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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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Krugman questions whether the assumptions behind the austerity policies are true- that they would inspire confidence in economic recovery, or that in the absence of austerity policies borrowing costs would go through the roof. The recent events in Holland with the collapse of the government in the Netherlands- when a party leader supporting the government said he did not want to hurt pensioners in the Netherlands just to satisfy German opinion- and the mood in France with economic anxiety vote going to Marie Le Pen and Francois Hollande in the first round of presidential elections, shows that very little confidence has been created. High unemployment and economic anxiety are leading to a reappraisal of austerity cuts that depress the economy and reduce tax revenues, but Krugman says no changes are taking place to correct these policies. This is true for Spain with its high unemployment, and Britain which now has two quarters of negative growth.

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Paul Ryan, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, wins the Republican primary in his house seat of Janesville, Wisconsin, defeating his challenger Nehlen, by 84% to 16%. The Republican nominee Donald Trump earlier had refused to endorse Ryan, and only reluctantly endorsed Ryan following the vice presidential nominee Mike Spence's endorsement of Ryan. Senator Susan Collins, senior Republican senator from Maine, joined other leading Republicans saying she would not support Trump. Paul Ryan has split with Trump on trade, immigration, Mexico, and other issues. He has insisted on decency and fairness in politics, and has won his seat in a working class town that had a closed GM plant in 2008 after Ryan voted to support rescue of the auto industry and worked hard to keep it open. Even though some of his policies have not directly helped working class families, he has won increasing support from his district as the economy recovered with unemployment down to 4.4% in Janesville, according to BLS for May 2016. Much of that support since 1998 has been based on Ryan's decency, faith and family. He made it a condition that he would go back on weekends to Wisconsin to stay in touch with people, when he accepted the position of Speaker of the House, and he listens to local concerns. Ryan said about the national discourse- "It's simple to prey on people's fears. That stuff sells, but it doesn't stick. It doesn't last. Most of all, it doesn't work." His job in today's deteriorated national discourse is as vital as ever, both for Wisconsin as representing the best in the national spirit, and for the country.   ...

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This essay in the Economist magazine describes the voter rejection of ruling parties and their candidates in France. Two presidents and two former prime ministers from the Socialist party and the Republican Party, Hollande and Sarkozy, Valls and Fillon face rejection. And another candidate from the Republican party Juppe also has fared poorly. This leaves two outsiders LePen of the National Front, and Macron a former Economy minister in the Hollande government who launched En Marche as his own movement for moderate change alternative in 2016. The rural-urban and less educated-more educated divide which was evident in voting in the U.S. election and the Brexit referendum is now seen in France, says this essay. Research from the Economist shows National Front support highest in outlying areas of major cities. The fears of immigration, terrorism, and globalization leaving parts of the working class behind are factors in this election. Support for the European Union is also a factor as it has suffered in recent years.     ...

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Early opinion polls show Macron the more convincing candidate in the first television debate held in March with 29 percent in an Elabe poll, with Le Pen at 19 percent. An OpinionWay poll shows Macron more convincing at 24 percent and Le Pen at 19 percent. Polls show Le Pen winning 27 percent of the vote in the first round with candidate Fillon on the right and Melenchon, Hamon on the left splitting the vote. In the second round with two candidates the vote shift of other right and left candidates determines the outcome. The second round then hinges on whether French middle and working class voters see risks to their economic future in leaving the EU, and whether appeals to nationalism and anti-immigrant rhetoric works enough to draw support from a centrist candidate.

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Retired General James Mattis tells officers at the Marines' Club in San Francisco to remember the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, a former infantry officer in the Civil War: "As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived." He points to the need to integrate into civilian life without cynicism, exceeding expectations in civilian and business life like service men and women before them, and remembering to have an impact on other people's lives.

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Anne- Marie Slaughter's new book Unfinished Business is reviewed by Laura Vanderkam. Ms. Slaughter says in her new book that part of the unfinished business for women in the workplace is to give women time for child care duties in a way that does not hurt their careers. Anne Marie makes the case on the grounds that this is a social bias. Yet there are many reasons beyond simple fairness, and the value of parental work. Women can contribute to society in different ways than men. For example reports show women are more interested in using technical skills in ways that will benefit developing countries. Women bring a different perspective than men. Women are also prominent in scientific fields. For this contribution to grow and enrich society it can be enlarged by giving women proper benefit for maternity leave, and preserving the ability to come back and contribute in the same way after the maternity leave period is over. Toshiba did this for a female engineer who had made significant contributions in the technical field. Doing this would also help in other ways. It could make it more attractive for women to have kids knowing it will not hurt their careers or the careers of their partners. This is needed in western societies with falling birthrates and declining number of young people to support larger numbers of older people....

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Marina Force of the WSJ gives this excellent report on Carles Puidgdemont, head of the Catalan party that is holding a referendum for independence from Spain in October 2017. The referendum is to be held on Oct. 1, 2017, and will be held in a tense region divided by pro and anti independence supporters, with the central government of Spain declaring the referendum illegal, and police obstructing voters. This has pushed Spain into a major crisis, as Puigdemont says he will declare independence after the vote, and the possibility that many voters may not have voted at all in this tense atmosphere. Here Marina describes the recent history of Spain that dates back to the period under General Franco's dictatorship when state rights in the Basque region, in Catalan region and in the northern region in Galicia, as well as other regions, were suppressed. Today there is regional autonomy and the languages in the regions such as Catalan are used in the autonomous regions. Prime minister Rajoy is from the Galicia region. His family suffered under Franco's dictatorship as he points out in his book- Mariano Rajoy, En confianza, Mi vida y mi proyecto de cambio para Espana. As a result Catalan leader Arturo Mas and other Spanish leaders including Rajoy from Galicia worked hard to establish autonomy for all the regions in Spain, including use of the local language in Valencia, Catalonia and the Basque region, a variation of Spanish. As in Scotland for most of the period after the end of the Franco dictatorship in the nineties, this focus on regional autonomy was seen as a big step forward. Puigdemont is journalist who was editor in chief of a Catalan newspaper in the 1980's. In 2006 he was elected to the Catalan parliament. In 2013 he was elected mayor of Girona, a city just north of Barcelona. It was in this period that the movement for Catalan independence moved forward setting the stage for the 2014 referendum with 81% voting for independence. In 2016 pro-independence parties won a majority in the Catalan parliament. This set the stage for a confrontation with the central government in Madrid that is now taking place. ...

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The US with 5% of the world's population has 25% of the world's prisoners. The US has 2.3 million peope behind bars according to the International Center for Prison Studies. China with 4 times the population has 1.6 million people in prison. The US has 751 people in prison per every 100,0000. It varies a lot within the states Louisiana at 1138 per 100,000 and Maine at 273 being the lowest, Minnesota at 300 is more like Sweden at 80 per 100,000 people.Interestingly it shot up in 1975, for a long period from 1925 to 1975 it was about 110 per 100,000. Explanations are given such as the war on drugs but only 500,000 are in prison for drug offences, so its only part of the explanation. tougher sentencing, availability of handguns and higher murder rates, and even the election of judges who respond to public opinion favoring tougher sentencing, are all given as answers. Interestingly Canada's crime rates parallel those seen in the US but the imprisonment rate has been stable for the last 40 years according to one expert Mr. Tonry. He says that english speaking countries have higher prison rates than French and other European peoples. Higher prison rates for black people are known to be the case in English speaking countries but no figures are given here. This is part of the problem....

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Seib comments on the rising nationalism in Europe, with a quarter of the votes in France going to the National Front of Marie La Pen, and a large share of votes to the Independence Party in the UK. This is partly a result of the austerity policies in Europe and declining confidence in the leading parties in the UK and France. Nationalism is increasing in Russia. Parties such as Putin's party in Russia are also appealing to nationalist sentiments to reduce the pressures from urban activists and anti-corruption movements in Moscow and other cities, such as the one led by Mr Navalny. The loss of confidence in ruling governments and in political parties in the age of mobile phones and internet communication- after austerity policies in Europe, and slowing growth and corruption in Russia- is leading to a protest vote in Europe, and a effort to deflect criticism in Russia by turning to nationalist issues. Nationalist issues in Asia stem from the more assertive stance taken by China and Japan, following the election of the LDP's Abe government in Japan, with a mandate to revive the economy....

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Lt. Gen John Kelly loses his son Robert in Afghanistan and talks about the immense burdens facing military families. Robert is out on patrol duty in a mine filled area of Afghanistan's Sangin district. Only 1% of the population serves in the military. And Kelly says his is only one of 5500 American families that have lost a child in this war. There is a sense among military families that the war and these military families have been forgotten. One Marine Corps general wrote to Kelly that service to and sacrifice for the country has become a legacy affair for a small number of military families. Before the midterm Congressional elections only 2% of the people rated Afghanistan as a top issue and hardly any candidates mentioned this issue. Tom Brokaw, a well known anchor of NBC News, wrote in a major daily that the war and the sacrifices have been forgotten in the election and hardly discussed. Adm. Mike Mullen went so far as to say that he worries that we could wake up one day and that the American people will no longer know us and we won't know them....

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Donald Trump is acquitted in the second impeachment trial with a vote in the Senate of 53 in favor to 47 against. A two thirds majority is required to impeach a president. Senators Burr of North Carolina and Cassidy of Louisiana were Republicans who joined the expected ones to vote for impeachment- the Republicans Mitt Romney of Utah, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The Republican defense lawyer insisted that Trump's speech to his supporters was not an intention to incite them on the day of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 but an expression of his rights to free speech guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution First Amendment. He made the point that the prosecution lawyers had selectively focused attention on the words "fight like hell" and taken them out of the entire context in which they were made, ignoring key parts of Mr. Trump's speech. The defense argued that the president had already left office and this made an impeachment unconstitutional. Seventy five million voters voted for Mr. Trump and he cited this as the most number of votes won by a sitting president. President Biden is shifting his attention to the president's agenda and needs Republican support to pass key legislation including financial help to households, unemployed, and business to recover from the pandemic. The U.S. health effort behind the vaccination drive and seeing the struggle in Europe to access key medical supplies of vaccine is also leading to new efforts to move beyond the rhetoric to the hard work ahead with support of all parties. As part of this the trial once it reached the Senate was quickly resolved in about 5 days. The defense used only a small fraction of the time allotted with bipartisan effort to not let the trial drag on, bipartisan effort to putting some statements simply on the record and not calling witnesses.   ...

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French president Hollande's approval ratings dropped to a new low of 12% in a survey by TNS Sofres. In 2013 Hollande's approval ratings dropped to 26% before increasing to 30% after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks in Jan. 2015. The recent terrorist attacks, France's high unemployment rate, his appearance of being indecisive, and the new labor law, have increased Hollande's unpopularity. As a result his colleague in the Socialist Party, prime minister Manuel Valls, now plays an important role in the administration. Middle class workers 35-49 years are the group where Hollande does poorly. Former president Sarkozy's rating never dropped below 30%. Compared to Hollande, Merkel of Germany has an approval rating that is far better at 54% and Obama in the U.S. of 56%. Merkel has achieved this following the differences in Germany over letting in large numbers of immigrants, and Obama after 8 years in office and differences in the Democratic Party on trade and economic policy. Trudeau in Canada has an approval rating of 63%. ...

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FR24 talks to student voters at Paris-8- St Denis University, north of Paris. Students say they are considering voting for Marie Le Pen because they see her as better than Macron on social issues. Many of these students voted for Melenchon in the first round.  Melenchon has won the largest share of the 18-25 vote in the first round. None were keen to re-elect Macron even against a candidate from the far right, says this report in FR24.

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Gates experience one rainy night in March, at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, welcoming 4 dead soldiers who lost their lives to a roadside bomb on a rutted road near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, provides an insight into what he sees as important for the US military. One is to address the realities of the war that is facing the US in the now, not some theoretical conventional war as the Pentagon is overly focused on. This war is fought in insurgencies in Iraq and in the Pakistan-Afghanistan area. And even the takeover of nuclear weapons by Taliban, is not ruled out with the collapse of the government in Pakistan. So he sees reason for doing things quickly. At Dover that night, Gates expressed his anger to his staff, "find out why they had'nt gotten their goddamn MRAP's yet (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles). Gates went into the 747 carrying the draped coffins, and knelt alone and prayed for 5 minutes. Gates was President of Texas A&M University, before he took the assignment at Defense during the last 2 years of the Bush administration. He knows the ways of the bureaucracy, and is a persistent and effective when faced with lack of cooperation and delays. When the field commanders in Afghanistan said they needed 40 Predator combat air patrols instead of the 12 they had, Gates went around the bureaucratic delays and had his task force set up and and doing problem solving down to details. They went about getting more flying time, and pilots, and control stations in the air force to support this. He keeps presentations limited to 45 minutes, and inists all slides be turned in the day before, for him to look over carefully. And he is decisive in making changes. The Army Secretary was asked to come to Washington immediately, and fired on the spot, not Gates says for the appalling conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital, but for not acknowledging that problems existed and taking quick action to fix them. And Gates is using the 2010 Defense budget to steer away from large scale conventional weapons programs, and get more money for the immediate needs of the field commanders in the wars being fought today. He makes it clear in talking with lawmakers, that "listening to our troops and commanders, unvarnished and unscripted, has from the moment I took the job been the greatest single source of ideas on what the department needs to do." In doing this he has to face up to the bureaucracy and set ways of doing things at the Defense Department, things that were never questioned under his predecessor Rumsfeld. In 2008 the generals who run the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps formally "non-concurred" with the classified version of Gates's National Defense Strategy, which said it was necessary "to take additional acceptable risk" in the area of conventional war so that the military could improve its ability to fight irregular wars. Gates met with all the defense chiefs to listen to their objections, and decided to draw his own conclusion after thinking it over, that the reasons given "were non-compelling," considering the grave dangers that the military was facing in existing wars. Gates is convinced that its his job to give the troops in the field the equipment and resources they need, and he is not letting the military brass or officials block the way. He does not let the criticism affect him. Gates is very quiet when he listens to arguments presented on the other side that he does not share, responding in a thoughtful and controlled manner. Last week, Jaffe of the WPost says, Gates flew to Afghnistan to ask for the resignation of Gen McKiernan the field commander there, a man he had chosen 11 months earlier, but now felt was the wrong man for the job. During this trip he visited a new base being built in southern Afghanistan, and met four marines whose MRAP vehicle took the blast from a roadside bomb, all survived with minor scratches and injuries, and one broken arm. Gates was mightily pleased. ...

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Since taking over Italy's right wing Northern League Party in 2013, Matteo Salvini, 44 years old, has improved the party's appeal by appealing to parts of Italy's north beyond its base in Lombardy, Piedmont and Veneto. The Milan native called for greater autonomy for the northern region, and even secession, supporting the northerners view that tax money from the prosperous north was being wasted on the poorer regions in the south. He also entered into an alliance with Silvio Belusconi's Forza Italia party. He took a hard line on immigration. Salvini has called for a train service for Milanese only, to draw attention to immigrants from non-EU countries. The head of the Five Star Movement  Party of Beppe Grillo, is Luigi Di Maio, who has called for ending the "taxi service" that brings to Italy migrants stranded on small boats in the Mediterranean. The shift in sentiment in Italy towards immigration has helped parties on the right as it has done in Italy and to a lesser extent in Germany with AfD's larger presence in the German parliament. ...

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The U.S. Labor Department report shows 156,000 jobs added in September 2016. The unemployment rate increased by a tenth of a percentage point to 5.0%, because of the increase in the total pool of workers, The labor force increased by 3 million workers over the first 9 months of 2016. The labor force participation rate was up by half a percentage point to 62.9% for the year 2016, as it drew more workers who were earlier discouraged to look for work. Wages grew by 2.6% over the year.

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This piece by Kanter in the NYT gives an account of Jean Claude Juncker's background as a political leader in Luxembourg. His father worked in the steel industry and was active in the trade union movement at a time when farming and steel making supported the economy of Luxembourg. In two decades under Juncker Luxembourg was transformed into a banking and insurance center with one of the largest per capita incomes in Europe. As a Brussels insider Juncker, according to British public opinion, is an odd choice to head the EU when it is trying to make its administration more democratic and less distant from the average person in the EU. Britain's prime minister Cameron says Juncker "was never on any ballot." The reason for Juncker's candidacy is that he is supported by the centre right parties in Europe, which also lost support in the recent elections. The Socialist and left parties fared worse in the election, but both centre right and left parties lost votes to third parties and nationalist parties such as the Marie Le Pen's nationalist party in France and the Independent party in Britain. Even chancellor Merkel of Germany initially hesitated to support Juncker, but confirmed him as her choice when German public opinion showed it favored the selection based on the largest party in the European parliament making the choice. This puts Britain and Cameron at odds with Germany, with the Swedes and the Dutch calming their doubts about Juncker and going with Germany. Little is mentioned in the media about the other candidate, an SPD leader from Germany representing the socialist and Left parties. ...

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This report from Italy by Jason Horowitz of the NYT, shows the Five Star Movement as having emerged as Italy's leading political party, and making efforts to tackle its inexperience in politics with charges from other parties that its candidate for prime minister Mr. DiMaio, 31, is a complete novice. Here he is shown to have inflated the qualifications of a candidate with a pro-EU background, Italian Ms. D'Alessandro who lives in Berlin, Germany. She is one of many candidates from the professional class recruited by the Five Star Party to polish its image and show it is capable of governing. Ms. Alessandro was presented in the Southern region of Italy by Di Maio as an "economist" and someone close to Merkel's CDU. In elections on March 4, the governing Democratic party is presenting older candidates in their fifties with family and political connections in contrast to the young people like Ms. D'Alessandro who is only 27 years old with a masters degree in public policy from a German University.  The Five Star Movement hopes to gain from Italy's proportional system and the voter dissatisfaction with existing parties. A similar situation led to the untested and untried En Marche Movement in France winning the national elections. A separate report in the Economist magazine shows the Five Star Movement retaining its popularity even after other parties accused it of inexperience, improper financial dealings of candidates, plagiarism, anti-immigration views of specific candidates.  ...