New West Notes

No Bonding, No Backing, Negative Bouncing, and more

Bill Bradley — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:28:07 +0000

President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who notably did not bond during their lengthy initial encounter four years ago in Moscow, met today in Belfast, Northern Ireland. While the two reiterated support for an international peace conference on Syria, there was no agreement on the fundamental question of regime change, which Putin vehemently opposes.

NOTE: Now that California’s budget process is concluded and the state’s political crisis has subsided and with things going so smoothly in presidential politics — okay, that’s not quite right — New West Notes, with travel in the picture, will not be publishing around the clock for awhile. But there will be no shortage of columns and articles and publication here will be regular.

** NEW SURVEY: MINORITY BACKING FOR ARMING SYRIAN REBELS. A new Gallup Poll survey indicates that, by a wide margin, American voters are opposed to President Barack Obama’s decision to send arms to the rebels in the Syrian civil war.

But the opposition is less than it was last month, when the question was presented as one of intervention.

Obama, besieged on many sides as it is, is clearly trying to low-ball this issue, trotting out a deputy national security advisor to announce the decision and having nothing to say himself for the past several days.

Democrats, though the party least inclined to military intervention, actually favor the move, although just barely. It’s strictly a matter of backing a president of one’s party. Those numbers can go south very fast. We’ve certainly seen it in the past.

Ironically, given the UK’s role in pushing for the lifting of the European Union arms embargo, a somewhat wide margin of Britons oppose G-8 host Prime Minister David Cameron’s bid to send arms to the Syrian rebels.

As does a majority of the House of Commons, which may tie Cameron’s hands before he gets started with the British piece of this.

The slight majority of Americans — 54% — disapprove of the Obama administration’s decision to send direct military aid to Syrian rebels fighting against the Syrian government, while 37% approve. Those who are following the situation in Syria closely — about half of the public — are significantly more likely to approve of the decision than are those who are not following the situation closely, although a majority of both groups disapprove. …

These results are from a June 15-16 Gallup poll conducted just after the Obama administration announced that it directed the CIA to provide direct military aid to the Syrian rebels. Prior to this announcement last Friday, the administration had been opposed to providing military aid. The administration stated that part of its rationale for the shift in policy was its conclusion that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against the rebels.

Late last month, Gallup asked Americans about U.S. intervention in Syria; the question focused on the United States’ taking “military action” in the event economic and diplomatic actions failed to end the civil war there. Sixty-eight percent of Americans were opposed to the proposal, somewhat higher than the percentage who oppose President Barack Obama’s decision to supply direct military aid to the rebels. …

A slight majority of Democrats (51%) approve of the provision of military aid to the Syrian rebels, no doubt reflecting the fact that the decision to do so was made by a Democratic president, although more than four in 10 Democrats disapprove. Independents and Republicans react much more negatively, with roughly six in 10 disapproving.

Republicans’ disapproval may be tied as much to their general opposition to Obama as to the policy itself, given that some Republican leaders, most notably Sen. John McCain, have come out publicly in favor of assisting the rebel fighters in Syria. …

President Barack Obama said this morning on the Belfast waterfront that Northern Ireland provides the world with a blueprint to solve global conflicts. Obama is in Northern Ireland for the G-8 Summit.

NOTE: Now that California’s budget process is concluded and with things going so smoothly in presidential politics — okay, that’s not quite right — New West Notes, with travel in the picture, will not be publishing around the clock for awhile. But there will be no shortage of columns and articles and publication here will be regular.

** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Northern Ireland.

The Obamas flew overnight from Washington to Belfast, Northern Ireland, arriving at 3:30 AM their normal, Eastern time.

After airport greetings, Obama delivered remarks on the Belfast Waterfront.

He then appeared at a community event on the Belfast Waterfront.

Following that, Obama traveled and then met with European Union Leaders on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership at the G-8 Summit Site, Lough Erne, Northern Ireland.

Lough Erne is two connected locks, or lakes, roughly a hundred miles from Belfast.

Obama then delivered a statement to the media at the G8 Summit Site at Lough Erne.

Following that, Obama was greeted by British Prime Minister Cameron as a part of the official leader arrivals at the G-8 Summit Site at Lough Erne

At 8:45 AM Pacific, Obama attends the first G-8 plenary session at the G-8 Summit Site, Lough Erne.

At 10:30 AM Pacific, Obama holds a bilateral meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia at the G-8 Summit Site, Lough Erne.

At 12:30 PM Pacific, Obama attends a leaders-only working dinner at the G-8 Summit Site, Lough Erne.

Obama got some bad news to begin his big trip to the G-8 Summit and on to Germany. A new CNN poll indicates serious erosion in his popular standing over the past month.

Obama’s job approval rating has essentially flipped, now standing 45% approval and 54% disapproval.

The president’s approval rating stands at 45%, down from 53% in mid-May. And 54% say they disapprove of how Obama’s handling his job, up nine points from last month. It’s the first time in CNN polling since November 2011 that a majority of Americans have had a negative view of the president.

“The drop in Obama’s support is fueled by a dramatic 17-point decline over the past month among people under 30, who, along with black Americans, had been the most loyal part of the Obama coalition,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

The president also dropped 10 points among independent voters, from 47% last month to 37% now, with Obama’s disapproval among independents jumping 12 points to 61%.

What’s behind the drop?

“It is clear that revelations about NSA surveillance programs have damaged Obama’s standing with the public, although older controversies like the IRS matter may have begun to take their toll as well,” adds Holland.

But there is some good news for Obama.

After months of talking up its readiness to attack the US, North Korea is making an apparent U-turn in rhetoric by inviting Washington for “high-level” talks. North Korea was a major topic of the US-China Summit last weekend in California. The apparent shift in position could be a significant boon to America’s geopolitical pivot to the Asia-Pacific.

Also over the weekend, Egypt cut diplomatic ties with Syria.

Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving widespread unrest in NATO ally Turkey, the Syrian civil war, the North Korean nuclear program, the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Iraq, AfPak, and the South China Sea.

Military Crisis Zone Times: The Persian/Arabian Gulf is ten hours ahead of Pacific time, and Afghanistan is eleven and a half hours ahead of Pacific time. The time in Manila, on the South China Sea, is fifteen hours ahead of Pacific time. The time on the Korean Peninsula is sixteen hours ahead of Pacific time.

A solar-powered airplane touched down in the Washington, DC area on Sunday night. The plane took off from San Francisco in early May, and has stopped in several cities around the US during its voyage east.

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

As previously discussed, he has a successful on-time state budget just concluded. Now he will be going through all the trailer bills, double-checking, and looking to prepare a budget signing ceremony.

A US Supreme Court decision on the Prop 8 anti-gay marriage initiative might have come this morning, but did not.

One is expected by the end of the month.

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

Click here for my compendium of articles providing a narrative of his governorship.

** OBAMA’S SERIOUS SYRIAN STRADDLE THREATENS HIS OWN STRATEGY. … From my June 14th column.

** SUNNYLANDS SUMMITRY: ALTERNATE CHINESE VIEW, ALTERNATE CALIFORNIAN SUMMIT. … From my June 12th feature.

** MAD MEN: WHEN IS A BIG REVEAL NOT SO REVEALING? … From my June 10th essay.

** OBAMA’S BIG CHINA SUMMIT IN CALIFORNIA MERELY SETS THE STAGE. … From my June 7th essay.

** NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SUSAN RICE: GOOD IDEA OR BAD IDEA? … From my June 5th column.

President Barack Obama’s job approval rating has gone upside down in the last month.

** 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 major military operations 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. 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.

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

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

Weekend Edition (with updates)

Bill Bradley — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:07:07 +0000

After months of talking up its readiness to attack the US, North Korea is making an apparent U-turn in rhetoric by inviting Washington for “high-level” talks. North Korea was a major topic of the US-China Summit last weekend in California. The apparent shift in position could be a significant boon to America’s geopolitical pivot to the Asia-Pacific.

** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and en route to Northern Ireland.

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

At 6:20 PM Pacific, Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and daughters Sasha and Malia depart the White House on Marine One en route Joint Base Andrews.

At 6:35 PM Pacific, the Obamas depart Joint Base Andrews on Air Force One en route Belfast, Northern Ireland.

At a consequential moment in his now rather controversial presidency, Obama has an intriguing week ahead which takes him to the G-8 Summit in Belfast and on to important events in Berlin, Germany.

On Monday morning, the Obamas arrive in Belfast, where he will deliver remarks and hold a few events. Obama will then meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of the G-8 Summit. Later, Obama will attend the G-8 Summit at Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, hosted by Prime Minister Cameron, from June 17-18.

On Monday evening, Obama will hold a bilateral meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Very much on the agenda is the Syrian civil war, in which the US and Russia find themselves increasingly at loggerheads.

On Tuesday Obama engages in the G-8 Summit. That evening, following the G-8, the Obamas will travel to Berlin, Germany, for an official visit to reaffirm the strong ties between the United States and Germany. They will remain overnight in Berlin.

On Wednesday, Obama meets with Germany President Joachim Gauck and Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss a wide range of bilateral and global issues. Later that afternoon, Obama will speak near the US embassy at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin about the ties between the US and Germany, world challenges, and the enduring transatlantic alliance. On Wednesday evening, the Obamas will fly from Berlin to Washington.

On Thursday and Friday, Obama will attend meetings at the White House.

In another sign of a possible positive result of the US-China Summit in California — which achieved a breakthrough agreement to reduce the “super greenhouse gas” known as hydrofluorocarbons — North Korea has reversed field on its vehement threats and says it wants to engage in friendlier talks with the US.

In this video in which he officially announced his 2010 candidacy, Governor Jerry Brown pledged to deal with California’s chronic budget crisis, promising to act with an “insider’s knowledge and an outsider’s mind.” Many now acclaim his “inside/outside” approach to politics.

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

On Saturday, as expected, the legislature wrapped up state budget activities by dealing with the various budget trailer bills.

This was a remarkably no muss/no fuss budget process this year in the new Prop 30 era.

Brown issued this brief statement in tweet form: “After two and a half years of struggle and difficult times, California’s budget is balanced and sustainable into the future.”

Which is not to say that significant problems do not remain.

As I’ve been mentioning right along and as the Sacramento Bee has just recounted, Brown mainly got his way on the state budget.

California lawmakers have adopted on-time budgets so rarely in recent decades that the one they negotiated with Gov. Jerry Brown this week filled the Capitol with an air of self-satisfaction — if not disbelief.

“Ho-hum,” Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said at a news conference Tuesday announcing the accord. “Another on-time, balanced budget in California.” …

Yet this contentedness belied the extent of the rift between Brown and legislative Democrats over the budget as recently as a month ago.

Brown dismissed a surge in tax revenue and promoted a relatively conservative spending plan, while Democratic lawmakers said they wanted more money for state services and programs.

Meanwhile, lawmakers balked at the signature element of Brown’s budget, a bid to shift more school money to California’s poor and English-learning students. Brown had promised critics of his proposal “the battle of their lives.”

It was hardly necessary.

The budget the Legislature began adopting Friday included Brown’s lower revenue estimates and a slightly modified version of his school financing plan.

Legislative Democrats, who initially urged about $2 billion more in spending, settled for about one-tenth of that amount. The $96.3 billion agreement the Legislature is finalizing includes about $200 million more in discretionary, general fund spending than Brown proposed.

“It looks like Brown prevailed, let’s put it that way,” said Mike Genest, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s former finance director. …

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

Click here for my compendium of articles providing a narrative of his governorship.

In something of a surprise to observers, moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani, defeating some well-known conservative figures, has secured just more than 50% of the Iranian presidential vote to win the election without a run-off, the Iranian Interior minister announced late on Saturday. Rouhani, like all the candidates, backs the Iranian nuclear program. But he does not have the history of teeth-grinding statements his outgoing predecessor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had.

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

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

He has no scheduled public events today.

On Sunday, the Obama family departs for Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the G-8 Summit will take place.

After the G-8 Summit, where Obama will also confer with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Syrian civil war, the Obamas go on to Germany for a major speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and meetings with the leadership of one of America’s most important allies.

Incidentally, my old friend, colleague, and best man John Emerson has just been named as the new US ambassador to Germany. His Senate confirmation comes later this summer.

Emerson is a former top aide and advisor to President Bill Clinton and Senator Gary Hart who has played many roles in political, governmental, and civic affairs over the years, including his service as chairman of the Los Angeles Music Center and as chief deputy city attorney of Los Angeles.

Emerson is head of private client services for the Capital Group in Los Angeles and has served the past few years on the U.S. Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations.

He’s also one of Obama’s biggest fundraisers, a role he also played for now former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and has been an important supporter of Governor Jerry Brown, whom he once served as a legal counsel. Emerson was acquainted early on with Obama through the University of Chicago Law School, from which Emerson graduated and where Obama taught.

Emerson is an extremely capable and diplomatic fellow, who on more than one occasion smoothed over some hurt feelings caused by my sometimes headstrong moves in the Hart for President campaign.

Prospects for US military assistance to the rebels in the Syrian civil war may be coming more into focus. No boots on the ground, and no no-fly zone, at least not at this point.

But what is clearer is the line of debate on the issue, with Secretary of State John Kerry and incoming National Security Advisor Susan Rice said to be more aggressive on the intervention than outgoing National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and, to an extent, Obama, who has yet to speak out publicly on this.

There’s going to be a lot of discussion around this at the G-8 meeting in Northern Ireland and in Obama’s consultations in Berlin.

Incidentally, a detachment of F-16s and Patriot missiles will remain in Jordan following the conclusion of the Eager Lion Exercise next week. All other personnel assigned to Jordan for Eager Lion will depart at the conclusion of the exercise.

U.S. and Japanese forces are conducting unprecedented joint military exercises, including amphibious landings, along the California coast. Here we see a U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey aircraft has made the first landing on a Japanese naval vessel off the California coast.

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

As anticipated, the proposed California state budget agreed to early in the week by Governor Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders Darrell Steinberg and John Perez, structured largely along Brown’s more fiscally conservative lines, easily passed both houses of the legislature yesterday by the constitutional deadline.

The vote in the state Senate was 28-10, in the Assembly 54-25. Legislators will finish with budget trailer bills today.

A number of Republicans joined in voting for Brown’s new education funding formula, which targets more funds on low-income and English-challenged kids while providing more local control.

Brown issued a proclamation of Juneteenth Day, with his usual eye for historical flair. Juneteenth is celebrated as the true end of slavery, when Union troops arrived in Texas, last of the pro-slavery holdouts, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation.

“On September 22, 1862, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, officially ending slavery in the United States of America. It took three more years of war to defeat the upholders of that evil institution, and the toil of generations to erase its awful legacy.

“Each year, we celebrate the day known as “Juneteenth” as the true anniversary of the end of slavery. Texas was among the last states to allow ownership of slaves, and on June 18th, 1865, Union troops led by General Gordon Granger landed in Galveston to enforce the President’s order. On the following day, June 19th, General Granger formally announced the end of slavery in Texas and hence the liberation of some of the last men and women to be legally held as slaves in our country.

“I call on all Californians to observe Juneteenth as an important milestone in our long march towards equality; a reminder of the great contributions African-Americans have made as free citizens of our nation, as well as the injustices they suffered as slaves; and the courage of our forebears of all races and creeds who gave their lives to the fight against slavery.

“NOW THEREFORE I, EDMUND G. BROWN JR., Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim June 15, 2013, as “Juneteenth.””

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

Click here for my compendium of articles providing a narrative of his governorship.

** OBAMA’S SERIOUS SYRIAN STRADDLE THREATENS HIS OWN STRATEGY. … From my June 14th column.

** SUNNYLANDS SUMMITRY: ALTERNATE CHINESE VIEW, ALTERNATE CALIFORNIAN SUMMIT. … From my June 12th feature.

** MAD MEN: WHEN IS A BIG REVEAL NOT SO REVEALING? … From my June 10th essay.

** OBAMA’S BIG CHINA SUMMIT IN CALIFORNIA MERELY SETS THE STAGE. … From my June 7th essay.

** NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SUSAN RICE: GOOD IDEA OR BAD IDEA? … From my June 5th column.

** MAD MEN: A RETURN TO FORM? … From my June 3rd essay.

** JERRY BROWN ENCOUNTERS INTERESTING TIMES. … From my June 1st feature.

** OBAMA: FALLING BEHIND THE CURVE OF CRISIS. … From my May 30th column.

In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama discusses Father’s Day.

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

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, 2008, crude oil closed on Friday at $97.85 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.

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

Syria Crisis, GOP Leaders, Cali Kumbayah

Bill Bradley — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:08:11 +0000

Prospects for US military assistance to the rebels in the Syrian civil war may be coming more into focus. But what is clearer is the line of debate on the issue, with Secretary of State John Kerry and incoming National Security Advisor Susan Rice said to be more aggressive on the intervention than outgoing National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and, to an extent, President Barack Obama, who has yet to speak out publicly on this. No boots on the ground, and no no-fly zone, at least not at this point.

** QUICK HITS. As anticipated, the proposed California state budget agreed to earlier this week by Governor Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders, structured largely along Brown’s more fiscally conservative lines, easily passed both houses of the legislature today by the constitutional deadline. The vote in the state Senate was 28-10, in the Assembly 54-25. Legislators will finish with budget trailer bills tomorrow. … A number of Republicans joined in voting for Brown’s new education funding formula, which targets more funds on low-income and English-challenged kids while providing more local control. … During his motivational speaking tour of Australia, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that Paramount Pictures is moving ahead with a new Terminator movie, the fifth in the series, which will of course star him, to begin filming early next year once script, now being written, and director are in place. In related news, Schwarzenegger was also announced as one of the stars of The Expendables 3, which will go into production in late summer. Others in the cast reportedly include Sylvester Stallone, of course, along with Nicolas Cage, Milla Jovovich, and Jackie Chan. More to follow.

** OBAMA’S SERIOUS SYRIAN STRADDLE THREATENS HIS OWN STRATEGY. Is the Pivot about to become an awkward and dangerous Straddle?

The Obama administration’s geopolitical pivot to the Asia-Pacific seems more than a little stuck between moves. Already slowed by the long goodbye of the Afghan War, President Barack Obama’s strategy is threatened by the prospect of the conundrum of Syria spinning up into a much wider war.

And we know from athletics how vulnerable an experience it can be to be caught in transition between moves.

The White House announced late yesterday that it has confirmed evidence that the Assad regime, which has the clear upper hand, has used chemical weapons on several occasions against its rebel opponents in the Syrian civil war. Obama had previously called that a “red line” action; former President Bill Clinton, appearing the other day with Senator John McCain at a McCain Institute event, urged US intervention in the Syrian civil war. The U.S. will now provide some forms of military aid to the rebels.

Other options, including some that Assad allies such as Russia would undoubtedly vociferously oppose, such as a no-fly zone, are on the table. McCain, the old naval aviator shot down over North Vietnam, is a particular proponent of that. Obama will talk Syria next week with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland. My guess is that Putin, one of the true hard men of world affairs — who notably left Obama dangling when he visited Moscow four years ago, as I wrote at the time — has no intention of allowing regime change in one of Russia’s oldest allies. China has shown no sign of budging, either, though it hasn’t the level of involvement Russia has.

Things can change, of course, but what seems likeliest at first blush is that the US joining Britain and France — which recently got the European Union to lift the Syrian arms embargo — in providing weapons to the Syrian rebels achieves no more than a stalemate. After all, the Libyan rebels, fighting against a much less powerful dictatorial regime than that headed by Bashar al-Assad, required months of direct air strikes before they finally prevailed.

That sort of active military intervention in Syria would put us right up against Russia, which voted for the UN Security Council resolution authorizing the Libyan action against Moammar Gaddafi but is providing advanced anti-aircraft systems to Syria, its longtime ally. Moscow was very displeased by recent Israeli air strikes inside Syria.

Russia today rejected the new insistence that the Assad regime has employed chemical weapons on occasion, calling the evidence “fabricated.”

I don’t see much appetite in America for yet another war in an Islamic country. Especially one which could spiral into something much bigger.

Not too surprisingly, proposed Syrian peace talks this month in Geneva, conceived by the U.S. and Russia, fell apart as neither side in the Syrian civil war accepted the others’ demands for participation. In fact, the Syrian opposition refused to take part. The intransigence came with major new arms seemingly set to flow into the conflict on both sides.

This is just the latest migraine headache for Obama, who has come to see last weekend’s California summit with new Chinese President Xi Jinping in a new light with the revelation that ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden had been in Hong Kong for weeks.

Did Obama know that word was to come when the White House signaled before the summit that the president intended to push hard personally on cyber-espionage? It hardly seems likely.

Needless to say, Snowden’s revelations have dramatically undercut Washington’s effort to corner Beijing on the issue. They allow Xi to counter Obama’s complaints by saying that the rest of the world, including China, is a potential victim of this massive and formerly secret American cyber-surveillance program.

You can see an archive of my articles related to the geopolitical pivot from over-engagement with the Islamic world of the Middle East and Central Asia to increased engagement with rising Asia and the Pacific by clicking here.

Is Obama headed for another Afghan War-like muddle, in which he greatly escalated in order to negotiate with the Taliban, only to find himself bogged down militarily with talks barely existing? Or is he in danger of being dragged into something worse?

From my new column.

** NEW SURVEY: REPUBLICANS LEADERS CHRISTIE, RUBIO, AND RYAN … OR IN REVERSE ORDER, IF YOU LIKE. A new Gallup Poll survey shows three potential Republican presidential candidates to be out front in terms of national popularity.

Congressman Paul Ryan, last year’s Republican vice presidential nominee, does the best with Republicans. Who of course choose their own nominee. But he doesn’t do nearly as well with US voters as a whole.

In contrast, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie does very well nationally across the board. But he lags in popularity with his fellow Republicans.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio is somewhere in between.

Of five recent Republican newsmakers also mentioned as potential 2016 presidential candidates, Wisconsin Rep. and 2012 vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan is rated most positively by Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, with a 69% favorable rating and +57 net favorable score. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is also relatively popular among the Republican rank-and-file, while Chris Christie is less so, given his higher unfavorable rating. …

The results are based on a June 1-4 Gallup poll, which tested the images of five Republicans who could run for president in the next election. These include two Hispanic Republican U.S. senators — Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — a Tea Party and libertarian favorite in Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, outspoken New Jersey Gov. Christie, and Ryan, the House Budget committee chairman who was Mitt Romney’s 2012 running mate.

Most Republicans are familiar with Ryan, Christie, Rubio, and Paul, with at least seven in 10 having an opinion of each. Cruz, just elected to the Senate last November, is familiar to about half of Republicans.

The Republican officeholders’ relative standing among Republicans is not mirrored among Democrats or the larger general population. Ryan, who has the most positive net favorable score among Republicans, has the worst net score among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. That could be a result of his presence on the 2012 GOP ticket, making him more of a partisan figure. Christie, by contrast, is more liked than disliked by Democrats, and is the only one of the five with a net positive image among Democrats. …

In fact, Christie’s net favorable is higher among Democrats (+37) than it is among Republicans (+28). Christie has become much better known in recent months, likely due to his response to Superstorm Sandy. That response has included public appearances alongside President Barack Obama.

Each of the Republican officeholders is less familiar to Democrats than to Republicans. Ryan and Christie are best known among Democrats, with at least 70% having an opinion of them.

The net favorable scores for all five Republicans are in positive territory among all Americans. That is because rank-and-file Republicans are more familiar with, and generally much more positive toward, the five GOP officeholders than are Democrats.

Christie, with net positive ratings among both party groups, has the highest score among all Americans, with Rubio second. Ryan’s high negatives from Democrats leave him with a +8 net favorable rating among all Americans, although that is a bit better than the +2 and +3 scores Gallup measured for him during the 2012 campaign. …

President Barack Obama is authorizing increased support for the rebels in the Syrian civil war, including some forms of weaponry.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA’S SERIOUS SYRIAN STRADDLE.

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

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

At 9 AM Pacific, Obama hosts a Father’s Day Luncheon in the State Dining Room.

At 11:45 AM Pacific, Obama welcomes the WNBA Champion Indiana Fever to the White House in an East Room ceremony.

The White House announced late yesterday that it has confirmed evidence that the Assad regime, which has the clear upper hand, has used chemical weapons on several occasions against its rebel opponents in the Syrian civil war. Obama had previously called that a “red line” action; former President Bill Clinton, appearing the other day with Senator John McCain at a McCain Institute event, urged US intervention in the Syrian civil war. The US will now provide some forms of military aid to the rebels.

Other options, including some that Assad allies such as Russia would undoubtedly vociferously oppose, such as a no-fly zone, are on the table. Obama will talk Syria next week with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland.

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

With the state budget deal in place and various details being taken care of, a budget vote is expected by the end of day today.

With those exercises underway, Brown issued a proclamation of Flag Day, with his usual eye to historical flair:

“On June 14th, 1777, in the midst of our struggle to free ourselves from the colonial rule of Great Britain, the Second Continental Congress adopted the “Stars and Stripes” as the flag of the nascent United States of America.

“Since that day, our flag has served not only as a cherished national emblem, but also as a beacon of liberty and self-determination for peoples around the world. Our brave armed forces, marching and sailing under the Stars and Stripes, have vanquished far-flung and powerful adversaries for over two hundred years. The buildings where we make, interpret, and execute our laws all proudly fly the flag, as do the schools where our children acquire the skills they need to become citizens in a free society. The number of stars on the flag, symbolizing each of our states, has grown from thirteen to fifty, but the underlying principles of justice and equality remain the same.

“Each year, we celebrate the birthday of the Stars and Stripes on the anniversary of its adoption. I call on all Californians to join in this nationwide observance by displaying the flag at their homes and businesses, and by taking the time to remember all that it represents.

“NOW THEREFORE I, EDMUND G. BROWN JR., Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim June 14, 2013, as Flag Day.”

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

Click here for my compendium of articles providing a narrative of his governorship.

The US National Security Agency says it plans to go public with some details of its telephone-tracking program. The top secret surveillance was exposed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, now in Hong Kong, who is expected to be prosecuted under the expansive Espionage Act of 1917. Don’t expect that trial to take place any time soon.

** SUNNYLANDS SUMMITRY: ALTERNATE CHINESE VIEW, ALTERNATE CALIFORNIAN SUMMIT. … From my June 12th feature.

** MAD MEN: WHEN IS A BIG REVEAL NOT SO REVEALING? … From my June 10th essay.

** OBAMA’S BIG CHINA SUMMIT IN CALIFORNIA MERELY SETS THE STAGE. … From my June 7th essay.

** NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SUSAN RICE: GOOD IDEA OR BAD IDEA? … From my June 5th column.

** MAD MEN: A RETURN TO FORM? … From my June 3rd essay.

** JERRY BROWN ENCOUNTERS INTERESTING TIMES. … From my June 1st feature.

** OBAMA: FALLING BEHIND THE CURVE OF CRISIS. … From my May 30th column.

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

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

New Congressional Low, Thumbs Down On Spying, Utility Troubles

Bill Bradley — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:23:44 +0000

The White House says it has evidence that Syrian government forces have used chemical weapons against the rebels. President Barack Obama has now decided to provide military support to the rebels. This on the same day the UN said at least 93,000 people have died in the war.

** QUICK HITS. The White House announced late this afternoon that it has confirmed evidence that the Assad regime, which has the clear upper hand, has used chemical weapons on several occasions against its rebel opponents in the Syrian civil war. President Barack Obama had previously called that a “red line” action; former President Bill Clinton, appearing the other day with Senator John McCain at a McCain Institute event, urged US intervention in the Syrian civil war. The US will now provide some forms of military aid to the rebels. … Other options, including some that Assad allies such as Russia would undoubtedly vociferously oppose, such as a no-fly zone, are on the table. … Obama will talk Syria next week with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland. … California’s high-speed rail program today got a bright green light from the relatively obscure federal Surface Transportation Board, which some opponents expected to slow things down. Rail authority CEO Jeff Morales said: “We can now focus on starting major work on the project this summer and providing thousands of jobs in the Central Valley.”

** NEW SURVEY: APPROVAL FOR CONGRESS HITS NEW LOW. A new Gallup Poll survey on attitudes toward major institutions finds Congress at the bottom of the heap.

In fact, with only 10% approval, this is a new low not just for Congress, but for any major American institution.

This is a survey that has been taken for the past 40 years, when concern about American institutions arose as a result of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.

The military retains its now customary position at the top of the popular approval heap.

Americans’ confidence in Congress as an institution is down to 10%, ranking the legislative body last on a list of 16 societal institutions for the fourth straight year. This is the lowest level of confidence Gallup has found, not only for Congress, but for any institution on record. Americans remain most confident in the military, at 76%. …

Small business and the police also continue to rank highly, with 65% and 57% of Americans, respectively, expressing “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in these institutions. Joining Congress at the bottom of the list are Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and organized labor. Congress’ low position is further underscored when one looks at the percentage of Americans who have little or no confidence in each institution. The slight majority of Americans, 52%, have this level of confidence in Congress, compared with 31% for HMOs.

Americans’ confidence in several institutions measured in the June 1-4 Gallup poll has shifted since last year. Americans have become more confident in banks, organized religion, and public schools, and less confident in the U.S. medical system, the Supreme Court, and Congress. …

Michigan Congressman John Dingell, in office since 1955, has become America’s longest serving member of Congress. Honored today with a portrait in the U.S. Capitol, the venerable Democrat declared: “I’m the luckiest man in shoe leather.”

** NEW SURVEY: WIDESPREAD DISAPPROVAL OF RECENTLY REVEALED GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE PROGRAMS. A new Gallup Poll survey reveals that most Americans disapprove of the massive phone and Internet surveillance programs being run by the National Security Agency.

Most are following coverage of the story.

More Americans disapprove (53%) than approve (37%) of the federal government agency program that as part of its efforts to investigate terrorism obtained records from U.S. telephone and Internet companies to “compile telephone call logs and Internet communications.” …

These results are from a June 10-11 Gallup poll. Although the current survey context was different, these results are similar to those obtained in a May 2006 Gallup poll measuring support for a government program that “obtained records from three of the largest U.S. telephone companies in order to create a database of billions of telephone numbers dialed by Americans.” In that survey, 43% approved and 51% disapproved.

There are significant partisan differences in views of the government’s program to obtain call logs and Internet communication. Democrats are more likely to approve, by 49% to 40%. Independents (34% vs. 56%) and Republicans (32% to 63%) are much more likely to disapprove than approve.

In 2006, when Gallup asked the similar question about a program that came to light at that point, Republicans were significantly more likely to approve than Democrats. The differences in partisan reaction between 2006 and 2013 reflect the party of the president under whose watch the programs were carried out at those two points in time. …

A separate question included in Gallup’s survey found that 35% of Americans said they would be “very concerned” about violation of their own privacy rights if the government had computerized logs of their telephone calls or Internet communications. Another 22% said they would be “somewhat concerned.” …

Sixty-four percent of Americans are following news about this issue very or somewhat closely, which is slightly above average for all news stories tested by Gallup over the past two decades. …

FBI Director Robert Mueller, appointed in 2001, insisted this morning that “no content” was pulled from all the non-terrorism related phone calls monitored by the government.

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

Obama returned late last night from Miami, Florida.

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden received the intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.

At 8:45 AM Pacific, Obama meets with Congressman John Dingell in the Oval Office.

Dingell, who turns 87 next month, is being celebrated today for having served longer in Congress than any anyone else in history.

He was first elected to a Michigan congressional district, replacing his late father in 1955.

Last week he surpassed the congressional longevity record of the late West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd.

At 12:30 PM Pacific, Biden delivers remarks recognizing Dingell at the U.S. Capitol, then attends a reception in his honor.

At 2:05 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at LGBT Pride Month celebration in the East Room.

A new Gallup Poll has a wide majority opposing the recently revealed NSA surveillance programs on phone calls on Internet activity. The margin is 53-37.

A plurality of Democrats support the NSA program, because it is an Obama Administration program. But just a third of indies and Republicans back it.

Views of ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, denounced by many as a traitor, are more mixed. 44% say he did the right thing, while 42% say it’s the wrong thing.

While government action has been urged by some officials against journalists publishing such explosive leaks, the public strongly backs the Guardian and the Washington Post on this, 59-33, with indies and Republicans strongly in favor.

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

With the state budget deal in place and various details being taken care of, a budget vote is expected by week’s end.

Brown does have a number of problems to contend with, including new controversies with the state’s regulated utilities. Southern California Edison is finally shutting down the oddly-troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant, with outstanding questions about who will pay the enormous decommissioning costs, and of course the matter of making sure that the missing reactors, offline since the beginning of 2012, don’t cause a major problem of energy supply in the hot summer months.

Schwarzenegger Administration Environmental Protection Secretary Terry Tamminen, who helps run the former governor’s R20 organization on climate change and renewable energy, has this scathing column on nuclear power plants and the San Onofre situation.

Then to the north, there is the matter of the giant Pacific Gas & Electric, under increasing fire on a number of issues, including how regulators are handling widespread safety concerns in the wake of the utility’s 2010 natural gas pipeline explosion in the San Francisco suburb of San Bruno which killed eight people.

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

Click here for my compendium of articles providing a narrative of his governorship.

** FROM THE ARNOLD FILES. Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Australia.

He ventured to the land down under this week for a series of motivational speeches in Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne.

Schwarzenegger and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, with whom he met today, published a call for concerted action against climate change.

Here are Schwarzenegger and Gillard discussing matters over what looks like a healthy, not to mention colorful, breakfast.

** SUNNYLANDS SUMMITRY: ALTERNATE CHINESE VIEW, ALTERNATE CALIFORNIAN SUMMIT. … From my June 12th feature.

** MAD MEN: WHEN IS A BIG REVEAL NOT SO REVEALING? … From my June 10th essay.

** OBAMA’S BIG CHINA SUMMIT IN CALIFORNIA MERELY SETS THE STAGE. … From my June 7th essay.

** NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SUSAN RICE: GOOD IDEA OR BAD IDEA? … From my June 5th column.

** MAD MEN: A RETURN TO FORM? … From my June 3rd essay.

** JERRY BROWN ENCOUNTERS INTERESTING TIMES. … From my June 1st feature.

It started more than two years ago, but now the war in Syria has breached another grim milestone. A report by the UN says the conflict has resulted in the deaths of 93,000 people. The vast majority, some 82%, were male. About 6,500 were children.

** OBAMA: FALLING BEHIND THE CURVE OF CRISIS. … From my May 30th column.

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

This is up about $62 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down about $18 per barrel 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 Alternative View, Hating the Gridlock

Bill Bradley — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:36:52 +0000

Senators grilled National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander today on recent revelations of massive surveillance programs. Alexander, a four-star Army general who has run the NSA since 2005, took on the additional role of head of US Cyber Command in 2010. He said that the programs have deterred many terrorist attacks.

** QUICK HITS. A >brand-new Gallup Poll has a wide majority opposing the recently revealed NSA surveillance programs on phone calls on Internet activity. The margin is 53-37. A plurality of Democrats support the NSA program, because it is an Obama Administration program. But just a third of indies and Republicans back it. … Views of the intel leaker Edward Snowden, denounced by many as a traitor, are more mixed. 44% say he did the right thing, while 42% say it’s the wrong thing. … While government action has been urged by some officials against journalists publishing such explosive leaks, the public strongly backs the Guardian and the Washington Post on this, 59-33, with indies and Republicans strongly in favor. … Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Australia this week for a series of motivational speeches in Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne. He and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, with whom he meets on Thursday, published a call for concerted action against climate change.

** SUNNYLANDS SUMMITRY: ALTERNATE CHINESE VIEW, ALTERNATE CALIFORNIAN SUMMIT. It’s funny how the knowledge of one additional fact can change the perception of a major event.

Here President Barack Obama had prepped the landscape for his California summit with Chinese Xi Jinping by having Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel lay out particular concerns about China in his speech the weekend before in Singapore, as discussed in this pre-summit piece, only to have it publicly revealed just after the summit concluded that the source of explosive revelations about America’s massive surveillance programs was then in Hong Kong.

The ex-NSA contractor revealed himself just after the summit ended. He is, of course, former CIA staffer Edward Snowden. Wittingly or no, Snowden handed China a very big card in choosing to alight in Hong Kong.

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Shall we believe that Chinese President Xi Jinping did not know that the man Daniel Ellsberg of Vietnam War Pentagon Papers fame calls “the most important whistle-blower of modern times” was sitting in a Hong Kong hotel while Xi held his California summit with President Barack Obama?

What are the odds that President Xi and China’s large and effective intelligence apparatus, much of it of course focused on the U.S., did not know he was in Chinese territory? This likely puts a whole new spin on what we witnessed in California.

Both Obama and Xi reported successful talks during the U.S.-China Summit. Xinhua, the official press agency of the People’s Republic of China spoke of a “new model of relations.” There was even agreement to limit the emission of hydrofluorocarbons, a “super greenhouse gas.”

And there was apparent progress on efforts to rein in the nuclear and missile programs of troublesome longtime China ally North Korea. But there was not agreement on China’s extraordinary claim of sovereignty over virtually the entire South China Sea, one of the world’s most strategic bodies of welter and home to a welter of claims from China’s increasingly perturbed neighbors. Nor was there agreement on, ah, cyber-espionage, China’s role in which the US has been pushing for some time.

Did Obama know what was to come when the White House signaled before the summit that the president intended to push hard personally on cyber-espionage? It hardly seems likely.

Needless to say, Snowden’s revelations have dramatically undercut Washington’s effort to corner Beijing on the issue. They allow Xi to counter Obama’s complaints by saying that the rest of the world, including China, is a potential victim of this massive and formerly secret American cyber-surveillance program.

And now Snowden is in a unique part of China, giving Xi a major card to play in the global power game in which Beijing and Washington are engaged. The former British crown colony has an extradition treaty with the U.S. But Beijing has veto power. And, to make a long story short, Hong Kong has laws to protect those who may be victims of political persecution or, like Army Private Bradley Manning, find themselves the recipients of very harsh treatment.

Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post had this potentially telling quote Tuesday from an anonymous European diplomat: “A human rights case in which the Chinese grant asylum to an American — what a master stroke for Beijing.”

All this plays out with America in the midst of a complex geopolitical pivot from its fateful over-involvement in the Islamic world of the Middle East and Central Asia to increased engagement with the rising Asia-Pacific. (An archive of pieces related to the Pivot.)

I do have confidence in the Obama administration, though not as much as before we learned of its extensive monitoring of journalists working on legitimate stories, not to mention the attorney general’s labeling of one as a potential “co-conspirator.”

The reality is that most any good journalist has at least some of the skill set of a spy. This is why being a journalist is such a good cover for espionage. Being a student can be good cover, too, wandering around, ever curious, asking questions. But being curious is also part of being alive and human on the planet, and freedom of inquiry lies at the core of a free society.

Meanwhile, with the cyber espionage issue so suddenly sidelined in the court of world opinion, a crew of three Chinese astronauts lifted off early this week from China’s Gobi Desert spaceport for a 15-day mission to China’s Tiangong 1 space station. The space station is more of a nascent affair compared to the International Space Station, but it is still a huge achievement for China.

And a new set of Gallup Poll surveys in the U.S. and China reveals interesting contrasts and comparisons between the two great powers.

China, as President Xi said prior to the summit, seeks a “new type of great power relationship.” And China’s people, increasingly affluent and confident, though the society has its undoubted problems, seem in a position to be supportive.

Yet there is a paradox. While China’s people are more optimistic in their view of the future than Americans, they also rate themselves as worse off in their own lives. But what is one more paradox in a world filled with them?

Just as the explosive Snowden revelation casts a sharp alternative light on dynamics and meaning of the U.S.-China Summit, a parallel alternative summit taking place around the same time and vicinity provided a special perspective.

California Governor Jerry Brown conducted his own summitry in the Southern California desert, also pushing on climate change and energy issues. And with probably greater credibility than Obama, since it is California — under Brown and former Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis before him — that has actually put pioneering greenhouse gas, renewable energy, and energy efficiency programs in place ahead of the rest of the U.S. …

From my new feature.

** NEW SURVEY: AMERICANS HATE GRIDLOCK, HOLD CONGRESS IN VERY LOW REGARD. A new Gallup Poll survey reiterates some previous findings.

Political gridlock is very unpopular.

Congress is far less popular than that.

Of course, gridlock exists because of hyper-partisanship, which voters certainly tolerate, and a divided Congress, which they just voted for.

Nearly four in five Americans in June, 78%, disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job, marking the 45th consecutive month that more than two-thirds of Americans have given Congress the thumbs down. Americans’ high level of disapproval is less about what Congress is doing than about what it isn’t doing: putting aside partisan bickering and getting things done. …

The top reason Americans who disapprove of Congress give for their view is partisan gridlock, named by 28%. Relatedly, another 21% cite Congress’ failure to accomplish anything or make decisions, and 11% say Congress puts politics ahead of the country. More policy related, 2% cite Congress’ failure to address unemployment, and 1% mention lack of action on the economy. Overall, 59% of Congress’ detractors mention at least one of these reasons, making congressional inaction the overwhelming criticism Americans express regarding the legislative body.

Aside from this, a net 19% of Americans who disapprove mention congressional action on a specific issue, such as healthcare, taxes, immigration, or gun control as the main reason they disapprove of Congress. Nine percent have complaints about congressional ethics or behavior, ranging from lack of transparency and failure “to listen,” to dishonesty and frequency of vacations. Another 8% cannot provide a specific reason for their negative view of Congress. …

When the news media is discussing whether or not journalists who report on leaks should be prosecuted, you know that the line of debate is getting away from the government. New York Congressman Peter King, who stepped down earlier this year as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and also says ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden is a traitor, took the anti-press position.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … SUNNYLANDS SUMMITRY: ALTERNATE CHINESE VIEW, ALTERNATE CALIFORNIAN SUMMIT.

** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington, Massachusetts, and Florida.

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

He then departed the White House on Marine One en route Joint Base Andrews, where he boarded Air Force One and flew to Boston, Massachusetts.

At 10:45 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at an event for Ed Markey for Senate and the Massachusetts Democratic Party at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center in Roxbury Crossing, Massachusetts.

At 11:45 AM Pacific, Obama departs Boston on Air Force One en route Miami, Florida.

At 2:45 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in Miami.

At 4:05 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a DNC fundraiser at a private residence in Miami Beach.

At 5:55 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at another DNC fundraiser at a private residence in Miami Beach.

At 6:55 PM Pacific, Obama departs Miami on Air Force One en route Joint Base Andrews.

Trying to get ahead of the controversy, Google and some other Internet giants involved in the NSA surveillance firestorm late yesterday called for transparency on how often and how they go about giving up data under FISA order. Apple, incidentally, was the last of the PRISM-participating tech giants to join the NSA program, notably only after the death of Steve Jobs.

Also late on Tuesday, the ACLU sued to stop the NSA’s phone-tracking program, claiming standing previously denied it in such cases by virtue of being a Verizon customer.

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday afternoon voted to move forward on the bipartisan immigration reform bill on an 82-15 vote to block filibuster. Weeks of debate will now ensue, and some of the votes to authorize debate are against the bill. While final Senate passage seems certain, prospects in the House are anything but.

With the Obama Administration increasingly consumed by internal controversies, the Assad regime is continuing to press the upper hand in the Syrian civil war.

The meaning of the weekend US-China Summit in California is still emerging.

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

Brown joined with California Democratic legislative leaders Tuesday afternoon in a Capitol presser kumbaya touting of agreement on the state’s budget, largely along the lines laid out by Brown, as discussed here yesterday morning. The budget contains just a few hundred million more in spending, short of the $2 billion in additional spending the legislature had wanted.

Brown’s plan to eliminate enterprise zones in favor of tax breaks for manufacturers and biotech firms is unresolved. I wouldn’t be surprised if next year’s California state budget sees a very large surplus.

Brown also met yesterday with the governor of Osaka Province, California’s sister province in Japan, and with China’s San Francisco consul general, as well as with the new California Military Council he created earlier this year to deal with defense contracting issues in the Golden State.

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

Click here for my compendium of articles providing a narrative of his governorship.

** MAD MEN: WHEN IS A BIG REVEAL NOT SO REVEALING? … From my June 10th essay.

** OBAMA’S BIG CHINA SUMMIT IN CALIFORNIA MERELY SETS THE STAGE. … From my June 7th essay.

** NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SUSAN RICE: GOOD IDEA OR BAD IDEA? … From my June 5th column.

** MAD MEN: A RETURN TO FORM? … From my June 3rd essay.

** JERRY BROWN ENCOUNTERS INTERESTING TIMES. … From my June 1st feature.

** OBAMA: FALLING BEHIND THE CURVE OF CRISIS. … From my May 30th column.

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

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 W Comeback, Sunnier Econ

Bill Bradley — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:23:46 +0000

China’s fifth-ever manned space mission successfully blasted off today from a location in the Gobi Desert and will now head to the country’s prototype orbital station, where the crew will spend 14 days – a Chinese space record. The Shenzhou-10 craft, carrying two male astronauts and the second Chinese woman to venture into space, will dock with the experimental Tiangong-1 space lab 40 hours after lift-off.

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … SUNNYLANDS SUMMITRY: ALTERNATE CHINESE VIEW, ALTERNATE CALIFORNIAN SUMMIT.

** QUICK HITS. Trying to get ahead of the controversy, Google and some other Internet giants involved in the NSA surveillance firestorm today called for transparency on how often and how it goes about giving up data under FISA order. Apple, incidentally, was the last of the PRISM-participating tech giants to join the NSA program, notably only after the death of Steve Jobs. … The ACLU today sued to stop the NSA’s phone-tracking program, claiming standing previously denied it in such cases by virtue of being a Verizon customer. … The U.S. Senate today voted to move forward on the bipartisan immigration reform bill on an 82-15 vote to block filibuster. Weeks of debate will now ensue. While final Senate passage seems certain, prospects in the House are anything but. … Governor Jerry Brown joined with California Democratic legislative leaders this afternoon in a Capitol presser kumbaya touting of agreement on the state’s budget, largely along the lines laid out by Brown, as discussed here this morning, with just a few hundred million more in spending, short of the $2 billion in additional spending the legislature had wanted. … Brown’s plan to eliminate enterprise zones in favor of tax breaks for manufactures and biotech firms is unresolved. … I wouldn’t be surprised if next year’s California state budget sees a large surplus.

** NEW SURVEY: THE GEORGE W. BUSH COMEBACK. A new Gallup Poll survey contains some good news for fans of former President George W. Bush.

While the Republican Party is down for the count in California, that is not the case nationally, no matter how many things are said and written about Democratic inevitability.

Yesterday we saw a poll in which Hillary Clinton’s approval among independents has dropped nearly 10 points to a slim majority. Though her overall numbers remain strong. I mention Hillary because I consider her to be an unusually strong and battle-ready national Democrat.

Today we have polling indicating that former President George W. Bush’s public image is moving rather well along the comeback trail.

In fact, he hasn’t been this popular since not long after he won his second term as president.

So all the heat I took after writing recently that “kinda liked Bush” personally is coming from a vociferous but declining sector.

Not that I think that Bush will ever recover in the sweep of history. Iraq is simply too big for that. And the judgment of the future on the vast and largely secret security apparatus he sparked in the wake of 9/11 hangs in the balance, a balance which will no doubt be affected by the weight of the Iraq War.

Americans’ views of former president George W. Bush have improved, with 49% now viewing him favorably and 46% unfavorably. That is the first time since 2005 that opinions of him have been more positive than negative. …

Bush has maintained a fairly low profile in the four years since he left office. However, he returned to the public eye this year with the April opening of his presidential library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Bush left office with 40% viewing him favorably and 59% unfavorably in January 2009. That worsened to 35% favorable and 63% unfavorable in March 2009, but his favorable rating recovered to the mid-40% range by 2010.

The June 1-4 poll shows further improvement in Americans’ ratings of Bush, which had not been more positive than negative since April 2005. Prior to then, Americans had always viewed Bush more favorably than unfavorably, including an 87% favorable rating in November 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That is one percentage point below the all-time high Gallup has measured for any public figure, shared by Colin Powell (2002) and Tiger Woods (2000).

Bush’s lowest favorable rating was 32% in April 2008, as the economy was in recession and gas prices were headed toward record highs in the U.S. Also at the time, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were engaged in a spirited campaign to become the Democratic nominee who would run for president to succeed Bush. …

** NEW SURVEY: ECONOMY STILL TOPS CONCERNS, BUT ITS ISSUE DOMINANCE LESSENS. A new Gallup Poll survey indicates that the economy continues to be the top issue in the country, but that concern is at the lowest level since 2009.

Of course, we’re nowhere near being back to where we were before the great global recession.

Americans continue to name the economy as the biggest problem facing the country, followed by unemployment and dissatisfaction with government. These are trailed by concerns about healthcare, ethics and moral decline, the federal budget deficit, immigration, and education, each mentioned by at least 5% of Americans. …

The 18% of Americans who in June name unemployment as the nation’s top problem is identical to the six-month average so far this year, which in turn is well below last year’s 25% annual average, and is at this point the lowest annual average since 2009. …

Additionally, although the economy and unemployment continue to rank as the nation’s top two specific problems, the percentages of Americans mentioning any economic issue in in June (53%) — and in May (52%) — are the lowest since the fall of 2009. Mentions of the economy peaked at 86% in February 2009. Meanwhile, mentions of non-economic problems this month and last month have risen to as high as they have been since June 2010. …

President Obama said this morning that the path to citizenship under a proposed immigration reform bill is “no cakewalk.”

** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … SUNNYLANDS SUMMITRY: ALTERNATE VIEW, ALTERNATE SUMMIT.

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

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden received the intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.

Obama then delivered remarks on the immigration reform bill in the East Room.

Obama and President Ollanta Humala of Peru then held a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office, with Biden in attendance.

Biden then hosts President Humala for a lunch meeting at the Naval Observatory.

At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in the Oval Office.

At 2:20 PM Pacific, Obama hosts a screening of The President’s Gatekeepers in the White House Family Theatre. This is a documentary featuring all 19 living White House chiefs of staff. It will air publicly in July on the Discovery Channel.

The meaning of the weekend US-China Summit in California is still emerging.

Meanwhile, a crew of three Chinese astronauts lifted off this morning from China’s Gobi Desert spaceport for a 15-day mission to China’s Tiangong 1 space station. The space station is more of a nascent space station compared to the International Space Station, but it is still a huge achievement for China.

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

A proverbial puff of white smoke emerged over California’s Capitol Dome late Monday afternoon with word of a state budget deal between Brown and legislative leaders.

Brown’s more fiscally conservative state revenue numbers prevailed, largely keeping spending increases down. The revenue numbers will be revisited in January.

Brown’s new school funding formula to target low-income and English-challenged kids moves forward, though all school districts will get some additional base revenue.

Some additional funding will go to mental health services, dental care, and middle-class college scholarships, priority issues for Assembly Speaker John Perez and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. Brown also succeeded in including proceeds from the state’s carbon trading market, created at the behest of former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the general fund rather than a spun-up new program.

More to follow.

While there are some further details to be settled, passage of the state budget by the legally required deadline of June 15th seems assured.

The decision to follow Brown’s prudence on revenue projections and hence spending comes, not incidentally, as the same time as word from the state controller that California state revenues for May ran over 12% above projections.

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

Click here for my compendium of articles providing a narrative of his governorship.

** MAD MEN: WHEN IS A BIG REVEAL NOT SO REVEALING? … From my June 10th essay.

** OBAMA’S BIG CHINA SUMMIT IN CALIFORNIA MERELY SETS THE STAGE. … From my June 7th essay.

** NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SUSAN RICE: GOOD IDEA OR BAD IDEA? … From my June 5th column.

** MAD MEN: A RETURN TO FORM? … From my June 3rd essay.

** JERRY BROWN ENCOUNTERS INTERESTING TIMES. … From my June 1st feature.

Where will ex-NSA contract analyst Edward Snowden go? Legal analysts note that provisions of Hong Kong law may prevent Snowden’s extradition to the U.S., despite an extradition agreement in place.

** OBAMA: FALLING BEHIND THE CURVE OF CRISIS. … From my May 30th column.

** MAD MEN: CHANGE PARTNERS. … From my May 27th essay.

** “GOING BULWORTH“: THE FIRST TIME, AND NOW. … From my May 23rd essay.

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

This is up about $61 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity, and down about $19 per barrel 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.

Hillary Slips, Not So Revealing

Bill Bradley — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:42:43 +0000

Salon-turned-Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald, the longtime vociferous critic of US actions in the anti-jihadist fight and opponent of an emerging “surveillance state” who broke the NSA leaker story, discussed the issues with the somewhat critical CNN anchor Jake Tapper.

** QUICK HITS. A puff of white smoke over California’s Capitol Dome this afternoon with word of a state budget deal between Governor Jerry Brown and legislative leaders. Brown’s more fiscally conservative state revenue numbers prevailed, largely keeping spending increases down. His new school funding formula to target low-income and English-challenged kids moves forward, though all school districts will get some additional base revenue. Some additional funding will go to mental health services, dental care, and middle-class college scholarships. More to follow. … A crew of three Chinese astronauts will lift off tomorrow for a 15-day mission to China’s Tiangong 1 space station.

** NEW SURVEY: HILLARY CLINTON POPULARITY SLIPS. A new Gallup Poll survey is the latest to indicate that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s popularity has slipped in the wake of the latest firestorm of controversy around the Benghazi disaster.

But the numbers remain well within the range of the positive in this hyper-partisan political environment. The only worrisome sign is among independents.

She’s gone from 64-31 favorable/unfavorable in April to 58-39 at the beginning of June.

This poll shows only slight changes in the public’s overall assessment of Clinton, with her unfavorable rating now marginally higher than at any time since 2008. However, there is no telling what the future might hold, as members of the House Oversight Committee have publicly speculated that Clinton may have to testify before the Republican-led committee again.

Although Democratic and Republican attitudes toward Clinton have been static over these past contentious months, independents’ views are now notably less favorable. A slim majority (52%) of independents hold a favorable opinion of Clinton, down from 63% in April. …

** MAD MEN: WHEN IS A BIG REVEAL NOT SO REVEALING? So for a real blockbuster of a plot twist, how about the U.S.-China Summit?

Xi there meeting in Rancho Mirage, California with Obama and all the time the NSA whistleblower is in, wait for it, Hong Kong!

I love it.

After Favors, just two episodes remain in this uneven Season 6 of Mad Men. May all gods be praised. Oh, wait, that’s probably something they would say on the show that has all the buzz, Game of Thrones, which ended its blood-soaked season in bloody fashion Sunday night.

Beware of spoilers, as always, and here’s an archive of my pieces on the show, in The Mad Men File.

After weeks of declining ratings, leading to the least viewed episode since 2009 the Sunday before last, Mad Men finally rose in the ratings again last week. Will Sunday night’s episode drive things upward again?

Well, it was pretty familiar territory, at least thematically. Which means, uh-oh, the endless existential crisis and ever impending doom of one Don Draper/Dick Whitman.

Fortunately, the outside world of that most tempestuous of years, 1968, very much impinged on the frequently airless nature of our domestic drama. It’s September 1968, and the son of Don and Megan’s neighbors, Don’s friend heart surgeon Arnold Rosen and his wife, ex-Draper inamorata Sylvia, has protested the war and his life in general by dropping out of college and mailing his draft card to the government. Which is like putting a big hit-me sign on one’s forehead. Mitchell not only looks like a Paul Revere and the Raiders-style rock star, to Sally Draper’s tweener delight, he kinda thinks like one, too.

Don, a Nixon supporter when we met him in 1960 who is now against the Vietnam War, decides to try to help the kid get out of the draft without fleeing to Canada. To his partners’ dismay, he sounds out some big General Motors execs at a business dinner. Even raising the issue of a young man looking to get out of the Vietnam War draft raises the hackles of these honchos of one of America’s biggest defense contractors. …

From my new essay.

** NEW SURVEYS: DIFFERING VIEWS IN THE U.S., CHINA. A new set of Gallup Poll surveys in the US and China reveals interesting contrasts and comparisons between the two great powers, whose leaders just carried out an unprecedentedly informal summit over the weekend at the old Annenberg estate Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California.

China, as President Xi Jinping said prior to the summit, seeks a new type of great power relationship.” And China’s people increasingly affluent and confident, though the society has its undoubted problems, seem in a position to be supportive.

Yet there is a paradox. While China’s people are more optimistic in their view of the future than Americans, they also rate themselves as worse off in their own lives.

China’s economic rise over the past three decades has been one of the major geopolitical events in recent history; the nation is now the second-largest economy in terms of nominal — i.e., not adjusted for inflation — gross domestic product and is the world’s largest exporter. Already the world’s most populous nation, China’s expanding influence has the potential to make the Middle Kingdom the world’s next great economic power; indeed, some analysts forecast that China’s economy will be bigger than the United States’ by the end of 2016.

Still, China has a long way to go before average living standards catch up with those in the U.S. Americans are much more likely than the Chinese to feel they are living comfortably and to rate their lives highly. …

In China, economic optimism is pervasive. In 2012, 82% of Chinese adults believed their standard of living was getting better, implying that the vast majority of China’s citizens are now feeling the country’s robust economic growth. By contrast, 50% of adults in the United States said their living standards were getting better. …

In 2012, China’s GDP grew by 7.8% — though this figure was the lowest growth rate since the turn of the century — while the United States saw anemic growth of 2.2%. Part of the reason for this of course is that developed nations such as the U.S. generally have slower growth. Still, while China was not immune to the deleterious effects of the recent recession, its economy was able to maintain a strong economic growth rate even as the downturn brought financial hardship to millions of Americans.

Moreover, Gallup data indicate that economic optimism is now just as widespread in rural areas as in the country’s burgeoning cities, despite longstanding concerns that China’s rural population was not feeling the benefit of economic growth. In 2012, 82% of rural residents said their standard of living was getting better — exactly equal to the share of urban residents who said the same.

Further evidence of China’s economic optimism abounds: In 2012, a majority of Chinese (65%) rated their country’s economy as “excellent” or “good,” while 14% of Americans said the same about their own economy. Nearly one in four Americans (38%) said economic conditions are “poor,” compared with 3% of Chinese who saw their economic conditions in the same light. …

Chinese Still Less Likely Than Americans to Say They Live Comfortably: Seemingly at odds with the country’s growth and sense of economic optimism, the Chinese have not grown more likely to feel they can live comfortably on their current income over the past six years. In 2012, 58% said they were able to get by on their present income, a figure that has remained relatively static. About a third (32%) are finding it difficult or very difficult to make ends meet, and this rate has likewise remained essentially constant. This would seem to suggest that economic progress has not yet directly translated into a more financially secure population, or, alternatively, that as the Chinese feel richer, they find themselves acquiring new desires.

And, one in 10 Chinese say they are living comfortably on their present income, a proportion that has shown no growth over time. …

Americans continue to feel much better on average than the Chinese about their own incomes. A plurality (38%) in 2012 said they were living comfortably on their present income; another 34% said they were getting by. A quarter of Americans found it difficult or very difficult to live on their present income.

Although they best the Chinese on this metric, Americans’ views of their ability to live a comfortable life have been affected by the recession. They are less likely now than in 2007 to feel they can live comfortably on their present income and more likely to feel it is difficult to live on it. …

Chinese Less Likely Than Americans to Rate Lives Highly: China’s economic growth has also had a relatively modest effect on how its residents rate their lives over the last six years. In 2012, just over one in five (21%) rated their lives highly enough to be classified as “thriving,” whereas 58% of Americans did so. …

Meet the man Daniel Ellsberg of Vietnam War Pentagon Papers fame is calling the most important whistle-blower of modern times.

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

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden received the intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.

Obama then delivered remarks on the Equal Pay Act in the East Room.

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

At 9:30 AM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet for lunch in the Private Dining Room.

Biden then peels off for his day, which includes meeting with the prime minister of Kosovo an swearing in the new Chris Christie-appointed U.S. senator from New Jersey.

At 11:10 AM Pacific, Obama makes a personnel announcement in the State Dining Room.

He will name Jason Furman, a longtime advisor, as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors.

The far-reaching firestorm of controversy over the government’s massive surveillance program of course rages on. With a special punchline to the weekend’s US-China Summit.

The NSA whistle-blower has revealed himself. He is a 29-year old former CIA technical expert-turned-NSA-contractor employee named Edward Snowden.

Now staying at a hotel in Hong Kong, he says: “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong.” His prosecution by the US government has been promised by top intelligence officials. Snowden worked at the National Security Agency office in Hawaii.

And where has he been for the past several weeks?

Hong Kong.

What are the odds that President Xi and China’s large and effective intelligence apparatus, much of it of course focused on the US, did not know he was in China? This could put a whole new spin on what we just witnessed in California.

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

Though it was not on his public schedule on Sunday morning, Brown was at Oakland’s beautiful urban Lake Merritt Sunday afternoon to attend a grand opening of new enhancements to the lake and its surrounding parkland and facilities. The improvements took place as a result of bonds Brown championed as Oakland’s mayor.

Brown is continuing private discussions on the state budget, passage of which is legally required by midnight on June 15th.

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

Click here for my compendium of articles providing a narrative of his governorship.

** OBAMA’S BIG CHINA SUMMIT IN CALIFORNIA MERELY SETS THE STAGE. … From my June 7th essay.

** NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SUSAN RICE: GOOD IDEA OR BAD IDEA? … From my June 5th column.

** MAD MEN: A RETURN TO FORM? … From my June 3rd essay.

** JERRY BROWN ENCOUNTERS INTERESTING TIMES. … From my June 1st feature.

** OBAMA: FALLING BEHIND THE CURVE OF CRISIS. … From my May 30th column.

** MAD MEN: CHANGE PARTNERS. … From my May 27th essay.

** “GOING BULWORTH“: THE FIRST TIME, AND NOW. … From my May 23rd essay.

Why are Iron Man and other comic book-derived superheroes such icons of the era? Here is one take on that question, from CNN.

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

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

Weekend Edition (with updates)

Bill Bradley — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 17:33:00 +0000

Not surprisingly, there is widespread concern in the US news media over the magnitude of recently revealed government surveillance programs.

** SUNDAY MID-DAY UPDATE: THE NSA whistle-blower has revealed himself. He is a 29-year old former CIA technical expert-turned-NSA-contractor employee named Edward Snowden.

The fact that he is in Hong Kong puts a whole new spin on the just concluded US-China Summit.

** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in California and Washington, DC.

Obama left California this morning, departing Palm Springs Airport on Air Force One en route Joint Base Andrews.

At 1:40 PM Pacific, Obama lands at Joint Base Andrews, where he boards Marine One.

At 1:55 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.

Both Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping report successful talks during the just concluded US-China Summit.

What it all means, of course, remains to be seen. And we’ll be getting at that as things play out.

The far-reaching firestorm of controversy over the government’s massive surveillance program of course rages on.

Here’s what Obama’s week ahead looks like, on the public side of things.

On Monday, Obama will deliver remarks at the White House commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act.

On Tuesday, Obama will deliver remarks at the White House in support of the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform bill. He will be joined by a bipartisan coalition of business leaders, labor leaders, law enforcement, and religious and faith leaders.

Later in the morning, Obama will host President Ollanta Humala of Peru at the White House. The two presidents will discuss a variety of issues, including advancement of negotiations toward completion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a key part of the Asia-Pacific Pivot.

On Wednesday, Obama will travel to Boston, Massachusetts for an event for Ed Markey for Senate and the Massachusetts Democratic Party. From Boston, Obama will travel to Miami, Florida, for a DNC event that evening and will return to the White House late that night.

On Thursday, Obama will deliver remarks at the LGBT Pride Month celebration at the White House.

On Friday, Obama will welcome the Women’s National Basketball Association Champion Indiana Fever to the White House to honor the team and their victory in the WNBA Finals.

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

Brown is back from a series of major events around the US-China Summit in Rancho Mirage, which in the governor’s case culminated in his 45-minute meeting with new Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Brown and First Lady/Special Counsel Anne Gust Brown saw President Xi and First Lady Peng Liyuan off at the airport yesterday afternoon. Brown had cadets from his charter school, the Oakland Military Institute, form an honor guard for the leader of the PRC.

The two first ladies spent a fair amount of time together, with Gust Brown showing her Chinese counterpart around the Palm Springs Art Museum.

The California first lady also took part in other key meetings with top officials around the summit.

The Brown-Xi meeting at the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells dealt with a number of topics, including ways to work together on trade, investment, climate change, technology, infrastructure, tourism, education, and agriculture.

Brown made a point of sharing the recently released consensus statement on climate change with Xi. This document, prepared at Brown’s urging, translates key scientific findings from disparate fields into one unified message for policymakers, industry, and the general public. The statement has been signed by hundreds of concerned scientists in the US and around the world.

Brown also shared the scientific consensus statement on climate with Secretary of State John Kerry when the two met privately on Friday.

In the course of his activities around the US-China Summit, Brown met with a variety of other Chinese government officials. They include National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Xu Shaoshi, National Development and Reform Commission Deputy Director Liu He, Ministry of Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai, and Chinese Consul General of Los Angeles Qiu Shaofang.

Brown has been working on the California-China relationship for more than a year and a half. He hosted Xi, then China’s vice president, yet its leader-in-waiting, in early 2012. Then he put together the extensive trade and investment mission to China in April.

Here is a pool report from the Brown-Xi meeting from the Desert Sun.

I’ll have more about all this in an upcoming feature article.

Brown is also continuing private discussions on the state budget, passage of which is legally required by midnight on June 15th.

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

Click here for my compendium of articles providing a narrative of his governorship.

The US-China Summit continued Saturday in Rancho Mirage, California.

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

At 9:30 AM Pacific, Obama and President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China will hold a bilateral meeting at the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage.

At 11:30 AM Pacific, Obama participates in a departure greet with President Xi and First Lady Madame Peng Liyuan of the People’s Republic of China at the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands on Bob Hope Drive in Rancho Mirage.

Obama will remain in the area for the rest of the day and evening.

He returns to Washington on Sunday.

I’ll have his week ahead tomorrow, but the most important thing is a push for the comprehensive immigration bill, which seems to be lagging somewhat.

The firestorm of controversy around widespread government surveillance and monitoring of phone and Internet continues, of course. I have nothing unique to add to that at this point.

** OBAMA’S BIG CHINA SUMMIT IN CALIFORNIA MERELY SETS THE STAGE. … With many fearing or hoping for a new cold war while others wish for kumbayah and global cooperation, and still others desire outright Chinese ascendancy over a tired America, the stakes for this summit between President Barack Obama and new Chinese President Xi Jinping seem high.

But summits frequently lead nowhere, and whatever effects this one may have are likely to remain unclear, at least for awhile.

The goal, say Obama advisors, is for the two leaders to get to know one another and develop rapport even as Obama raises some critical concerns.

That’s all well and good. But it’s best to look to the correlation of forces, to borrow and adjust the old Soviet phrase, i.e., the factors determining relative levels of power and those needed to sustain or heighten power, rather than force of personality when it comes to future dynamics.

The White House and much of the media will attempt to craft a narrative of overall progress or lack of same, of how the presidents perform and how they get along. While that may serve their purposes, and is useful to a certain degree, it won’t be very illuminating.

American power in the world is declining, in a relative sense. The power of China, which in a few years will have the largest economy in the world, is rising. The governments of both nations have interests. Each will pursue those interests. The question is how cleverly, and how wisely, each plays its hand.

All this plays out with America in the midst of a complex geopolitical pivot from its fateful over-involvement in the Islamic world of the Middle East and Central Asia to increased engagement with the rising Asia-Pacific. (An archive of pieces related to the Pivot.)

Xi, the political scion of a close revolutionary associate of Mao and himself a former party boss of Shanghai, China’s most dynamic region, is pushing what he calls the Chinese Dream. While the meaning of the term remains rather vague, as is often the case with important political slogans, its context is clear enough.

Xi introduced the slogan in a speech at the National Museum’s Road to Revival exhibition, surrounded by relics of China’s travails at the hands of Western colonial powers during imperial China’s extreme disarray in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was only, as the exhibition has it, by dint of the rise of Communist Party rule that China’s traditional greatness was restored. Now China seems poised to rise to superpower status just as America goes into relative decline. (By relative decline, incidentally, I mean just that. America need not go into absolute decline. In fact, there are signs of great vitality for the U.S., just as there are very problematic signs.)

The shadow of the past hangs especially heavy over U.S.-China relations.

As the U.S. moves further into its geopolitical pivot to the Asia-Pacific, it must be ever mindful of its imperial past in the region, a history which is quite breathtaking in its scope and depth. Americans, never very mindful of history, especially in this twitterized era, may not be aware. But folks in the Asia-Pacific are.

Included in that history was having the actual headquarters of a U.S. Navy fleet, the late Asiatic Fleet, in a Chinese city, that city being Shanghai. And having U.S. Navy gunboats patrolling the inland waters of China a thousand miles and more into the interior of the country. Which I’ve discussed a few times, including here.

The Asiatic Fleet ceased to exist very early in World War II after serving as a time-buying speed bump for the Imperial Japanese Fleet after Pearl Harbor, as depicted in the classic 1945 Philippines-set John Ford film, They Were Expendable. The real power of the U.S. Navy, its aircraft carriers and battleships, in the Pacific resided in the Pacific Fleet.

The Asiatic Fleet was a collection of old cruisers and destroyers and gunboats designed to show the flag to less powerful countries and, in some cases, enforce “gunboat diplomacy.” The Sand Pebbles, the 1966 film starring Steve McQueen as a “China sailor” serving aboard an old gunboat patrolling the inland rivers of China, depicts this very well.

Later, of course, America and China fought each other in a major land war, the Korean War, in the early 1950s.

Just as Russia rejected US and NATO attempts to press in upon the post-Soviet space through NATO expansion to its borders and creation of anti-missile programs — efforts which spurred on the development of Russian ultra-nationalism — so too will China reject any attempt to press closely upon it.

Its erratic longtime ally North Korea, prone to threatening rhetoric and actions, is a problem which China acknowledges. But it’s hard to imagine that China wants to see it merge with the far more dynamic South Korea, which would place a major U.S. ally snug against its border.

As China, long a land-based power, looks increasingly to naval power, the historic guarantor of trade is key to global reach. Along with commissioning its first aircraft carrier, it’s making increasingly dynamic moves in the East China Sea, pursuing an island dispute with Japan, and, more dramatically, pushing very aggressive claims in the South China Sea, one of the world’s most important bodies of water for commerce and petroleum reserves. Much to its neighbors’ dismay — especially Vietnam and the Philippines — China claims virtually the entire South China Sea for itself, making it a major global flashpoint. The US.. has close ties, and treaty alliances, with nations on both seas.

As China moves more assertively on the world’s oceans, it is already well established on another sort of ocean, that of cyberspace. Charges of rampant Chinese cyber-espionage and cyber-attacks have been widely reported, as was this case which had the New York Times accusing China of hacking all its systems while the Times worked on a story suggesting massive corruption in China’s government.

Needless to say, this is an awkward moment for Obama to be raising these particular concerns, given the sharp controversies over his administration’s secret monitoring of journalists and the just-disclosed massive surveillance programs encompassing phone calls and Internet operations.

The Obama Administration was on firmer ground last weekend, when Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel delivered an important address in Singapore at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue of Asia-Pacific defense officials. He talked about the geopolitical pivot to the Asia-Pacific and he specifically raised deep concerns about China, especially with regard to cyber hacking and its vastly expansive claims to virtually the entire South China Sea. The full text of Hagel’s speech as delivered is available here.

A Chinese general responded immediately, challenging the emerging repositioning of major U.S. Navy and other military assets to the Pacific Basin. Hagel followed that challenge by visiting USS Freedom, first of a new class of fast littoral combat ships, which is now based in Singapore, though still officially home ported in San Diego, California.

Of course, it’s not at all all confrontational. There are ways to cooperate to mutual benefit. After all, the U.S. and China have a symbiotic relationship — China needing American markets for its export-oriented economy and the U.S. needing Chinese finance — a reality which may well be the ultimate guarantor that any future unpleasantness can be reined in.

It’s fitting that literally the first person to greet Xi as he walked off his plane late Thursday afternoon in Ontario, California was Governor Jerry Brown, who as I wrote in that piece toured China leading a California trade and investment mission in April.

Brown, who does a great many things informally, has his formal meeting with Xi, whom he hosted last year, Saturday at the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort. A hotel that already holds a substantial amount of good fortune for Brown. For it was that hotel in Indian Wells where then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made his fall 2007 pitch to the California Republican Party convention to arrest its slide to the hard right and move toward the center. The party’s refusal to follow Schwarzenegger’s advice set many things in motion, including Brown’s own landslide 2010 election victory over billionaire Meg Whitman.

Like Brown, who came away from his April tour of China with about $2 billion in investment commitments, Schwarzenegger also toured China, in 2010. China, its vast and growing wealth not trickling down nearly as rapidly as one might suppose in an avowedly socialist society, is a sparkling lure for those seeking foreign direct investment.

It is also a critical pivot for the planet’s future climate. That’s why Brown, like Schwarzenegger — who has worked to bring Chinese officials on board with the California approach through his three Governors’ Global Climate Summits as well as his ongoing work with his UN-affiliated R20 organization of sub-national governments — is pushing Chinese officials to pursue more energy efficient and environmentally benign forms of development.

In its rapid industrialization phase, China has pursued the ultimate in the “all of the above” energy strategy, throwing up coal plants even as it became a world leader in renewable energy. If it continues on its old course, hopes to avert a sharply altered climate are sharply diminished. But if it shifts in a direction favored by Brown, Schwarzenegger, and Obama — some of whose policies are modeled after those of California — the shape of the future will be different.

Even in geopolitics, it’s not all, nor need it be, confrontation with China. There is a potential global partnership agenda to pursue.

Early in the week, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Admiral Cecil Haney, visited the headquarters of China’s South China Sea Fleet in Zhanjiang, China. Lines of communication are not only remaining open, they are being pursued.

And differences over Syria and, before that, Libya don’t have to mean future confrontation. The two powers could cooperate to great effect on future international crises.

In fact, events in Syria, where it looks like Russia is effectively checking Western attempts to intervene on behalf of the Syrian rebels to take down the Assad regime, which has gained the decided upper hand in the Syrian civil war, may paradoxically make it easier to pursue cooperation on future crises.

With Russia’s seeming checkmate in Syria removing pressure from what has been an increasingly pressure-packed situation, Obama and Xi may have one less irritant for the two countries’ future relationship.

Amidst the pleasant opulence of Sunnylands, the old Annenberg estate in Rancho Mirage on Bob Hope Drive, Obama can present what might be described as his 21st century variant on the “Open Door” policy. For he seeks, or so he can say, merely to ensure multiple access to important international waters that happen to lap on China’s shores, a rather more benign variant of Teddy Roosevelt era Secretary of State John Hay’s formulation, in which Western colonial powers were each granted access to a then supine China.

The re-balancing of U.S. naval and other military forces to the Pacific, the burgeoning Trans Pacific Partnership for trade — which does not currently envision China as a party to it — these are still peaceful moves on the geopolitical gameboard which America, even in its relatively weakened state after more than a decade of ill-conceived wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, can readily undertake. So long as it frees itself of those entanglements, that is.

Are Obama and Xi crafty enough to avoid direct confrontation in favor of a creative tension as the new dynamic between America and the rising China? It will take more than a weekend to determine that.

From my June 7th essay.

In the latest bizarre and lethal episode involving someone with an assault rifle, five people were killed yesterday in a series of shootings in Santa Monica, California before the shooter was cornered and shot to death in the Santa Monica College Library.

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

At 12 noon, he meets with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China at the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort and Spa.

Brown is holding a host of meetings with top Chinese officials around the summit. He is also talking with some top US officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, whom he’s known for a long time.

Brown is also continuing private discussions on the state budget.

What exactly went wrong with the troubled beachfront San Onofre nuclear power plant? That’s the big question now that Southern California Edison has made the decision to permanently shut the plant, which has been offline since the beginning of last year. Yes, scores of new pipes promptly corroded, but why? That still seems unclear.

San Onofre, incidentally, was offline for most of the electric power crisis of the early part of the last decade, due to an accident which I first reported in March 2001. That cost the state, which had to buy replacement power, an enormous amount of money.

Also at issue this time around will be the cost of decommissioning and retiring the plant, which could be in the billions.

Brown issued this statement about San Onofre: “Since the San Onofre nuclear power plant went offline last year, energy utilities and the state have worked to provide Southern California with reliable electric power year round. At my direction, California’s top energy experts will continue developing a long-term plan that ensures there is reliability for decades to come. As we move into the hot summer months, we can all do our part by continuing to conserve.”

The closure of San Onofre leaves only Pacific Gas & Electric’s Diablo Canyon, on the Central Coast not far from an offshore earthquake fault, as California’s lone remaining nuclear power plant. But there is an evacuation plan.

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

Click here for my compendium of articles providing a narrative of his governorship.

** NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SUSAN RICE: GOOD IDEA OR BAD IDEA? … From my June 5th column.

** MAD MEN: A RETURN TO FORM? … From my June 3rd essay.

** JERRY BROWN ENCOUNTERS INTERESTING TIMES. … From my June 1st feature.

** OBAMA: FALLING BEHIND THE CURVE OF CRISIS. … From my May 30th column.

** MAD MEN: CHANGE PARTNERS. … From my May 27th essay.

** “GOING BULWORTH“: THE FIRST TIME, AND NOW. … From my May 23rd essay.

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

In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama tries to turn up the heat on the immigration bill.

** 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 $96.03 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.

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

San Onofre Down For The Count, Summit Sets The Stage

Bill Bradley — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 16:13:32 +0000

President Barack Obama insisted today in San Jose that the government’s massive, previously secret, surveillance programs over telephony and Internet operations is nothing to worry about.

** QUICK HITS. What exactly went wrong with the troubled beachfront San Onofre nuclear power plant? That’s the big question now that Southern California Edison has made the decision to permanently shut the plant, which has been offline since the beginning of last year. Yes, scores of new pipes promptly corroded, but why? San Onofre, incidentally, was offline for most of the electric power crisis of the early part of the last decade, due to an accident which I first reported. More to follow. … Governor Jerry Brown issued this statement about San Onofre: “Since the San Onofre nuclear power plant went offline last year, energy utilities and the state have worked to provide Southern California with reliable electric power year round. At my direction, California’s top energy experts will continue developing a long-term plan that ensures there is reliability for decades to come. As we move into the hot summer months, we can all do our part by continuing to conserve.” … The closure of San Onofre leaves only Diablo Canyon, on the Central Coast not far from an offshore earthquake fault, as California’s lone remaining nuclear power plant. But there is an evacuation plan. … Speaking of escape plans, here is the brand-new one-sheet for the new film starring Sylvester Stallone and former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Escape Plan will be out this fall.

** OBAMA’S BIG CHINA SUMMIT IN CALIFORNIA MERELY SETS THE STAGE. With many fearing or hoping for a new cold war while others wish for kumbayah and global cooperation, and still others desire outright Chinese ascendancy over a tired America, the stakes for this summit between President Barack Obama and new Chinese President Xi Jinping seem high.

The shadow of the past hangs especially heavy over U.S.-China relations. …

From my new essay.

** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … OBAMA’S BIG CHINA SUMMIT MERELY SETS THE STAGE and ICONS OF AN ERA: OF IRON, BATS, AND BONDS.

** NEW SURVEY: CHINA VIEWED BY MOST AS A FRIENDLY NATION. A new Gallup Poll survey on the eve of the US-China Summit in California reveals that, despite some very rough edges in the relationship, most view China in positive light.

The margin is 55% to 40% when attitudes are added up.

As Chinese president Xi Jinping travels to the United States to meet with President Obama, 55% of Americans view China as either an ally (11%) or a nation friendly to the U.S. (44%), while 40% say it is either unfriendly (26%) or an enemy (14%). …

The U.S.-Chinese meetings come at a time of somewhat uneasy relations between the two countries, with disputes over alleged cyberhacking, unfair trade practices, and North Korea’s nuclear program. Despite these issues, only 14% of Americans view China as an “enemy” of the United States. In turn, 11% say it is an ally, with most Americans having a more moderate positive or negative view of China in the June 1-4 poll.

Americans have generally been positive toward China when Gallup has asked this question over the past 13 years, apart from a sharply negative turn in 2001 after a Chinese fighter jet collided with a U.S. surveillance plane. The U.S. plane made an emergency landing but the Chinese government detained the U.S. crew for 12 days before releasing them. Americans come out a bit more negative than positive toward China when Gallup, in its annual February World Affairs poll, asks whether they have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the country.

That suggests Americans may not like certain things about China or its policies, causing them to view the country unfavorably, but not to the degree that they see China as hostile toward the U.S. Younger Americans and Democrats are much more likely to see China as a friend to the U.S. than are older Americans and Republicans. …

Americans have a much more positive view of many countries other than China, especially Great Britain and Canada, on this measure. At least six in 10 Americans view those countries as allies of the United States, with most of the rest describing them as friendly but not allies. Americans also view Israel, Japan, Mexico, and India more positively than China, with between 25% and 46% naming each of these countries “allies.”

In comparison with other countries tested in the June 1-4 poll, China falls into a middle group, along with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Russia. Around half view the countries positively, relatively few see them as U.S. allies, and relatively few also view them as enemies of the U.S.

At the other end of the spectrum, most Americans view Iran and North Korea as enemies of the United States, with most of the rest describing those countries as unfriendly. The vast majority of Americans also view Pakistan and Iraq as being unfriendly or enemies of the U.S. …

The U.S. National Security Agency has been using the world’s biggest Internet companies to spy on foreigners. Leaked documents suggested the NSA was tapping directly into the servers of firms like Google, Facebook and Apple. (The practice with Apple came last among the big firms, after the death of Steve Jobs.) The head of the agency confirmed it has been collecting information – but only about non-U.S. citizens. On Thursday it was revealed the NSA has been monitoring the phone records of millions of Americans.

** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … OBAMA’S BIG CHINA SUMMIT IN CALIFORNIA and ICONS OF AN ERA: OF IRON, BATS, AND BONDS.

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

At 8:50 AM Pacific, Obama delivers a statement to reporters on the Affordable Care Act at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose.

At 9:25 AM Pacific, Obama departs San Jose on Air Force One en route Los Angeles.

At 10:35 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in Los Angeles.

At 12 noon Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a DNC fundraiser at a private residence in Santa Monica.

At 2:05 PM Pacific, Obama departs Los Angeles on Air Force One en route Palm Springs, California.

At 2:55 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in Palm Springs.

Incidentally, there is something wrong with this time frame in the schedule, because it does not take 50 minutes to fly from LA to Palm Spring.

At 5 PM Pacific, Obama participates in a photo opportunity with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China at The Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage.

At 5:05 PM Pacific, Obama and President Xi will hold a bilateral meeting at The Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage.

At 8 PM Pacific, Obama will hold a working dinner with President Xi at The Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage.

The US-China Summit will continue Saturday in Rancho Mirage.

China is a controversial country in many American circles for its labor and human rights practices. Demonstrators greeted Chinese President Xi Jinping last night in Indian Wells, California.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sidestepped questions about the government’s massive collection of Verizon phone records yesterday when asked in a hearing if any phones on Capitol Hill were monitored. Holder and senators agreed to a classified session. The surveillance issue has of course become a firestorm.

The New York Times, ripping Senator Dianne Feinstein in the process, declared in a rare afternoon editorial on Thursday: “The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue.”

After this editorial appeared, more revelations came with news that premiere Internet companies have been granting the government the ability to access all manner of online activities by anyone.

Governor Jerry Brown hosted then Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping last year in California.

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

Brown ventured to Southern California yesterday to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has been touring Caribbean nations, to the Golden State.

Brown and First Lady/Special Counsel Anne Gust Brown were on the tarmac to greet Xi and the first lady of the People’s Republic, pop star Peng Liyuan, as you see from these photos taken from just behind the governor’s ear.

At 2:50 PM Pacific, the Browns greet President Barack Obama when he arrives at Palm Springs Airport.

And at noon on Saturday, Brown meets with new Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort.

Brown, of course, undertook a major trade and investment mission to China chronicled here in April.

Brown is continuing private discussions on the state budget.

California’s high-speed rail program, championed by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Governor Gray Davis before being ramrodded through the latest hurdles by Brown, kept moving forward yesterday with the agency’s board awarding a billion dollar contract to Tutor/Perini for construction of the program’s first phase.

But Brown got some bad, though not unexpected news with Southern California Edision and San Diego Gas & Electric deciding to shut down the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

San Onofre hasn’t generated power since early last year, having run afoul of mysterious ailments after getting brand new tubing that promptly malfunctioned. More to follow.

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

Click here for my compendium of articles providing a narrative of his governorship.

** NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SUSAN RICE: GOOD IDEA OR BAD IDEA? … From my June 5th column.

** MAD MEN: A RETURN TO FORM? … From my June 3rd essay.

** JERRY BROWN ENCOUNTERS INTERESTING TIMES. … From my June 1st feature.

** OBAMA: FALLING BEHIND THE CURVE OF CRISIS. … From my May 30th column.

** MAD MEN: CHANGE PARTNERS. … From my May 27th essay.

** “GOING BULWORTH“: THE FIRST TIME, AND NOW. … From my May 23rd essay.

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

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

“Lost All Credibility,” Christie Up Big, Massive Monitoring

Bill Bradley — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 16:58:33 +0000

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sidestepped questions about the government’s massive collection of Verizon phone records when asked in a hearing if any phones on Capitol Hill were monitored. Holder and senators agreed to a classified session. The surveillance issue has of course become a firestorm. The New York Times, ripping Senator Dianne Feinstein in the process, declared in a rare afternoon editorial: “The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue.”

** QUICK HITS. Governor Jerry Brown will meet President Barack Obama — in California for his Rancho Mirage summit meeting with new Chinese President Xi Jinping — on Friday at 2:50 PM at Palm Springs Airport. Brown, who toured China leading a California trade and investment mission in April, will meet with President Xi, whom he hosted last year, at 12 noon on Saturday at the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort. … That hotel in Indian Wells is where then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made his fall 2007 pitch to the California Republican Party convention to arrest its slide to the hard right and move toward the center. … The party’s refusal to follow Schwarzenegger’s advice set many things in motion, including Brown’s own landslide 2010 election victory over billionaire Meg Whitman. … California’s high-speed rail program, championed by Schwarzenegger and former Governor Gray Davis, kept moving forward today with the agency’s board awarding a billion dollar contract to Tutor/Perini for construction of the program’s first phase. More to follow.

** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … OBAMA’S BIG CHINA SUMMIT IN CALIFORNIA and ICONS OF AN ERA: OF IRON, BATS, AND BONDS.

** NEW SURVEY: CHRIS CHRISTIE ENJOYS WIDE NATIONAL POPULARITY. A new Gallup Poll survey, taken at a time of increasing turmoil for Democrats at the presidential and would-be presidential level, indicates that there is one Republican who might be able to take advantage of what is, at the moment at least, an unpromising situation for Democrats.

That is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a relative moderate who incurred the wrath of many conservatives last year when he embraced President Barack Obama as the two leaders struggled with the effects of Superstorm Sandy.

Christie is up for re-election this year and should have no problems. Yet he called a special election, nearly a month earlier than his own election, to replace the late Senator Frank Lautenberg, who passed away aged 90 early this week.

That will have the effect of diluting the state’s large vote among people of color, since Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who once plotted a gubernatorial run against Christie, is going for the Senate instead.

Today he appointed his former aide, now New Jersey’s state attorney general, to hold the Senate seat on an interim basis.

But this is political maneuvering. Which takes place in a national climate of opinion generally favorable to Christie.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a rising star in the Republican constellation and possible presidential contender in 2016, has a remarkable and unusually similar appeal to Democrats and independents as well as to Republicans nationally, with half or more of each group saying they have a favorable opinion of him. …

Christie is in the news this week as a result of his actions after the death of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg. Christie called a special election in October to fill Lautenberg’s seat, angering some Republicans who thought he should have appointed a Republican to hold the seat until 2014, rather than holding an election.

The June 1-4 data were collected largely before that story hit the news, but Christie’s 58% favorable rating among Republicans nationwide underscores his positive image among that group. Christie’s 52% favorable rating among Democrats testifies to his cross-partisan appeal at this point, as does his 50% favorable rating among independents. Typically, partisan politicians are rated positively by supporters of their party and negatively by supporters of the other party.

One slightly negative note comes from his 23% unfavorable rating among Republicans, marginally higher than his negatives among Democrats or independents. This may reflect that Republicans are paying close attention to Christie’s overall political positioning, and some in the party may be displeased with Christie’s high-visibility public appearances with President Barack Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy at the New Jersey shore, including one just before last November’s presidential election.

Christie’s name identification is 72% today, up from the 49% of Americans who knew enough about him to have an opinion in March 2011. Over that time, his favorable ratings have almost doubled, while his unfavorable ratings have dropped by two percentage points. …

President Barack Obama and new Chinese President Xi Jinping hold a summit meeting Friday and Saturday at Sunnylands, the old Annenberg estate on Bob Hope Drive in Rancho Mirage, California.

** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … OBAMA’S BIG CHINA SUMMIT IN CALIFORNIA and ICONS OF AN ERA: OF IRON, BATS, AND BONDS.

** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington, North Carolina, and California.

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

At 9:05 AM Pacific, Obama departs the White House on Marine One en route Joint Base Andrews.

At 9:20 AM Pacific, Obama departs Joint Base Andrews on Air Force One en route Charlotte, North

At 10:35 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

At 11:30 AM Pacific, Obama tours Mooresville Middle School in Mooresville, North Carolina.

At 11:55 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at Mooresville Middle School.

At 1:15 PM Pacific, Obama departs Charlotte, North Carolina on Air Force One en route Moffett Federal Airfield in California’s Silicon Valley.

At 6 PM Pacific, Obama arrives Moffett Federal Airfield.

At 7 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a DSCC event at a private residence in Palo Alto,

At 8:25 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a DSCC event at a private residence in Portola Valley, California.

The Obama Administration was rocked overnight by the revelation in Britain’s Guardian newspaper that the US government is collecting all phone records of Verizon users in the US. This amounts to many millions of people.

California Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, joined Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, the Intel vice chair, in saying this morning that this has been standard practice for the past seven years.

US Attorney General Eric Holder, trying to tamp down a storm of controversy over secret government monitoring of the news media, testified today before Congress that journalists doing their jobs will not be arrested. His comments came following word of massive government surveillance of all Verizon phone users.

Some wondered late yesterday whether the promotions for human rights interventionists Susan Rice, the new national security advisor, and Samantha Power, UN ambassador-designate, means the US will move to an interventionist mode on Syria after all. My suggestion: Look to the “correlation of forces,” to use the old Soviet term, within the situation, not personalities.

Today is the 69th anniversary of D-Day, the spectacular across-the-English Channel Allied invasion of France which led the following year to the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving widespread unrest in NATO ally Turkey, the Syrian civil war, the North Korean nuclear program, the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Iraq, AfPak, and the South China Sea.

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

He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.

Brown will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama in and around the US-China Summit Friday and Saturday in Rancho Mirage.

Brown, of course, undertook a major trade and investment mission chronicled here earlier this spring.

The state’s high-speed rail board meets today to consider its first construction contract to build an initial 30-mile segment.

Brown is continuing private discussions on the state budget.

That FBI raid of LA area state Senator Ron Calderon’s offices continues to reverberate. The Justice Department isn’t saying anything, but others are coming forward to say that their inquiry appears to be centered, at least in part, on the operations of an LA area water district I’d never heard of before.

The district, which receives federal funds, employed Calderon’s brother Ron, a former state legislator, at great expense as a consultant.

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

Click here for my compendium of articles providing a narrative of his governorship.

The Syrian town of Qusayr was lost by the rebels just over 24 hours ago, a big strategic win for the Assad regime. By holding Qusayr, the government is now in control of vital roads and supply routes. As the Free Syrian Army retreats, the focus turns to Syria’s other frontlines. It is likely that Assad loyalists supported by Hezbollah fighters will try to secure towns in and around Homs, as well as the rebel stronghold of Aleppo. Rebel forces have been in control of the main military airports in Aleppo for the past few months.

** NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SUSAN RICE: GOOD IDEA OR BAD IDEA? … From my June 5th column.

** MAD MEN: A RETURN TO FORM? … From my June 3rd essay.

** JERRY BROWN ENCOUNTERS INTERESTING TIMES. … From my June 1st feature.

** OBAMA: FALLING BEHIND THE CURVE OF CRISIS. … From my May 30th column.

** MAD MEN: CHANGE PARTNERS. … From my May 27th essay.

** “GOING BULWORTH“: THE FIRST TIME, AND NOW. … From my May 23rd essay.

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

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