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U.S. president Obama repeatedly compared the Iran nuclear deal vote in Congress to the 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq under president George W. Bush, in a speech at American University. President John Kennedy made a speech on a strategy for peace at American University in Washington D.C. on June 10, 1963, offering negotiations as away to a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union. Obama said the "choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war." The nuclear deal faces bipartisan opposition in Congress on grounds of weak verification, doubts about Iran's intentions, lifting of a weapons embargo including ballistic missiles, and lifting of economic sanctions with snapback seen as unrealistic, and support limited to Democrats in Congress. Compared to the speech by Kennedy which was hopeful- " in the final analysis, our most common link is that we all inhabit this same planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future's. And we are all mortal." It was also a response to Soviet Union's head Nikita Krushchev's letter to Kennedy of Dec. 1962 following the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, saying "the time has come now to put an end once and for all to all nuclear tests." Compared to the enthusiasm with which the Kennedy speech was received, the Obama speech brought up the divisions of the wars in Afghanistan and Iran, in which many Democrats including Senator Hillary Clinton voted to support the Iraq war, and missed the power of president Kennedy's (and Krushchev's) words of 1962. The last minute inclusion of a lifting of an arms embargo including ballistic missiles," created doubts about Iran's intentions in the U.S. Congress, unlike Kruschev and Kennedy's decisive response on the nuclear issue which led to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The condition agreed to that the Iran nuclear deal of July could pass with only one third of Congess supporting it- based on a presidential veto if Congress did not approve it with a two thirds majority- created the prospect of the U.S. moving ahead on a major foreign policy issue with only limited support....

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Peter Galbraith explaining the true reason for his firing by Eide and the UN Secretary General Moon. The statement announcing his dismissal to be accurate would have said that this was over differences whether the UN was going to remain silent over evidence of electoral fraud in the Afghan elections, and the issue of ghost polling stations. There is another angle of this which risks endangering the US trrops in the north of the country. Karzai's opponent in the elction is half Tajik and half Pashtun, fraud in the elections may turn the Tajik north against US and coaltion troops, further complicating life for the US, and this is on top of the loss of credibility with the Afghan people of the Karzai government. See the separate article on General Jones telling McChrystal who commands US forces in Afghnistan to cooperate with the strategic review now underway, by not making statements to the press. The other questions arise about the manner in which this dismissal ocurred. A few days before this Hillary Clinton, Eide, and other representatives from the coalition told the press that they think Karzai would win. Had Obama authorized this and what would be the point of such a statement, and at the same time trying to conduct an unbiased assessment of the war in Afghanistan. Here Galbraith comes across as one who had the courage to decide according to what he believed would be right for America and the values it represents. His point is that he could not tolerate the last act of dishonesty in the dispute that went on for months, because of the loss of credibility for the UN itself among the many Afghans who do not support Karzai. This would destroy also the credibility of the US in the country. Can any number of troops make up for this? Wars in Asia have proven that popular support decides the eventual fate of the mission. Only by standing up for its values can the US not undermine the very principles that the troops are fighting for and the people support. ...

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Only 1.9 million hourly workers in manufacturing now earn more than $20 per hour, its down 60% since 1979, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of all hourly workers in every sector of the economy the percentage of people earning more than $20 per hour shrunk to 18% in 2008 from 23% in 1979, thus losing some of the gains the US made since World War II which helped build the American middle class. One can see this unwinding clearly in the auto industry as wages are being reduced to match nonunion Japanese plants, and the industry itself is going through a huge downsizing fast. The hourly work force totals 76 million or 52% of all workers ranging from managers and professionals to factory and construction workers to technicians, educators and sales people. The wages of salaried workers show a similiar trend but are not converted into hourly amounts. As the numbers for 2007 are at the point where the economy was still booming, the path ahead as things go through a steep downturn can only have serious implications such as a slow recovery for demand in 2010. If a number of trends converge, employers shift to part time employment, auto related workers downshift to lower wages and benefits, shift to nonunion plants in the south or the midwest, and work is offshored or outsourced, this could worsen effects on consumption for years ahead especially with the credit remaining tight and consumers paying off old debt. Frank Levy, a labor economist at MIT, says that all this is happening wihtout a political debate or discussion, as people are worried more about having a job, and only secondly about what it pays and whether they are losing ground. Even the Pennsylvania primary debate, says Levy, between Hillary Clinton and Obama was conducted without quantifying the decline, and no one mentioned the eroding of the $20 per hour wage. What happened to support the consumption and support imports, was to pay for consumption by going into debt or refinancing the home. This has implications that range from the future of export industries in China's booming coastal sector, to how long the recovery drags on, and to what the future would look like....

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Following the record fundraising by U.S. president Obama in the 2012 presidential election, outspending Romney at a critical point in the campaigning in Ohio, Republicans and right wing groups are making their own effort to raise fundraising levels. The spending goals set by David and Charles Koch at the winter retreat in Palm Springs is $889 million to be raised from Koch and 300 other donors. Hillary Clinton's Super PAC plans to raise $300 million. The Republican total spending in the 2012 presidential election was $657 million. Koch's 2012 organized donor effort spent $400 million for the 2012 elections.

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The tax plan offered by Jeb Bush in September 2014 is based on simplifying the tax code to three rates, lowering the corporate tax rate to stimulate business investment and growth. It will pay for this by limiting itemized deductions to 2% of adjusted gross income, removing state and local tax deductions, by generating higher growth of estimated 0.5% per year which translates into higher tax revenues, and by increasing the deficit by $1.2 trillion. In the last tax debate economists such as Martin Feldstein and other experts proposed removing or limiting the itemized deductions. Simplifying the code and lowering corporate tax rates has been favored as a method to jumpstart growth by many experts, but was not taken up during the deep recession following the 2008-2009 financial crisis when the stimulus added to the deficit. The 3 tax rates changes the current 7 brackets to 10 percent, 25 percent and 28%, with the coporate tax rate lowered to 20%. The plan removes the alternative minimum tax, the estate tax, marraige penalty tax, leaves charitable deductions as now. To help the people at the lower end in incomes and the middle class- the standard deduction is doubled, the earned income tax credit expanded. Companies would be allowed to deduct capital investments, and there would be a gradual phase out of taxation on income American companies earn overseas. Hedge funds will not have access to a loophole called "carried interest." The plan comes as the American economy is in recovery mode, making it more likely that increased growth would generate extra tax revenues....

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John Carney of the WSJ looks at the financial transactions tax proposed by 2016 U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders to pay for high college tution costs.

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Thomas Frank describes how things went wrong in America by drawing the contrast between Martha's Vineyard and Decatur, Illinois. In 1946 he says a typical executive's salary was only 2 times that of a worker at a Caterpillar plant in Decatur, Illinois. By 2016 this had changed to where the top executive at Caterpillar was making over 400 times the wage of a typical worker at a Caterpillar plant. Democratic politicians he said had moved away from their working class base towards places like Martha's Vineyard. For Republicans the embrace of tax cutting, the deficit, and cuts in education and healthcare, entitlements, to the exclusion of everything else in a recession environment led to the rise of Trump and the rejection of stands on these issues- including amazingly the embrace of a $5.3 trillion increase in the deficit under the Trump plan estimated by economists and a recession after a temporary boost.  Inserted into this were the culture wars, immigration, with the change to mass deportation as a solution to immigration problems. ...

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With 816 Democrats losing office in state legislatures during the Obama years, more than under any president since Dwight Eisenhower, some Democrats say the Democratic bench is much weaker today.

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The problem Jeb Bush faces of how to deal with Donald Trump in the 2015 Republican primaries.

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Following the events in Charlottesville where a car drove into protesters, president Trump's remarks seemed to equate the actions of white supremacists to protesters. This has led to strong criticism from the business community with most business leaders withdrawing from the president's advisory councils from the business community- the Strategy and Policy Forum,  and Manufacturing Council. This includes the CEO's of Johnson and Johnson, Merck, JP Morgan Chase, GM, GE, 3M, and other companies. In his response president Trump disbanded both councils. JP Morgan Chase CEO Dimon said of the president's remarks- 'Constructive economic and regulatory policies are not enough and will not matter if we do not address the divisions in our country." Members of these councils had hoped to use their presence to have a voice. Yet by August 2017, 6 months into the Trump administration this appears to be changing, with CEO's of many companies expressing the view that the Republican policies favoring business would not matter if the basic consensus on tolerance and openness and what the U.S. stands for is allowed to deteriorate. ...