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Important information on the political aspects of the crisis and the doctrinaire views of House Republicans.

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Germany's Merkel and the Erdogan government in Turkey reach an agreement so that Turkey would accept refugees sent back from Greece. Both governments are under pressure to come to an agreement, Merkel facing populist pressures to stem flow of refugees, and Erdogan facing problems inside Turkey as well as an unstable border with Syria.

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The CSU wins 36.4% of the vote in Bavaria and the populist Free Voters gains ground with 15.3%. Both will continue the government in Bavaria. The AfD advanced in Bavaria to 16%. The CDU wins 34.5% of the vote in Hesse, with the city of Frankfurt in Hesse. CDU will continue to form a government in Hesse. The AfD won 18% of the vote in Hesse. The FDP got less than 5% threshhold for representation and the Social Democrats went from 19% to 15% in Hesse. The economy and immigration played a part in the losses of the Social Democrats and FDP.

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A WSJ/NBC poll in Oct 2013 shows U.S. Congressional leaders Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid have some of the highest negative ratings ever. U.S. president Obama has high disapproval ratings. Close to 35% of men voters would go with a alternative candidate. This is the highest disaffection level in two decades. Voters prefer someone who is populist, pragmatic and non-ideological.

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Strack of DW.com reports on the 2016 CDU convention where Merkel received 89.5% of the vote. Merkel receives applause for the burqa ban, and her denunciation of populist hate sentiment, of Islamism and parallel societies, parallel cultures. The best passages of Merkel's speech says Strack, were about reunification, about how she started in politics from the natural sciences, her start at SPD, then shifting  quickly to the "Democratic Beginning" leading to the CDU. "Head into the open," "that is where freedom is," and says Strack she had the hall listening to a chancellor speaking with emotion when in the past she has been cool and reserved. Parallels to the 1994 campaign of Kohl for a fourth term when enthusiasm came only from "generation" Kohl are being made.

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The tendency for European left traditional parties to take on the ideas of the populist politicians, "parroting" them in the words of EU Commission president Juncker, is the topic of this article in Der Spiegel, It says Emmanuel Macron has the right idea of speaking up for the European Union, and what has been accomplished in the last 3 decades. This article gives a picture of the difficult days before the euro with repeated devaluations in Portugal and Italy, hurting pensioners and workers, and small business, that people have conveniently forgotten or have short memories to recall. Der Spiegel points out that the populist politicians say Brussels has too much power, yet fail to realize that some of the problems come from the eurozone being run on the basis where all 19 finance ministers of the countries in the eurozone make the important decisions. And these finance ministers have their own interest groups back home and national budgets as their dominant considerations. The journey itself to the future is important says Spiegel, going back to the past is not a solution, however useful it is for political calculations of politicians. ...

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The inflation worse than Germany in the Great Depression, and the collapse of the economy made worse by US sanctions of Democratic and Republican administrations on Venezuela's Maduro regime has led to the largest migration in the history of Latin America. About 7 million refugees leaving a country of about 28 million people or a fourth of the population in a large oil producing country. Socialist Policies of Bolivarist military leaders promoting populism such as oil at pennies a gallon led to the collapse spiralling inflation, and as relations worsened with the US and its oil sector was neglected. US sanctions played a part by 2012. Yet the economy worsened with further deterioration and stronger sanctions under the Trump administration by 2017.  The situation is such that even the US and both parties had never anticipated this, and not the middle and educated, or the working classes in Venezuela. Such a massive failure has never happened in Latin America in its whole history in the twentieth century. Considering the scale of this disaster, actions of all parties in Venezuela, and the political parties in the US have at every step exacerbated the situation. For further interest on this topic use search term Venezuela. ...

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Murphy and Sanders on the 12 million Missing Votes in 2024. Where did they go? Two US Senators Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders answer questions about the 12 million Missing Votes - the difference between Biden's 81.2 million votes in 2020 and Harris's 71.5 million in 2024 plus about 2 million from the population growth over 4 years of that group. Does any one position on guns, climate,  culture or gender, immigration, make it right? What about common sense, the facts on the ground, people's unease about some things going too far in one direction. Murphy- “We don’t listen enough; we tell people what’s good for them. “When progressives like Bernie aggressively go after the elites that hold people down, they are shunned as dangerous populists. Why? Maybe because true economic populism is bad for our high-income base.” Working class voters are conservative when it comes to cultural issues. Should any party belong to one position on cultural issues- as some people have unease about going too far on cultural issues such as transgender, that things are changing too fast.   ...

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U.S. president Obama says at a rally in Philadelphia that Donald Trump is a fradulent champion of the working class, saying that Trump is simply exploiting the populist mood, that for 70 years he has shown no concern for working class people. Obama told the crowd he understood the public's mood for change and that he himself had benefitted from it. Yet he said that it did not add up. Obama said: "This guy is suddenly going to be your champion? I mean, he spent most of his life trying to stay as far away from working people as he could, and now this guy is going to be the champion of the working people. Huh." "I mean he wasn't going to let you in his golf course. He wasn't going to let you buy in his condo. And now suddenly this guy is going to be your champion." 

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Krugman points out that the federal tax rate for the top 1% is 34% in 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office, because president Obama let the high end Bush tax cuts to expire. It is the number to remember says Krugman- 34. In 2008 the figure was 28.2. Under Hillary Clinton the average tax rate for the top 1% would go up by 3.4 percentage points, according to the Tax Policy Center. Some of this would help pay for the tution plan to provide access to the middle class to public universities. Under populist Trump, Krugman points to the elimination of the inheritance tax and tax rates going down substantially, and no such programs to promote the upward mobility that everyone is talking about, and no way to pay for a big infrastructure building effort for growth and jobs- upward mobility that is the focus of every candidate's election campaign including Sanders, Trump in appealing to older white working class families, Clinton, Ryan, Bush, and others in both parties.   ...

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Elections for 500 members of the lower house of parliament in Mexico and for 15 governorships. Lopez Obrador won the presidency in 2018 with a huge majority, 30 points ahead of the rivals from the PAN and PRI parties. Average of five recent polls show he is still popular after the pandemic and winning 40% of the vote followed by PRI at 18%, PAN at 17%.  Obrador has increased pensions for the elderly by using savings from other parts of the budget, and increased the minimum wage several times. He seeks to reverse a 2013 law that privatized parts of the oil and electricity sectors. Obrador plans a large refinery project and rail infrastructure projects if he wins a strong majority in the lower house, in addition to social spending that would help the informal economy which has suffered during the pandemic. Across LatinAmerica, in Peru and other places the shift is to social spending to support the informal sector and anticorruption efforts so that good governance supports infrastructure spending. ...

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Politics in Britain as Britain prepares for a general election. The UKIP party polls 13 percent and Conservatives 32 percent and only an alliance could beat the Liberals and Labour, Greens combined. So why is Boris Johnson not embracing UKIP and Farage. Boris Johnson top adviser Cummings is said to have kept Farage to a minimum in display during the EU elections, causing resentment. Farage has doubts about the Conservatives and has rejected an alliance. Conservatives see him as playing populist politics and having little interest in the Conservative Party's ideas, somewhat like a Salvini in Italy or Orban in Hungary. Conservatives see Farage as preventing them appealing to moderates.  Boris Johnson hopes to work out new spending to support working class voters in an effort to win broader support for the Conservatives. He also hopes he can go back to voters saying only he could deliver Brexit if given a solid mandate, in dealing with the EU and in dealing with parliament.   ...

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Though it would appear that Poilievre is a new face in Canadian politics suddenly leading Justin Trudeau by 29% in some polls for prime minister, he is a young highly experienced Alberta politician since age 25. And is married to Anaida Galindo who immigrated at age 8 in 1995 from Caracas, Venezuela to Montreal. Pierre Poilievre is the adopted son of schoolteachers from Alberta. He was active in politics at the University of Calgary, Alberta, obtaining a BA in international relations and being part of  Reform party that considered the progressive Conservative Party unprincipled. He was elected to the Canadian parliament from Carleton-Nepean in 2004 for Conservative party and in subsequent elections won this seat by over 50% of the vote, becoming the youngest member of the Canadian parliament  at age 25. He was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to a ministry, to the prime minister, and Minister of state for Democratic Reform of the Canadian Senate, during the years  Stephen Harper of the Progressive Conservative Party was prime minister 2005-2015. Shadow Minister of Finance 2017-2022. Polievre has not hesitated to make his opinion felt and in 2022 he supported the truckers Freedom Convoy. Following that he was elected leader of the Opposition with Justin Trudeau as Liberal party prime minister.  He is married to Anaida Galindo in 2017 who worked for Canada's Senate in Ottawa. She had immigrated at age 8 years in 1995 with her parents from Caracas, Venezuela, where her father was a bank manager. ...

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This report in the Washington Post looks at the events leading to the firing of Stephen Bannon, the controversial advisor to the U.S. president. Bannon, a right wing populist, joined the Trump campaign in the late stages. Bannon is seen as one reason for the chaotic situation at the White House that White House chief of staff Kelly is trying to correct. Reasons for Bannon falling out of favor are his interference in the affairs of other departments, his opposition to Gen. McMaster, national security advisor, and an interview he gave to liberal magazine American Prospect, in which he openly derided Gary Cohn, economic advisor. In that interview Bannon contradicted the policy of the administration towards North Korea. 

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Luigi Di Maio, 31 years, the head of the Fuve Star Movement Party, that won the most seats in the 2018 Italian election, was elected as leader of the party in September 2017. He was chosen by Beppe Grillo, to give a younger face to the party in upcoming elections. As in France this brings young people into the new parliament. Luigi Di Maio was elected Vice President of the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, in 2013 at the age of 26. Maio attended engineering school at the University of Naples, switching later to law, but did not complete the degree studies. During his time there he headed the student council. Before Beppe Grillo started his Five Star Movement in 2009 during the period of Berlusconi and older politicians on the right and the left who were losing confidence, Maio formed the Friends of Beppe Grillo Movement. He joined the movement to support the popular comedian Grillo early, and in the party election was chosen by Grillo to lead the Five Star Party. ...

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Erlanger and Smale of the NYT describe the reaction in Europe, from Chatham House in London, Bruegel think tank in Brussels, and the German Council of Foreign Relations in Berlin, to the election results in the first round in France. There is a sense of relief that the poll results held and that Macron is the front runner, yet a sense that the issues of social justice, taking account of the marginalized need to be addressed. The parliamentary elections in June, soon after the second round of voting, are also seen as a factor as governing without the support of the legislature would mean very little gets done. For the first time the main parties are not being represented in the presidential office, with a fractured Socialist party and the Republican Party candidate not in the second round.  The Dutch elections, followed by the French and German elections could push back the populism in a negative direction of withdrawing from the global community and openness in the economy.  The economic reform message of  Macron resonates in Germany, as France suffers from high unemployment and needs to build a stronger economy. A stronger French economy is the sure way to bring French people together after the divisions of the current election.       ...