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Financial problems at Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena and the Italian government's role has introduced an element of uncertainty in the upcoming election in Italy. This has helped former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi recover in the polls. In Spain the newspaper El Pais published information from the ruling Partido Popular financial records showing hidden payments of 25,200 euros a year between 1997-2008. The opposition leaders asked for Rajoy's resignation and Rajoy did not address the matter directly till a joint appearence with Merkel in Berlin, where he said: " I have exactly the same strength, the same courage, and I am just as determined to continue as prime minister to overcome one of the most difficult situations in Spain of the last 30 years." Rajoy has a solid majority in parliament, with his party firmly behind him. This is unlikely to affect the political situation in Spain.

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Different estimates on how quickly and how much additional oil would come into world oil markets if sanctions are lifted. The time estimates range from quickly to 6 months for additional new supplies into world oil markets. Estimates of how much production can be added range from 500,000-800,000 barrels a day from private estimates to 1 million additional barrels a day from Iran's oil company, if sanctions are lifted. UK foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, says "there is still a long way to go if we are going to get there." He told a parliamentary committee that the nonnegotiable part is a window of one year advance notice if Iran were to break out and go for a nuclear weapon, which would be based on technical expert opinion of how long it would take Iran to build a nuclear weapon using its knowhow and materials at that Mr Zanganeh took over as oil minister after the election of Rouhani as president 18 months ago. Zanganeh calls the effect of sanctions and the mismanagement of the previous government as "a catastrophe," and he has tried to instill anew discipline in the oil sector. Iran currently produces about 1-1.2 million barrels a day under sanctions, half of earlier levels before sanctions were tightened in 2012 because of the nuclear weapons development issues....

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Ajami makes the point that opinions and attitudes -after the Obama efforts to improve America's standing in the Muslim world - havent changed much since the Bush days. He cites the Pew Global Attitudes Survey for 2009- In Turkey after the Obama Anakra visit favorable rating is only 14%, 69% are unreconciled. In Egypt 27% have favorable view 70% do not, in Pakistan unfavorables actally went up from 63% to 68%. He also points to the situation in Iran where the protester for the fraud in the election of Ahmadinejad did not receive much supprt from Obama, as the Obama administration decided to engage with Ahmadinejad to achieve nuclear settlement. In effect the rhetoric from Obama has not been matched with courage of convicitions , and lacks the courage to turn a new chapter by breaking from the past not just with talk but in real policy changes. And says Ajami the Arabs havve stopped listening to the rhetoric as little has been accomplished by way of change. At the same time false expectations may have been aroused because the Cairo speech was made at the University with the aging Mubarak at Obama's side, and beyond addressing these students the feeling clearly must be that the US would simply continue its policies of supporting old regimes that tolerate no dissent of any kind such as Mubarak's. ...

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Wall Street Journal reporters Walker in Berlin, Forelle in Brussels, and Meichtry in Rome, reconstruct the events during critical days after the indecision and failure to reach agreement during the July summit of eurozone countries. This took the form of intervews with leading players and over 25 policy makers. What emerges are accounts of how Germany's Angela Merkel, daughter of a Lutheran pastor, and protege of Eurozone founder, former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, handled the crisis. Merkel was widely criticized in the media for indecision. What emerges is an account of a leader who took decisive action at key moments in the crisis- leading to the formation of new governments in Greece and Italy taking action to improve finances, and negotiations with banks represented by the International Finance Corporation leading to acceptance by banks of a 50% loss on loans to Greece to reduce Greece's unsustainable debt burden. Merkel also worked with the European Central Bank's departing president Frenchman Claude Trichet and new president Italian Mario Draghi to resist French president Sarkozy's efforts to have the ECB assume responsibility for the crisis through large scale buying of Italian and Spanish bonds; which was opposed by German public opinion as a backdoor way of having German taxpayers assume responsibility for European debt. Shown are three critical moments when Merkel intervened. In October 2011, after Italian prime minister Berlusconi reneged on promises to make pension and other reforms to improve Italian finances because of political resistance. He survived a parliamentary no-confidence vote by one vote. Merkel took the lead on October 20, by directly calling Italian President Georgio Napolitano on the phone, to urge him to take action for forming a new government in Italy. The result was Napolitano talking with all political parties to form a new government, leading to the formation of a government by a non-political figure respected in Italy, former EU commissioner Mario Monti. A day earlier, on October 19, French President Sarkozy met ECB president, Trichet, at an event honoring him as departing ECB president in Frankfurt's Alte Oper concert hall. Trichet, Merkel and Sarkozy met in a side room. Sarkozy asked for decisive help from the ECB for large scale buying of Italian and Spanish bonds to lower yields, which had reached 7% on Italian bonds. Trichet responded that the ECB's charter did not allow it to finance governments, with the meeting ending in a shouting match between the two leaders. On October 21, EU and IMF inspectors warned that Greece's debt was reaching unsustainable proportions and austerity measures alone would not work, unless the bondholders, the European banks, took losses of 60% on their excessive lending to Greece. At this point France agreed to the German position arguing for this level of bondholder haircuts or losses, fearing the prospect of large future bailouts that would jeopardize France's triple AAA credit rating. The July 2011 summit accord had only provided for 10% in losses for bondholders. On October 27, at a meeting that went past midnight, Merkel and Sarkozy called IIF head Charles Dallara, who headed negotiating for the banks, to EU headquarters in Brussels. Merkel handed Dallara an agreement containing the 50% bondholder loss demand, and told Dallara- "This is the last offer." Merkel was saying banks would be left with nothing if they rejected it and Greece defaulted. Dallara called bankers and the IIF accepted Merkel's agreement. The final moment that October came on October 31, when Greece's prime minister Papandreou said he would call a referendum on the bailout provisions and austerity measures demanded by the IMF, the EU and the ECB. Bond markets reacted negatively to the announcement fearing a rejection and a Greek default. The Group of 20 leaders was meeting in Cannes, France on Nov. 2, 2011. Papandreou was asked to come to Cannes for a pre-summit meeting. Here Merkel told Papandreou- "the real question" for the referendum was, "Do you want to be in the euro, or not?" Days later Papandreou, lacking support in Greece from political parties and opposition inside his party, submitted his resignation. A non-political figure respected in Greece, former ECB vice president, Lucas Papademos, was appointed prime minister to head a Unity government. Polls after the appointment showed three fourths of Greeks said that this was "a positive step for Greece," with Papandreou's party getting only 11% support and the opposition led by Samaras about 20%. The criticism leveled at Merkel is that Germany should take responsibility for debt throughout the euro area through the issuance of eurozone bonds or the ECB buying large amount of bonds of Spain and Italy. Merkel faced strong opposition inside Germany and from the Bundesbank to this idea. The other criticism was based on austerity measures worsening the finances of Greece because of a lack of growth in the economy, which is true; yet Germany may see the situation in Greece as taking a long time to be resolved in any event because of excessive and faulty financial management. For Italy and Spain putting finances in order was a necessity, and austerity measures should lead to short term sacrifice but improve prospects for the long term by returning the economies to growth. Another criticism is the installation of governments that lack popular or electoral support. As the polls in Greece showed the Unity government there has far greater support and public opinion blames the politicians for the huge mess. In Italy, Berlusconi was widely seen as losing popular support when he resigned. And in Spain Mariano Rajoy, the newly elected prime minister, was elected with a huge majority in parliament following winning in local government elections. Merkel also held her own party, the Chrisitian Democrats together at the recent Leipzig convention. Mario Draghi, was elected with German support to head the European Central Bank. He has long argued for better management of Italian finances as head of Italy's central bank. Draghi was able to support Merkel with carefully planned and managed actions. First to reduce interest rates to support economic growth in a slowing eurozone. Following this with the ECB's Long Term Financing Operation in late December 2011, to provide unlimited loans to European banks at 1% interest for three years in exchange for a broadened list of collateral deposited at the ECB. In a final twist in this drama, Charles Dallara, who was a key negotiator for the U.S. Treasury in setting up the Brady Bonds- that converted bad Latin American government debt owed to U.S. banks in the 1980's into long term debt with large reductions in principal owed and lower interest rates. This was in exchange for guaranteed repayment with 30 year U.S. zero coupon bonds. Dallara was now a negotiator for the banks to reduce the chance of the very same bondholder haircuts that he had negotiated in an earlier period to solve the Latin American debt crisis. Other players in the drama were Axel Weber, head of the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, who resigned after strong and outspoken opposition to the ECB's large scale purchase of bonds of Greece, Italy and Spain. Jens Weidmann, his protege, who replaced him. And Jurgen Stark, German representative at the ECB, who also resigned in opposition to Germany assuming responsibility for eurozone debt. ...

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Sara Ehrman describes the time when Hillary Clinton worked in Washington D.C. as a 26 year old lawyer working on the Watergate committee, and Bill Clinton was teaching law in Arkansas. In August 1974 Hillary was living for about 1 year with Mrs. Ehrman, a friend who was a congressional aide at the time. She is 97 today, and recalls that time when she tried to discourage Hillary from going to Arkansas to join her boyfriend. Ehrman felt not much would come out of Bill Clinton, though she thought him to be handsome, and later worked in his presidential campaign and Hillary's presidential campaign. Ehrman was 55 then, and describes Hillary Clinton as a bit sloppy in her habits, such as not making her bed and having a lot of stuff strewn about her room, but really intelligent and very hardworking. At the time both lived together. Ehrman describes a daily routine of seeing Hillary go to work with coffee in the morning and come back exhausted late at night, having yogurt and going to bed, day after day.  The two met for the first time in 1972 when Ehrman was co-director of issues and research in the McGovern campaign in Texas, and Hillary was helping with voter registration. This report describes in detail the road trip to Arkansas that the two made together, when Mrs. Ehrman drove Hillary to Arkansas in her old Buick. They stopped at small towns  in the 1200 mile journey, and this journey ends with Mrs Ehrman crying that she could not get Hillary to change her mind about Bill Clinton and Arkansas. About what she thought was a bright woman throwing her life away in the deep South of the seventies. Hillary she remembers insisted she loved Bill Clinton, and having passed the Arkansas Bar exam had firmly decided on settling in Arkansas. ...

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Government GDP figures show the GDP shrank by 1.8% in the third quarter of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015, the first such contraction in the economy since 2009. Household consumption was down 3.2%. The sharp decline in the value of the lira by 20% in 2016 makes imports costlier, in an economy dependent on consumption spending and tourism for higher GDP growth. Political uncertainty with instability in Turkey following a crackdown on opposition and media also leads to decline in foreign investment and investment by domestic firms.

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Greek unemployment is up to 11% and this does not reflect the women who are not registering as unemployed. About 100,000 public sector workers will be let go by 2013 as the austeity plan takes effect. The three year reform programme from the IMF, the European Commission and the ECB tries to cut the budget deficit from 13.6% to 2.7% of GDP in a quick three years even as the econmy is shrinking. The criticism of Germany is relatively less, but there is strong resentment in Greece for the IMF program with 60% of Greeks opposing it. And in Germany Merkel faces voter resentment of having to pay for other EU member countries mistakes in the election in North Rhine-Westphalia, where her CDU and FDP coalition faces a tough challenge. Intenationally Merkel is facing tough criticism for waffling as the euro currency faced a serious threat. The whole European Union plan was being put to the test resulting in the size of the bailout growing from $60 billon to $160 billion in a few weeks, many experts calling it ineptitude....

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The caretaker government of prime minister Mark Rutte in the Netherlands will commit to following austerity plans in its Stability Program report to the European Union. Elections are now set for September 12, 2012. The government was able to get the support of two smaller left-leaning parties to austerity plans. Opposition parties have questioned the policies and said they will reverse them if elected. Rutte's Liberal party and Jaeger's Christian Democrats, with the help of the Christenunie, D66, and Groenlinks, now hold a slim 2 seat majority in the 150 seat Dutch parliament. The Freedom party that had previously supported Rutte withdrew support for austerity policies that it said would hurt pensioners. The moves help avert a credit ratings drop by the credit ratings agencies leading to a loss of the Dutch triple A credit rating. The measures will increase the sales tax from 19% to 21%, make health care spending cuts and impose a pay freeze on civil servants. Savings achieved will be 11 billion euros. Rutte described his actions as: "the government's respose to the acute crisis in confidence in the financial markets." Earlier in the week Fitch Ratings had threatened to lower the Netherlands credit rating. The measures will reduce the Dutch deficit to 3% in 2013 from 4.5% in 2012 to meet EU fiscal compact rules. The changes to the health system are part of changes advocated by the OECD and the IMF because of surging health care costs for an aging Dutch population. There is concern about the sales tax increase because of its effect on consumer spending, and recent comments by S&P managing directors and others in financial markets emphasize the need for economic growth, as austerity measures by itself are inadequate solutions....

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The European Central Bank left all its interest rates unchanged on September 7, 2016. No changes were made to asset purchase program, which will run until March 2017 or beyond as needed. The ECB left interest rates at 0% for its lending operations, and for overnight deposits at 0.4%.  Inflation is a special concern, as inflation was at 0.2% for August. Business activity and investment in the EU and in the U.S. is weak, and Brexit is still a concern.

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Pier Luigi Bersani from the northern Emilio Romagna region, head of the centre-left Democratic party, is the leading candidate for prime minister in Italy's 2013 elections. His party has 37.8% support in a recent poll. The Democratic party has an electoral alliance with the SEL Left, Ecology and Freedom party, which has 5.1% in the poll. Berlusconi's People of Freedom party has 18.2% support and the antiestablishment party of Beppe Grillo, the Five Star Movement has 20% support. Prime minister Mario Monti is being encouraged to run by business and centrist parties. Bersani said in an interview, he will continue Monti's policies if elected. He says he supports greater flexibility so that policies do not focus only on austerity, at the same time he will respect the committments Italy has gven to the EU and move forward with pro-competition actions.

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Krauthammer says it has become a cliche for people to say "politics is broken" in the U.S. John Beers, head of the Standard & Poors sovereign ratings committtee, also cited a broken political system in his rationale for the U.S. credit downgrade to AA+. This happened even as S&P repeatedly emphasized the triple A rating for France during this weeks (early August 2011) tumult in the markets over French credit risks. But in reality when you look closely and have a sense about the serious changes being discussed, says Krauthammer, something exceptional has happened, and the system is working. For the U.S. Congress and the government to come to grips with an ever expanding debt -with 39 cents of every dollar spent being borrowed as Alan Simpson of the Simpson-Bowles Commission never tires of pointing out- when both branches of government have ignored or shunted off the question with a "deficits are ok" attitude for decades- is a significant achievement. When one looks closely contrary to what S&P's and other opinion says there is actually a political process that is working in the U.S. compared to the process in Europe. In difficult situations when strong opinions are bare knuckling it with each other this process can be boisterous, but it only suggests an effort to wrap ones hands around the problems in a serious way. This is actually one of the strengths of the U.S. system with its checks and balances and its spirited dialogue. In business management Intel's Andy Grove called it "constructive confrontation," and he described this as positive and essential for business institutions to survive and grow....

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A Republican says the party's failures to come up with alternative policies instead of simply opposing president Obama, has led to the atmosphere of negativism and anti-immigrant rhetoric that increases support for Trump in the party base. He cites as an example 2012 Republican presidential nominee Romney and his comments about "self-deportation." Other examples cited include pushing Rubio to where he repudiated his own immigration legislation just to maintain support in the party. He says this leaves him little option but to vote for Hillary Clinton.

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Turkey's lira depreciates by 21% in 2013 and an additional 7% by January 24, 2014. The central bank uses up a third of its foreign exchange reserves or $19 billion in intervention to support the lira since June 2013. The intervention on June 24, 2014, did not work and the lira continued its downward slide to 2.30 to the lira. The political protests in Turkey and divisions within factions in the government about corruption probes has led to a political crisis and investors pulling back from Turkey. The central bank failed to increase interest rates as expected by investors and suggested by the IMF. Inflation is running at 7.4% for 2013. In August 2001 a currency crisis caused the banking system to collapse. The financial position is stronger than in that crisis, yet the recent political crisis and the large current account deficit has badly dented investor sentiment.

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Prime minister Manmohan Singh moves forward with moves to open up the retail sector to foreign investment and other steps to attract foreign investors. In a televised address he appeals to Indians to support his government's efforts to reduce the deficit by increasing diesel prices, placing caps on cooking gas subsidies, and open up the retail sector to foreign investment. Singh's coalition will survive with a parliamentary majority after the withdrawal of a party based in W. Bengal state led by Mamta Banerjee, by getting the support of a party based in Uttar Pradesh state led by Mulayam Singh Yadav. Singh tells Indians: "we are at a point where we can reverse the slowdown in our growth. We need a revival in investor confidence domestically and globally.'' Earlier efforts to open up the retail sector to foreign investment failed because of Banerjee. Singh also warned Indians of the problems Europe is facing and the need for strong action to prevent a similar situation happening in India. India's political picture has changed since the days of Nehru and Indira Gandhi as no single party has support in all parts of the country, and federal governments in New Delhi are based on coalitions led by Congress party or the BJP party. Singh is known for his market opening moves as finance minister in a Congress led government in the early 1990's. Political strains and corruption scandals have weakened Singh's government in 2011-2012 leading to the lack of clear policies on the deficit and foreign investment, a situation Singh seeks to firmly correct. ...

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Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama campaign together in swing states such as North Carolina. Hillary Clinton capitalizes on the surging popularity of Michelle Obama, who has a 64%  approval rating, according to Gallup, 10 points more than president Obama, and above Hillary's 43 percent. Both women show a mutual admiration and sisterhood as they campaign together with rising crowd enthusiasm. For Michelle her unprecedented effort as First Lady is a result of the dirty campaign fought by Donald Trump to turn off voters to the political process, and her effort is meant to counter this. She says about this demeaning of women, "Enough is enough." Both women are drawn together with a campaign for a woman as president. And the slogan coined by Michelle has taken off  "When they go low, we go high." It has energized the very African American and millenial voters that have played an effective role in previous Democratic campaigns.

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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor talks with Joseph Rago of the Wall Street Journal. There is a fundamentally different world view between Obama and Cantor. Cantor does not hesitate to present his view and says President Obama did not like to be challenged on policy grounds in debt negotiations, leading to the famous "I'll call your bluff Eric" remark by Obama. Cantor sees no chance of reaching an agreement with Obama that would go towards solving the fiscal crisis and feels it would be best to focus on incremental wins. He says of the Obama-Boehner deal that it did not address the problems with Social Security and Medicare. Without the transformational changes that are needed in those programs he did not think it was worth the cost. Cantor is mainly responsible for the Republicans not agreeing to include revenue increases in the negotiations or the final deal. Cantor says the super-committee part of the deal which has to come up with savings, will only lead to incremental progress- considering the huge divide that separates their world view and that of President Obama. The real fight says Cantor is to prevent President Obama from getting re-elected....

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The influence of regional political parties in India continues as the Congress party depends on the Samajwadi party in Uttar Pradesh led by Mulam Singh Yadav for its majority in parliament in 2013. This follows the withdrawal of support first of the party of Mamta Banerjee in West Bengal in 2012 on retail foreign investment issue, and the withdrawal of support of the DMK party in Tamilnadu state over the Sri Lankan issue in 2013. Not only are the regional political parties based in a particular state, they are also dominated by political personalities, such as that of Yadav in Uttar Pradesh (UP), Banerjee in W. Bengal, and Karunanidhi in Tamilnadu. Tamilnadu is in the south with a language Tamil of Dravidian origin, and W. Bengal is in the northeast near the Burmese and Bangladesh border with its own language Bengali of very different origin and completely different script. The regional parties have little in common. Some like the DMK in Tamilnadu are small parties with 18 member in parliament. Congress coalition government has 230 members and needs 270 for a parliamentary majority....

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Polls on Deutchland opinion trends show Merkel has gained support with her careful handling of Brexit, and the AfD has lost support. Only a month ago media reports covering the immigration issues had put AfD in the light of gaining using this issue. The infighting in the Conservative Party and the lack of any plans of ministers in the British government favoring Brexit for leaving the EU have Germans questioning this kind of politics compared to Merkel's promise of a "calm and composed manner" in dealing with issues of people's lives and the future of Europe. The extensive coverage in Germany of the vote for Brexit, the EU referendum in Britain, increased awareness in Germany of the benefits of the European Union. Merkel and other leaders offered their assessment of how the European Union has brought peace to Europe and improved the lives of the people during the pre Brexit media coverage. Now Infratest Dimap polls show the popularity of Merkel has increased to 59%. Compared to a June poll before Brexit things look better for Merkel-  the AfD Alternative for Germany has lost 3 percent of support dropping to 12 percent, the Christian Democrat party of Merkel is up by 2 percentage points to 34 percent in popular support, the Social Democrats also increasing support by 1 percent to 22 percent.The vast majority of people said the European Union provides security (74 percent) and prosperity (79 percent). Germans are skeptical about the value of referendums on such major decisions as EU membership because of swings in popular opinion such as that on immigration that swayed British voters- 49 percent saying parliament does better in these situations than a referendum, 42% saying referendums are better. For voters who said Germany was hindered by membership only 11% supported that proposition and 52% said the EU is beneficial for Germany. Over 75% actually favor more cooperation on refugees, data policies and energy, setting the prospect for a stronger European Union. Also proving the importance of responsible politics, and honest, flexible leadership, responding to people's concerns yet not pandering to swings in opinion for temporary advantage. A separate piece in the Guardian by Yonge points out that Cameron actually won only 23 percent of the eligible voters for Conservatives in the 2015 elections in Britain, reflecting a two decade slide. Brexit only made this failure widely visible, and did not escape the attention of the German people.   ...

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The Egyptian military cracks down on non governmental organizations promoting democracy.

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Jean Claude Juncker, the newly elected president of the European Commission, was prime minister of Luxembourg for 18 years. During that period Luxembourg pursued policies that enabled large corporations to evade taxes by setting up in Luxembourg and paying taxes below 1%. A prominent British MP says it is outrageous that Juncker should be looking after tax issues in Europe with such a dismal record on taxes. He was elected with the support of Germany over Britsh objections, because he was supported by the largest elected bloc in the 2014 EU elections. But a new study by London based Open Europe shows the centre right parties supporting Juncker's candidacy won only 9.7% of the vote. The candidacy also did not receive the close scrutiny that should go with a position of such importance. The result is that the European Commission will suffer from a lack of credibility during his tenure at a time when the Commission was criticized for its bureaucratic structures, and back room deals. The criticism from Britain is especially strong. Ironically German chancellor Merkel supported Juncker to bring some element of democratic support from the EU parliament into the process of selection, which now appears to be weak....

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What will the E-Book do to bookstoreslike Barnes & Noble? This is a question that investors like Burkle, who owns 20% of Barnes & Noble, and Mr. Riggio who owns 31%, are facing. Apple's IPad is expected to sell 5.5 million units in 2010, Amazon's Kindle 3 million, and Barnes and Noble's Nook 1 million units. Barnes & Noble invested early on in a handheld device called the Rocket eBook reader with its investment in NuvoMedia in 1998. But pulled out of the eBook business in 2003. The problem at the time was the lack of enough titles to arouse reader interest and the high prices-$20 per eBook vs $25 for a hardbook. This move proved costly when Amazon launched its Kindle in 2007. Amazon now has 70-80% of the eBook buisness, with Sony, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble competing for the remaining share. Riggio bought the first store for Barnes & Noble on New York's Fifth Avenue in 1971. He promoted superstores with huge selections (over 100,000 titles) and built up a chain of 719 stores in ensuing decades. Now he faces a new reality in the arithmetic of eBooks which could remake this business. Apple set a new method for pricing eBooks that affects booksellers. Publishers and Apple set up a model that gives the publisher 70% of the eBook digital price. EBook sellers act as agents in this approach, and they get 30%. Best sellers sell for $9.99 but other books can be $12.99 or $14.99. Now the digital bookseller gets 30% of $12.99. And as it hasn't paid anything its more advantageous and profitable. This works for publishers and digital booksellers but Barnes and Noble was used to getting much more than $3.90 when it sold a $25 hardcover book. If eBook sales climb to become a quarter or more of total book sales by 2012 then it will lead to a decline in sales revenues for Barnes & Noble. With eBooks costing half of the hardcover prices in brick and mortar retailers the trend is irreversible. To address this trend Barnes & Noble has hired a digital expert Mr Lynch as CEO, and the strategy is to combine the retail presence and customer physical contact in brick-and-mortar stores with eBook retailing, to come up with an answer to this tidal wave of change in book retailing. ...

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Kristof of the NYT says the narrative about Hillary Clinton being dishonest is clearly overdone and inaccurate. He says the gaffes about the use of personal email server have unfairly created a distorted narrative. On changing positions on trade and minimum wage- this happens frequently with all the candidates. Some are glib enough for not being noticed, Clinton not a natural politician drawing attention. On Libya, and on Syria, Clinton is blamed for the President's errors and not given credit for pushback in league with Panetta, Gen. Kean and Gen. Jones, that has influenced changes made in 2016, and the president accepting blame for errors. In this instance Clinton has been far from shifty by publicly allying herself with Leon Panetta's position in "Worthy Fights," and Gen. Jones's remarks. Far from having erred on Libya and Syria policy, Hillary Clinton, like Chuck Hagel and others in the administration including Joe Biden, showed exceptional patience in dealing with the president, national security advisor, and McDonough in policy matters- when they were right but the country was weary of what were seen as futile global engagements in remote areas setting too high a bar for any action. Clinton rightly described this as a pendulum swinging too far in the opposite direction after the Bush/Cheney years. On young women and being "progressive" Hillary Clinton is from a older generation that experienced the kind of discrimination that young women fail to grasp, according to a recent analysis of University of Massachusetts polling survey results cited in the Washingon Post. A PolitiFact Pulitzer winning fact checking site shows 50% of the Clinton statments are either true or mostly true, compared to 49% for Bernie Sanders, 9 percent for Trump, 22% for Ted Cruz, and 52% for John Kasich. ...