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Divisions in the Republican party in Texas that lead to the impeachment of Ken Paxton, the Attorney General in an assembly with a Republican majority.

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Dressing up for the office after all the remote work away from the office during the pandemic takes some work. Doing it under 12 minutes- Farna Krentcil in the WSJ shows women how to do it quickly and look good.

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VW which has failed to build market share in the US is leaving aside its appeal point of German engineering in 2023 and now selling itself as an American brand. VW has become dependent on China for half its sales and badly needs to avoid overconcentration in one country. It is trying to enter the SUV market with the Scout brand for buzz as an off road vehicle and will introduce 2 dozen models. Scout is a 4 wheel drive recreational vehicle designed in America for International Harvester, a company VW acquired in 1981 when it was called Navistar. It is a mashup of a World War II Willy Jeep and a pickup truck with its boxy shape. Half a million were sold from 1960 to 1980. With this plan VW with only 4.5%  of the American market is trying one more time, this time as a way out of overconcentration in China. Realizing that America is where the automobile entered mass production in the factories of Detroit. South Carolina's assembly has approved $1.3 billion to support VW in building a new plant near Columbia to build the Scout.   ...

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Debt ceiling negotiations between president Biden and Republicans in the US Congress that have dragged on night after night. The deadline is June 5.

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The charm of having oatmeal made on a stove even if it takes longer. Old fashioned oats work well. This way of cooking is better than baking. Suggestions offered here on creative ways to make the oatmeal on the stove. Charlotte Druckerman who is a fan of oatmeal from the days her mom made it gives her ideas.

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Michaelson and Narli show that Erdogan remains popular even in earthquake hit areas in this report in The Guardian from Kahramanmaras, Turkey. A report in the NYT shows Erdogan at rallies in rural provinces and smaller cities across Turkey, citing poetry, invoking God, and staying on the campaign trail. Erdogan won two thirds of the vote in Sivas one of the founding places for the revolution under Mustafa Kemal that made Turkey an independent nation largely out of Anatolian province. The main base of Mustafa Kemal in 1923 the year of the founding of the Turkish nation with the Treaty of Lausanne was in Ankara. This was under the banner of the Republican party which is now in the opposition with the mayors of Ankara and Istanbul from this party. Both the opposition and Erdogan face a difficult time ahead whoever wins as inflation is at 40% and the cost of living crisis remains a difficult challenge for any government.

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Biden nominates Gen. C. Q. Brown, US Air Force chief to the position of chairman joint chiefs. WSJ looks at Brown's record and the needs of the US Air Force during a period of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and following tensions in Asia over Taiwan and the South China Sea. A recent interview with a former Defense Minister of Japan on NHK television shows these tensions are affecting Japan's sense of lack of preparedness. WSJ also gives today an interview with Henry Kissinger about American's lack of belief in its institutions yet makes little effort to highlight the importance of correcting severe problems of literacy with only one third of eighth graders passing NAEP reading comprehension tests.

 

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This report in WSJ says at an event in Germany in 2022 Merkel said that after annexing Crimea in 2014 Putin told her he wanted to destroy the European Union. Yet Merkel did not hesitate to double gas imports from Russia after 2014. Joachim Gauck, president of Germany when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 says Merkel's decision to boost energy imports from Russia after that aggression was surely a mistake. Gauck stated "some people recognize their mistakes earlier, some later. Her decisions for over concentration of Germany's manufacturing in China led to a similar situation with China that is only now beginning to unravel. The two decisions overconcentration of energy dependence on Russia and manufacturing dependence with overconcentration in China have had interwoven effects and shows Merkel did not grasp the implications and dangers of overconcentration or excessive dependence on any one country. Merkel instead doubled gas imports from Russia and had the Nord Stream 2 pipeline built at a time when Germany was already 55% dependent on Russian imports of energy. She moved too quickly to phase out nuclear energy completely after Fukushima accident leading to Russian gas imports rapidly increasing. When leaving office she said LNG which Germany has now used to replace Russian gas from places such as Norway to Qatar under efforts of Deputy chancellor Habeck was a third more costly.  It could be said that with her sheltered upbringing in the more affluent sections of Communist East Germany's, the GDR's, educational sector, Merkel had such limited exposure to the world that when she emerged as Kohl's preferred choice in ministry positions she was headed for the chancellorship without the right qualifications for leadership. When one considers the experience of an Konrad Adenauer or a Willy Brandt through the World War II years, Merkel's experience for the chancellorship not only pales by any comparison, but also shows significant limits of comprehension and sound or right thinking of the issues facing Germany and the world in the twentieth and twenty first century. ...

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It is OK to haggle in this economy says this report in WSJ, and shows how to do it. Because retailers are increasing their profit margins significantly. Here is advice. From an expert at the University of Pennsylvania - try practicing with a script and always show respect.  An expert at Carnegie Mellon University says if you never hear no then you have not been assertive enough. Food prices are up  5-10% in the US, 15-20% in Europe. Car prices are up significantly in US, so are airline prices. Prices of all kinds of products are up out of line with anything that happened in the past.

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Food inflation in Europe is much higher than in the US, 5-10% in the US, Canada and Japan compared to 15-20% in Europe.  UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt sees further interest rate increases better than the continuing instability and cost of living crisis from inflation in this report in The Guardian. A recent report in WSJ shows how this is a fourth shock in Europe after the supply chain bottlenecks, the jump in energy prices, the labor market shortages. Germany is in a mild recession.

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NPR showed this report on December 2, 2022, which pertains to the debt ceiling vote. About a third of Republican pickups in the Congressional elections came from an unexpected place New York state. These moderates 4 from Long Island alone, come from districts where Democrats are a majority and they risk being defeated if they are not careful to let extreme Republicans get their way in a way that offends New York's voters. This has relevance today because 213 Democrats in the House have signed a petition to force a vote in the House. Five moderate Republicans are all it would take to get the 218 votes to pass lifting the debt ceiling.

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The difficult situation facing a six term Congressman from New York who is the new Minority Leader in the US House of Representatives. Mr Hakim Jeffries faces a difficult debt ceiling vote in the US Congress during his first year as Leader for the Democratic party in the House. All 213 Democrats have signed a special petition that would force a vote in the House if the debt ceiling negotiations fail. This is 5 votes short. The vote would then require 5 moderate House Republican members to support it for it to pass. The idea is that only if push comes to shove and no agreement is reached leading to financially disastrous results for Americans in which they would be blamed by their constituents for not acting, moderates from states like New York might join the Democrats.