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As Cruz leads in Iowa and other states putting Trump in second place, Hamburger provides an exceptional look inside the Cruz campaign. Cruz's campaign manager says rules of the past no longer apply, in a changing voter environment pushing out establishment candidates and with the digital media tools now available. Data analysis and use of methods such as "psychographic targeting" to tailor appeals to voters based on what appeals to them using Facebook data on likes are being used by the Cruz campaign. Cambridge Analytica, a firm financed by hedge fund executive Robert Mercer, a Cruz supporter, has built an effective data gathering operation of potential Cruz supporters among evangelicals. This has helped the Cruz campaign recruit pastors in Iowa, and in the U.S. for the Cruz campaign. It also helps in micro efforts such as home calls made by supporters, and in "geofencing" or sending emails and messages to a particular building or physical location such as a gathering of the National Rifle Association, or Republican Jewish Coalition. A mobile app "Cruz Crew" is another aspect of the digital effort to organize efforts of supporters and volunteers....

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President Trump plans to introduce  tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminium. It is not clear whether this will be targeted at Countries flooding the U.S. market with cheap metals, or generally for all countries. Executives from the steel industry and aluminium industries met with Trump at the White House. This would fulfill one of the president's campaign promises.

There is a vigorous debate in the White House between advisors who advocate limiting the measures such as Gen Mattis at Defense, Gary Cohn at the Economic Council, on one side, and the Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Peter Navarro, on the other. 

Mr. Lighthizer has convinced the president of the need for strong action, yet he has hesitated in the past. Now president Trump says he wants "free, fair and smart trade," and will not let "American companies and workers be taken advantage of any longer."

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In a speech to 3000 party officials Xi Jinping says it is the "central and united leadership of the party that made possible this historic transition." He was speaking at the 40th anniversary of the Deng reforms to open up China's economy. He said China was right to have "lofty aspirations." Yet he said China "would not sacrifice the interests of other countries," while preserving its own interests. The speech comes as China is trying to find a way out of the trade tensions with the U.S. through negotiations. The U.S. sees China in the same way that it saw Japan's rise as an industrial power in the 1980's. and seeks to preserve U.S. economic strength and balanced trade relations that give no unfair advantages to Asian competitors. The U.S. negotiating team is led by the same negotiator who led the team that negotiated for the Reagan administration with Japan-Robert Lighthizer.

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President Xi Jinping of China faces domestic criticism about his handling of the critical trading relationship with the U.S. that has given China access to technology and the U.S. market in its development drive. The trade truce with the U.S. reached following a meeting of Xi and Trump at the G-20 meeting in Buenos Aires, was presented in Chinese media as a positive step withut mention that Mr. Trump has set a 90 deadline for the talks and appointed a experienced trade negotiator, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, to head negotiations. Also agreed is an effort to focus the talks on the 142 contentious issues the U.S. has put forward.

Experts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong say Mr. Jinping will need to show results to stay on beyond the customary two terms as president because for China the  trading relationship with the U.S. is essential to grow its economy with access to the U.S. market.

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Robert Kagan makes the case for continued leadership of the U.S as a champion of liberal democracy and free trade, as the view that it will just happen in a multipolar world of China, India, the U.S. and Europe, is not credible. The existing democracies- India, Brazil, Turkey, S. Africa, Australia -are weak and lack the experience to provide this leadership. India and China could easily end up in rivalry in a multipolar world. This has implications for today. The U.S. cannot provide this leadership as a services economy- it needs a strong manufacturing base to do this. Lessening inequality was a hallmark of the progress made in the 20th century, and especially the six decades since World War II when the U.S. clearly exercized this leadership. The progress to European unity was another hallmark of these six decades. A healthy Japan was also part of this.

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Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates points out in this intervew with Holman Jenkins of the WSJ, that Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who worsened Shiite-Sunni relations, was the principal cause of the unraveling that happened in Iraq during the first term of U.S. president Obama. He says President Obama failed to do what was done by president Bush to persist and obtain Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq, to maintain a U.S. foce presence in Iraq. Presence of U.S. forces would have prevented the spread of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. U.S. force presence would have provided a more even handed treatment of Sunnis in the region, creating the conditions for peace by having Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites continue talks about the future of Iraq. Gates grew up in Kansas in the 1950's, attended the College of William and Mary for undergraduate studies, studied Russian and Soviet history in grad school at Indiana University and Georgetown University, before joining the CIA. Gates was selected by Brzezinski to work in the White House, worked under Brent Snowcroft, and as head of the CIA (1991-1993) during the elder Bush administration. He was Secretary of Defense from 2006-2011, under presidents George Bush and Barack Obama, succeeding Donald Rumsfeld. He was succeeded by Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, and Ashton Carter. ...

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BP's difficulties in the deal with Rosneft. In mid-January 2011 BP signed a deal with Rosneft with each company investing in the other through a stock swap of 5% of BP and 9.8% of Rosneft. They also agreed to jointly explore oil fields in the Russian Arctic. This sidelines BP's former partners in the TNK-BP venture. Robert Dudley, who headed the Russian operations of BP, is now CEO of the company. From 2003 to 2008, Dudley headed the TNK-BP joint venture. BP's partners in that venture, known as the AAR group of oligarchs, have sued BP over the BP-Rosneft deal. An arbitration tribunal in Sweden ruled that the Rosneft venture violates a shareholder agreement BP has in the TNK-BP venture. BP was under the impression that support from Igor Sechin, deputy prime minister and head of Rosneft, would ensure there would be no litgation by AAR, but this has not happened. It shows the uncertainties in Russian politics. Russian President Medvedev has asked political leaders to give up corporate positions, which would mean Sechin would have to give up his position in Rosneft. BP continues to benefit from access to new resources in Russia even with these difficulties. BP contributed $6 billon in cash in 2003 to the TNK-BP joint venture. BP has made $14.3 billion in dividends since 2003 on this investment and holds 50% of the assets in that venture. ...

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Lt. Gen John Kelly loses his son Robert in Afghanistan and talks about the immense burdens facing military families. Robert is out on patrol duty in a mine filled area of Afghanistan's Sangin district. Only 1% of the population serves in the military. And Kelly says his is only one of 5500 American families that have lost a child in this war. There is a sense among military families that the war and these military families have been forgotten. One Marine Corps general wrote to Kelly that service to and sacrifice for the country has become a legacy affair for a small number of military families. Before the midterm Congressional elections only 2% of the people rated Afghanistan as a top issue and hardly any candidates mentioned this issue. Tom Brokaw, a well known anchor of NBC News, wrote in a major daily that the war and the sacrifices have been forgotten in the election and hardly discussed. Adm. Mike Mullen went so far as to say that he worries that we could wake up one day and that the American people will no longer know us and we won't know them....

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As the August 1 deadline approached first the Japanese and then the Europeans who held out till the end sometimes treating the US with disdain and ridicule, realized that the US was dead serious about tariffs. Even the US business community tended to treat DJT tariffs with disdain not realizing that the tariff battles were first fought against Japan by Deputy USTR Robert Lighthizer under Reagan in the 1980's always to get a fair deal for the US. The recalcitrance of the Europeans and the Japanese can be understood by the non tariff barriers Japan placed on US products and the 10% tariff on US autos the European Union had in place for decades when the US only had a 2.5% tariff on German car imports.  The media in the US and Europe has utterly failed to tell the US side of the story. Here at Lyrarc we remain committed to bring out all the facts so that readers can better understand both sides. Initially the EU adopted an adversarial approach as shown in this report in WSJ by Kim Mackrael and Brian Schwartz. How is it that the Europeans and the Japanese took such a position when since 1980 there was no level playing field for the US on world trade clear for all to see? Not till late May as negotiations dragged on did Japan and the EU take stock of their own positions, DJT having to say US would impose a 50% tariff to get the EU to understand, saying "our discussions with them are going nowhere." In the end in Scotland Leyen and Sefovic for the EU accepted 15% tariff on EU imports to US. Akazawa of Japan had accepted this the week before. ...

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Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative, makes a passionate plea for the dignity of work in America, the founding principle for the society of opportunity that America has been and the reason it was settled by immigrants from Europe over 200 years. He points out that trade policy is not about geopolitics or about efficiency as others perceive, it is about what kind of society we want to live in. Is it about a society of opportunity? This is the foundation on which this American continent was settled by settlers from Britain and Europe, and the basis of the growth over two hundred years till the last four decades. From 2000 and China's entry into the World Trade Organization under president Clinton to 2016 the U.S. manufacturing base has shrunk with the loss of five million jobs, two million jobs lost to China in the period 1999-2011 alone. And 350,000 automobile manufacturing jobs to Mexico since 1994, one third of all U.S. automobile jobs. Without the initiative and hard work of Mr. Lighthizer both American workers and Mexican workers would be stuck in low paying jobs. The USMCA he negotiated changed all that by giving Mexican workers fair wages and American workers and manufacturing the opportunity for revival.  This view was also expressed by Intel founder Andy Grove, a founder of one of the first pioneer companies in Silicon Valley. Grove asked the question after seeing the outsourcing of production out of America and the condition of the American worker- he said for him it was about what kind of society he wanted to live in. It was all about the dignity of the American worker long ignored by economists who live in a world of theory and the elite that has lived for so long apart from the places where the fabric of American workers and working life was torn apart. It was a question that touched Andy Grove's heart just as it does for Robert Lighthizer and others who are fighting to make America a society of opportunity for the American worker and opportunity for the American people, for dignity in America. It also charts a new course for the French worker, the British worker, the Indian worker, as other countries learn from the American experience. We have covered Grove and Lighthizer from the early days of their leadership and wise reminders to the people of what America is and stands for. Lighthizer points out one huge error that makes the thinking of these economists and elite that have not listened for so long, more than a bit crazy, reckless and callous. He says there about half of 250 million adults who lack a college diploma in America. Historically manufacturing has provided stable well paying employment. Even if with investment in education they were taught to write software code, there aren't enough jobs for them. The combined total of jobs at Apple Google, Facebook and Netflix is 300,000 jobs. Never has so much been at stake for so many and defended by so few. ...

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An emergency appeal to have the case on the travel ban to the Supreme Court has the disadvantage that of the 8 Justices on the court the ruling could end up at 4 against and 4 in favor. The 4 liberal Justices are unlikely to support it. Another more likely scenario is taking a conventional petition approach and this would mean a decision on whether the Supreme Court hears the case would come by April, and hearings starting in October. By that time Neil Gorsuch could be on the Supreme Court filling Judge Scalia's vacant position- leading to a decision, instead of a tie that leaves the appeals court decision to stop the travel ban in place.

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CBS'S Robert Costa:  What's your suggestion about how she (Kamal Harris) should handle that Republicans are saying she has fumbled the ball on immigration, on border policy? What's the answer for how to define her on herself on that issue? Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer:  The answer is very simple. And that is that Democrats, along with the Biden Harris administration, put together the toughest border policy that would have stopped the flow from the border that we've seen in a very long time. In fact, initially was supported by Republicans. So many of the leading Republicans said, "this is tough, we're all for it," (McConnell, Lankford, others). And then all of a sudden, President Trump says it, he said it explicitly. He said, "I don't want them to solve the problem, I want chaos at the border so I can run on it with the election." We're happy to bring that up. And case after case, when we bring that up, the voters side with us, not with their policies. We were willing to fix the border. Trump and his Republican minions said, don't fix it, we want chaos for political purposes. Who do you think's going to win the argument? ...

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Lyrarc Retrospect shows here RFK Robert Kennedy visiting homes sometimes mere shacks in the mountains where disease was rampant, education negligible, and income $60 for large families, shown here in this Washington Post report by  Paul Schwartzman, Feb 21, 2018  After J.D. Vance selection for VP and his book on growing up in Ohio's Appalachian mountain region which covers states of New York, Pennsyslvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, stretching from southern New York to northern Mississippi down the entire eastern part of the US, the question arises did the poverty in this region exist before? The answer is yes and two presidents JFK and LBJ, both Democrats setup the Appalachian Regional Commission to tackle rural poverty in the mountainous regions in 1960's. Its success- increased income by 4% faster than other neighboring counties in retrospect does not look like much. Rural poverty increased since 2000 as the national attention was taken up by the Bush wars and by a general neglect of rural areas under Bush and Obama. Iowa governor, now Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is given the task of addressing rural poverty and a top position in the Biden Administration. Fast internet, housing, income assistance, highway development, child education support, on multiple fronts Biden is fighting the poverty that RFK once saw with his won eyes in 1968 in eastern Kentucky and which stretches across 7 states.  ...

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Kamala Harris is profoundly influenced by the Gandhian ideal of public service coming from the influence of her mother Shyamala and her mother's father P. V. Gopalan, who was a leading civil servant in the transition to independence under Gandhi in India in the late 1940's. P.V. Gopalan was 31 years old during the Quit India Movement launched by Mohandas Gandhi in 1942. In this sense what even Martin Luther King Jr experienced about Gandhiji from a distance came to her directly in ways that may be inscrutable even to Kamala herself.  Robert Draper looks at Kamala Harris at different points of her childhood, university education and work as District Attorney for Alameda County, California, and Attorney General of California. He describes her as a daughter of highly educated yet stoic parents and one with a reverence for law and order, methodical and diligent, a caring and compassionate person to the people in the communities she lived in. As one who would experience disrespect as a woman of color many times she chose not to complain but to do something about it in bringing about a better life for all Americans. Not only did she do this, Kamala Harris also was always striving to do better for the people she served, putting all her energies into that task, always keeping in mind "We the People." ...

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A critical part of the Affordable Care Act is the setup of marketplaces or exchanges to let people without insurance buy individual health plans. Some states setup their own exchanges, and some states let the federal government step in and run them. To help the lower middle class and poor the Act provides health subsidies to buy insurance in the exchanges, and 85% of customers in the exchanges qualify for this benefit. The U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 in 2015, compared to a tight vote in 2012 on the Affordable Care Act, to maintain the health subsidies. Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, saying "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not destroy them." Justice Scalia dissented calling it "interpretive jiggery-pokery." Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr. dissented. Voting in favor were Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Justice Kennedy dissented in the 2000 case. The challengers petition to the courts was based on a reading of phrases in the Affordable Act which had not occurred to the writers of the law. The reading suggests only people enrolled in state setup exchanges are eligible for subsidies. If the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs the 6.4 million Americans who are enrolled in the federal exchanges would lose the subsidies provided under the law and lose health insurance. And the economic foundations of the Affordable Act would be undermined with insurance companies required to provide insurance to all regardless of pre-existing conditions and subsidies removed, leaving the companies with sicker pool of customers resulting in destabilizing the exchanges and higher premiums. The court ruled in favor of an interpretation that is compatible with the whole law and the intentions of the statute to help the middle class and the poor buy health insurance. The chaos in the insurance markets that would result in going with the plaintiffs because of a careless writing of a phrase, was uppermost in the majority's mind. Chief Justice Roberts emphasized this, saying- "The statutory scheme compels us to reject petitioners' interpretation, because it would destabilize the individual insurance market in any state with a federal exchange and likely create the very 'death spirals' that Congress designed the act to avoid." This case originated with 4 plaintiffs from Virginia who challenged the IRS regulation that said subsidies were allowed regardless of whether the exchanges were run by the state or the federal government, arguing that this was at odds with the particular phrase in the law that was ambiguous about federal exchanges eligibility for health subsidies. Judge Roger Gregory of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virgina, ruled that the phrase was indeed ambiguous, but the IRS was owed deference in its opinion. Chief Justice Roberts made it clear that this was not a case for the IRS, saying "it is instead our task to determine the correct reading." ...

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U.S. president Trump names Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative, as head of trade negotiations with China, following a weekend summit of G-20 in Buenos Aires where he setup a truce with Chinese president Xi Jinping. The truce means the next round of tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods will be suspended. China had hoped Treasury Secretary Mnuchin would head the negotiations. Mnuchin had negotiated with China earlier. Lighthizer has taken a long view on the negotiations wanting to strengthen the U.S. position particularly in relation to protecting U.S. technological edge and preventing transfer of U.S. technology to China. Trade expert Pillsbury of the Hudson Institute says this steers the negotiations from informal under Mnuchin to the legal negotiations under a trade negotiating team of Lighthizer that have set forth the charges against Beijing under U.S. trade law. The outcome sought is a legally binding document that commits China to getting certain results to reduce its trade surplus with U.S. of about $1 billion each day. Mr. Trump called for "level the field" in a message after the G-20 summit. Specific details of about 142 issues in trade were brought up in the talks of Trump with Chinese president Xi in Buenos Aires. ...

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Chancellor Merkel has shown exceptional leadership during the coronavirus health crisis in Germany, leading to increasing popularity for her government. Her approval ratings are the highest of any coalition government in the last 23 years. The government says this report in DW.com has appeared level headed in its actions, and Merkel has paid careful attention to advice from Germany's Robert Koch Institute, the German public health agency. Merkel also shared important facts for tackling coronavirus in an effective television address. By listening to the expertise of RKI public health agency the government has maintained calm and better handled the crisis. In the U.S. a similar process is taking place with the heads of the public health agencies, Dr. Fauci and Dr Birx playing a similar role, and president Trump paying careful attention to health experts. DW.com says doctors, nurses, police officers, and people working at supermarkets and pharmacies, are being applauded by the public, with people taking to the balconies to applaud. This is also happening in Spain. The hope expressed by DW.com is that going forward these professions will be better paid and public health become a top priority. ...

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The new US Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer, 44 years was the chief of staff to Robert Lighthizer the USTR in the DJT first term. He is a former Air Force lawyer who became a trade lawyer and protege of Lighthizer.

In testimony before Congress Greer has said that he "does not subscribe to the myth that more trade with China reduces the likelihood of conflict."

"From a defense perspective, it is critically important to restore the U.S. manufacturing base to ensure that the U.S. can credibly deter escalation by China and, if necessary, defend its national security interests at home and abroad."

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U.S. president Trump asks for resignation of Attorney General Jeff Session after the 2018 Congressional elections. The Democratic Party gained a majority in the House of Representatives, with the Republican Party retaining control of the Senate. This makes further investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election likely. The official probe into this meddling is being conducted by Robert Mueller, Special Counsel, which is supervised by Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein because Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation.  The resignation leads to the Justice Department being headed by Matthew Whitaker, Mr. Session's top aide. Mr. Whitaker, a former prosecutor, is a conservative legal advocate who was critical of the Mueller investigation, in several tweets cited in this WSJ report, calling it  political fishing expedition," and calling for cutting the budget of the Mueller investigation to make it ineffective. Mr. Whitaker now supervises the Mueller investigation for 210 days till a successor is nominated by Mr. Trump. ...

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Laurence Kotlikoff is a Boston University economist who calls the Obama administration's plans for fixing the financial system akin to "putting a Band-Aid on cancer." He outlines his own proposal in a book just out with the title: Jimmy Stewart is Dead. It calls for taking the risk out of the nation's financial system with "too-big-to-fail" banks, which threaten America's financial system, and may cost huge amounts of taxpayer money approaching by one estimate the entire unfunded liabilities of the Social Security System. He writes in the book that "the problem is the leveraging of the taxpayer by people with no formal training in finance or economics, no personal downside, an assortment of Napoleonic complexes, the money to buy ratings in New York and policy in Washington, and the ability to run circles around regulators." His proposal is to turn banks - intermediaries taking deposits and making loans- into institutions that connect borrowers and depositors with very safe mutual funds created for this reason. Each deposit would be pooled with other deposits in the new kind of mutual fund with all the money held in cash. These mutual funds would supply loans. This strips banks of their risk-taking function. It has attracted attention and support of Columbia University's Jeffrey Sachs and University of Chicago's Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Lucas. Most recently Bank of England's Governor mentioned Kotlikoff three times in a speech to Parliament as ideas worth looking at. With bankssstripped of risk-taking only one single Federal Financial Authority as the national regulator would be needed, instead of the myriad regulators in the current system that have failed in crises. MIT's Simon Johnson agrees that some strong action is needed and compares the need for action with what Theodore Roosevelt had to do to break up the once impregnable Standard Oil. By 1911 the Supreme Court had broken up Standard Oil into 34 companies....

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Neil Gorsuch, Supreme Court nominee, says at a Congressional confirmation hearing, that he is independent, has made no promises to anyone, and can vote against any party. On Roe vs. Wade Gorsuch made this comment- "I would tell you that Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is the precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court, and all of the other factors that go into analyzing precedent have to be considered." Earlier articles in NYT have said that Gorsuch appears to be independent. On precedent Gorsuch also said "its our shared family history as judges, as a good judge you don't approach that question anew as if it has never been decided."

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Corey Brettschneider of the NYT provides a detailed look at Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch's possible views on abortion and Roe v. Wade, though he has said little directly on the subject. It looks at the views of his mentor and dissertation advisor at Oxford, Prof. Finnis, and on whether abortion is a matter for states to decide.