to Kansas City, Missouri.

At 9:25 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in Kansas City, Missouri.

At 10:55 AM Pacific, President Barack Obama speaks at Osawatomie High School in Osawatomie, Kansas.

The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes.

At 1:25 PM Pacific, Obama departs Kansas City, Missouri on Air Force One en route Joint Base Andrews.

At 3:35 PM Pacific, Obama arrives Joint Base Andrews, where he boards Marine One.

At 3:50 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has a big lead in a brand new Washington Post/ABC News poll for the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses, now only four weeks away. It’s Gingrich 33%, Ron Paul 18%, Mitt Romney 18%, Rick Perry 11%, Michele Bachmann 8%, Rick Santorum (who has spent more time in Iowa) 7%, and Jon Huntsman (who is not campaigning there) 2%.

Gingrich has a big edge over Romney in Iowa on presidential credentials and even on Romney’s signature issue of the economy.

This comes after two other Iowa polls, Des Moines Register and NBC News, showed Gingrich with significant but smaller leads in the first-in-the-nation contest.

In other polling, Gingrich has a big lead in South Carolina and is closing on Romney in his stronghold of New Hampshire.

Romney undertook efforts unprecedented in Massachusetts history to wipe internal records of his governorship, as this Reuters investigation reveals.

Romney’s campaign has been touting a big impending endorsement for days in its bid to beat Newt Gingrich. Here it is: Former Vice President Dan Quale, er, Quayle. No comment needed.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi inadvertently — or was it inadvertent? — helped Gingrich yesterday when she threatened to release a thousand pages of material from the House Ethics Committee investigation of her fellow former speaker back in the ’90s. Thereby enabling Gingrich to get into a fight with one of the Republican base’s most hated figures.

Terrorist attacks have killed over 70 Shiite pilgrims in Afghanistan and Iraq today.

The attacks, for which no one has reportedly claimed credit, come as the big international summit on Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany — lacking lynchpin Pakistan — go nowhere much.

US officials at first claimed that they hadn’t lost that surveillance drone reported downed over Iran a few days ago. Now they not only acknowledge that the Iranians have it, but that it is largely intact. And that it may well yield major technological secrets, which will probably be shared with China and Russia.

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

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

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

At 11 AM, Brown will give remarks at Universal Studios to highlight a special announcement that will bring hundreds of millions of dollars into California’s economy, help create jobs and support our tourism industry.

It’s The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Hopefully Brown picks up a useful wand or two while he’s there.

A new Field Poll has seemingly bad news for Brown’s reworked plan for the California High Spee Rail Authority, with results showing that voters want a re-vote on the initiative they passed in 2008 and would now oppose it.

But as you see, the results are derived from an awfully loaded question:

“Nine billion dollars in state bonds were approved by California voters for the High Speed Rail project in the November 2008 election. At the time, the project’s estimated cost was $43 billion and its targeted completion date was 2020. More current estimates now put its cost at $98 billion and its completion date as 2033. Some think that the state legislature should resubmit the bond package to voters for another public vote next year. Regardless of how you feel about the project, do you favor or oppose the legislature putting the 9 billion dollar state bond package to another public vote in next year’s statewide elections?”

If this was all I knew I would vote no on the project.

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

** JERRY BROWN AND THE 2012 INITIATIVE WARS. Governor Jerry Brown is in the midst of some major moves this month with regard to California’s chronically troubled finances, all playing out against the backdrop of next year’s likely major ballot initiative wars.

With regard to the fateful 1999 expansion of public pension benefits, premised on an ever-rising stock market rather than actual contributions, said Brown: “I was incredulous at the time, and I’m still incredulous.” … From my December 3rd feature.

** ALTERNEWT: GINGRICH “ALTERNATE HISTORY” NOVELS REVEAL MUCH ON PRESENT POLITICS. Never let it be said that Newt Gingrich is not a man of the future. Several of them, in fact. But in his case, those futures lie in the past.

Gingrich has three major alternate history universes, filled with colorful mavericks, technophilia, loathing for bureaucratic norms, and an evident zest for conflict. … From my December 1st essay.

** A SUBLIME AND RIDICULOUS DAY: MARS MISSION AND AFPAK DEBACLE. … From my November 28th essay.

** SOUND AND FURY: THE UTTERLY UNSURPRISING “SUPER-COMMITTEE” FLOP. … From my November 22nd essay.

** DARWINIAN: OBAMA GOES POST-IRAQ IN OZ, REPUBLICANS RACE TO THE PAST. … From my November 21st essay.

** ALI, FRAZIER, JACKSON, STALLONE: OF IMAGE, RACE, POLITICS, AND MYTH. … From my November 16th essay.

** VETERANS DAY IN A FRACTURED AMERICA. … From my November 12th essay.

** RECALLING JOE FRAZIER: AN APPRECIATION, AND A NOTE OF HORROR. … From my November 10th essay.

** OCUPADO. … From my November 4th 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.

NASA scientists have found a planet just like Earth called Kepler-22b. The twin planet is 600 light years away but appears to be the first habitable planet yet found and may contain life.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in three wars in the region, and the Arab awakening underway, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, 2008, crude oil is trading around $101 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $67 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down $13 from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.

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

Campaigning today in New York City, following a fundraiser, new Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich in an appearance at The Union League said comments he made about getting young people to work have been distorted.

** QUICK HITS. Mitt Romney’s campaign has been touting a big impending endorsement for days in its bid to beat Newt Gingrich. Here it is: Former Vice President Dan Quale, er, Quayle. No comment needed. … Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi inadvertently — or was it inadvertent? — helped Gingrich today when she threatened to release a thousand pages of material from the House Ethics Committee investigation of her fellow former speaker back in the ’90s. Thereby enabling Gingrich to get into a fight with one of the Republican base’s most hated figures. … Governor Jerry Brown, expected tonight at the Democratic Governors Association Holiday Party in Beverly Hills, will be on hand tomorrow at Universal Studios in LA for the announcement of a major new investment — The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. … Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger receives the Renewable Energy Leader of the Decade award from the American Council On Renewable Energy tonight in Washington. More to follow.

** JERRY-RIGGING: BROWN ANNOUNCES NOVEMBER 2012 INITIATIVE IN “OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA.” Governor Jerry Brown this afternoon announced the revenue initiative I’ve been discussing for awhile via an open letter to Californians. It’s called “The Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012.”

He also filed the initiative with the Secretary of State’s office. You can view the initiative text here.

Here’s Brown’s open letter:

When I became Governor again—28 years after my last term ended in 1983—California was facing a $26.6 billion budget deficit. It was the result of years of failing to match spending with tax revenues as budget gimmicks instead of honest budgeting became the norm.

In January, I proposed a budget that combined deep cuts with a temporary extension of some existing taxes. It was a balanced approach that would have finally closed our budget gap.

I asked the legislature to enact this plan and to allow you, the people of California, to vote on it. I believed that you had the right to weigh in on this important choice: should we decently fund our schools or lower our taxes? I don’t know how you would have voted, but we will never know. The Republicans refused to provide the four votes needed to put this measure on the ballot.

Forced to act alone, Democrats went ahead and enacted massive cuts and the first honest, on-time budget in a decade. But without the tax extensions, it was simply not possible to eliminate the state’s structural deficit.

The good news is that our financial condition is much better than a year ago. We cut the ongoing budget deficit by more than half, reduced the state’s workforce by about 5,500 positions and cut unnecessary expenses like cell phones and state cars. We actually cut state expenses by over $10 billion. Spending is now at levels not seen since the seventies. Our state’s credit rating has moved from “negative” to “stable,” laying the foundation for job creation and a stronger economic recovery.

Unfortunately, the deep cuts we made came at a huge cost. Schools have been hurt and state funding for our universities has been reduced by 25%. Support for the elderly and the disabled has fallen to where it was in 1983. Our courts suffered debilitating reductions.

The stark truth is that without new tax revenues, we will have no other choice but to make deeper and more damaging cuts to schools, universities, public safety and our courts.

That is why I am filing today an initiative with the Attorney General’s office that would generate nearly $7 billion in dedicated funding to protect education and public safety. I am going directly to the voters because I don’t want to get bogged down in partisan gridlock as happened this year. The stakes are too high.

My proposal is straightforward and fair. It proposes a temporary tax increase on the wealthy, a modest and temporary increase in the sales tax, and guarantees that the new revenues be spent only on education. Here are the details:

Millionaires and high-income earners will pay up to 2% higher income taxes for five years. No family making less than $500,000 a year will see their income taxes rise. In fact, fewer than 2% of California taxpayers will be affected by this increase.

There will be a temporary ½ cent increase in the sales tax. Even with this temporary increase, sales taxes will still be lower than what they were less than six months ago.

This initiative dedicates funding only to education and public safety—not on other programs that we simply cannot afford.

This initiative will not solve all of our fiscal problems. But it will stop further cuts to education and public safety.

I ask you to join with me to get our state back on track.

** NEW POLL: GINGRICH AND ROMNEY BY FAR HIGHEST AS “ACCEPTABLE” REPUBLICAN NOMINEES. A new Gallup Poll survey carries fresh confirmation that the Republican presidential race is presently a two-man race between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, and that Gingrich has the edge.

62% of Republican voters say that Gingrich, who has impressed during the endless debates, is an acceptable nominee.

54% say that of Romney.

Everyone else is well under 50% in terms of acceptability, with Texas Governor Rick Perry doing the best of the rest, at 41% acceptable and 52% unacceptable.

Ironically, Jon Huntsman, who might be the most electable candidate against President Barack Obama, is tied with far right ex-Senator Rick Santorum as the least acceptable, with 28% for Huntsman and 27% for Santorum, as roughly 60% find each unacceptable.

This is the first time Gallup has asked this question in reference to the 2012 election. More than half of Republicans nationwide now see Rick Perry and Herman Cain — both of whom previously led or tied for the lead in Gallup’s measure of positive intensity and in Gallup’s trial-heat ballots — as unacceptable nominees. These data were collected prior to Cain’s Saturday announcement that he was suspending his campaign for the GOP nomination. …

Republicans 55 and older are more likely than younger Republicans to say Gingrich and Romney would be acceptable nominees. Among the older group, 73% say Gingrich would be acceptable, and 62% say Romney would be acceptable. Older Republicans are slightly more positive than younger Republicans about Bachmann, but are less positive than the younger group about Cain, Paul, and Huntsman.

** NEW CALIFORNIA POLL: BROWN JOB APPROVAL STILL UP, VOTERS DON’T LIKE BUDGET CUTS. As I’ve been saying, Governor Jerry Brown’s job approval ratings, while lower than his own and those of his predecessors in the past at this stage, are holding on much better than other politicians in this environment. That’s especially true with regard to other chief executives, catching flak for economic and budget woes.

Brown has a 47% job approval rating, with 36% disapproving in a new Field Poll. The disapproval rate is still lower than billionaire Meg Whitman’s vote last year when she lost in a Brown landslide.

The state legislature, of course, is very unpopular.

While voters like Brown, they don’t like impending budget cuts looming as a result of rosy revenue scenarios not being met.

Absent new revenues, which aren’t coming any time soon unless Republicans end their super-minority blockade, there are no alternatives to further budget cuts. In the longer run, of course, Brown is putting together a big revenue initiative for the November 2012 ballot.

Democrat Jerry Brown assumed the governorship for the second time in January, after serving two
terms in that office during the 1975-82 period. At year’s end, he receives more positive than
negative job ratings from voters, with 47% approving and 36% disapproving.

Voters also express a strong negative reaction to the automatic spending cuts provision included as part of this year’s state budget. That provision could trigger as much as $2 billion in spending reductions to popular programs should, as expected, tax revenues fall short of the estimates made when the budget was approved.

>>>>>>LIVE VIDEO NETCAST

At 10:30 AM Pacific, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing. The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.

SCHEDULE UPDATE: President Barack Obama is now scheduled to make a statement at 10:30 AM Pacific, and he is running late.

** 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.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the new Republican presidential frontrunner thought by many to have no operation, has a good new TV ad going up big in Iowa.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … NEWTONIAN MOTION: IN IOWA, A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN FOUR WEEKS.

MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.

A very consequential week on tap in presidential politics, as the media and political establishments come to grips with the re-emergence of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in his new guise as a Republican presidential frontrunner and President Barack Obama pushes anew on the economy — specifically the soon-to-expire payroll tax cut — and deals with several geopolitical crises.

Meanwhile, in California politics, Governor Jerry Brown will unveil plans developed with the Democratic coalition for a November 2012 revenue initiative. He will also deal with impending trigger cuts of popular programs looming as a result of the state budget agreement.

In polling done before this weekend’s end of the Herman Cain candidacy, Newt Gingrich has shot to the top of two new polls of the first-in-the-nation Iowa presidential caucuses, set for January 3rd, just over four weeks away.

The Des Moines Register Poll, historically the most accurate, has Gingrich out in front with 25%. Ron Paul is next at 18%, followed by Mitt Romney at 16%, Herman Cain 8%, Michele Bachmann 8%, Rick Perry 6%, Rick Santorum 6%, and Jon Huntsman 2%.

Gingrich is also by far the top second choice candidate in Iowa, and I expect Cain, who is an old friend of Gingrich’s from Georgia, to endorse Gingrich.

A new NBC poll also has Gingrich on top in the Hawkeye State, with 26% to Romney’s 18% and Paul’s 17%, with Cain and Perry both at 9%.

I’ll have a lot more on Iowa.

One-time Republican presidential frontrunner Herman Cain on Saturday, as expected, “suspended” his campaign.

Speaking at what was originally to have been the grand opening of his national campaign headquarters in Atlanta, the former pizza mogul said: “As of today with a lot of prayer and soul searching, I am suspending my presidential campaign.”

Why suspend and not end? Financial reasons having to do with the winding down of a campaign, and with continuing political operations with the big money on hand.

Cain was brought low, of course, by several mostly unspecific charges of past sexual harassment, the amazingly late revelation that he knew shockingly little about Libya and other major issues — not knowing that China already has nuclear weapons (officially 400 but I’m told it’s closer to 3000 warheads) is simply unforgivable — and the final straw of a woman emerging to claim a 13-year affair with the married family values champion.

The reality TV show aspect of all this was accentuated on Friday by the announcement that Donald Trump will moderate a debate for the far right Internet media outlet Newsmax in Iowa on December 27th.

The plethora of Republican debates has had several unintended consequences, on the one hand making the field out to be a reality TV show, on the other to allow Gingrich to break through in comparison to the others without spending a dime.

Gingrich will engage in a Lincoln-Douglas style debate with Jon Huntsman later in December in New Hampshire. Romney declined to participate.

While the Republicans deal with their topsy-turvy race, Obama, who made his national breakthrough in Iowa, is prepping a major speech on Tuesday to channel Teddy Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism” theme, which TR unveiled in a speech a century ago in Osawatomie, Kansas, on August 31, 1910.

Which happens to be where Obama will speak on Tuesday. Teddy Roosevelt laid out a Progressive philosophy in this speech, arguing that human welfare and property rights are both important and must be protected, but that the former is more important than the latter and that in an era of strongly concentrated financial power the federal government must protect the people.

Meanwhile, earlier today in the skies over Iran, a US surveillance drone aircraft was shot down by Iranian air defense. The Iranians are not pleased about what they call a violation of their airspace, which if the report is accurate, it most certainly is.

In Bonn, Germany, an international summit on the future of Afghanistan is about to get underway. But Pakistan, key to any solution, won’t participate because of last weekend’s disastrous attack on Pakistani border outposts. And the Taliban, who figure rather prominently in all this, won’t be around, either.

As a result, the prospects for progress at this key AfPak strategy summit look poor.

In Durban, South Africa, the UN climate change summit continues lurching forward.

The European Union is prepping for a key summit at the end of the week in Brussels, Belgium, where the latest effort to solve the Eurozone crisis will be made.

Disaster has been averted, so far, in Greece and in Italy, but with Europe potentially heading back into recession the crisis is far from over.

All politics may be local, but it is now also global.

And in Russia, there was a low turnout in Sunday’s parliamentary elections amidst signs of major disquiet about the Putin-Medvedev administration. The ruling United Russia Party, whose popularity is plunging, got somewhere between 45% and 48% in exit polling, followed by the Communist Party in a distant second at 20%.

Today comes word that, despite the exit polls showing United Russia below 50%, it will miraculously hold on to a bare majority in the Duma, with slightly over 50%. Which will undoubtedly add to Russian cynicism.

Not an auspicious sign for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who intends to return to the presidency in the elections of March.

Twice delayed official Egyptian election results, first due last Wednesday, began emerging very late on Friday. In very user unfriendly formats, with a live TV announcement suddenly ceased when the official said he was getting too tired to carry on.

The upshot so far? The Muslim Brotherhood running way out in front in a multi-party contest with a little over 40%, a radical Salafist party the surprise second with 20%, and a secular center-left party with 15%. Not good for the liberal youth who sparked the revolution in February.

The center of gravity in Egyptian politics is clearly shifting in the Islamist direction, with future relations with the US and Israel dependent on how moderate the Muslim Brotherhood wants to be and how much control the military can continue to exert. The Brotherhood’s initial indications are that it will not sacrifice personal freedoms in promoting Islamic law.

Islamic law is already enshrined at the center of the Egyptian constitution, but has been very moderately interpreted by the courts and the long ruling regime.

As I wrote early on, those who start revolutions are not always, or even all that often, those who win them.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said over the weekend that a big bomb blast a few days ago inside Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone was an assassination attempt against him. And that the bomb was built inside the Green Zone.

It’s just the latest sign that Iraq is anything but fully secured as the US withdrawal continues apace.

Here’s what Obama’s week looks like. You’ll notice it’s especially vague, perhaps due to uncertainty around emerging events.

On Monday, Obama will attend meetings at the White House. Tuesday’s schedule is still emerging, but Obama will go, as I mentioned above, to Kansas to deliver his version of Teddy Roosevelt’s New Nationalism speech.

On Wednesday, Obama will welcome Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada to the White House.
On Thursday and Friday, Obama will attend meetings at the White House.

There has been a major shift in Russia’s political landscape after the ruling party of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin suffered big losses in the country’s parliamentary elections.

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

Obama received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.

He then met with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in the Oval Office.

Following that, he met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.

Then came a meeting with college presidents on college affordability in the Roosevelt Room.

At 10:30 AM Pacific, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing in the James S. Brady Briefing Room.

The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes.

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

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

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

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

** JERRY BROWN AND THE 2012 INITIATIVE WARS. Governor Jerry Brown is in the midst of some major moves this month with regard to California’s chronically troubled finances, all playing out against the backdrop of next year’s likely major ballot initiative wars.

With regard to the fateful 1999 expansion of public pension benefits, premised on an ever-rising stock market rather than actual contributions, said Brown: “I was incredulous at the time, and I’m still incredulous.” … From my December 3rd feature.

** ALTERNEWT: GINGRICH “ALTERNATE HISTORY” NOVELS REVEAL MUCH ON PRESENT POLITICS. Never let it be said that Newt Gingrich is not a man of the future. Several of them, in fact. But in his case, those futures lie in the past.

Gingrich has three major alternate history universes, filled with colorful mavericks, technophilia, loathing for bureaucratic norms, and an evident zest for conflict. … From my December 1st essay.

** A SUBLIME AND RIDICULOUS DAY: MARS MISSION AND AFPAK DEBACLE. … From my November 28th essay.

** SOUND AND FURY: THE UTTERLY UNSURPRISING “SUPER-COMMITTEE” FLOP. … From my November 22nd essay.

** DARWINIAN: OBAMA GOES POST-IRAQ IN OZ, REPUBLICANS RACE TO THE PAST. … From my November 21st essay.

** ALI, FRAZIER, JACKSON, STALLONE: OF IMAGE, RACE, POLITICS, AND MYTH. … From my November 16th essay.

** VETERANS DAY IN A FRACTURED AMERICA. … From my November 12th essay.

** RECALLING JOE FRAZIER: AN APPRECIATION, AND A NOTE OF HORROR. … From my November 10th essay.

** OCUPADO. … From my November 4th essay.

** HIGH-SPEED RAIL: JERRY BROWN’S BIG MOVE TO THE FUTURE. … From my November 2nd 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.

Tom Cruise, Paula Patton and Bollywood superstar Anil Kapoor — who you may recall as the heroic president of an Islamic republic in the last season of 24 — received a warm welcome from fans in Mumbai at the premiere of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in three wars in the region, and the Arab awakening underway, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, 2008, crude oil is trading around $101 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $67 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down $13 from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.

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

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, seen here with a Christmas tree as his backdrop, may be American politics’ big gift this year, in more ways than one. He did this 40-minute interview with Sean Hannity on November 30th before a group of voters in Greenville, South Carolina.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … NEWTONIAN MOTION: IN IOWA, A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN FOUR WEEKS.

>>>>>>LIVE VIDEO NETCAST

At 2:10 PM Pacific, President Barack Obama celebrates this year’s Kennedy Center Honorees at the White House. The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.

** LIVE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.

With massive geopolitical events swirling and the 2012 presidential race unfolding, the White House is increasingly a pivot point for the day’s events. Live streaming of key presidential events is now available as a matter of course here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.

NWN will continue to present other live netcasts in full streaming mode, as it did with the Ronald Reagan Centennial events from the Reagan Library, as they emerge and are technically available and as significance dictates.

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

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

At 2:10 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at the Kennedy Center Honors Reception in the East Room.

Recipients to be honored at the 34th annual national celebration of the arts are singer Barbara Cook, singer and songwriter Neil Diamond, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins, and actress Meryl Streep.

The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes.

At 4:30 PM Pacific, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama attend the Kennedy Center Honors at Kennedy Center.

In polling done before this weekend’s end of the Herman Cain candidacy, Newt Gingrich has shot to the top of two new polls of the first-in-the-nation Iowa presidential caucuses, set for January 3rd.

The Des Moines Register Poll, historically the most accurate, has Gingrich out in front with 25%. Ron Paul is next at 18%, followed by Mitt Romney at 16%, Herman Cain 8%, Michele Bachmann 8%, Rick Perry 6%, Rick Santorum 6%, and Jon Huntsman 2%.

Gingrich is also by far the top second choice candidate in Iowa, and I expect Cain, who is an old friend of Gingrich’s from Georgia, to endorse Gingrich.

A new NBC poll also has Gingrich on top in the Hawkeye State, with 26% to Romney’s 18% and Paul’s 17%, with Cain and Perry both at 9%.

I’ll have a lot more on Iowa.

While the Republicans deal with their topsy-turvy race, Obama, who made his national breakthrough in Iowa, is prepping a major speech on Tuesday to channel Teddy Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism” theme, which TR unveiled in a speech a century ago in Osawatomie, Kansas, on August 31, 1910.

Which happens to be where Obama will speak on Tuesday. Teddy Roosevelt laid out a Progressive philosophy in this speech, arguing that human welfare and property rights are both important and must be protected, but that the former is more important than the latter and that in an era of strongly concentrated financial power the federal government must protect the people.

Meanwhile, earlier today in the skies over Iran, a US surveillance drone aircraft was shot down by Iranian air defense. The Iranians are not pleased about what they call a violation of their airspace, which if the report is accurate, it most certainly is.

In Bonn, Germany, an international summit on the future of Afghanistan is about to get underway. But Pakistan, key to any solution, won’t participate because of last weekend’s disastrous attack on Pakistani border outposts. And the Taliban, who figure rather prominently in all this, won’t be around, either.

In Durban, South Africa, the UN climate change summit continues lurching forward.

The European Union is prepping for a key summit at the end of the week in Brussels, Belgium, where the latest effort to solve the Eurozone crisis will be made.

And in Russia, there was a low turnout in today’s parliamentary elections amidst signs of major disquiet about the Putin-Medvedev administration. The ruling United Russia Party, whose popularity is plunging, got somewhere between 45% and 48%, followed by the Communist Party in a distant second at 20%.

Not an auspicious sign for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who intends to return to the presidency in the elections of March.

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

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

** JERRY BROWN AND THE 2012 INITIATIVE WARS. Governor Jerry Brown is in the midst of some major moves this month with regard to California’s chronically troubled finances, all playing out against the backdrop of next year’s likely major ballot initiative wars.

It’s not the only proposal out there, but the others all have more obvious political flaws. … From my December 3rd feature.

** 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.

Former pizza mogul Herman Cain, who shot to the top of the Republican presidential field, is out of the race.

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

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

He has no scheduled public events.

Obama will appear at the Kennedy Center Honors Sunday night.

One-time Republican presidential frontrunner Herman Cain today, as expected, “suspended” his campaign.

Speaking at what was originally to have been the grand opening of his national campaign headquarters in Atlanta, the former pizza mogul said: “As of today with a lot of prayer and soul searching, I am suspending my presidential campaign.”

Why suspend and not end? Financial reasons having to do with the winding down of a campaign.

This is another big boost for new frontrunner Newt Gingrich, who is far more likely than longtime putative frontrunner Mitt Romney to pick up the bulk of Cain’s remaining supporters.

Cain was brought low, of course, by several mostly unspecific charges of past sexual harassment, the amazingly late revelation that he knew shockingly little about Libya and other major issues, and the final straw of a woman emerging to claim a 13-year affair with the married family values champion.

The reality TV show aspect of all this was accentuated yesterday by the announcement that Donald Trump will moderate a debate for the far right Internet media outlet Newsmax in Iowa on December 27th.

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich has jumped to big leads in the critical South Carolina and Florida primaries, and there are signs that Mitt Romney is not only not gaining but is beginning to lose some of his support.

The plethora of Republican debates has had several unintended consequences, on the one hand making the field out to be a reality TV show, on the other to allow Gingrich to break through in comparison to the others without spending a dime.

Gingrich will engage in a Lincoln-Douglas style debate with Jon Huntsman later in December in New Hampshire. Romney declined to participate.

Twice delayed official Egyptian election results, first due on Wednesday, began emerging very late on Friday. In very user unfriendly formats, with a live TV announcement suddenly ceased when the official said he was getting too tired to carry on.

The upshot so far? The Muslim Brotherhood running way out in front in a multi-party contest with a little over 40%, a radical Salafist party the surprise second with 20%, and a secular center-left party with 15%. Not good for the liberal youth who sparked the revolution in February.

The center of gravity in Egyptian politics is clearly shifting in the Islamist direction, with future relations with the US and Israel dependent on how moderate the Muslim Brotherhood wants to be and how much control the military can continue to exert. The Brotherhood’s initial indications are that it will not sacrifice personal freedoms in promoting Islamic law.

Islamic law is already enshrined at the center of the Egyptian constitution, but has been very moderately interpreted by the courts and the long ruling regime.

As I wrote early on, those who start revolutions are not always, or even all that often, those who win them.

Iraq’s prime minister said Saturday that a bombing earlier this week inside Baghdad’s Green Zone was an assassination attempt against him.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said today that a big bomb blast a few days ago inside Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone was an assassination attempt against him. And that the bomb was built inside the Green Zone.

It’s just the latest sign that Iraq is anything but fully secured as the US withdrawal continues apace.

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

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

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

Brown, who had indicated that he would roll out his 2012 initiative plans on Friday, in some format or another, looks now to defer the move to Monday.

Brown is expected to unveil his plan to raise revenues via a five-year tax hike plan.

This plan will raise taxes on high-income taxpayers in various tiers, and include a half-cent sales tax hike, as previously discussed here.

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 discusses the limited progress on the economy and calls on Congress, which has voted down jobs legislation, to extend and expand the expiring payroll tax cut.

** ALTERNEWT: GINGRICH “ALTERNATE HISTORY” NOVELS REVEAL MUCH ON PRESENT POLITICS. Never let it be said that Newt Gingrich is not a man of the future. Several of them, in fact. But in his case, those futures lie in the past.

Gingrich has three major alternate history universes, filled with colorful mavericks, technophilia, loathing for bureaucratic norms, and an evident zest for conflict. … From my December 1st essay.

** A SUBLIME AND RIDICULOUS DAY: MARS MISSION AND AFPAK DEBACLE. This Thanksgiving weekend saw the greatness of America and the failings of America both on dramatic display. On Saturday we simultaneously reached for the heavens and got further stuck in the mud.

Two major events, both quite possibly historic, on the same day. Which direction will be the more powerful? … From my November 28th essay.

** SOUND AND FURY: THE UTTERLY UNSURPRISING “SUPER-COMMITTEE” FLOP. … From my November 22nd essay.

** DARWINIAN: OBAMA GOES POST-IRAQ IN OZ, REPUBLICANS RACE TO THE PAST. … From my November 21st essay.

** ALI, FRAZIER, JACKSON, STALLONE: OF IMAGE, RACE, POLITICS, AND MYTH. … From my November 16th essay.

** VETERANS DAY IN A FRACTURED AMERICA. … From my November 12th essay.

** RECALLING JOE FRAZIER: AN APPRECIATION, AND A NOTE OF HORROR. … From my November 10th essay.

** OCUPADO. … From my November 4th essay.

** HIGH-SPEED RAIL: JERRY BROWN’S BIG MOVE TO THE FUTURE. … From my November 2nd 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 closed on Friday at $100.96 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.

This is up about $67 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down $13 from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.

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

President Barack Obama was pleased to get a modicum of good economic news today. The U.S. unemployment rate fell last month to its lowest level in more than 21/2 years. More people out of work either found jobs or gave up looking and were no longer counted as unemployed.

** QUICK HITS. Twice delayed official Egyptian election results, first due on Wednesday, began emerging very late on Friday. In very user unfriendly formats, with a live TV announcement suddenly ceased when the official said he was getting too tired to carry on. The upshot so far? The Muslim Brotherhood running way out in front in a multi-party contest with a little over 40%, a radical Salafist party the surprise second with 20%, and a secular center-left party with 15%. Not good for the liberal youth who sparked the revolution in February. More to follow. … Former Republican presidential frontrunner Herman Cain, slated to formally open his Atlanta national campaign headquarters on Saturday morning, will now make an announcement there about the future of his embattled and plummeting candidacy. He’s just met today for the first time with his wife about this week’s alleged revelation of a long-term affair with another woman. … The reality show aspect of all this was accentuated today by the announcement that Donald Trump will moderate a debate for the far right Internet media Newsmax in Iowa on December 27th. … Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich has jumped to big leads in the South Carolina and Florida primaries, and there are signs that Mitt Romney is not only not gaining but is beginning to lose some of his support. The plethora of Republican debates has had several unintended consequences, on the one hand making the field out to be a reality TV show, on the other to allow Gingrich to break through in comparison to the others without spending a dime. … Gingrich will engage in a Lincoln-Douglas style debate with Jon Huntsman later in December in New Hampshire. Romney declined to participate. … Speaking of major announcements, Governor Jerry Brown, who indicated that he would roll out his 2012 initiative plans, in some format or another, looks now to defer the move to Monday.

** NEW CALIFORNIA POLLS: VOTERS HATE CONGRESS, KINDA LIKE OBAMA. In further sign of the immense popular frustration with politics and political institutions, new Field Polls of California voters show approval of Congress at historically low levels.

This mirrors results at the national level.

And President Barack Obama, once wildly popular in the Golden State, is no longer. But he looks just fine next to the Republicans vying for the right to challenge him next fall.

Who are those 10% who approve, anyway?

Disapproval of Congress comes from across the board.

The long predicted here failure of the Congressional “super-committee” on the budget has only exacerbated the situation.

Republicans get more blame than Democrats, but half the voters think both parties are responsible for the failure.

More than nine in ten California voters (92%) see the super committee’s failure as a serious matter – 75% very serious and 17% somewhat serious. There is little difference in views about the seriousness of the situation across party lines, with more than nine in ten voters of all political stripes describing the inability of the lawmakers to come up with a deficit reduction plan as a serious matter.

As for Obama, less than half are inclined to re-elect him. And his job approval rating, once sky high, is down to 48% approval and 44% disapproval.

This in a state he carried over John McCain just three years ago, 61% to 38%.

Things look much better for Obama when he’s matched against any Republican. He has a 10-point lead over Mitt Romney and a 20-point lead over Newt Gingrich. Romney stands better in his suddenly desperate fight against Gingrich here than he does in much of the rest of the country.

Obama will carry California next November. The real impact here is that his name, or brand, if you will, is not nearly so sizzling as it once was. So he may not motivate voters the way he used to, which could be a major factor in down ballot contests such as initiatives.

With Senator Dianne Feinstein’s numbers down — which doesn’t mean she won’t coast to victory next year against a sacrificial Republican, as that party continues to melt down here — Governor Jerry Brown is the state’s most popular politician.

Though Brown’s unfavorable rating has inched upward toward the number of people who voted for billionaire Meg Whitman last year, he is avoiding the problems that most chief executives have of catching the blame for tough times.

>>>>>>LIVE VIDEO NETCAST

At 10 AM Pacific, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing. The event will be netcast live here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.

** LIVE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.

With massive geopolitical events swirling and the 2012 presidential race unfolding, the White House is increasingly a pivot point for the day’s events. Live streaming of key presidential events is now available as a matter of course here on New West Notes. You can mute the audio by clicking on the pause button.

NWN will continue to present other live netcasts in full streaming mode, as it did with the Ronald Reagan Centennial events from the Reagan Library, as they emerge and are technically available and as significance dictates.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich declared last night on ABC that he will be the Republican presidential nominee.

** ALTERNEWT: GINGRICH “ALTERNATE HISTORY” NOVELS REVEAL MUCH ON PRESENT POLITICS. Never let it be said that Newt Gingrich is not a man of the future. Several of them, in fact. But in his case, those futures lie in the past.

Gingrich has three major alternate history universes, filled with colorful mavericks, technophilia, loathing for bureaucratic norms, and an evident zest for conflict. …

From my December 1st essay.

President Barack Obama presided over the annual lighting of the National Christmas Tree yesterday on the Ellipse in Washington.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … JERRY BROWN AND THE 2012 INITIATIVE WARS.

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

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

He then toured the 815 Connecticut, NW Building and delivered remarks.

At 9 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.

At 10 AM Pacific, White House press secretary Jay Carney delivers a briefing in the James S. Brady Briefing Room.

This event will be netcast live here on New West Notes.

At 11:20 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at the White House Tribal Nations Conference at the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Obama got good news this morning.

The US unemployment rate dropped from 9.0% to 8.6%, with 120,000 new jobs created last month.

But as reported here in yesterday’s edition, the underemployment rate measured by Gallup went up, as many jobs are part-time rather than full-time.

And Republicans last night, despite rhetoric earlier in the week, blocked Obama’s bid to extend the payroll tax cut in a 51 to 49 Senate vote.

Meanwhile, with signs that Herman Cain may drop out of the Republican presidential race on Monday, and Newt Gingrich surging in the polls, Mitt Romney went on Fox and Friends this morning to denounce Gingrich as “a Washington insider.” Romney didn’t get any tough questions about his record and views from the chirpy morning crew.

In an interview last night on ABC News, Gingrich confidently predicted he will be the GOP nominee.

As John Travolta said in Pulp Fiction, that’s a bold statement.

Gingrich urged Romney to do what his consultants advise and attack, noting that attack politics hasn’t been working so well so far in the primary race.

Camp Victory has held a special place in the American military experience in Iraq. On Friday, the base, built from the former palaces of Saddam Hussein, was handed over to the Iraqi government as part of American efforts to move all U.S. troops out of the country by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the US pull-out from Iraq continues, with the iconic Camp Victory being turned over today to Iraqi forces.

The US is on schedule to have all major units out of Iraq by New Year’s Eve.

Another delay in the vote count today in Egypt, where official preliminary results were due on Wednesday.

Between the leading party in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood, and a radical Islamist Salafist party, which seems to have finished a surprise second, Islamist parties are shaping up to have upwards of 60% of the vote in the first round of a complex set of parliamentary votes.

The liberals who prompted the protests in Tahrir Square don’t appear to figure much in the mix. Thus showing, once again, that those who start revolutions are not necessarily the winners of those revolutions.

The ruling military council announced today that Egypt’s foreign reserves have plunged from $22 billion to $15 billion.

In Pakistan, angry protests continue over the US/NATO air strikes that killed some 25 Pakistani troops last Saturday in outposts along the Afghan border.

The US is still investigating the matter, but unofficial stories, hotly disputed by the Pakistanis, are emerging that US and Afghan troops came under fire and that they received an okay for air strikes from the Pakistani side.

This isn’t shaping up well.

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

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

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

Brown is expected to unveil November 2012 initiative plans to raise revenues via a five-year tax hike plan.

This plan will raise taxes on high-income taxpayers in various tiers, and include a half-cent sales tax hike, as previously discussed here.

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

** A SUBLIME AND RIDICULOUS DAY: MARS MISSION AND AFPAK DEBACLE. This Thanksgiving weekend saw the greatness of America and the failings of America both on dramatic display. On Saturday we simultaneously reached for the heavens and got further stuck in the mud.

Two major events, both quite possibly historic, on the same day. Which direction will be the more powerful? … From my November 28th essay.

** SOUND AND FURY: THE UTTERLY UNSURPRISING “SUPER-COMMITTEE” FLOP.

“Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Macbeth – Act V, Scene V

… From my November 22nd essay.

** DARWINIAN: OBAMA GOES POST-IRAQ IN OZ, REPUBLICANS RACE TO THE PAST. … From my November 21st essay.

** ALI, FRAZIER, JACKSON, STALLONE: OF IMAGE, RACE, POLITICS, AND MYTH. … From my November 16th essay.

** VETERANS DAY IN A FRACTURED AMERICA. … From my November 12th essay.

** RECALLING JOE FRAZIER: AN APPRECIATION, AND A NOTE OF HORROR. … From my November 10th essay.

** OCUPADO. … From my November 4th essay.

** HIGH-SPEED RAIL: JERRY BROWN’S BIG MOVE TO THE FUTURE. … From my November 2nd essay.

** “OUT OF CONTEXT”: HILLARY’S P.R. OFFENSIVE. … From my October 29th column.

** STEVE JOBS: HARDLY A PERFECT PERSON, PERHAPS A PERFECT ICON. … From my October 26th 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 $100 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

This is up about $66 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down $14 from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.

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