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A 1500 metres women runner who chooses to stay at her farm in Vermont than stay in Boston with New Balance running team to practice. She reflects on her pregnancy and having a child while competing in the US.

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Peter Navarro who has advised the DJT administration on world trade says even when there is no war the perceived risk from the narrow straits at Hormuz and the threats posed by militant groups financed by Iran had led to a premium being baked into oil prices. Navarro says on the Iran Premium (perceived threat risk premium) thatis is about $15 in oil prices. That it reduces growth in global output by 0.4% or $10 trillion over 25 years or $4 trillion over 10 years. As this perceived risk comes down oil prices will come down even further - even into the $50-$60 per barrel range, says Navarro. He cites different economic studies that show even in normal times the ballistic missiles and militant threats posed add up to $15 premium in oil prices to reflect this risk. What this means is higher oil prices and lower growth across the world- in poorer countries and in the US and Europe as a result of this. The current war he says gives the opportunity to reduce or remove this premium paid for perceived risk. The loss in global output he cites is about $450 billion a year adding upto $4 trillion in a decade and over 25 years about $10 trillion. Confronting the threat is not just a matter of national security, it also means this drag on growth on poor and better off countries from Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan to UK, Spain, Germany, and Italy, countries that can be so much better off with much of that $10 trillion tax or burden on world economies removed. ...

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Senators Grassley, Graham, Risch, Blount, are some of the senators on the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees of the U.S. Senate who believe that Special Counsel Mueller's investigation should stay on track and complete its job, even though texts showing bias between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page led to their removal from the investigation. The senators say Mueller is a very capable guy and he has fired the officials expressing the bias against president Trump. The mood in the House is different where Republican Congressmen have called for Mueller to be removed.

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This exceptional report from rural areas in France by Roger Cohen shows why the support is growing for the far right and the far left in rural areas and smaller towns outside the large cities which have suffered from high unemployment and neglected as technology and capital moved to other areas. Cohen talks to Nicholas Bay, secretary general of the National Front, who says this election is about patriotism, the nation state vs globalization, as the National Front tries to portray its opposition as being less pro-France, and less pro French culture. The centrist candidate Macron stands in front of a statue of Alexandre Dumas in Picardy, an hour northeast of Paris, and says he is for an "open patriotism" that embraces people of different origins and embraces refugees. Cohen attends a Le Pen rally in Metz, Lorraine, talks to a National Front mayor in Picardy and left party supporters in the town, talks to foreigners in the banlieu of Sevran. Cohen says a National Front victory is possible if enough voters who support the far left party of Melenchon do not vote for centrist candidate Macron, and enough voters of centre right Fillon supporting French culture and nationalism drift to Le Pen. As in the Dutch election with Moroccans derided by the far right the immigrant issue is a factor. Against this background is how events play out in the last weeks of the election. In March and April the events in the U.S. show a Trump administration moving to the centre, adopting a quieter and more constructive tone towards Mexico and immigrants. Relations with Russia have worsened after the U.S. response to the chemical attack in Syria, and the French public may now see this as a common threat to NATO and the European Union. As in the Dutch election a lot depends on the last weeks of the election and how well the centrist parties, the centre right and the centre left get their message across about what is to be gained by building anew on the foundations of the past without risking a lot on an uncertain path of referendums and exit from the European Union.   ...

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Lizette Alvarez and Manny Fernandez provide this rivetting account of two Hispanic Senators in the U.S., both with Cuban backgrounds, one growing up in the Miami area around Cuban Americans, and the other in all white communities in Texas. Marco Rubio identifies with his Cuban background, but has distanced himself from immigration reforms he advocated that would provide undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. Cruz does not identify with his Cuban American story, as much as he identifies with an immigrant story- his father left the Cuba of dictator Fulgencio Batista when he fled to the U.S. in 1956- and would tighten immigration enforcement and controls. Hispanics in Texas say they do not identify with Ted Cruz, who even changed his Spanish sounding name to Ted follwoing the advice of his Irish American mother. Cruz also attended Ivy league schools- Princeton and Harvard Law School, while Rubio took on large student loans to finish his law degree. Hispanics across the U.S. are shown as distancing themselves from the 2 candidates, expecially the large Mexican American community which has traditionally voted for Democrats....

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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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Peggy Noonan says that Trump's group has broken from the Republican Party. She also describes the Republican party as broken, that it cannot look to the past or 1980. She says two unwon wars, with one a catastrophe, and a great recession are enough to break any party. Worse the top of the party believes in things such as immigration, trade, entitlements, that the bottom doesn't, says Noonan. You have a situation where the base has left the party leadership. She describes Hillary Clinton as having a web of relationships and arrangements from the past, and with the idea that is popular among Republicans that she is only interested in acquiring power. Sanders is respected by Conservatives for his sincerity. Noonan sees God's role as chastising in this election, reminding people about what can go wrong and what needs to be done as the damage is surveyed for democracy and the country. The only reason for hope Noonan sees is in the way the 2016 U.S. presidential election is turning the decision over to the young people of America, who can decide who shapes the future. ...

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U.S. senior Republican Senators Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, are getting ready to launch a wide ranging probe of Russian interference in the U.S. 2016 presidential election through cyber attacks. The probe is not limited to DNC hacking and the concern is not just that any one candidate was targeted but for the integrity of the American election process. Even though it is not mentioned in this report in the Washington Post by Demirjian, Senators and Congressmen from the Republican Party in charge of key committees of oversight on foreign policy and defense now see it as their responsibility to prevent an enlargement of cyberattacks as Germany and France face elections. Mr. Trump has said in an interview with Time magazine that Russia was not responsible for cyber attacks, that it "could have been China, it could have been some guy in New Jersey." Senator McCain is readying a probe into cyber attacks into U.S. weapons systems, and U.S. military, as the issue widens in its scope and significance for the West and for the U.S. and its allies in Europe and Asia. Senate Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (N.C.) will be working closely with McCain, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman, on this particular issue and Senator Mitch McConnell has been apprised of the discussions, according to this report in WP. Senator Graham said- "They'll keep doing more here until they pay a price." Graham will hold a series of investigative hearings in 2017 about Russian meddling and "misadventures throughout the world."  This will include new legislation.  Graham told CNN on Dec. 7, 2016 in strong language- "I am going after Russia in every way you can go after Russia. I think they are one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage. I think they did interfere with our election, and I want Putin personally to pay the price." During the debates Governor Pence of Indiana, the Vice President elect took a strong position on Russia, and the Vice President's positions on foreign policy and defense are similar to that of the Republican leaders in Congress.  It is hard to remember a time in the post war period when there was such a distinct difference in foreign policy and defense as it relates to Russia between a Republican president and both a Republican Congress and almost all Republican governors. Senator Corker from Tennessee, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is on the short list to be Secretary of State. A related story in the WSJ shows the selection of military leaders for key intelligence, defense and homeland security, and Gen. Petraeus considered for foreign policy, as diverging from historical practice of keeping civilian oversight preeminent in the U.S.. Rep. Peter King, an early supporter of Trump, who is on committees for intelligence and counterterrorism told MSNBC, that he is confident that Trump will not be "taken in by Putin." The U.S. Republican dominated Congress has taken a strong position on Russian interference in Syria and Ukraine. In the House of Representatives Republican Rep. Devin Nunes from California and Rep. Mac Thornberry from Texas are leading efforts on cyber and intelligence as heads of their committees. ...

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Reagan words taken out of historical context by Ontario ad- Lighthizer as Reagan's USTR negotiating with Japan experienced Japan's efforts to unfairly capture world markets. It was only after years of negotiation that Lighthizer was able to get Japan to play by fair rules of world trade. In 2025 Jamieson as US Trade Representative for the US is Lighthizer's deputy in prior negotiations with Asian trade partners who have unfairly gamed the system to their advantage. Canada, Mexico and China are misrepresenting the facts to show they play by the rules when they clearly and blatantly flout world fair trading practices that lead to losses for American workers. The reality is that the Smoot Hawley tariffs by the senators of states that were not industrial states in the US inthe 1930's were adopted by the reckless atitude of Herbert Hoover as president and by senators who had no grasp of world trade. Senator Harry Truman from Missouri as president made correcting these mistakes a top priority in the late 1940's. Today's abuse of the system by Asian countries and Canada, Mexico have nothing to do with the tariffs of the 1930's- America wants all nations to play by the rules which over time will create a stronger world trading system. ...

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The shrinking of battleground states under the electoral college system creates serious problems for giving a say to all regions of the U.S. In a functioning democracy all regions would get a say in who will govern the country for the next 4 years. Yet today only a few states in the midwest and in the east determine the outcome of an election. Effectively disenfranchising the rest of the country, the south, the western and eastern coastal regions.

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This report in the Guardian says U.S. Vice President Mike Pence supported the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Pence had hoped to use this to focus attention on the situation of evangelical Christians in the Holy Land. Instead it has backfired as Christian leaders are refusing to meet Pence in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Pence is now seen as not welcome at the Nativity Church in Bethlehem, the major pilgrimage place for the Christian world. Jerusalem is such a sensitive issue that instead of gaining help for evangelicals in the U.S. who supported Mr. Trump, it may have damaged relations with Christian leaders who do not want to further aggravate tensions in the Holy Land. 

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Among the things that make the U.S. different from Britain, that Roberts does not mention, is the character of the U.S. as a nation of immigrants. As true today as it was for millions who came to these shores from Ellis Island at the turn of the century. This makes for a much more adaptable society with different strains of thinking. Another point that makes the U.S. different is that it has striven to be an anticolonial power in its policies- working to ease the transition to independence of countries in the former French and British empires. The U.S. business and economic system has worked to bring development and economic progress in all parts of the world, as a partner in contrast to a colonial power. In this sense the U.S. has a very different character and a different capability for renewal than the empires of an earlier period- and new basis for belief in itself renewable from period to period.

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China's top trade negotiator is Liu he, Chinese Vice Premier. He is negotiating with Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative who heads the U.S. side in talks. Liu He says China is planning to reduce auto tariffs on U.S. imports to 15%. U.S. exported 266,000 cars to China in 2017. A number of other issues are coming up between the two countries including cyber hacking as federal prosecutors are expected to unseal charges against hackers linked to the Chinese government, according to this report in WSJ. Canada's arrest of Huawei executive was met with China's arrest of a Chinese diplomat.

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Three scientists from Japan, Germany and Italy who have given us the research and solid evidence to understand how carbon dioxide emissions lead to higher temperatures on the earth's surface. This is changing how the world thinks and acts.

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India managed the transition out of TikTok after finding the country in the same situation the US is in with millions of young people on TikTok who have since transitioned to other sites including You Tube, Instagram and other activities.

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"Once social change begins it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate a person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate a person who feels pride." The United Farmworkers union was formed by migrant farm workers Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to bring decent wages and good working conditions for farm labour in the US, with most of the work done in California farm areas. March 31st is now Cesar Chavez Day in the US with a Biden proclamation. His niece is shown in the adjoining article as an adviser in the White House and now campaign manager for 2024. She is a softspoken Latina who grew up around Chavez in the fields and farm pickup trucks of the sixties and seventies, as shown in the Washington Post on this page. Biden has proposed an overtime rule for farmworkers, and ensuring farm workers get a fair wage and decent working conditions is the goal of the White House- including recovering $21 million in back pay and wages ensuring 26,000 farm workers get the wages they earned. And remaining steadfast says Biden to ensure workers get paid sick leave, good working conditions. ...

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A year long study by the Washington Post of all shootings by the the police in incidents of law enforcement in the U.S. shows only about 4% of the incidents involve police killing unarmed black persons. Yet a disproprotionate number of unarmed men shot are black or Hispanic- 3 of 5 people. The large majority of incidents involved people who were mentally troubled most of whom carried a weapon, persons carrying a weapon, or persons running from the police when asked to stop. The WP has compiled every police shooting in its database for analysis, something even the FBI does not have and is only now starting to put together. For police the hard part is when to know a certain behaviour such as reaching into the pocket after a police chase was harmless or risking the officer's life, as shown in a video carried by officer Lisa Mearkle in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, for one of the shootings. Mearkle was acquitted by the jury.

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U.S. household net worth has surged a Fed quarterly report shows. But the winners are not the same people who lost out in the Great Recession. Home prices in Las Vegas, Pheonix and Miami are still well below - over 25%- than when they were at their peak before the recession, according to Case-Shiller price index. It is in cities such as San Francisco, Dallas, Denver and Charlotte that prices have surged. As for stock investments this is concentrated among the higher income and wealthier households. Core Logic shows the number of people underwater of 12 million at the peak, and this has declined to 3 million. Overall the trend is positive when combined with the Census report showing strong gain of median income of 5.2% in 2015, and shows Obama policies working in the right direction. Though it has taken time, still leaves many people behind in parts of the country, and for demographic groups such as older people who lost jobs in the recession.

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The US envoy to Belarus responds to overtures from Belarus's leader Lukashenko for improved relations, release of hundreds of political prisoners including the husband of a opposition leader who is thought to have won the last Belarus open elections in 2020. Today it is not realized that politicians with lack of vision or foresight - Bush, Obama, Merkel, failed to grasp that in 2020 two events happened that were linked- the Belarus electons bringing another pro-EU government on Russia's border which was squashed before it could take office and the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong also squashed in 2020 by China PRC. Crimea was made part of Russia in 2014 when Ukrainian protesters in Kviv and Lviv near Poland ousted the government of pro Russia leader Yanukovych in the Maidan revolution. Russia under Putin responded 2014-2020 with a simmering effort to take parts of eastern Ukraine that were close to and sympathetic to Russia. This was an effort to counter NATO or pro-EU countries coming to Russia's borders in the way JFK opposed pro-Russian regime in Cuba. Obama and Merkel never understood or grasped this or were too involved in the eurozone, migration crises (Merkel) or war in Afghanistan (Obama). The result was that in 2020 Russia helped squash the election results in Belarus with another pro-EU government impending. Within 2 years Russia under Putin with tacit Chinese support invaded Ukraine in Feb 2022. Belarus shares a border with Russia and it is closely allied with Russia in the Eurasian Economic Zone that includes former Soviet Bloc countries such as Kazakhstan. Gradually following the recovery of the Russian economy by 2010 the emphasis shifted to create something similar to the Soviet Union, a bloc of countries in central Asia and in Eastern Europe that are part of a Russian sphere of influence. For much of the period of the Obama/ Merkel administrations in US and Germany this was ignored as most of the politicians never gave Russia the importance it sought, not accepting that the economic power was not measured only in GDP- also in science and technology, nuclear technologies, space, in energy resources, and Russia's position in Northern/Central Europe and Central Asia since 1700.  It is this situation that the DJT administration faced with US challenges of the Mexican and Venezuelan drug and people trafficking in the western hemisphere has responded with the Monroe Doctrine to reassert American influence in Latin America by respecting Russia's effort to have some measure of influence on its borders, that the US seeks on it's borders. Without Russian or Chinese intervention in Latin America and with the the Monroe Doctrine in place America can protect the interests of the American people and the people of Latin America for free and good government. What Bush, Obama, Merkel lost sight of is that by each power having some strong measure of influence in their regions, and the tendencies for benevolent influence put in place, there is significantly more room for respecting the hopes and aspirations of people in their regions through democratic or other people oriented forms of government than by the situation in which economically the US was dominant after the fall of the Berlin Wall but other influences would lead to US decline- open but not free trade with China, and the recovery of the Russian economy, drug and people trafficking by gangs in Latin America where the Monroe Doctrine for US leadership had prevailed till the 1960's. ...

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Republican McConnell and Democrat Schumer in interviews in recent days with The Washington Post, as the focus on the rest of 2024  is on what will the new US Senate look like, who is in majority, and who is in minority after November. A small faction in his Republican party opposed McConnell's bipartisan compromise. McConnell says after 17 years in the US Senate, that one has to remember what Harry Truman said. Truman America's post war president in 1950's said if you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog. Yet the Post also says the two McConnell and Schumer worked closely for 4 months to negotiate the bipartisan compromise on immigration to close the border. The first time the two sides have come  this close in this century says the Washington Post. Looking at the 22 Republisenators that supported McConnell and voted for the aid to Ukraine one finds most are senior and the majority of the senators with the most experience, compared to a small faction of newcomers without anywhere near the same experience. This is why the dissension in Congress can also be seen as not telling the whole story, when the most experienced people in the Senate and the House of both parties have come together on the big issues even when the fringes of both are engaged in unconstructive confrontation. You could see that when the younger J.D. Vance of Ohio addressed the heads of all the major US banks this past week in a Congressional Senate hearing and the difference when the more experienced Van Hollen of Maryland talked to the same banking heads. And when Senator Tillis of North Carolina one of the older experienced Senate Republicans made a strong plea for aid to Ukraine on the House floor and in his earlier support for the bipartisan change to asylum and parole immigration laws in the US. A broad center is emerging around coming together, around the most experienced people in the US Congress that sets the country in the right direction.   ...

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Seib cites a career foreign service officer, William Burns, who says that China is offering its model of government as a competing model to that of the U.S. and Western Europe for Asian countries. He says he cannot recall a time in the last 40 years when China was doing what it is now in showing China as role model. Here Seib also mentions the Electoral College and the shift in demographics as creating strains for American democracy. The electoral college does not give enough weight to the largest states in deciding who wins the presidential election as happened in 2017- which gets worse in future years as people move to the west and southern states.

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Former U.S. Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, says the attacks on Charlie Hebdo weekly in France were the result of an intelligence failure. The 2 brothers who conducted the attacks were already on a U.S. no-fly list. The U.S. has already alerted European authorites to about 3000 European citizens, about 1000 from France, who went to Syria to fight with Islamic State. Panettta says there is much room for improvement when it comes to tracking of individuals returning from conflicts in the Middle East, and making certain that the U.S. and Europeans are at the top of their game when it comes to security. Operationally the U.S. and Europeans need to be working together and being aggressive about individuals who have a history in these places in the Middle East.

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Companies in the US hiring older workers in the belief that older workers have a strong work ethic. WIth the Great Resignation and younger workers quick to quit jobs many companies are relying on older workers who are seen as more reliable.

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Todd Blanche, a former federal prosecutor joins Mr. Trump's legal team for the indictment in New York. He spent nearly 10 years as the assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York. He joins Mr. Tacopina, another assistant US attorney for the Souther District of New York, and Ms. Necheles who was an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn.

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Gerard Baker in The Times of London looks at California as some kind of dystopia, a malfunctioning place with rolling blackouts from PG&E the electricity company, drought and water shortages, housing costs soaring making it affordable only to the few at the top, and high taxes. He cites an expert from Chapman University who compares it to some sort of medieval feudal place run by nobility at the top, the investors, lawyers and people in entertainment, with the academy and the media as a kind of clerisy who propagate the ideas that this nobility supports, a small middle and the rest as serfs or minimum wage workers in logistics, retail and farms. Median costs of housing are about $613,000, and the affordability index of people who can afford housing is 32% compared to 56% in the country. Hispanic immigrants now prefer Texas, though with a loss of 6 million people in the last decade and gain of five million, it sees increase in population with high birthrates from the existing population to about 40 million. Half the population of homeless in the U.S. are now in California though it has only one eighth the population of the country. High housing costs and high cost of living hurt people at the low end, the lower middle and the retired the most. With low wages at the bottom and extremes of wealth, homeless, housing zone restrictions, drought and rolling electricity blackouts, this is not what the future should look like.  ...