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In this thoughtful essay Bob Davis of the WSJ asks whether the decision of the Clinton administration to admit China into the World Trade Organization was a bad one for the U.S.  Mr. Clinton in 2000 tried to persuade Congress citing words of president Woodrow Wilson that of a dream "of a world full of free markets, free elections, and free peoples working together."  Every year China would have its most favored nation status renewed with help from supporters in Congress. After WTO entry this was not necessary. Chinese leaders saw the entry into WTO as a way to knock down trade barriers, to act a wrecking ball for the planned economy, to give the economy a big boost.  In 1994 China was a relatively backward economy with 60% of the population living on less than $1.90 a day. Hard to imagine today.  Not everyone was convinced that it was good for the U.S. This included a trade attorney who had tackled a huge trade deficit with Japan in the Reagan period- Robert Lighthizer. Lighthizer was Deputy Trade Representative negotiating with the Japanese. His prediction was that no job in America would be safe once China entered the WTO, that China would become a dominant trading nation.  Robert Cassidy, 73, trade negotiator for president Clinton looks back on that time and says that he regrets what has happened, that all his work night and a day only benefited business and hurt workers. David Autor, MIT economist and his colleagues,  in a later study documented loss of 2.4 million jobs to Chinese competition between 1999 and 2011, in many manufacturing towns dotting the landscape of America, particularly in the midwestern states. And the expectation that the higher economic growth would lead to less political control did not turn out to be true.  In the process multinationals rushed to China after WTO entry and China became the world's manufacturing floor. By 2013 China's per capita income reached $7000, after years of fast GDP growth approaching 10% a year.  About 400 million Chinese were lifted out of poverty from living on less than $1.90 per day from 1999 to 2011, according to the World Bank. A big problem was that the U.S. did not plan for the change from WTO entry. No resources were allocated for the plan to let American workers adjust through worker retraining and special trade handicapped income support, to allow for a slow planned shift. Instead the pace of growth was faster than that which the U.S. faced with the Japanese export offensive in the eighties. China experienced double digit growth after 2000. The irony is that the Republican administrations that followed Clinton followed a policy of free trade to the advantage of China's state run economy when working class Americans voted mostly for the Democratic Party. Little was done and little said in the media from Democrats and Republicans in Congress and the establishment during this time even after Mr. David Autor documented the effects of trade in the U.S.  Till Mr. Trump recognizing the alienation in communities hit by job losses from trade upended American politics, shifted this part of the electorate to the Republican base. Mr. Lighthizer's view is that complaints about China should be left out of WTO because it is naive to tackle it that way. With a $375 billion China trade deficit for 2017 the challenge has to be met in a different way, and the U.S. has to rely on regaining its economic strength within a fair trading framework. Having negotiated with the Japanese Mr. Lighthizer sees the approach adopted then as the one right for today. During the long negotiations Lighthizer is said to have received many negotiating positions of the Japanese signifying no change in long sessions. He once simply made a paper plane and sent it right back, in one of these sessions. He meant that the U.S. was serious about reversing the imbalance in trade. ...

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Britain's parliament voted 358 in favor and 234 against to back prime minister Boris Johnson in his effort to get Britain to leave the European Union by January 31, 2020. Negotiation will not be extended beyond 2020. With a comfortable 80 seat majority and many lawmakers newly elected in parliament in favor of Brexit the process appeared easy compared to the problems faced by Theresa May who lacked a majority. In October Mr. Johnson negotiated a deal with the EU which stated how Britain plans to leave the EU. This covered citizens' rights, a financial settlement to leave, and an arrangement to avoid a physical border in Ireland. With another vote in parliament and passage in the House of Lords the process now appears certain to be completed before January end 2020. To get Brexit done Mr. Johnson sought blue collar support in the north of England and the Midlands, a region neglected by Labour and the old Conservatives. Too much of the focus had remained on London. This strategy worked after neglect of working class districts by Labour under Blair and Brown. Mr. Johnson's approach was to commit the Conservatives to new infrastructure spending, spending on schools and the NHS, just as Mr. Trump had done in the U.S. to permanently change the Republican party. This combined with an appeal to patriotism and the idea of Britain drew strong support across England in the election. ...

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This analysis in the BBC News says the Trump acquittal is likely now in the impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate. It says as the votes were nearly party line, and the situation in terms of people's views is much the same as before, not much has changed. The president's ratings hover around low 40's to mid 40's much the same as during his entire term in office. What has changed is that this may have energized Mr. Trump's base. Ms. Pam Bondi, the BBC says, reflected the Republican view in her opening statement for the defense that with Ukraine policy handled by Mr. Biden, his son Hunter Biden's role on the Board of a Ukrainian energy company Burisma raised all sorts of questions which may have resulted in Mr. Trump's decision to ask the Ukrainian government to look into the Bidens. BBC cites an October poll showing some Democrats and majorities of Republicans and independents think Hunter Biden's Ukraine dealings are a valid issue. This BBC report says Republicans are likely to focus on this issue in coming days as they respond to the impeachment trial. ...

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Bide meets British prime minister Starmer in Wasnhington as Britain is ready to approve use of its long range missile systems inside Russia. This comes as Russia is about to gain control of the Donetsk region. Republicans other than Mr. Trump and his supporters are for stronger support to Ukraine following US policy of opposing invasion to achieve military goals since 1900 against the Japanese in China and the Vietnam War was fought on the same basis in the 1960's considering the South Vietnamese state as an independent republic, just  invaded by the north, by North Vietnam, just as the US had done in the Korean War between North and South Korea. In the Vietnam War nationalism played apart with the Vietnamese nationalism prevailing by 1970. Russians see Kiev as the origin of the Russian State in the 9th century, and eastern region of Donetsk as Russian if western Ukraine seeks to join NATO and EU. Britain has opposed Russia since 1750 as it saw Russia as the threat to an Empire it was building in South Asia, in India that financially supported its Empire worldwide for 200 years till about 1950. Britain engaged in the Crimean War against Russia so that along with the French it could control Turkey and its Ottoman states in the Arab Middle East under the guise of trade. This effort was pushed back by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920's when he founded the modern state of Turkey in Ankara. ...

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The CEO of the New York Times and the former director general of the BBC, takes a look at the public discourse in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and in the Brexit campaign, and finds some troubling changes. The use of words that can eaily be picked up by Twitter and social media to attack opponents, the complete disregard for facts, and outright attempts to denigrate and destroy using rhetorical tactics, and a section of the public that has turned away from the facts or is disinterested in facts, is deeply troubling for Mark Thompson. When the public discourse fails, then the politics as a whole starts to collapse, says Thompson. We are children of the enlightenment, says Thompson, and were taught to look underneath statements to discern the truth. This is a crisis in public discourse. Worse it is one in which truth telling by people who say they are outsiders and tell it like it is, is not about telling the truth. Which is what makes it so dangerous. Thompson cites the statement by Michael Gove that "people in this country have had enough of experts," as another dangerous sign. He says it is time that experts make themselves understandable and talk in a way the public can understand. The media needs to explain issues in clear ways, and professional policymakers language of discourse needs to be conveyed in better ways that the public can grasp, in which the Brexit Remain campaign failed, says Thompson. Its important to acknowledge the problem, as the health of our democracies depends on finding solutions to what has happened in 2015-2016 to change the public discourse and let it deteriorate to unimaginable levels.  ...

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This NYT report shows how Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, decided to first put off any indictment a year ago because he was not convinced about the evidence being strong enough in other areas. It was after hiring a new team, bringing in additional prosecutors and resources, and studying different areas of evidence on different issues that he settled on the one related to the hush money payments to a porn actress. It is at that point that the information for the indictment was put together for the grand jury, a year later. 

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Most of the issues important to Republicans such as immigration, crime, cultural issues, and national security are well articulated by Mr. Ron de Santis of Florida, without the distraction presented of a sordid affair at a time of cost of living crisis for average Americans, says this report in NYT.

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FR24 points out that it is not that unusual to see prosecution of French former presidents and prime ministers for campaign financing irregularities or putting political party officials on public payrolls. It shows that this happened to president Chirac, president Sarkozy, and prime minister Fillon. In fact former prime minister Fillon was doing well in the elections after the presidency of Socialist president Hollande. The revelation that he had put his wife on public payroll as parliamentary assistant with little work led to Mr. Macron taking his place as the leading candidate. No jail terms were served for these charges under French law. Here it is important to note that French law limits spending on election campaigns to 22 million euros and Sarkozy exceeded that number. In the US and India there are no such strict limits. So are France's leaders that much worse than the American leaders who spend and collect money lavishly? Or in India where the campaign financing has the result of making it hard to build the infrastructure desperately needed by a young aspiring population. Framers of the Indian constitution including Gandhi and Nehru intent on getting the British out never realized that political parties would look to public funds as ways to finance their campaigns, leaving less for the intended purpose of building roads and bridges making the country a poor place to invest in and entrenching underdevelopment and poverty.  In the US tech companies in Silicon Valley or banks in New York and Silicon Valley, pharmaceutical companies and companies in other sectors, are able to gain monopoly positions or favored regulatory setups for their industries by funding election campaigns for Congress. When this results in egregious behaviour such as the 2009 financial crisis or the current banking crisis this behaviour causes severe damage to ordinary Americans much worse than what Mr Chirac or Sarkozy were prosecuted for.  South Korea has a long history of prosecuting former presidents. Three presidents have been prosecuted so far. One president served as much as five years for a jail term. ...

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The Republican party (GOP) chances with Trump as the candidate in 2024 are seen with much skepticism by Karl Rove in the WSJ. Republicans need to keep the presidential field of candidates not too crowded for too long, as pluralities in primaries led to Trump winning a large share of delegates even with about one third of the vote in the early primaries for the 2020 election. Another challenge is the work of Trump supporting leaders in states such as Michigan who want to select delegates by convention and not through primaries. Ron de Santis, Governor of Florida, is seeking the Republican nomination, and faces a strong challenge from the former president. De Santis, 44 years, is from Dunedin, Florida, His mother was a nurse and his father installed Nielsen TV rating boxes, with great-great grandparents immigrating from Italy Benevento, Avellino) in 1904. He studied history at Yale and went to Harvard Law School, Navy Justice School after joining the Navy. De Santis was elected to the US Congress in 2014 and 2016 where he served as the chariman of the sub committee on National Security. He founded the Freedom Caucus in these years. In 2018 he ran for Governor of Florida winning by 0.4%, running again in 2022 he won by about 20 percentage points. ...

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Washington Post reporters Clement and Gushkin with research and polling experience at Pew Research Center give the results of the Post-ABC News poll taken before the State of the Union 2023 address by president Biden. It shows what president Biden has said about his  investment spending of trillions of dollars in America's crumbling infrastructure, in new manufacturing for chips, advanced technologies, R&D, electric charging stations, EV vehicles, renewable energy. "Folks we are just getting started." The investments are taking place quickly because today there many projects ready for investment. Yet it takes time for the manufacturing plants to be built, new expressways and bridges to be built. The poll shows not enough people know- only a third of people know about two thirds do not know. That Mr.Biden is aware of this is apparent. He says-"It is one thing to have passed it all- now we have to make sure we're on it every single day. Not a joke." And on Jan 26, saying "Implementing it so people can see what we've delivered and give it to them directly."  This is why president Biden used his State of the Union address to make the points directly to the American people. This is also seen in his recent speech to a union audience when he told workers- Mr. Trump used infrastructure as a punchline, Biden turned it into a decade only headline. Creating well paying jobs and doing this while cutting the deficit by trillions of dollars. To give the contrast Mr. Biden told workers and working families the spending cuts proposed by the Republican House of Representatives were according to Moody's likely to result in a loss of 780,000 jobs.    ...

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This is not just offering something to every group, it is rebuilding the middle class when seen in the larger context of rebuilding America's industrial base and taking  it to new heights after losing it to China under Bush-Obama 2000-2016. Under MAGA Trump inequality is tackled just differently from the way Democrats tackled it under Biden. The tax break for auto loans, interest on auto loans is deductible for taxes, is part of the new Tax Bill to appeal to auto workers. It is only applicable to US made cars and this promotes US made cars over foreign factory made cars such as the Germans and Koreans and some Japanese auto makers did before 2025. Reagan scrapped this tax break, it is back under Trump as the Republican base now includes auto workers and the now back to growth mode middle class. The deduction in local and state taxes increases to 30,000 to benefit small business owners. There is also the tax on tips which is removed. Retired people get an added $4000 deduction and not elimination of taxes on social security benefits entirely because of the Bryd rule that prevents changes to retirement with a simple majority vote not the 60 votes in the Senate.  ...

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 Harris's role for the Border was limited to telling Central American migrants to stay home. Much of the migration was a result of wars started in the Reagan years in Central American states of Nicaragua and San Salvador. This destabilized the region and led to gangs taking over parts of the country in San Salvador and entrenching Castro style regime in Nicaragua, leading to outward migration of young people. As this report points out Harris was supposed to take on decades of such misguided policies in Central America in a few months. A drought hit agricultural coffee regions of Guatemala increasing migration. Her role instead was to ensure several wins. Win No.1 to generate stability setting up the peaceful transfer of power in Guatemala, singling out corrupt regimes. Win No. 2 to generate jobs. US AID and IFDC loans were increased, foreign investment attracted to generate 250,000 jobs. Win No. 3 the increased stability led to gradually declining migration from Central America. What replaced it was Venezuela. And that is a repeat story of Reagan style wars in Central America. Under the Trump Administration the US did not take up the Monroe Doctrine and act directly to support a stable fairly elected government in Venezuela, an obvious solution. Instead going half way- destabilizing the government but then left it on its own. The result about a third of the population leaving the country in these years to Colombia and other parts of Latin America in a immense humanitarian tragedy.  In 2023 Venezuelans not Guatemalans entered at the US Border in large numbers, most of them middle class families that left Venezuela after hyperinflation and mismanagement of the economy. Realizing the danger by January 2024 Biden negotiated with Senate Minority Leader McConnell and his Republican representative Senator Lankford to pass legislation in the Senate closing the Border. All that was needed was the House to act and 30 years of Border problem would be solved.This was blocked in the House by new Speaker Mike Johnson on advice from former president Trump who chose to use the issue in the 2024 election. Biden then used his executive powers to close the Border leading to lower numbers of migrants under Biden by July 2024 than under Trump. Migration Border Czar was never a term used by Democrats in the Obama and Biden years. Biden who also served in a role given migration as one of the issues to handle under Obama, had this as only one of his assignments. Biden played more important roles in foreign policy with his experience as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for decades. Border policy was made by president Obama and his advisers. The same is true of Harris, Border policy being done by president Biden and his advisers. Similar to Biden's role as VP Harris was given assignment to cover foreign policy and was the US representative at 3 Munich Security Conferences in 2021-2024 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz of Germany said of Harris last week that he had full confidence in Harris as both competent and experienced. ...

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A WSJ/NBC poll in April 2017 shows about three quarters of Americans disapprove of Congress's job performance, up 12 percentage points since Feb, and one fifth approve- down nine percentage points. Congress has had a low rating in the 20% point range since 2011. Speaker Ryan is viewed negatively by 40%, compared to 22% having a positive view.

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 A member of the WSJ Editorial Board, says the Republican National Convention was more consequential in the way it continued the theme of getting non- white people to see how the president is taking action on issues that affect them. Mr. Trump cited his work on prison reform legislation, on funding for black colleges and universities, rebuilding broken families, and bringing back jobs in Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee. 69% of registered voters are white in 2019 compared to 73% in 2012, according to the Pew Research Center. Getting it right now means he says not merely the defending American workers to prevent "offshoring of jobs, opening the borders, and sending sons and daughters to fight in endless foreign wars," but also how to defend the rights of minorities in America and of working class non-white people. In 2016 the Republican party got 8% of the black vote nationally, which was the lowest in 4 decades excluding the years Mr. Obama ran for election. The effort to highlight the work on behalf of Black people and Hispanic people was to take this number back up as far up as Republicans can to the level reached under Eisenhower. This he says will be good for Republicans and good for the country. Under Eisenhower in 1956 the Republican party gained 36% of the Black vote, the highest ever.  ...

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This may be the most important work of the DJT administration by 2027 into 2028 elections.  WSJ calls it the soda wars, when it is the slow destruction of America. As JFK and RFK well knew when they made fitness a goal for America in 1960- health is not built on sodas. Today with such high obesity, sodas and its likes, it is about the slow destruction of America.  MALA make America Live Again starts here. “When a taxpayer is putting money into SNAP, are they OK with us using their tax dollars to feed really bad food and sugary drinks to children, who perhaps need something more nutritious?” Right now it is the biggest item for schools in most states for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan. Passed by Congress in 1964 the original bill for SNAP excluded sodas and luxury drinks, but had Sodas added back in by the Senate. By lobbyists even in 1964? SNAP schools program falls under the Agriculture Department. Democrats as well as Republicans appointed Agriculture Secretaries and not one took the action to get sodas excluded, to let states request sodas be excluded and approve it, not the Democrat a Carter, a Clinton, or an Obama, or a Republican a Reagan, a Bush, or a Trump (first term) took the necessary action. In 2025 Brooke Rollins is Agriculture Department Secretary. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee has seen the damage sodas can cause in her family. Rollins on her first day in office has finally acted- after 61 years when the original intentions of the SNAP bill's creators were confounded in the Senate.  On her first full day in office, urging them to propose pilot programs testing changes to food aid. Rollins sent governors a letter to ask for the removal of sodas from schools food aid program.   ...