As a brawl in the media at least, the Benghazi disaster has reached critical mass.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … BENGHAZI BLUES: MASSIVE CONSPIRACY OR HACK POLITICS AND BAD PR?
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama received the intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He has no scheduled public events.
There’s been more of a hoorah today on the Sunday chat shows about the Benghazi disaster.
While much of it looks quite embarrassing, former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates did weigh in against the administration critics, saying they “have cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces.”
Gates was brought on by President George W. Bush to sort out the mess in Iraq created under predecessor Donald Rumsfeld. Before that, the career-long intelligence professional was director of the CIA under the first President Bush.
He says he would have exercised the same caution in military response as officials did last fall.
Pakistan voted this weekend in national elections marked by a great deal of violence, including the kidnapping of a recent prime minister’s son which left his bodyguards murdered. The son, a parliamentary candidate himself, is still missing.
But we do have an apparent winner. That would be former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was overthrown in a 1999 military coup headed by General Pervez Musharraf.
Former international cricket star Imran Khan’s party is running second, with the current ruling party a badly beaten third.
Sharif, a moderate Islamist, hasn’t had much to say about the Pakistani Taliban, other than that he wants to negotiate with them. Negotiations have not turned out well in the past.
Here’s what Obama’s week ahead looks like.
On Monday, Obama will hold a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom at the White House. Later on Monday, Obama will travel to New York City for Democratic fundraising before returning to the White House in the evening.
On Tuesday, Obama will attend meetings at the White House.
On Wednesday, Obama will deliver remarks at the National Peace Officers Memorial Service, an annual ceremony honoring law enforcement who were killed in the line of duty.
On Thursday, Obama will welcome Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to the White House for meetings and a working dinner.
Turkey is a key ally of the US in the Islamic world. Almost certainly not by coincidence, about 50 Turks were killed this weekend in bombings near the Syrian border.
On Friday, Obama will travel to Baltimore, Maryland in his second “Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity Tour.”
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Syrian chemical weapons situation, 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.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES – SUNDAY. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
Brown, as previously reported, presents the annual “May Revise” of his California state budget on May 14th.
With strong revenues, the state’s newly balanced budget is easily holding.
Brown’s would-be Republican rival, former Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, is floundering straight out of the box. So Brown’s relentless journalistic enemy of the past four decades, right-wing Sacramento Union columnist-independent registrant-Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters, is trying to spin up a new focal point of crisis.
Walters has tried repeatedly and failed to knock down Brown’s success in ending the state’s chronic budget crisis and balancing the state budget. So he has a new construct, a mega-straw man, if you will.
A figure arrived at by a right-wing think tank called the California Public Policy Center — ironically the name of Tom Hayden’s old think tank back in the day — by adding up all past public debt everywhere in California.
In other words, it’s hardly a figure that Brown is responsible for.
But it’s a rationale for Walters, who notoriously declared wind energy a bad source of power back when California was number one in the world on it, to extend his opposition to moving away from the old energy economy and argue, for the umpteenth time, against the high-speed rail project.
Saturday is an historic day in Pakistan. Voters are casting their ballots in the first ever election that would see power handed over from one civilian government to another. But there has been more of the violence we have seen in the run-up to the polls, with bomb attacks in Karachi and Peshawar. Some 22 people have been killed.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … BENGHAZI BLUES: MASSIVE CONSPIRACY OR HACK POLITICS AND DUMB PR?
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama received the intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He then honored the 2013 National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO) TOP COPS award winners at a ceremony in the East Room.
Obama has no scheduled public events on Sunday.
He is prepping for some mini-summitry over the coming week when the leaders of key US allies Britain and Turkey visit Washington.
There is a tremendous amount of wrangling about Wednesday’s Benghazi testimony and subsequent revelations of extensive revisions in “talking points” on the Benghazi terrorist attack. Including at the White House.
I’m not sure this constitutes a much-hyped game-changer — of course, I’ve been very critical of Susan Rice’s comments since the moment she made them, so some of this is hardly new — but this might get ugly.
Pakistan votes this weekend in national elections marked by a great deal of violence. The former prime minister’s son, a parliamentary candidate, was kidnapped a few days ago, with two of his bodyguards killed in the bargain. He is still missing.
“Yesterday, for the first time in human history, concentrations of carbon dioxide, the primary global warming pollutant, hit 400 parts per million in our planet’s atmosphere. This number is a reminder that for the last 150 years — and especially over the last several decades — we have been recklessly polluting the protective sheath of atmosphere that surrounds the Earth and protects the conditions that have fostered the flourishing of our civilization. We are altering the composition of our atmosphere at an unprecedented rate. Indeed, every single day we pour an additional 90 million tons of global warming pollution into the sky as if it were an open sewer. As the distinguished climate scientist Jim Hansen has calculated, the accumulated manmade global warming pollution in the atmosphere now traps enough extra heat energy each day to equal the energy that would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima-scale atomic bombs exploding every single day. It’s a big planet — but that is a LOT of energy. And it is having a destructive effect.
“Now, more than ever before, we are reaping the consequences of our recklessness. From Superstorm Sandy, which crippled New York City and large areas of New Jersey, to a drought that parched more than half of our nation; from a flood that inundated large swaths of Australia to rising seas affecting millions around the world, the reality of the climate crisis is upon us.
“Our food systems, our cities, our people and our very way of life developed within a stable range of climatic conditions on Earth. Without immediate and decisive action, these favorable conditions on Earth could become a memory if we continue to make the climate crisis worse day after day after day.
“With any great challenge comes great opportunity. We have the rare privilege to rise to an occasion of global magnitude. To do so, our communities, our businesses, our universities, and our governments need to work in harmony to stop the climate crisis. We must summon the very best of the human spirit and draw on our courage, our ingenuity, our intellect, and our determination to confront this crisis. Make no mistake, this crisis will demand no less than our very best. I am optimistic because we have risen to meet the greatest challenges of our past.
“So please, take this day and the milestone it represents to reflect on the fragility of our civilization and and the planetary ecosystem on which it depends. Rededicate yourself to the task of saving our future. Talk to your neighbors, call your legislator, let your voice be heard. We must take immediate action to solve this crisis. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. Now.”
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Syrian chemical weapons situation, 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.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES – SATURDAY. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
Brown’s would-be Republican rival, former Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, who backed away from an off-the-cuff charge Friday that Brown is orchestrating the negative reaction to Wednesday’s backfired attack on Brown, which I discuss below, said on Friday afternoon that he will “probably” remove imagery of a scary-looking black guy who has no relation to Brown’s policy from campaign materials.
“Probably?”
Really?
One of the worst things one can do in politics is compound a huge mistake with stubbornness.
Brown, as previously reported, presents the annual “May Revise” of his California state budget on May 14th.
With strong revenues, the state’s newly balanced budget is easily holding.
** CALIFORNIA GETS A NEW DEMOCRAT: DEFECTION OF RECENT RISING STAR AMONG LATEST SIGNS OF FURTHER GOP DECLINE.One of the strangest things about California over the past decade is how little impact Arnold Schwarzenegger’s two landslide wins for the governorship had on the Republican Party. Instead of a right-wing party moving more toward the center, the GOP became instead, after some perfunctory genuflections toward Schwarzenegger’s electoral success, an extreme right-wing party, prefiguring developments at the national level.
We see the ongoing impact of this now, with two of the most prominent Republican figures of the Arnold era — Iraq War hero-turned-rising-star Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher and appointed Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado — reacting sharply, in sharply different ways, over the past week to the party’s hidebound conservatism. Fletcher became a Democrat. Maldonado, touted as a new moderate face for the party’s badly needed renovation, went hard right in the first big move in his ultra-long-shot bid against Governor Jerry Brown.
Maldonado pulled a move out of the old conservative Republican playbook, trying to launch his drive against Brown by running to the right on crime, literally presenting a “Willie Horton”-style figure as a scary-black-man-mug-shot poster boy against Brown’s fiscally conservative realignment policy of moving lesser offenders from state to local incarceration. But the would-be governor — who served effectively as Schwarzenegger’s appointed lieutenant governor after a long stint in the state legislature — had his facts all wrong, and the move was a major embarrassment. The sudden shift to the hard right was all the more ironic because the rationale for Maldonado’s gubernatorial candidacy is to begin re-branding the Republicans as a more mainstream outfit. More on that in a few moments.
A week ago, another rising Republican star of the Arnold era, former Assemblyman Fletcher, announced that he has become a Democrat.
Fletcher was a bright and personable moderate conservative when I met him at a Schwarzenegger party in 2006, also attended by Schwarzenegger’s bedeviling antagonist in the 2005 special election, ace Democratic strategist Gale Kaufman. It was clear from how they spoke of him that some major GOP players thought he could go a very long way for the Republicans. But it was not to be.
Last year, after trying without success to get the Republican endorsement, the decorated Marine sergeant switched his registration to independent as he ran a near-miss race to get into the run-off for mayor of San Diego.
After taking the lead following the announcement of his registration switch from Republican to independent, Fletcher ended up finishing a relatively close third in the primary. Republicans and Democrats, fearing the rise of an independent voter bloc, ganged up on his candidacy.
The very conservative Republican city councilman who got the party nod over Fletcher ended up finishing first in the primary, but losing in the run-off to Democratic Congressman Bob Filner.
I think Fletcher would have won in the run-off, perhaps even as a Republican had the party gone that way, but certainly as an independent.
While the rest of the San Diego mayoral race unfolded with him on the sidelines, Fletcher played out the string of his termed-out state Assembly career (he works now for Qualcomm), and contemplated politics. His wife, Mindy Tucker Fletcher, has long been a name Republican operative, having served as press secretary for George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, communications director for the Republican National Committee, and deputy chief of staff to Governor Schwarzenegger.
However, like many, Nathan Fletcher was struck by former President Bill Clinton’s outstanding Democratic National Convention address last September. In announcing that he’s a Democrat, he wrote that he watched Clinton’s speech three times to try to find something he disagreed with, but “I couldn’t. It was clear — at least to me — that I was a Democrat.”
Around the time he was studying Clinton’s speech, I started hearing that Fletcher was interested in helping Clinton’s old presidential campaign rival, Jerry Brown, put together a tax hike bill in the legislature. Brown was then pushing his Proposition 30 revenue initiative, which ended up winning in a landslide.
Even though the makings for victory were always there, however, Brown’s initiative seemed then to be struggling, with some very big money starting to coalesce against it. In fact, there was more than enough money — at least by conventional wisdom standards — to defeat Prop 30.
But, CW notwithstanding, it seemed clear that, though Fletcher’s potential help in the legislature could be useful, actually passing Prop 30 was by far the preferred alternative. Just as rejecting advice from other folks, helpful and otherwise, to drop the high-speed rail program was also the preferred alternative.
Brown and his wily, ever-wry wife/special counsel-advisor, First Lady Anne Gust Brown, stayed precisely on the original course, with events playing out as they did. Here’s my piece on “How Jerry Brown Pulled Off the Big Prop 30 Win.”
Ironically, given the tenor of his attack on Brown this week, Maldonado might, had the 2010 election gone differently, have been much more helpful to Brown.
As Schwarzenegger’s appointed lieutenant governor — Schwarzenegger was neutral in the 2010 governor’s race — Maldonado did not attack Brown, even though he was running on the Republican ticket headed by billionaire Meg Whitman, whose biggest-spending non-presidential campaign in American history would end in a landslide victory. For Brown.
Maldonado, a rather nice and intelligent guy, might have proved a more helpful lieutenant governor to Brown than Democrat Gavin Newsom, who made a rather nasty stab at running against Brown in the Democratic gubernatorial primary before dropping out the year before the election. But Maldonado had trouble raising enough money to match Newsom, and went on to be swept away in the Brown-led Democratic landslide. Newsom beat Maldonado easily, 50 percent to 39 percent. Maldonado then went on to lose a Central Coast congressional race last November.
Of course, one other reason why Maldonado didn’t attack Brown, nor Brown go after Maldonado, in 2010 is that they’re not that far apart on a number of the biggest issues.
** 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 closed on Friday at $96.04 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
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.
It turns out that accused Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was secretly buried outside Richmond, Virginia. Many are outraged.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … CALIFORNIA GETS A NEW DEMOCRAT: DEFECTION OF RECENT RISING STAR AMONG LATEST SIGNS OF FURTHER GOP DECLINE.
** QUICK HITS.Lots of wrangling today about this week’s Benghazi testimony. I don’t see the hyped game-changer — of course, I’ve been critical of Susan Rice’s comments since the moment she made them, so some of this is hardly new — but there are definite problems for Democrats. More to follow. … Former Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, who backed away from an off-the-cuff charge today that Governor Jerry Brown is orchestrating the negative reaction to Wednesday’s backfired attack on Brown, which I discuss below, said this afternoon that he will “probably” remove imagery of a scary-looking black guy who has no relation to Brown’s policy from campaign materials. “Probably?” … Er, nobody needs to tell Democrats to do obvious things when their opponents stubbornly persist in boneheadedness. … Brown, as previously reported, does the “May Revise” of his California state budget on May 14th.
** NEW SURVEY: SUPPORT FOR PRO-CHOICE (WITHIN LIMITS) STANCE ON ABORTION STEADY, DESPITE HORRIFYING TRIAL OF AN ABORTIONIST. A new Gallup Poll survey indicates that positions are not changing on abortion, despite a sensational new trial of what looks very much like a chamber-of-horrors abortionist.
This is a valence issue, on which most people have long since made up their minds.
And the doctor in question looks very much like an aberration.
As Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell awaits the jury verdict in his capital murder trial, Gallup finds 26% of Americans saying abortion should be legal under any circumstances and 20% saying it should be illegal in all circumstances. The majority, 52%, opt for something in between, as has been the case in nearly every Gallup measure of this question since 1975. …
Current views on the legality of abortion, based on Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 2-7, are nearly identical to those from Gallup’s prior measures in December and May 2012. More generally, they are similar to what Gallup has found for most of the past decade, except for a brief period between 2005 and 2006, when the balance of the two absolutist positions tilted more heavily in favor of abortion being legal in all circumstances. …
The silver spire topping One World Trade Center on Friday brought the structure to its final height of 1776 feet.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … CALIFORNIA GETS A NEW DEMOCRAT: DEFECTION OF RECENT RISING STAR AMONG LATEST SIGNS OF GOP DECLINE.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama received the intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
At 11:40 AM Pacific, Obama delivers a statement on the Affordable Care Act in the East Room.
Republicans in the US Senate yesterday blocked a committee vote on EPA Administrator nominee Gina McCarthy.
This follows Wednesday’s blockage of Labor Secretary nominee Thomas Perez. Republicans, who succeeded due to some Democratic absences, say in both cases they want more answers to a ton of questions. Democrats, including Senator Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment Committee, say they’re being obstructionist.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Syrian chemical weapons situation, 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.
British Olympic champion Andrew “Bart” Simpson, who won a gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Games, died Thursday when his yacht capsized in San Francisco Bay during training for the America’s Cup. Simpson, 36, had been sailing on the Artemis, Sweden’s entry in the America’s Cup, when the high-speed catamaran capsized. The Golden Gate Yacht Club’s Oracle Racing will defend the America’s Cup, sailing’s top global prize, on San Francisco Bay in September.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
Brown is working on the annual “May Revise” of the state budget, expected on May 14th.
With strong revenues, the state’s newly balanced budget is easily holding.
His would-be Republican challenger, former Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, is trying to fend off charges of racism after his backfiring attack on Brown’s program of “realigning” lesser offenders from state to local custody.
Maldonado’s Wednesday press conference announcing an initiative campaign, his first move in his gubernatorial candidacy since making his intentions known at the state Republican convention, featured a big picture of a menacing black man the former Republican legislator claimed was emblematic of Brown’s policy.
In reality, he has nothing to do with Brown’s policy, having been released from prison in 2000 and having completed parole in 2003.
If you’re going to cry “Willie Horton,” you better be sure it’s Willie Horton.
** 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 $94 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $60 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 $20 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.
Boston Marathon terror bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was buried today at an undisclosed location outside Worcester, Massachusetts.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … CALIFORNIA GETS A NEW DEMOCRAT: DEFECTION OF RECENT RISING STAR AMONG LATEST SIGNS OF GOP DECLINE.
** QUICK HITS.Republicans in the US Senate today blocked a committee vote on EPA Administrator nominee Gina McCarthy. This follows yesterday’s blockage of Labor Secretary nominee Thomas Perez. Republicans, who succeeded due to some Democratic absences, say in both cases they want more answers to a ton of questions. Democrats say they’re being obstructionist. … In a meeting today in LA with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Governor Jerry Brown proclaimed Korea-California Friendship Day, noting that Korea is California’s fifth largest export market and California a top destination for Korean tourists, as well as the strong ties between the two on technology, research, food, and entertainment. … Brown also signed legislation further implementing the new national health care law, including giving state regulators powers to enforce anti-discrimination provisions against insurers and health plans. … Brown will address new political science graduates at our alma mater UC Berkeley on May 20th. … Who is the overall university commencement speaker? That would be Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, inventor of the first commercially successful personal computer, the Apple II. Woz dropped out of UC Berkeley to pursue the little start-up venture, then returned to finish his degree, under the name “Rocky Clark” at age 35. (“Rocky” being the first name of Woz’s dog, Rocky Raccoon.)
** NEW SURVEY: U.S. STOCK OWNERSHIP AT RECORD LOW. A new Gallup Poll survey shows a sharp divide between those who own some stock, and those who do not.
In fact, the level of stock ownership, even just a little stock ownership, is at the lowest point its been in Gallup’s regular 15-year measurement of it.
That level is down nearly 10 points from what it was before the great global recession.
The biggest drops in stock ownership are among the middle-aged, and middle-income. In other words, middle America, broadly defined.
Despite strong gains in the stock market over the past year, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s reaching record highs in the past month, stock ownership among U.S. adults is at its lowest level in Gallup trends since 1998, essentially unchanged from a year ago. Just over half of Americans, 52%, now say they personally, or jointly with a spouse, own stock outright or as part of a mutual fund or self-directed retirement account. …
Americans’ ownership of stock may, in fact, be more a function of their ability to buy it, than of whether its value is soaring. Between 1998 and 2008, a period of relatively modest unemployment, Gallup, with one exception, found at least 60% of Americans reporting that they owned stock. That changed in April 2009, at the same time the nation’s economy was descending into recession and experiencing a near-doubling of the unemployment rate compared with April 2008. By April 2012, with unemployment still elevated at 8.1%, stock ownership had fallen to 53%. It remains at about that level today, perhaps indicating that the nation’s current 7.5% unemployment rate, while improved, is still too high to support broader stock ownership. …
Majorities of Americans 30 and older, as well as those in households earning $30,000 or more per year, own stock, compared with no more than a third of their younger and lower-income counterparts. Similarly, employed Americans are much more likely than all non-employed Americans (including retirees, homemakers, and students, in addition to the unemployed) to own stock.
These patterns mirror what Gallup found in April 2008, when overall stock ownership was 10 percentage points higher than it is today, at 62%. However, the subsequent decline has been sharpest among 30- to 49-year-olds, as well as among middle-income Americans, the groups for whom stock ownership five years ago may have been the biggest financial stretch. …
As the dust continues to settle from the Boston Marathon bombings, Boston’s police chief told Congress this morning that his department never received word from the FBI that the Russian FSB had repeatedly warned about the Tsarnaevs.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … CALIFORNIA GETS A NEW DEMOCRAT: DEFECTION OF A RECENT RISING STAR REFLECTS THE STATE OF THE GOP.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Texas.
Obama received the intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He then flew on Air Force One to Austin, Texas.
At 10:15 AM Pacific, Obama arrives Austin, Texas.
Obama is in Texas today to promote technology-based education, training, and jobs.
He is promoting his State of the Union proposals in the area, as well as approved manufacturing innovation centers.
Texas, with a large and growing Latino population, is also an emerging Democratic target state, so expect some asides on his immigration reform agenda.
At 10:45 AM Pacific, Obama tours classrooms at Manor New Technology High School in Austin.
At 11:05 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at Manor New Technology High School.
At 2 PM Pacific, Obama tours Applied Materials Inc. in Austin.
At 2:40 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at Applied Materials Inc.
At 3:35 PM Pacific, Obama departs Austin, Texas on Air Force One en route Joint Base Andrews.
At 6:25 PM Pacific, Obama arrives Joint Base Andrews, where he boards Marine One.
At 6:45 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
Obama got good economic news with another decline in unemployment filings. It’s now at a four-year low.
But the news is not all good.
While Russia has agreed to co-host a conference on settling the crisis in Syria, it is also considering selling advanced anti-aircraft systems to the Assad regime, which is urgently requesting help after last week’s and weekend’s Israeli air strikes.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Syrian chemical weapons situation, 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.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Los Angeles.
He meets at noon with South Korean President Park Geun-hye at a luncheon at Getty House.
Brown is working on the annual “May Revise” of the state budget, expected on May 14th.
With strong revenues, the state’s newly balanced budget is easily holding.
This is prompting some Democrats to try to restore previously cut programs, an effort Brown is likely to resist.
California GOP gubernatorial hopeful Abel Maldonado ventured to Sacramento yesterday to unveil an initiative drive to roll back Brown’s realignment of some inmates from state to local custody.
The Protect California Families committee, which amusingly has a knife in its logo, will be funded by “angel investors,” the former lieutenant governor told reporters in parking structure press avail. That would be a way to use a few mega-rich donors in order to get around Maldo’s anemic fundraising as a gubernatorial candidate.
Maldonado is calling realignment an early release program. The administration flatly denies this.
In addition, the presentation contained serious factual errors.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th, 2009 Huffington Post column.
The attack on a US mission in Libya which killed the ambassador and three colleagues last year continues to draw political heat for the Obama Administration. Three State Department officials testified on Wednesday before Congress that more could have been done before and during the incident in Benghazi.
** 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 $96 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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 Benghazi disaster received another airing today on Capitol Hill.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … CALIFORNIA GETS A NEW DEMOCRAT: DEFECTION OF A RECENT RISING STAR REFLECTS THE STATE OF THE GOP.
** QUICK HITS. San Diego Congressman Darrell Issa held intriguing hearings of his House Oversight Committee today on the Benghazi disaster. Testimony from a few State Department folks who were there indicates the great drama of the situation last fall and of course once again makes obvious how foolhardy it was to claim, as UN Ambassador Susan Rice notoriously did, that the attacks were the result of a protest gone sour. … But suggestions by the former Libyan deputy chief of mission that sending a fighter jet to fly over Benghazi would have dispelled attacks seems at best highly questionable to me, if not fanciful. Absent clued-in ground spotters, a “fast-mover” as the diplomat called it has limited utility. The inability to field a rapid response special ops team is much more intriguing. … California GOP gubernatorial hopeful Abel Maldonado ventured to Sacramento today to unveil an initiative drive to roll back Governor Jerry Brown’s realignment of some inmates from state to local custody. The Protect California Families committee, which amusingly has a knife in its logo, will be funded by “angel investors,” the former lieutenant governor told reporters in parking structure press avail. That would be a way to use a few mega-rich donors in order to get around Maldo’s anemic fundraising as a gubernatorial candidate.
** NEW SURVEY: THE MOST ACTIVE ISSUES IN CONGRESS GET THE LOWEST PRIORITY. A new Gallup Poll survey indicates that the issues getting the most attention in Congress are the lowest rated in terms of public priority.
Most Americans, not surprisingly, want Congress to zero in on the economy.
But immigration, rated 12th of 12 issues tested in terms of importance, is viewed as important by 50%, so it’s not as though no one cares.
Americans put reforming immigration and reducing gun violence — the focus of much of the attention on Capitol Hill in recent weeks — at the bottom of a list of 12 priorities for Congress and the president to address. Americans instead say leaders in Washington should give highest priority to jobs and the economy, followed by making government work more efficiently and improving the quality of education. …
Republicans and Democrats assign similar priority ratings to a number of issues, including creating jobs, growing the economy, making the government work more efficiently, addressing problems with Social Security and Medicare, and reforming the tax code.
But Democrats and Republicans give vastly different ratings to two issues — access to healthcare and reducing gun violence. Democrats are more than 30 points more likely than Republicans to say improving access to healthcare and reducing gun violence should be top or high priorities for Congress and the president. The differences in views of healthcare may reflect the highly politicized nature of the Affordable Care Act, and the divergent perspectives on gun violence underscore that this issue has taken on significant political overtones. …
** MAD MEN GETS A BOUNCE AFTER SHAKING THINGS UP.
Q. “What the hell are you doing in Detroit?” A. “My doctor recommended an ocean voyage.”
Exchange between rivals Ted Chaough and Don Draper.
“I love Bobby Kennedy.”
Peggy Olson
Mad Men’s ratings edged back upward for the first time in a somewhat uneven Season 6 with Sunday night’s fine episode, “For Immediate Release.” Incidentally, here’s an archive of my pieces on the show, in The Mad Men File.
After a long span of increasingly airless personal drama, followed by last week’s intrusion of a major historical tragedy, the show got back to its advertising roots with a vengeance.
In fact, the show may have re-booted itself, as it did at the end of Season 3. For once again, the old Sterling Cooper etc. is no more.
SCDP is, very suddenly, a new and different agency after joining forces with Don Draper rival Ted Chaough’s CGC to beat out the big boys and win the new work on offer from Chevrolet.
This shock development at the tail end of the episode came after Draper essentially blew up his agency’s business with Jaguar in a dinner gone very wrong with the American car dealer who oddly carries such weight in Jaguar advertising decisions.
By the way, there is a very big punch line coming in the show’s substitution of advertising for Jaguar — which, unfortunately, we saw very little of — with advertising for Chevy’s new “Mustang-killer.”
Oh, and Pete Campbell’s marriage suddenly blew up, too, just as Trudy was warming again to his attentions. What happened? Well, he ran into his father-in-law at a brothel. And rather than carry on in mutual secrecy, said father-in-law decided to escalate the embarrassment by pulling his company’s business from SCDP.
Anyway, back to the other precipitous development.
As I write this, what was definitely an entertaining episode is seeming a bit more, well, less than credible in terms of its plotting. Not unlike Season 2 of Homeland, which was entertaining as all get out, but made very little sense the more you thought about it. …
The United States and Russia have agreed to push both sides in Syria to find an end to the bloodshed, offering to hold an international conference in search of peace.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … CALIFORNIA GETS A NEW DEMOCRAT.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden received the intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
Biden then attended South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s address to a Joint Session of Congress at the United States Capitol.
At 11:25 AM Pacific, Obama meets with electric utility CEOs and their trade associations at the Department of Energy.
At 1 PM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew in the Oval Office.
At 2:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets with a group of Asian American and Pacific Islanders national leaders in the Roosevelt Room.
At 3:30 PM Pacific, Obama has dinner with members of the House Democratic Leadership at the Jefferson Hotel.
Today’s congressional hearing on the Benghazi disaster — with California Congressman Darrell Issa at the helm — may be quite the political circus.
After a day of meetings in Moscow, including several hours with President Vladimir Putin, Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced, in a post-midnight press conference, a new international conference on Syria. It may take place at the end of the month, in Moscow.
There have been no reports of new Israeli air strikes on Syrian targets today.
And there has been no North Korean missile launch.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Syrian chemical weapons situation, 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.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Sacramento.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
Brown is working on the annual “May Revise” of the state budget, expected in mid-May.
With strong revenues, the state’s newly balanced budget is easily holding.
This is prompting some Democrats to try to restore previously cut programs, an effort Brown is likely to resist.
“Some people call me a terrorist. I consider myself a teacher. Lesson Number One: Heroes. There is no such thing.”
The Mandarin
Iron Man 3
So, what is the message of Iron Man 3? That’s a question with a multi-faceted answer. Even if it only refers to the political message.
Be advised that there are major spoilers ahead, so proceed, or not, on your own hook.
These days, it’s hard to say for sure when one can “spoil” a film or television show. That’s especially the case given what seems to be a distressing new release pattern for big event movies, i.e., launching them in international markets before they are released in North America.
Even though I didn’t see Iron Man 3 till this past weekend, I already knew the essential plot. That’s because the movie was playing around the world and there is this thing called the Internet.
So, in theory, it’s impossible to spoil this movie now, especially since it just had the second largest opening weekend at the domestic box office in history, with its whopping $174.1 million in North America second only to The Avengers. But there are still huge numbers of people who have not seen the movie who probably will see it, as it’s on its way to being one of the biggest movies of all time.
And in this age of time-shifted entertainment available in unprecedented profusion, in which people often choose to catch up with defunct TV series years after the fact via disc or streaming video, it is possible to spoil programming almost in perpetuity. Except for things like “I know it was you, Fredo, you broke my heart” and “Luke, I am your father” which have to transcend the culture of complaint.
There. While all that is true and relevant, it is also the limit of what a skilled speed-reader can pick up at a glance. So there can be no complaining about spoilers from here on in.
Iron Man 3 provides popcorn with a twist. A big political twist.
Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who left office not all that long ago in the midst of a spectacular sex scandal — I’ll never think of “hiking the Apppalachian Trail” in quite the same way again — was easily elected to Congress last night, defeating the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert.
** 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 $96 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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.
Wednesday’s congressional hearing on the Benghazi disaster — with California Congressman Darrell Issa at the helm — may be quite the political circus.
** QUICK HITS. After a day of meetings in Moscow, including several hours with President Vladimir Putin, Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced, in a post-midnight press conference, a new international conference on Syria. More to follow. … The San Francisco Board of Supervisors decided not to re-name San Francisco International Airport after murdered gay rights icon Harvey Milk after all. Much as I admire Milk, that is very much the right call. A terminal would be an appropriate idea. … Governor Jerry Brown today proposed ending “shake-down” lawsuits filed under Proposition 65, the toxic chemicals right-to-know initiative from 1986. … According to a new USC study, there are 2.6 million illegal immigrants in California. That’s roughly a quarter of the nation’s total, with nearly three-quarters from Mexico. The vast majority are here to work, but make less than half what American-born workers make.
** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … POPCORN WITH A POLITICAL TWIST? and CALIFORNIA GETS A NEW DEMOCRAT.
** NEW SURVEY: ECONOMIC CONFIDENCE TIES 5-YEAR HIGH. A new Gallup Poll survey indicates that economic confidence in the US is again at the highest level in the past five years.
But these sorts of post-meltdown figures generally come with a huge caveat.
They are improved, or at or near recent highs, but they are still in negative territory.
And the improvement is largely driven by the increased confidence of upper-income Americans.
Gallup’s U.S. Economic Confidence Index was -8 last week, matching the five-year weekly high set the week ending Feb. 3. The current score is up from -13 the previous week. …
Monthly U.S. economic confidence in April also matched the five-year monthly high of -13, tying February, January, and last November. Economic confidence in April was up from -16 in March, with the budget sequester, which began March 1, likely affecting the March reading. The recovery in April to the levels seen in January and February suggests the impact of the sequester may have been offset by the gains in stock values. …
Upper-income Americans’ economic confidence in April pushed out of negative territory for the first time. Middle- and lower-income Americans’ economic confidence remained in negative territory at -16 in April, compared with -18 in March and -14 in February. …
South Korean President Park Geun-Hye is holding talks with President Barack Obama on her first state visit to the US. Washington and Seoul are marking the 60th anniversary of forging their bilateral alliance, and are fresh from the most strident round of North Korean threats against them for many years. The two countries are pledging to coordinate closely in their approach, and both have offered talks to the North, so far without reward. North Korea is likely to top Tuesday’s agenda, and the position of China is also likely to be raised.
** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … POPCORN WITH A POLITICAL TWIST? and CALIFORNIA GETS A NEW DEMOCRAT.
** 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 held a bilateral meeting with President Park Geun-hye of the Republic of Korea in the Oval Office, with Biden in attendance.
At 9:15 AM Pacific, Obama hosts President Park for lunch in the Cabinet Room.
At 10:30 AM Pacific, Obama and President Park hold a joint press conference in the East Room.
At 12:50 PM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 1:40 PM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in the Oval Office.
At 2:35 PM Pacific, Obama attends a Democratic National Committee fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel.
Secretary of State John Kerry is in Moscow, where he met for several hours with Russian President Vladimir Putin and top Kremlin officials in a bid to solve the Syrian crisis. No solutions have been announced.
There have been no reports of new Israeli air strikes on Syrian targets today.
In a significant twist in the Syrian crisis, a UN investigator who is the former Swiss attorney general is saying that Syrian rebels may well have used chemical weapons in their struggle with the Assad regime. The rebels deny it and the US and some other UN officials are pushing back on the story.
With South Korean President Park Geun-hye arriving in Washington, North Korea has reportedly moved two missiles which had been poised for launch last month, a further de-escalation of the Korean Peninsula crisis.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Syrian chemical weapons situation, 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.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Sacramento.
At 9:30 AM, Brown will give remarks at the California Highway Patrol Memorial Ceremony at the California Highway Patrol Academy in West Sacramento.
I suspect that the controversial federal court orders demanding further reductions in state prison population will come up at some point.
Brown is working on the annual “May Revise” of the state budget, expected in mid-May.
With strong revenues, the state’s newly balanced budget is easily holding. Which of course prompts some Democrats to try to restore previously cut programs.
** 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 $95 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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.
The Syrian crisis has grown more complex, with Israeli airstrikes against rockets reportedly bound for Hezbollah creating murky options for the Assad regime and conflicting reports about who has used chemical weapons.
** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … POPCORN WITH A POLITICAL TWIST? and CALIFORNIA GETS A NEW DEMOCRAT.
** QUICK HITS. In a significant twist in the Syrian crisis, a UN investigator is saying that Syrian rebels used chemical weapons in their struggle with the Assad regime, which the rebels deny. … With South Korean President Park Geun-hye arriving in Washington for tomorrow’s meetings with President Barack Obama and other top officials, North Korea has reportedly moved two missiles which had been poised for launch last month, a further de-escalation of the Korean Peninsula crisis. … Governor Jerry Brown delivers remarks tomorrow morning at the California Highway Patrol Memorial Ceremony at the departmental academy in West Sacramento. I suspect that the controversial federal court orders demanding further reductions in state prison population will come up at some point.
** NEW SURVEY: FINANCIAL WORRIES AT LOWEST LEVEL SINCE RECESSION’S BEGINNING, BUT STILL SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER THAN PRE-RECESSION. A new Gallup Poll survey reveals that financial worries in the US are at their lowest level since 2007.
But they’re substantially higher than they were then.
Which is yet another sign that the economy is simply not back to what it was before the great global recession.
Americans’ financial worry has eased to the lowest level since before the recession. Gallup classifies 53% of Americans as highly or moderately worried about their finances, down from a peak of 61% a year ago, and the lowest since 45% in 2007. …
Americans are becoming less worried about a range of financial matters and, in a broad sense, are less worried about their personal finances now than at any time since the 2008-2009 recession. Still, the level of financial worry remains elevated to pre-recession levels, even as the economy is improving in many respects, including home values and stock values. And though still high on an absolute basis, the unemployment rate is much lower now than a few years ago. Yet economic growth remains sluggish, and it may take an economy firing on all cylinders to restore Americans’ confidence in their personal finances to what it was prior to the economic downturn.
Israeli airstrikes on targets inside Syria have upped the ante in the long-running crisis there.
** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … POPCORN WITH A POLITICAL TWIST? and CALIFORNIA GETS A NEW DEMOCRAT.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington.
Obama has received the intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He has no scheduled public events.
Here’s what Obama’s week ahead look like, at least on the public side, where it is very light.
On Monday, Obama will have meetings at the White House.
On Tuesday, Obama will welcome South Korean President Park Geun-hye of the Republic to the White House. They will discuss the long US/ROK alliance, which is being pegged as at 60th anniversary (later this year) level now, but actually is much longer than that. And of course they will discuss the ongoing, though downgraded, North Korean crisis.
The anniversary simply provides another opportunity for PR, er, public diplomacy.
On Wednesday, Obama will attend meetings at the White House.
On Thursday, Obama will travel to Austin, Texas for events on the economy, returning to the White House in the evening.
On Friday, Obama will have meetings at the White House.
On Saturday, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will honor the 2013 National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO) TOP COPS award winners at the White House.
The Syrian crisis spun up over the weekend with additional Israeli air strikes inside Syria, including Damascus itself.
The targets reportedly include advanced Iranian missiles bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
But a scientific research center has reportedly been hit as well.
Events between Syria and Israel are now just a few steps below war.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Syrian chemical weapons situation, 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.
Air elements of the California National Guard battled the now largely contained fire outside Los Angeles over the weekend.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Sacramento.
At 1 PM, he will join fire and emergency officials to kick off Wildfire Awareness Week at the CAL FIRE Aviation Management Unit outside Sacramento at the former McClellan Air Force Base.
The massive wildfire in Ventura County outside Los Angeles is now judged to be more than 80% contained.
Brown is working on the annual “May Revise” of the state budget, expected in mid-May.
Iron Man 3 opened over the weekend to a tidal wave of theatergoers across North America. The film took in over $175 million at the box office, second all-time only to The Avengers. Experts say that Robert Downey, Jr.’s portrayal of the quicksilver titular character — seen largely in Tony Stark mode in this outing — is the key element in the massive success.
** 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 $95 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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.
Syria’s deputy foreign minister said Sunday that Israel has declared war against it.
** NEW COLUMNS COMING UP … POPCORN WITH A POLITICAL TWIST? and CALIFORNIA GETS A NEW DEMOCRAT.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Ohio.
Just back from his Latin American trip, Obama is off to Columbus, Ohio.
There he delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University, as its alums amusingly insist on calling it.
He then returns to the White House.
The Syrian crisis spun up today with additional Israeli air strikes inside Syria, this time in Damascus itself.
The targets reportedly include advanced Iranian missiles bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
But a scientific research center has reportedly been hit as well.
More to follow.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Syrian chemical weapons situation, 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.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES – SUNDAY. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
The massive wildfire in Ventura County outside Los Angeles is still a threat but is being successfully fought, with the elements appearing to cooperate, for now.
Brown is working on the annual “May Revise” of the state budget, expected in mid-May. In an interesting twist, former state Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, a Marine hero in the Iraq War who was, until recently, one of the state’s few rising Republican stars, has become a Democrat.
Last year he switched his registration to independent as he ran a near-miss race to get into the run-off for mayor of San Diego.
He finished third, with the very conservative Republican city councilman who got the party nod over him finishing first in the primary, but losing in the run-off to Democrat Bob Filner.
Israel is increasingly worried about Syria, with deep concern about chemical weapons and the transfer of rockets and missiles to its enemy, Hezbollah. There are multiple reports that IDF air assets have launched at least two strikes against targets inside Syria.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … POPCORN WITH A POLITICAL TWIST?
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is in Costa Rica and Washinton, DC.
The time in Costa Rica is GMT minus 6, one hour ahead of Pacific time.
The White House operation has screwed up on the schedule.
Obama holds several meetings in and around San Jose, Costa Rica on the occasion of the Central American summit.
He then returns to Washington on Air Force One.
Five Americans were killed today in a Taliban bombing in southern Afghanistan. A sixth American was killed by Taliban small-arms fire.
Two more Americans were killed in the latest “green-on-green” attack by Afghan security personnel.
That’s a total of eight Americans killed on Saturday, making it once of the worst days of the Afghan War from the standpoint of American casualties.
Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai defends the massive amounts of cash which have been delivered to his office by the CIA since he took office more than a decade ago.
He even paid a visit to the CIA station chief in Kabul to try to ensure that the payments, which he is saying go to compensate Afghan War casualties, continue.
The cash has been routinely delivered to Karzai’s office in suitcases, backpacks, and plastic garbage bags.
Meanwhile, some folks who are more serious than Our Man in Kabul, the Israelis, have launched at least two air strikes against targets in Syria.
The Israel Defense Forces say they are going after attempted shipments of rocketry to Hezbollah, not against chemical weapons.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Syrian chemical weapons situation, 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.
The wind-whipped fire that erupted Thursday in the Camarillo area north of Los Angeles has burned through coastal wilderness and nearly doubled in size. After burning to the Pacific Ocean, a shift in winds caused the flames to reverse course and burn inland. But fresh moisture may be aiding firefighters now.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES – SATURDAY. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
The massive wildfire in Ventura County outside Los Angeles is still a major threat. Firefighting efforts have been alternately aided and damaged by changes in wind and moisture patterns.
Brown picked up support from Democratic and Republican legislative leaders yesterday in his battle with federal judges over their insistence on more deep cuts in the state’s prison population.
State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said the judges ignore “massive reform and reduction” that has taken place in the prison system. Brown Administration corrections officials put out a plan for the demanded cuts, which they say may put the public at risk. There is little support in the legislature for such cuts.
Brown has already sharply cut the prison system, partly in furtherance of his realignment from the state to local levels, partly in response to federal judicial overseers who intervened years ago to reduce overcrowding and increase the quality of care. Brown intends to appeal any further changes forced by federal judges to the US Supreme Court.
California prisoners now receive much better medical care than the average Californian.
Prisoner advocacy groups meanwhile blasted Brown for not proposing more prison cuts.
Meanwhile, Brown is working on the annual “May Revise” of the state budget, expected in mid-May.
Iron Man 3, already a big hit in international markets, is opening very big in North America this weekend. The second largest opening weekend of all-time, behind only that of The Avengers, may be on tap.
** 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 closed on Friday at $95.61 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
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.
President Barack Obama, speaking today in Mexico City, said it’s time to cast aside misconceptions about Mexico, which he called a fast-emerging nation.
** QUICK HITS. The big wildfire outside Los Angeles abated some today, before shifting direction again late in the afternoon and heading toward more homes. … Governor Jerry Brown picked up support from Democratic and Republican legislative leaders today in his battle with federal judges over their insistence on more deep cuts in the state’s prison population. State Senate leader Darrell Steinberg said the judges ignore “massive reform and reduction.” Brown Administration corrections officials put out a plan for such cuts, which they say may put the public at risk. … Brown has already sharply cut the prison system, partly in furtherance of his realignment from the state to local levels, partly in response to federal judicial overseers who intervened years ago to reduce overcrowding and increase the quality of care. … Brown intends to appeal any further changes forced by federal judges to the US Supreme Court. … California prisoners now receive much better medical care than the average Californian. … Prison advocacy groups meanwhile blasted Brown for not proposing more prison cuts.
** CRISES ALSO FADE.We live in a crisis-ridden age. But as fast and furious as the crises seem to come, it’s important to remember that crises fade, too.
In crisis mode today it’s about getting to the bottom of the Boston Marathon bombings. That, and the reported use of chemical weapons by Syria’s Assad regime against Syrian rebels, who began as protesters in the Arab Spring of early 2011. President Barack Obama had called any use of chemical weapons there “a red line” that cannot be crossed.
Last month, it was the Korean Peninsula crisis. Which featured North Korea, having just tested a more advanced nuclear weapon, issuing an endless string of colorfully dire warnings that would seem very much at home in a comic book, including impending missile launches and even the threatened nuking of US bases. And of course the time-honored classic of “drowning Seoul in a sea of fire.”
In extremely good news, yet another day has passed without a North Korean missile launch. The annual US/South Korean military exercises, which I suspected might have been agitating the young tyro who now reigns in North Korea, ended with the end of April.
The crisis seemed to cool even before the end of the two-month long Exercise Foal Eagle, after Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip to Seoul, Beijing, and Tokyo. Kerry pushed hard for China, which provides utterly crucial support for the Pyongyang regime but whose earlier criticism of North Korea’s precipitous moves seemed to fall on deaf ears, to weigh in anew with its client state. Which China evidently did.
Of course, a stray thought of gamesmanship compels one to ask if North Korea is simply obstreperous on its own, or if it is “out of control” long enough for assistance from China to become a critical element of US strategy. For there is a chess game underway as the US executes its geopolitical pivot from over-engagement with the Islamic world of the Middle East and Central Asia to increased engagement with the vast and rising Asia-Pacific region. (You can see my related pieces in the Pivot archive.) And China, whose extraordinarily expansive claims of sovereignty over virtually the entire South China Sea — claims that are extremely vexing to China’s far less powerful neighbors — can be blocked by the US Navy, may have mixed motives.
An actual war on the Korean Peninsula would be bad for China. In addition to the chaos and death that war brings, its ally North Korea, despite having one of the world’s largest armies, would lose in the end to South Korean and US forces, likely reunifying the current two Koreas under a government allied with the US. Unless China itself intervened, as it did over 60 years ago, leading to a bloody conflict with the US which could end in world war.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the US is considering giving weapons to Syrian rebels, even as study continues into the reported limited use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime.
But Obama has already eased off on his “red line” rhetoric. He previously stated that use of such weapons by the Assad regime would constitute an unacceptable “red line” behavior. My sense of American politics is that the appetite for direct US military intervention in Syria is very slight.
Obama doesn’t seem to want to intervene in Syria, nor do other allies. Even most congressional warhawks are wary of potentially getting in another big war in the Middle East.
Perhaps Obama should be more careful about what he calls a “red line.” Dictators are not impressed by empty threats. …
Not that fading means ending, necessarily.
Because, even though the threatened dramatic missile launches haven’t taken place, North Korea seems to have another mechanism to keep things perking, albeit at a much lower level of anxiety. A Korean-American arrested in murky circumstances has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for “hostile acts against the state.”
He organizes tours of North Korea, a venture which, frankly, had not occurred to me.
Never underestimate the zany factor.
It’s like those UC Berkeley students who set out for a hike a few years ago and wandered into Iran. Oops.
What are these people thinking?
Actually, I may know exactly what they are thinking.
Back when there was still a Soviet Union, before the ayatollah took over in Iran, not long after I graduated from college, I thought to backpack through the Middle East and Central Asia. Although there was a lot of bus travel involved, it was a great adventure, which went so swimmingly that by the time I reached one of the most pleasant of the outlying provinces of the USSR, the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic (today’s Kyrgyzstan), I thought to press my luck a bit by pressing next door into the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (now Kazakhstan).
Why? To try to find the famed Soviet space complex called Baikonur. That’s where the space age began, with the launch of Sputnik in 1957. Even today, it is the biggest space complex on the planet, still controlled by Moscow.
But, even though a U2 spy plane had located it, the Soviet space complex was still shrouded in mystery at ground level. In part because what was called “Baikonur” was, in furtherance of “maskirovka” deception strategy, hundreds of miles away from the actual town of Baikonur.
So when I showed up in Almaty, looking to get to Baikonur, I attracted some attention from the authorities. Fortunately the Russian higher-ups had a better sense of humor about my being a Star Trek fan from California than the Kazakh security troops who initially picked me up. But all agreed that it was wisest for me to continue my own earthbound trek elsewhere.
Which I suppose is something of a parable about how Americans can blunder into trouble around the world. Too bad the Korean tour guide isn’t a Star Trek fan. …
** NEW SURVEY: EXERCISE HABITS DECLINE. A new Gallup Poll survey indicates that, after an uptick last year, the number of Americans who exercise for at least 30 minutes three times a week is just over half.
This is a problem in a nation suffering an obesity epidemic, with diabetes sharply on the rise.
It is an also, from an anecdotal standpoint, increasingly a concern when making one’s way through supermarket aisles.
The 52.4% of Americans who said they exercised for at least 30 minutes three or more days per week is lower than the 53.9% who said so in April 2012. Frequent exercise is down in general in 2013 compared with 2012. Last year, Americans’ exercise habits improved during the warmest year on record for the U.S. since 1895. …
After a strong showing in 2012, frequent exercise is back down again in 2013 so far. But, even though fewer Americans are exercising frequently so far this year, at least in April Americans are exercising more than they did in the midst of and during the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession in 2009. They are now about on par with 2011.
But, as the U.S. continues to struggle with obesity, the current minor setback in exercise reveals that the nation has a long way to go in achieving a significant and sustained improvement in health. Indeed, a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that while nearly 50% of adults are getting the recommended amounts of aerobic activity, only one in five are meeting the overall guidelines for aerobic and muscle-strengthening physical activity.
** NEW SURVEY: MANY STILL FEAR FOR JOBS, FEW ARE PREPARED TO LOSE THEM. Despite the relative good news in today’s jobs report — lowest unemployment rate in four years — a new Gallup Poll survey indicates that more workers think it likely they will lose their jobs than before the 2008 onset of the great global recession.
And nearly three-quarters of US workers say they can’t survive more than four months without their current jobs.
Eighteen percent of U.S. workers say it is “very likely” or “fairly likely” they will lose their job or be laid off in the next year, more than said so prior to the 2008 economic downturn, although similar to more recent years. At the same time, 35% say it is “not too likely” they will lose their job and 45% say it is “not at all likely.” …
U.S. workers with annual household incomes of less than $50,000 are more likely than those with incomes of at least $50,000 to say they will lose their job or be laid off in the next 12 months. Workers living in the West are moderately more likely than those in the East to say it is likely they won’t keep their job in the next year.
Workers younger than 50 are about as likely as those 50 and older to say they are likely to lose their job, as are workers who are college graduates vs. those who are college nongraduates. …
More than seven in 10 U.S. workers say that if they were to lose their job, they could go no more than four months without experiencing significant financial hardship. Specifically, 16% say they could go up to one week, 27% say they could go up to one month, and 28% say they could go up to four months. Less than a third say they could survive up to a year or more than a year without finding a new job. …
As investigation continues into the Boston Marathon bombings, a law enforcement source says the Boston bombing suspects initially planned to target July 4th celebrations but went instead with the Boston Marathon because their bombs were ready.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … CRISES FADE, TOO.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Mexico and Costa Rica.
The time in Mexico City is GMT minus 5, two hours ahead of Pacific time. The time in Costa Rica is GMT minus 6, one hour ahead of Pacific time.
Obama delivered remarks early this morning on US/Mexico relations at the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City.
At 9:25 AM Pacific, Obama meets with Mexican entrepreneurs at the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City.
At 10:25 AM Pacific, Obama departs Mexico City, Mexico on Air Force One en route San Jose, Costa Rica.
At 1 PM Pacific, Obama arrives San Jose, Costa Rica.
At 1:35 PM Pacific, Obama meets and greets with United States Embassy personnel at the InterContinental Real Hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica.
At 2:40 PM Pacific, Obama and Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla hold a restricted bilateral meeting at Casa Amarilla in San Jose. This is not a presidential palace but the foreign ministry building, with a lovely tree in front planted 50 years ago by President John F. Kennedy.
At 2:55 PM Pacific, Obama and President Chinchilla hold an expanded bilateral meeting at Casa Amarilla.
At 3:30 PM Pacific, Obama and President Chinchilla hold a cultural event with Costa Rican youth at Casa Amarilla.
At 4:15 PM Pacific, Obama and President Chinchilla hold a press conference at the National Center for Art and Culture in San Jose.
At 5:35 PM Pacific, Obama participates in a photo with Central American Integration System leaders at the National Theatre in San Jose.
At 6 PM Pacific, Obama, President Chinchilla, and other Central American Integration System leaders meet for a working dinner at the National Theatre.
Obama woke up this morning in Mexico City with some good news.
The unemployment rate dropped to 7.5% as the economy added 165,000 jobs last month, a few more than expected.
In extremely good news, another day has passed without a North Korean missile launch. The annual US/South Korean military exercises ended with the end of April.
On the other hand, a Korean-American arrested in murky circumstances has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for “hostile acts against the state.”
He organizes tours of North Korea, a venture which had not occurred to me.
In other action, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the US is considering giving weapons to Syrian rebels, even as study continues into a reported limited use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the Syrian chemical weapons situation, 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 huge wildfire erupted yesterday northwest of Los Angeles and has already cut a ten mile path to the Pacific. Thousands have been forced to flee the flames.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
The Brown Administration complied late last night with federal court order demanding a plan to further reduce the state prison inmate population by more than 9000 to deal with over-crowding.
Brown has already taken major steps on this and has been quite publicly reluctant to go further, fearing an impact on public safety. The judges last month implicitly threatened him with a contempt citation.
The AP gives a fine summary:
The state’s plan includes:
— Expanding the number of inmate firefighters by allowing participation by some offenders convicted of serious and violent crimes.
— Granting more early release or “good time” credits to inmates, including second-strike inmates who have serious prior convictions.
— Paroling elderly and medically incapacitated inmates.
— Increasing the use of drug treatment centers.
— Paying to house more inmates at county jails with extra space, and possibly at private prisons within California.
— Slowing the return of the 8,400 inmates who are being housed in private prisons in three other states at an annual cost of about $300 million.
Two other existing measures already will help reduce crowding.
The state will add space for 1,700 sick and mentally ill inmates when a new $840 million treatment facility opens in Stockton this summer. And the state projects that about 900 inmates will be freed because voters in November softened the state’s tough three-strikes lifetime sentencing law for career criminals. Third-strikers with lesser offenses can apply for shorter sentences.
The administration argued against many of the proposals even as it presented the options to the court in a series of legal filings.
Most would require legislative approval, but the administration argued that Brown cannot be expected to “advocate for the Legislature to pass measures that would jeopardize public safety.” However, the court has said it could waive state laws if lawmakers don’t agree.
Brown is working on the annual “May Revise” of the state budget.
State revenues look to be about $4.5 billion ahead of forecasts, which means the balanced state budget very much stays that way, despite endless carping from the far right which imagined, well, imagined wrong.
Some of the boost is undoubtedly due to some tax planning by wealth Californians looking to avoid the end of the Bush/Cheney tax cut. But much of it is not, and business revenues are up as well, indicating more signs of continuing economic recovery.
** 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.
A solar-powered airplane has taken off from Northern California on the first leg of a planned journey across America, with stops in several U.S. cities. The Solar Impulse left Moffett Field in Mountain View just after dawn.
** 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 $96 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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.
NASA today released imagery of a giant solar wave as part of a three-year time-lapse study of our sun.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … CRISES FADE, TOO.
** QUICK HITS. General David Petraeus, the former CIA director and top commander for the Iraq War and Afghan War, today became a part-time professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Last month he became a visiting professor at New York University. … In California politics … A federal appellate court today went along with the Brown Administration’s move to limit Medi-Cal (the state’s name for Medicaid health care) payments to clinics.
** NEW SURVEY: JOB CREATION STAYS IN AN IMPROVED PLACE. A new Gallup Poll survey indicates that US job creation remains at the higher end of a familiar narrow range in this decidedly non-robust economic recovery.
And things, while not improving for government workers, aren’t getting worse, either.
The news is essentially tedious and uninspiring. But it is positive in the sense that it is not, well, negative.
Gallup’s U.S. Job Creation Index was +19 in April, near the top of the narrow range found since March 2012, and higher than levels seen from 2009 through 2011. …
The index score for April is based on 35% of U.S. workers telling Gallup that their employer is hiring new people and expanding the size of its workforce and 16% saying their company is letting people go and reducing the size of its workforce. The Job Creation Index has been consistently in positive territory since February 2010, improving steadily since that time, but is still not as strong as it was in early 2008, before the financial collapse. …
Job creation, according to American workers’ reports, remains much better this year that it was in 2009, 2010, and 2011. But, reports of hiring have been stuck in the low to mid-30% range for some time. This is partly due to lower levels of government hiring. Nongovernment workers continue to report slightly higher levels of hiring.
The uptick in federal government workers’ perceptions that their employers are letting people go does appear to have dissipated to some degree in April after increasing significantly in March — although perceptions of hiring remain unchanged.
Three college friends of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are under extremely close scrutiny.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Mexico.
Obama received the intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He then made two Cabinet appointments.
Obama appointed Chicago business executive Penny Pritzker, his 2008 presidential campaign finance chair, to be the next secretary of commerce.
He also appointed Deputy National Security Advisor Michael Froman to be the new U.S. trade representative. Froman, a former banker and Harvard Law classmate of Obama’s with a doctorate in international politics from Oxford, worked in the Treasury Department in the 1990s. He is a native Californian who grew up in San Francisco.
Obama then departed for Mexico City on Air Force One.
At 12:15 PM Pacific, Obama arrives Mexico City, Mexico.
At 1:05 PM Pacific, Obama and President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico hold a bilateral meeting at Palacio Nacional-Salon de Recepciones in Mexico City.
At 2:10 PM Pacific, Obama and President Peña Nieto hold a press conference in the Treasury Room of Palacio Nacional.
At 3:35 PM Pacific, Obama meets and greets with United States Embassy personnel at the InterContinental Presidente Hotel in Mexico City.
At 5:15 PM Pacific, Obama and President Peña Nieto meet for a working dinner at the presidential residence Los Pinos in Mexico City.
Peña Nieto is the new president, marking a return of the old and more liberal to social democratic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to power after a couple of terms held by the moderate conservative National Action Party (PAN).
The PRI is notably less interested in waging the war on drugs than the PAN was, at least insofar as granting US agencies the access they had had. Illegal immigration is also on the agenda.
Obama moves on tomorrow to a Central American summit in Costa Rica.
Obama got some good economic news in the form of the lowest level of unemployment claims in five years.
This was unexpected, given slow economic growth.
The investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings continues, with charges of obstructing justice against three college friends of the surviving Tsarnaev brother likely to elicit more information.
In extremely good news, another day has passed without a North Korean missile launch. The annual US/South Korean military exercises ended the day before yesterday.
On the other hand, a Korean-American tourist arrested in murky circumstances has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for “hostile acts against the state.”
Important observation: North Korea should drop on your tourism list.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the North Korean nuclear program, the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Syria, 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.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
Yesterday brought word that California’s population has increased to just under 38 million, with last year’s addition of 298,000 Californians bringing a 0.8% growth rate. That’s a much more manageable population growth rate than that of the ’90s.
I recall a much mellower California, the first time Brown was governor, of 20 million people.
Brown is working on the annual “May Revise” of the state budget.
In the last couple of days, he has signed two urgent pieces of legislation. One provides a new appropriation to get guns out of the hands of registered gun owners who should not have them, such as people with serious mental health issues and criminal records. The other will clear up a backlog in business filings.
Legislation by state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg to provide some streamlining of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) moved through committee yesterday. Much is open to negotiation before the final shape of the bill is apparent.
Brown declared today to be a Day of Prayer in California:
“Each year, in accordance with Public Law 100-307, the President proclaims the first Thursday in May as a National Day of Prayer.
“A National Day of Prayer is an occasion for each of us to reflect more deeply on the eternal verities and those matters which transcend our everyday routines. Through prayer, one opens the heart and stills the mind so that the Divine Presence may be directly encountered.
“I encourage Californians to participate in this day in the manner that is most appropriate to their own religious or spiritual beliefs and experience.”
Demonstrators demanded an overhaul of immigration laws Wednesday in an annual, nationwide ritual of May Day rallies that carried special urgency as Congress considers sweeping immigration reform legislation. May Day has actually long been celebrated in most of the world, but has for decades been officially eschewed in the US because of its more recent association with socialism.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S USC POLICY CENTER TAKES UP IMMIGRATION REFORM: WHERE IS THIS ISSUE HEADING?Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hosted a major forum on immigration policy Tuesday in Los Angeles featuring some major national and international figures. But will the latest attempt to change the nation’s faulty immigration policy fare any better than it did in 2006 and 2007, before top Republicans realized how definitively they were losing the Latino vote? And how will the big new wild card, the Boston Marathon terrorist bombings seemingly carried out by immigrants, factor into this always emotional issue?
In its first big forum since its founding event last September, the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy hosted the gathering with U.S. Senators John McCain and Michael Bennett, former Mexican President Vicente Fox, former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and several academic experts.
Republican McCain of Arizona and Democrat Bennett of Colorado are key members of a bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators putting forward a comprehensive immigration reform plan.
The U.S. immigration system would undergo dramatic changes under their bill, which seeks to end, or at least bring under greater control, illegal immigration by creating legal avenues for workers and by more effectively securing borders. The bill would put the 11 million immigrants who are in the country illegally on a 13-year path to U.S. citizenship that would cost each $2,000 in fines. It would also create new immigration opportunities for tens of thousands of workers, a “merit visa” to bring people with special skills to the U.S., and a guest worker program for lower-skilled jobs carefully negotiated by the coalition of major business organizations and labor unions uniting behind the bill.
Schwarzenegger, who was a critical backer of McCain while his candidacy hung in the balance in the 2008 Republican presidential primaries, before going on to work closely with the Obama Administration on a host of issues, wasted no time in endorsing the efforts of the “Gang of Eight.”
“Many members of Congress,” he declared, “have had a major chutzpah deficit,” in a turn of phrase that attendees found amusing. “The economic benefit of reform could reduce our deficit over the next 10 years by 2.5 trillion dollars,” Schwarzenegger told them. “That’s what I call action. What are we waiting for?”
Longtime ABC News correspondent Ann Compton moderated a discussion between Senators McCain and Bennet and members of the audience. While they extolled the benefits of bringing the situation under greater control and establishing new and more workable rules, they were fairly frank about the politics involved.
“We (Republicans) will not be able to compete for the Hispanic voter until this is done,” said McCain. “This will not gain one single Hispanic vote, by passing this bill. But what it will do, is put us on a playing field where we can compete. And I happen to believe that Republicans — pro-small business, lower taxes, less regulation, pro-military, pro-life — I think we can compete.”
Bennet, the Colorado Democrat, said that he expects the bill to be voted on in the Senate sometime in June. With support seeming to come together in the upper house, he noted that the margin of victory in the Senate needs to be big to make an impression on the more conservative House of Representatives.
“I really worry that if we don’t get this done now,” he said, it’s going to be a very long time before we get this done, and it’ll be one more self-inflicted wound holding American workers back.”
Other participants in the program pulled together by the Schwarzenegger Institute’s director, former California Education Secretary Bonnie Reiss, and its academic director, USC Professor Nancy Staudt, made some telling points.
On their panel, the academics suggested that the future problem won’t be too much immigration, but not enough.
Indeed, illegal immigration seems to have slipped substantially with the sharp economic downturn in the U.S. and the subsequent pattern of very slow growth.
Echoing that assessment, former Mexican President Vicente Fox, proudly declaring that Mexico has become a more advanced industrial power than Brazil, said that in the future, low-paying jobs in the U.S. won’t be nearly so attractive for Mexicans as they were in the past.
Yet there is a tremendous overhang in the U.S., with millions in a twilight status.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa noted that one in 10 residents of his city “are undocumented.”
A program to legalize those residents, he said, will help the economy because many small businesses are started by immigrants. California is home to roughly one-fourth of the 11 million illegal immigrants in America.
“It’s because it goes to the heart of the economic future of our city, the social cohesion of our city,” said the outgoing Democratic mayor. “That’s why now is the time for real immigration reform.”
For his part, Villaraigosa’s friend Schwarzenegger, who published an op-ed in Politico to kick off the morning festivities, is enthusiastic about immigration to America.
“The life I’ve lived, the careers that I’ve had, and the successes I’ve had were possible only because I immigrated to the one place nothing is impossible,” Schwarzenegger told the attendees. He was just back from his inaugural Arnold Classic Brasil sports festival in Rio de Janeiro. Schwarzenegger has successfully taken his long-running annual multi-sport event in Columbus, Ohio to Europe and now Latin America.
This is anything but a new issue for him.
Back in 2002, when he was barnstorming the state promoting his initiative for after-school programs — a test run for his then likely first gubernatorial campaign in 2006, well before the dramatic 2003 recall election was a glimmer in anyone’s eye — I was there at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco when Schwarzenegger was asked if he would ever support a re-run of the draconian Proposition 187. That’s the anti-illegal immigrant initiative that jet-propelled the 1994 re-election of Republican Governor Pete Wilson, but also, after Democratic candidate Kathleen Brown led a charge against the measure, sealed the two parties’ respective fortunes with the growing Latino community. Brown, the sister of Governor Jerry Brown, went down in the election but planted the Democratic flag very firmly on the side of the Latino community.
Contrary to the tenets of Prop 187, Schwarzenegger declared that he would never stand in the way of any child going to school. So he was on board with McCain during the last big push for comprehensive immigration legislation.
And where all this may run aground yet again is where it all ran aground the last time we saw this movie, back in 2006 and 2007, the internal dynamics of the Republican Party.
Then President George W. Bush, a relative moderate by today’s GOP standards, backed McCain and Senator Ted Kennedy in their strong legislative push on immigration.
Today President Barack Obama is very much on board with the overall effort, though he is, probably wisely, letting senators take the lead in crafting their legislation.
The question is how much the Republican Party has changed. With the added wild card element of potentially greater fear of immigrants in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, though of course Latino immigrants, the great bulk of the equation, have nothing to do with any terrorism.
As we saw in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, and in the 2010 California Republican gubernatorial primary before that, it’s not all that hard to incite a Republican race to the hard right on immigration. Once undertaken, that race ends up in the same place, a place of fences, exclusion, and super-heated rhetoric that deeply satisfies a great many older conservative whites but utterly turns off most people of color and younger voters.
The policy dynamics around this issue are multi-faceted and fascinating. And the political dynamics may be even more fascinating.
Most of the commentary — political commentary, that is — is around what is best for the Republican Party. But what about the Democrats?
Most opponents of the immigration measure appear to believe that devising a pathway to legalization will simply create millions of new Democratic voters. While there is something to that, that is a scenario that would play out over a long period of time.
My own view, subject to revision based on developments, of course, is different. If, after passage in the Senate, immigration reform goes down again, this time in the Republican-controlled House — amidst a post-Boston climate of fear having literally no relevance to most folks here illegally — that would constitute a very big present and ongoing advantage for Democrats.
A little film called Iron Man 3, starring Jerry Brown’s friend Robert Downey, Jr. and written and directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s old friend Shane Black, opens across North America on Friday. It’s already a big hit in international markets, including China. The film has a big political twist.
** 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 $92 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $58 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 $22 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.
Three college friends of the surviving Boston Marathon bombings suspect have been arrested on charges of hiding evidence against him while the manhunt was underway. Two of the new suspects are here on student visas from Kazakhstan; the third, the child of Ethiopian immigrants, is an American citizen. All three, like the surviving Tsarnaev brother, are 19 years old.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … SCHWARZENEGGER’S USC POLICY CENTER TAKES UP IMMIGRATION REFORM: WHERE IS THIS ISSUE HEADING?
** QUICK HITS. According to the California Department of Finance, California’s population has hit just below the 38 million mark. Last year it grew by just under 300,000 people, a 0.8% growth rate. … Governor Jerry Brown has swiftly signed two pieces of legislation. One provides a new appropriation to get guns out of the hands of registered gun owners who should not have them, such as people with serious mental health issues and criminal records. The other will clear up a backlog in business filings, part of the sometimes overgrown underbrush of regulation. … Meanwhile, state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg’s bill to provide some streamlining to CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act), though bashed around by some Democratic interests, moved out of committee today.
** NEW SURVEY: SEQUESTER, SHMEQUESTER. A new Gallup Poll survey reveals that the federal budget sequester, despite massive coverage and now lots of time for effects to become visible, still isn’t registering for most Americans.
52% say they have no opinion or don’t know enough, about the same as when the sequester went into effect at the beginning of March.
Even airline delays associated with air traffic controller uncertainties haven’t registered much. Of course, most Americans spend little if any time traveling by air.
The majority of Americans still don’t know enough to say whether the federal budget sequestration cuts are a good thing or a bad thing for the country — as has generally been the case since they went into effect. But of those who do who have an opinion, more continue to say sequestration is a bad thing, rather than a good thing. …
Republicans continue to be more opinionated on the subject of sequestration — 42% of them, compared with 56% of Democrats and of independents, report they don’t know enough to say whether it is a good or a bad thing for the country. Republicans who do have an opinion are significantly more likely to be positive about the cuts than are independents or Democrats.
But more Republicans believe the sequester cuts have been a bad thing for them personally (28%) rather than a good thing (17%). And Republicans are more likely than independents or Democrats to say the cuts have been a bad thing for them personally. …
Relatives of the dead suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing will claim his body now that his wife has agreed to release it, an uncle said as officials in both Washington and Russia deepened their investigations into him and his ties.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … SCHWARZENEGGER’S USC POLICY CENTER TAKES UP IMMIGRATION REFORM: WHERE IS THIS ISSUE HEADING?
** 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 met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 11:15 AM Pacific, Obama makes a personnel announcement in the State Dining Room.
Obama will appoint venture capitalist Tom Wheeler to head the Federal Communications Commission.
At 1 PM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with Secretary of State John Kerry in the Oval Office.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew in the Oval Office.
Obama’s prepping for a big trip to Latin America on Thursday, which includes a visit to Mexico and participation in a Central American summit in Costa Rica.
An intriguing development in the Boston Marathon bombing case. Three additional suspects have been taken into custody, reportedly on suspicion of providing assistance to the Tsarnaev brothers. More to follow.
In extremely good news, another day has passed without a North Korean missile launch.
The annual US/South Korea military exercises ended yesterday, which may bring an end to the present crisis, as I suggested weeks ago in an essay linked below.
Obama is monitoring several geopolitical crises involving the North Korean nuclear program, the Arab Awakening, Iran and Israel, Syria, 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.
** FROM THE JERRY FILES. Governor Jerry Brown is in Northern California.
He has no scheduled public events as of this morning.
His longtime advisor on water issues, Jerry Meral, former head of the Planning and Conservation League and now California deputy secretary for resources, is in some hot water (sorry) for a comment he reportedly made about the Sacramento River Delta, where the state’s largest river runs into San Francisco Bay.
He has been quoted as saying in a private meeting that Brown’s water plan isn’t about “saving the Bay Delta” because it can’t be saved in anything approaching its natural state.
This has prompted several legislators — staunch opponents of moving water in the state — to call for Meral’s resignation and urge the halting of Brown’s project.
More to follow, and water is not my metier, as it were, but having spent a lot of time in the Delta on boats going back decades it is obvious that it has long been a far cry from its natural state.
Legislation to require more regulation of fracking is moving forward in the California legislature, which is sitting on vast stores of petroleum inaccessible by normal means. Some would impose a moratorium on the practice.
Don’t expect a fracking moratorium to be enacted. Brown is interested in creative oversight and regulation.
** GALE FORCE WINDS OF HISTORY HIT MAD MEN, WHICH STILL FINDS THE TIME FOR SOME OBVIOUS PRACTICAL LESSONS. … From my April 15th essay.
** THE KOREA CRISIS: WILL EVENTS SIMPLY RUN THEIR COURSE TILL THE END OF “FOAL EAGLE?” … From my April 11th column.
The Pentagon is planning military options for Syria in light of possible chemical weapons use. But President Barack Obama has eased off on his “red line” rhetoric.
** 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 $94 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
This is up about $60 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 $20 per barrel from the price at the time of the Osama bin Laden raid.
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