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This report of the Al Smith dinner event in October 2016 with Clinton and Trump both attending is useful as a contrast to the one in 2024. During 2016 Hillary Clinton did not quite grasp the effect of calling half her opponent's base "a basket of deplorables." At the Al Smith event dinner she called the audience " a basket of adorables" only reminding the audience and press coverage of how she had misspoken with lack of respect for the workers and families supporting her opponent. 

During the Al Smith dinner in which the younger Bush spoke in 2000 he said about the audience "these are the haves and have mores, this is what they call the elite, this is my base." Bush coming off as accepting it for what it is.

Kamala Harris in her video skit focused on her message, something missing in Hillary Clinton's speech. 

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See CSPAN's video of the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt presidential Library, an inspiration for the nation. It is not about Teddy Roosevelt but what Teddy Roosevelt tells us of who we are, say most of the representatives of the two Dakota states. And what we must remember to become what we should be to carry forward the legacy handed to us from Washington and Jefferson, from Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. A life of public service like no other in the history of the Nation.

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By buying 8.5 million barrels a day instead of 11.5 million barrels a day before the Hormuz channel closure China is setting the way to lower the oil price keep it at $80 instead of $125 with Hormuz closed. During the first period of Hormuz closure in April- Jun 18 oil prices went up to $125. Since then the US, China, India, EU, UAE, are working together to keep oil prices low. This is a major development which has not been covered for its significance in the media.

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This self portrait by Vladimir Putin about his growing up years in Leningrad and the life of his father and mother during the siege of Leningrad by Germans may offer a better sense of the mind and thinking of the Russian president than the Dresden years when he was a junior Russian official in Communist East Germany (the GDR). It is an interview of the Russian president in 2000 by Nataliya Gevorkyan, Natalya Timakova, and Andrei Kolesnikov over twenty years back. Putin's father suffered severe injuries during the war in the fighting around Leningrad, twice being given up for dead and being dragged wounded across the frozen Neva river to a hospital by a neighbor. His mother was half dead from starvation and his father passed on his food given to him at the hospital. Having gone through the memories of this period affected Vladimir Putin's view of the world and no amount of US or German assurance about NATO's intentions may have erased these memories from childhood. The long period in power and the Covid isolation may have led to  perceptions that were less likely to change so that Putin did his own research and wrote a long paper on Ukraine in 2021 that reflected Russia and Ukraine's long history but did not reflect the changing national aspirations of Ukraine's people in 2022. This may have led to the miscalculation and the errors by both Putin and the leaders Merkel-Bush-Obama that the detailed WSJ report of 20 years of events show to have happened. The WSJ report of April 1, 2022, was titled "Vladimir Putin's 20 Year March to War in Ukraine and How the West Mishandled It." The Social Democrats in Germany under Schroeder and Steinmeier mishandled it by deepening economic integration with Russia as a way to make up for what had happened in the German invasion of Russia, and the Christian Democrats under Merkel with business interests never really grasped the different thinking of the Russian president relying solely on deep economic integration of the EU and Germany with Russia as well as China as an answer. Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama from a distance even less so.  This has led to the miscalculation by Russia under Putin leading to invasion of Ukraine, and the US and Germany being unprepared about taking action to prevent it.  Beyond the key participants and the war damage, there is the enormous damage that is taking place in the mental health around the world after Covid with constant barrage of images of war and refugees streaming into Poland. There is the problem of food imports, of food scarcity in the Middle East, and inflation in food prices for Africa and the Middle East. As Brendan Simms, a Cambridge historian has shown in his book "Europe The Struggle of Supremacy 1453 to the Present," which is now being read by German chancellor Scholz, this has happened before with the UK, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Russia engaging in these conflicts that led to prolonged wars and eventually to only small shifts in power. Yet with huge effects for ordinary people caught in the wars such as today's refugees and people struggling to feed their families in Africa and Asia after the effects of Covid on income. Food prices have gone up by 50% to almost double in these countries.   ...

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A look at Israel at 70 by the Economist magazine shows a country that has combined early achievements of socialist governments such as free health care system and good education system with the addition of 1 million immigrants from the collapsing Soviet Union, to build a highly trained technically skilled workforce and international companies.  It says the Israeli Arabs are still poor and unable to integrate. With ultra Orthodox Jews they make up 30% of the population, and many of them who do not work. Infrastructure has suffered from lack of investment and public transport is in poor condition. About 4.5 million Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza remain a continuous source of tension with no settlement in sight. The shift of the capital to Jerusalem is recognized by the U.S. Trump administration, a win for Israel, but leaving the divisive politics of Mr. Netanyahu in place. So that with the growing economy, there are social problems and political division which need to be addressed as much as the economy. A problem left for another administration, another leader from possibly a revived Labor party and another day. ...

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EU leaders from Germany, France, and UK meet Zelensky of Ukraine In London, June 7 2026. Rubio says US has halted mediation efforts till such time as Ukraine and Russia show some willingness to negotiate a settlement in earnest. So far that has not been the case. The response of EU leaders and Russia is only likely to continue the war in 2026.

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Argentine coach Mauricio Pochettino from small town Murphy in Santa Fe province, Argentina, leads the US team into the World Cup 2026. He has managed Espanyol the Barcelona team for many years, and recently managed Chelsea and PSG. He has both Argentine and Spanish citizenship. Pochettino leads the US team with younger players none of whom are well known, and hopes he can bring something extra to the team to win games in competition with other better known soccer nations.

LyrArc Article Gist
IEA-oil surplus declines for 2026 with overhang of sanctioned oil at seat that is 15% of supplies. Gas prices at pump drop to as low as $1.99 a gallon in some states in the US.

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Coronavirus is likely to shrink the gym and fitness industry and promote home fitness equipment. 

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Inflation on an annual basis hit 27% in June. The central bank widened the band it alloed the dong to rise or fall against the dollar each day from 1% to 2% and announced a devaluation of 2% in June 2008. At this time the dollar buys 19000 dong on the black market compared to the official rate of 16600 dong, and the official rate is climbing up to the higher unofficial rate. A large part of the inflation is caused by a flood of foreign investment and bank loans to state owned companies, and the spending by state owned companies. The state owned companies like the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group are controllinng their spending. Some of the inflationary influx is investment from foreign manufacturers trying to escape rising costs in China, showing the risks if this and other factors are not carefully managed. Recently Greenspan advised Vietnamese premier Nguyen Dung to mop up the liquidity surge and restrict spending by state owned firms.

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The Guardian looks back at 2023 and covers the work of scientists from US, Germany and Brazil showing the damage. NASA scientist James Hansen tells The Guardian that with the current stage of politics and inaction on climate change young people in the world need to take over. Scientists at the Japan Meteorological Agency measured temperatures at 0.53 degrees centigrade higher than the global average 1990 -2021. This was higher than the previous high reached in 2016 of 0.35 degrees centigrade. Over the long term the world is considered to be 1.2 degrees hotter than preindustrial times, by experts. Included is the report "Hothouse Earth" by the Potsdam Institute of Climate research and other experts on the speed of the global warming.

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Rohit Prasad and Amazon AI that built Alexa to later fall behind, are back at work on the catchup effort.

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Memorial Service for Charlie Kirk at St Joseph's Church near Capitol Hill Washington DC, September 12 2025.

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Something the US president says was "unusual" was the move to a defensive posture reverting to back five, in the substitutions, style of play, and DJT says putting Kane in defense in the second half. "You have a great player in England who I've played golf with. And he is Harry [Kane] who has been fantastic. I think they perhaps made a mistake when they made him a defensive player. What do I know about soccer? They took the lead, and they took their best player and put him on defence." "We got to be a little offensive, right. But no, I'm not going to call it, what do I know about coaching? But that was a little unusual." Messi gets a lot of media attention because of media focus is on stars. In the actual results of the Premier League, Bundesliga, and La Liga, it is Harry Kane who stands out in Bundesliga performance during the last soccer season. He is arguably as good a player as Messi, and the Argentine team would have had a lot to handle with Kane and Bellingham, Saka, Rice and Stones all pushing up front. It may have broken up the Argentine attack with rapid counterattack and the result- England may still be in the finals with Spain. ...

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Starmer's personal popularity has increased with the speech at the Labour Conference in Liverpool. The Labour party now has a lead of 16 percentage points over the Tories.

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Venki Ramakrishnan, head of the Royal Society and a Nobel laureate in Chemistry says that even with all the growing evidence of the importance of mask use Britain is way behind in mask use. Only one fourth of Britain's use masks compared to two thirds in the U.S. On public transport many people do not use masks in Britain.

The Royal Society has put together a scientific advisory group to look at the evidence on pandemics.

Ramakrishnan says it was once normal to have a few drinks and drive home, and normal to not wear seatbelts. Today this is considered not socially acceptable behaviour, the same has to happen for use of masks. It is as important as handwashing and social distancing, says the Royal Society.  

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At Lyrarc we pointed out how US president Harry Truman had to persuade the US Congress to get aid to Greece and Turkey bills passed to prevent an imminent Communist takeover with Soviet bloc aid in 1948. Paul Krugman points out that this happened before when FDR had to persuade the US Congress to pass bills for Lend Lease agreement aid to Europe in 1942. Much of that aid was in food and other non military aid because the US arms manufacturing was beginning to ramp up.  Krugman also corrects the former president's statements regarding Ukraine aid that the European have done less. Counting all assistance to Ukraine he says the EU has done more than the US. It is because the arms production in the EU has to be ramped up and the US has arms production factories better prepared in military aid the US has done more in military aid, not overall or in other aid. He also points out that $13 billion FDR got from Congress for Europe in 1942 was 10% of US GDP, whereas Ukraine aid is only one fourth of one percent of US GDP, and much of it going as Mr. Biden pointed out, going into investment in American factories and jobs to supply Ukraine. ...

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Huge losses similar to parts of the war in World War II- and calls from the US president to stop the war in 2025 and talks in 2026.

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Russia repeats call for retreat from Donbass in peace negotiations Jan 23 2026.