LyrArc Article Gist
This is a very informative interview with Joe Biden. So far Biden has given few interviews where he talks freely at length about how he plans to run his administration and what is most important to his heart. The title is very misleading in this respect. Unlike the inexperience of Obama with his "we won" we must be doing something right, Biden with his years of experience comes closer to Lyndon Johnson or Truman and the same drive to get things done. He says in this interview "there is no elation." He just wants to get somethings done as quickly as he can and he knows Congress as well as Lyndon Johnson did when he tried to get his vision of "the Great Society." It is almost as if the Biden sequel to the inexperience of Obama, is like the Johnson sequel to the inexperience of Kennedy.   To understand Biden is to know what hurts him most. Biden feels the pain that every rural county in America did not vote for him. He knows something is deeply wrong that this should happen as it has never happened before. It may be time to define diversity differently - people of diverse backgrounds not just ethnic or race but also whether with rural or urban backgrounds as they are today totally different. He also feels the pain that seventy two million Americans voted for Trump. He will judge his success or failure in winning over about half of them to bring this down from 47-48% to 25%. These issues will define and shape the Biden presidency. Can he deliver to the rural counties, health care, education, broad band connectivity, everything that has disrupted life in rural America from the way it was in the Truman and Eisenhower administrations when it comes to the social fabric. The China issue simply fits into this. European societies are feeling the pain of the fragmentation in their social fabric with starkly different opportunities for life in rural vs urban. Respect for fellow Americans comes before respect for China- or Japan, or India, or Europe. Biden understands what three decades of shift of manufacturing jobs to China and other countries have done to American communities, to small towns and the rural areas surrounding them in America. For this reason Biden does not plan to change the Agreement China made with the Trump administration for 25% tariffs on a portion of imports from China and China's written agreement to buy $200 billion of American products. For this reason his response to China's challenge emerging from trade policy set in motion by the Clinton administration, and allowed to continue by the Bush and Obama administrations with the addition of foreign wars that dissipated the country's finances urgently needed for infrastructure building and investments in education and advancing science and technology, is to reverse all the negative trends. Biden plans to make the investment in America that Mr. Trump started but to do this more effectively, he says.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This editorial in the WSJ shows that culture wars distract even the major candidates of the Republican party from providing the American public with positions on serious issues of cost of living, healthcare, education, infrastructure, new technologies such as EV's, and renewable energy transition. The wars in remote parts of the world acted as a distraction during the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations from these serious issues. As the WSJ points out much of it ends up being effort to gain personal advantage in some way.

LyrArc Article Gist
Mike Spence is Trump's selection for vice presidential running mate. He is expected to appeal to centrist Republicans and independents compared to other choices Christie and Gingrich. He also appeals to conservatives with strong positions on abortion, gay marraige and Obama health care law. Compared to Christie and Gingrich, Spence brings a calmer presence that Republicans see as moderating the ticket considering the aggressive style of Trump. Spence has said he is "a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order."

LyrArc Article Gist
Mr. Trump proposes a 10% tariff on all goods imported into the US at Columbia, South Carolina, says this report in WSJ. A universal tariff of this type is similar to Herbert Hoover's Smoot Hawley that brought on the Great Depression in the 1930's in outright beggar thy neighbor policies which don't work, says WSJ. This opinion describes the impact of such a tariff in failing to reverse the trade deficit which is $951 billion in 2022, but fails to point to the lack of effectiveness of tariffs alone in bringing back American manufacturing jobs. As president Biden has pointed out the Trump administration made much talk about returning American jobs but did not accomplish much for American manufacturing to lead the world in the way the Biden administration has done. To do this the Biden administration passed laws to fund a entire new electric car industry, renewable energy industry, and promoting other industries in advanced technologies, including aerospace, to bring back America's leadership in manufacturing of most of the twentieth century with a bold vision for the future. Mr. Trump lacks the experience on this issue and is simply playing the rhetoric to his base without any plan to deliver the goods to sections of the American public that have already suffered the most from decades of neglect of manufacturing by Republicans going back to Reagan and Bush, Democrats Clinton and Obama. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
U.S. president Obama is critical of the role played by the media in the 2016 election campaign in a keynote speech at a journalism dinner for the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting. Obama said lately " I spend a lot of time reflecting on how this system- how this crazy system of self-government works. How we can make it work. And this is as important to making it work as anything. People getting information they can trust and that has substance and truth and facts behind it." He added that "what we are seeing right now does corrode our democracy and our society. When our elected officials and political campaigns become entirely untethered to reason and facts and analysis, when it doesn't matter what is true or not, that makes it impossible for us to make decisions on behalf of future generations." On the way Donald Trump's campaign has lowered the level of public debate Obama had this to say- referring indirectly to the NYT report of over $1.9 billion of free television coverage given to Donald Trump by the media- the country, "would be better servedif billions of dollars in free media came with serious accountability, especially when the politicians issue unworkable plans or make promises they can't keep.. and there are reporters here who know they can't keep them." The wall between the U.S. and Mexico to be built with Mexico's financing, the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants, the 45% tariff on imports from China, reducing support for NATO, are some of the campaign themes used to appeal to disaffected voters by Mr. Trump in the election, which are some of the puzzling ways in which the election campaign for 2016 has evolved- without proper media scrutiny, and what some critics say panders to ratings at a time of shrinking television staffs and budgets. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Globalization is being replaced with government support for attracting new investment and industry. Germany is providing $11 billion for 2 Intel semiconductor plants. The Biden administration $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act investment by the US sets the new pathway for government to support industry to increase investment and create good paying jobs inside the US. This reverses decades of neglect of American manufacturing by administrations from the time of president Reagan through the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. A new world order is being shaped that enables the EU and the US to compete with China with direct government support for industry.  The US and the EU gain, the UK and Singapore lose out in the new arrangement.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Space Shuttle with astronauts Behnken and Hurley makes a sea landing in the Gulf of Mexico after a 64 day trip to the Space Station orbiting the earth. 

After the retirement of the Space Shuttles in 2011 NASA relied mainly on Russia to send astronauts up into orbit to connect with Space Stations. Under the Obama administration two private companies were hired by NASA to operate Space Shuttles SpaceX and Boeing to take astronauts up to the space station in orbit. Much of the work to build the spacecraft is financed by NASA. 

Space exploration was not a priority for the Obama administration after the financial crisis resulting from banking behaviour in 2009.The U.S. under the Trump administration is renewing America's efforts for space exploration for science and out of a curiosity for what lies outside our planet.

LyrArc Article Gist
After a chemical attack by the Assad government in Syria in 2013 Trump urged president Obama not to make air strikes on Syrian government targets, saying jobs, healthcare and other priorities should be remembered. After the use of chemical weapons in April 2017 by the Syrian government and the outrage following media photographs of the men, women and children who suffered from the brutal attack, Trump had changed his mind. The graphic images led to a change of heart. President Trump said that "it was in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons." Reports on CNN state the president was offered two options to strike several airfields or one airfield near Homs in Syria, just before meeting China's president Xi Jinping. He chose the latter option and went on to his meeting with China's president. Pictures on the internet show Trump with key advisers, Mcmaster, Tillerson and others huddled together in a room at the Mar Lago resort following the strikes. It may be a decisive moment in the Syrian conflict as it was an expression of disapproval and action with the use of chemical weapons in any conflict. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
In an effort to fulfill a campaign pledge and yet not upset peace negotiations president Trump plans to go halfway by recognizing Jerusalem, while keeping the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv. 

In a sign of much policy has changed since the Obama presidency, new information cited by NYT shows Trump working closely with premier Netayahu of Israel to prevent a vote on Israeli settlement policies. Mr. Obama had decided to proceed with a vote and had sharp differences with Netanyahu that dominated press coverage in the second term. See search term Netanyahu.  The issue is a delicate one because it depends say experts on how Trump frames his decision, does it recognize West Jerusalem, what does it say about its status as holy city, and about Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem. It is fraught with risks as Saudi Arabia is likely to say no to negotiations if the issue is framed to only recognize the Israeli position.

LyrArc Article Gist
In his State of the Union speech president Trump was off on some points such as how many jobs were created, how good the economy is, and on on safety of cities El Paso and San Diego after border walls and fencing, according to the WSJ. El Paso was the second safest city of twenty similar sized cities in the U.S. before the border wall with Mexico, and continued to be that way after the wall was built over that section. San Diego has seen 91% drop in border apprehensions over a decade after fencing the border but this has not meant a discernible impact on people crossing illegally.  Mr. Trump was right that customs duties increased by $13 billion in the third quarter of 2018 after placing tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods. Wages are growing faster for manufacturing and construction workers than service occupations, as Trump claimed. On the growth of the economy the economy GDP grew by 3.5% in 2018 before slowing down by the end of the year. India and China's growth in GDP is much faster. Growth in jobs was at the pace in the first 2 years of the Trump administration in some 2 year periods of the Obama administration, and much faster in manufacturing in the 1990's, says the WSJ.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
In this article in the WP Hohmann points out a rule mentioned by Secretary Powell and Armitage, that "you brake it, you own it," a kind of Pottery Barn rule. When you have the majorities in both houses of Congress and the White House, then there is nobody to blame if you cannot produce results or things don't improve. This happened to Obama, Pelosi and Reid after 2008 when they lost both houses of Congress in the 2010 midterms. Now the Trump Republicans with Ryan and McConnell face the same situation.

LyrArc Article Gist
After a decade of austerity and the financial crisis of overextended banks, the deep recession starting in 2009, and worsening inequality with lack of infrastructure development, Britain finally shifts to larger government spending. The spending planned by Labour and Conservative parties in Britain charts a different future for health, education and infrastructure development from that of the last decade. The public supports this. Conservatives plan $128 billion of new spending, Labour party plans to spend even more. This comes after centre right parties such as the Republicans under Mr. Trump in the U.S. shifted to heavy spending on infrastructure. The Democrats under Obama failed to push for higher spending in traditional working class areas leaving open a gap that Mr. Trump has since used to attract working class Democrats to his side. In Britain Labour under Corbyn has pushed for larger spending on infrastructure, health and education. This is setting a new trend. This report in the WSJ shows that in this situation it is new politicians who replaced earlier politicians in their parties- Mr. Trump displacing Bush, Johnson displacing Cameron and May, Corbyn and McDonnell displacing Blair and Brown, that are initiating thsi trend. The experts at the IMF and the central banks are only now beginning to say this is a good idea. For a decade the mantra of economic experts at these central banks was in favor of austerity, even in the face of massive misallocation in capital markets.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
DW.com sees "back paddling" in Trump's latest foreign policy speech, replacing bigotry against immigrants with the idea of a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. with "extreme vetting" of new immigrants, including an ideological screening test. Trump it says repeated his claim that he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, which it says is false. Trump's statement that he would reduce the current nation building strategy pursued under president Bush, it says doesn't make sense because the current situation in the Middle East ( rise of ISIS and chaos in Syria) arises from American retrenchment reversing in the opposite direction the policies of president George W. Bush. It is also true that Bush started his presidency with no intention of nation building, it was only after 9/11 that he adopted this policy. The elder Bush, George W. Bush's father, is reported to have said that his son as president was ill served by bad advisors in the invasion of Iraq over weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Obama's retrenchment has also led to differences in policy, with Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton believing the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction, as shown in LyrArc's coverage. The speech was read using a teleprompter to avoid the frequent gaffes in previous speeches. Clearly an effort to make immigration and terrorism issues to win voter support, after previous efforts resembling bigotry and intolerance. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Statements made by Boris Johnson, the new Foreign Secretary of Britain, and former Mayor of London, have gained wide attention in the media.  He has made controversial statements about Obama, Putin, Hillary Clinton, the European Union and written a poem on Turkey's president Erdogan for The Spectator. Theresa May, Britain's new prime minister, is described as making an astute move by making Boris Johnson the Foreign Secretary, as this keeps him  away from the Brexit negotiations, while at the same time including a leader of the Leave campaign in the cabinet.  Foreign ministers of Sweden and France expressed dismay after learning of his appointment. Johnson said of Obama that he was motivated by an anti-imperialist agenda because of "an ancestral dislike of the British Empire," following Obama's recent visit to Britain. Obama's grandfather was a Kenyan porter in British run Kenya. On Trump he says " he is clearly out of his mind," about some of Trump's comments on Muslims. He has apologized for comments on Hillary Clinton. He is in person quite different say people who know him. As Mayor of London he remained popular and helped host the Olympic games in 2012, and setup the city's bike sharing program. He is a prolific author, journalist, and a contributor to the The Telegraph newspaper, with fees of 275,000 pounds a year. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Chozick and Parker of the NYT show how Donald Trump's frequent sexist comments on women and references to Hillary Clinton in similiar terms are likely to influence the outcome of the general election of 2016. The women's vote has played a significant part in the recent elections of 2008 and 2012 helping Democratic candidate Obama. Trump has a astonishingly high disapproval rating with women, unprecedented in U.S. election history, cited by the WSJ as 75%. Cruz's choice of Carly Fiorina as a running mate shows an awareness of the importance of the women's vote. Some of the comments cited here include the Trump comment that "if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she would get 5% of the vote." It is not clear if this will help the Republican party, as such comments could alienate the mass base of women voters, including the base of young women voters who supported Sanders, women who are independents and moderate Republican women. Hillary Clinton is carefully planning a fall campaign in which such Trump attacks are expected, and the response will be handled not directly by Hillary but by Super PAC's, as Hillary sticks to calling them sexist and energizing her base from the attacks. CBS polls show Trump has the support of 39 percent of white women, compared to 50% for Hillary Clinton. Trump's attacks on women are strangely enough targeted at getting the support of white women- and men - in another wild twist of the 2016 campaign....

LyrArc Article Gist
This report in the WSJ points out that president Trump's planned withdrawal from Afghanistan to reduce the number of the 14000 troops there by half is an attempt by Mr. Trump to bring the number below the 8400 troops there that president Obama left there at the end of this term. In this way president Trump could show that he has not increased the presence there as he prepares for reelection, for a war that is not popular, and which Mr. Trump sees as a waste of national treasure. The U.S. had at one time 100,000 troops there. But at no time was the U.S. close to ending the war or the insurgency. Since 2014, 45,000 Afghan forces were killed in the war. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Under Project 2025, a blueprint for the first 100 days of a Trump second term-A middle class family with 100,000 in income a year and two children would pay extra $2600 additional federal income tax, whereas it gives a $325,000 tax cut for a married couple with 2 children making more than $5 million a year in income. On project 2025, the blueprint for the first 100 days in office of a Trump second term, the action items are ones that would jeopardize the safety of American institutions that were set up with so much care by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and nurtured by the first president George Washington with little attention to himself, and protected by president after president through civil war under Abraham Lincoln, through 2 World Wars and The Great Depression under Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, through recovery under Harry Truman and Ike, only to falter under a series of mediocre presidents Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama and be endangered by a NBC television show and construction business person with support from new social media networks that were unknown throughout America history till 2010 and television networks that had degenerated into recklessly divisive behaviours to win silo audiences.    ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Experts say about 110,000 votes separate Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the three states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that decided the 2016 presidential election in the U.S. giving Trump the win. Post election reflection in the Democratic party points to a disconnect between the establishment in both parties and the white working class. It is described as something that was not thought enough about even though as pointed out in Lyrarc, and in The Washington Post by columnists, and in news coverage about the inequality movement long before Bernie Sanders appeared in 2015. In the period when banks were favored over millions of homeowners facing foreclosure in 2010-2014, the surging stock market and the zero to to half percent interest on savings that hurt savings of most of the working class and lower middle class without stock investments, and the continuing problems in communities facing job losses from trade for the third decade. The hollowing out of the regions in Ontario from job losses from the Canadian industry helped Justin Trudeau win the Canadian election. In this election it helped Trump in crucial midwestern states, combined with a degree of indifference shown by establishment Democrats. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean is planning to run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Bernie Sanders says he backs Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison to be the next chair of the DNC. Jeff Weaver, campaign manager for Sanders, says the problem lies in what has been clear for some time now "that the centrist wing of the democratic party has no standing with working class and middle class  voters in this country." In 2016 only 51% of union households supported Clinton the lowest since 1980, 43% supported Trump. Obama won 59% of union households in 2008 and 58% in 2012 to 40% for Republican Romney. Trump picked up 3% of union households, Clinton lost 7% of union households, creating about a 10 point gap that would be magnified in industrial states where union jobs are concentrated, for about 18% of the people who voted in the election, enough to create the shortfall in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsyslvania. Fed chairman Janet Yellen pointed out the problems at an Inequality conference in Boston in 2014, pretty stark in its reminder that inequality had surged to levels not seen since the depression of the thirties, with 62 million households having a net worth of $11,000. Krugman and other economists had pointed this out on the pages of the NYT. Yet the post election reflection in the media is as if this is some special insight when it was clear for all to see, and covered in depth in Lyrarc for years since 2008. There is voter fatigue after 8 years of one party in power as pointed out by Obama campaign strategist, David Axelrod. The loss of union enthusiasm made the task of  a third term for the Democratic party even more difficult.     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Mark Landler of the NYT looks at presidents TR, FDR, Reagan, Carter, and other presidents, and compares their moral leadership with the situation under president Trump after the Charlottesville car attack. Landler says of president Trump that his reluctance to pass moral judgement is a genuine part of president Trump's beliefs. This is also why Trump has not seen the actions of some world leaders in moral terms, including Putin in Syria. Yet as is seen from the time of Jefferson and Lincoln, U.S. presidents have adopted a moral tone. This has not changed since then. The presidency is seen as a place that puts forward the best ideals of the country. Even though leaders have not always lived up to these ideals-  Landler cites the internment of Japanese in World War II by FDR, the failure of Obama to set up humanitarian safe zones for refugees in Syria, Nixon's and Clinton's personal moral failures. Yet the idea always has remained that this was part of the president's moral role and duty- to set the tone for the whole country, not to reject the idea of moral judgement itself as immaterial and not relevant, as president Trump has done. It may be a time for the country as a whole to reflect and move back to where it was, recovering what it has lost by grasping the significance of this moral idea. To do this by building literacy, tolerance, and fairness into all its actions, making this a part of the foundation of national character.        ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The NYT covers the GAESA tourism enterprise of Cuba (that operates independent of the government of Cuba) that overinvested in Tourism at the expense of agriculture industry and infrastructure during the Obama administration, leading to collapse with Trump's 2014 embargo on Cuba. GAESA controls about 50% of Cuba's economy, run by military and people from Castro's family.  That left 121 hotels built in the boom years of tourism at 30 percent occupancy. The Iberostar high rise hotel is one of these hotels that rises over dilapidated housing in Havana, the Cuban capital. The investment in tourism by the GAESA enterprise that runs about 50% of the Cuban economy is 13 times what is spent on healthcare and education, says the NYT. The Castro family, Raul Castro family, runs this business venture that was started when the Soviet Union as sponsor of Cuba had collapsed by 1991. The NYT says this 'devolved' the ideas and promise of the revolution. "Devolved?" What kind of word to describe a complete loss of faith, and enormous failure with severe hardship for the Cuban people? It means the whole idea of communism or Marxist revolution has been proven false, even as it survives in Mexico and parts of Latin America. One can be against the Batista regime- similarly against corrupt regimes in Latin America or Asia- that ruled Cuba before the Castro Cuban revolution and still look for better choices and alternatives than what Castro came up with as an answer to Cuba's needs. Much of Latin America is suffering from the same problems of dictatorships and turning to Marxist alternatives - particularly the alternative put forward by Castro in Cuba- that has also destroyed the Venezuelan economy with Chavez's turn to Castro's Cuban revolutionary slogans and ideology. That came up with temporary solutions for the poorer sections of society, yet failed badly for all sections of society in the long term. How else can one explain one fourth of Venezuela's population and about the same of Cuba's leaving the country, some of those who left the critical human capital that would form the core of the human input to combine with capital and technology for advancing the economy. If Cuba were like the Dominican Republic or other parts of the Caribbean to depend on tourism for its national income then would it not be better to have friendly relations with the US, the main source of tourism revenue. The Obama administration was only holding up a failed idea by holding out a helping hand to tourism in Cuba knowing full well that a change to a Republican administration would simply lead to heavy investments in tourism at the neglect of infrastructure, public services and the economy, of health and education, to become large economic losses. This is what has happened.  As China and India have proven and are proving there are no magical ways to economic development- the same route that was traveled by the nations of Northern and Western Europe with scientific advances, technological advances, have to be taken, the same route that was traveled by the US in its industrial revolution and building of infrastructure, that same route has to be taken by all nations. It does not have to take a time period of centuries as in Europe. The US accomplished it faster with new technologies and vast human and natural resources over 100 years, Japan in 50 years, China in 30 years. India in 25 years ongoing.There is room for intelligent solutions to problems, for speed and tapping into new technologies, yet the same inputs of land, labour, capital and technology have to be put together for development. For states or regions, cities, within China and India, the same inputs, the same access to foreign investment and new technologies is the only route to rapid development. Long range plans are set in motion, decades of stable efficient, clean governance is put in place, and alliances are built with the nations of Europe and with the US. This road is traversed though hard work as Japan and China have done, and India today is thoroughly engaged in. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Hancock County, Iowa, is one of those rural counties in the American heartland that did not support Mr. Trump in 2016. This county now supports Trump by a large margin because they see his policies benefitting rural America, and see him as a way for the Republican party to be back in power to pursue a conservative agenda. WSJ reports from Hancock County in Iowa. The American voting system gives more importance to states with smaller populations in the Electoral College relative to larger states. States with large farming communities such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa play a larger role in elections in the US than population alone would suggest. John McCormick of the WSJ talks to farmers in this rural county in Iowa with a higher proportion of less educated voters than the rest of the counties in Iowa. One of five voters have a bachelors degree in Hancock County compared to one in three in Iowa as a whole and 38% nationally. The median age is 44 years compared to 39 years nationally and in Iowa. This part of rural Iowa is also in farmland that is many miles away from large cities and urban areas and more isolated and homogenous as 9 out of ten people are non-Hispanic and white. About a fourth of these voters are supporting his candidacy over Nikki Haley because they see it as more likely to win because of polls, even though Haley is according to the WSJ editorial opinion the stronger candidate for Republicans across the suburbs critical for 2024, which are slightly younger, more educated, and less isolated from the rest of the country. Biden and Obama are a sharp contrast when it comes to rural America. Where his own Agriculture secretary felt rural America was neglected by president Obama, Biden truly cares for rural America and has huge investments in rural America as part of the rural infrastructure effort. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
In this interview with Herndon of the NYT Bernie Sanders refutes the labels "progressive" or "left" and says it is simply about policy that benefits the workers and families that make up the vast majority of this Nation. Sanders says 60% of workers are living from paycheck to paycheck. The vast majority of people 60-70% support Medicare for All, improvements in Social Security, cutting pharmaceutical costs, and tution support to make higher education accessible to all. Why he asks do workers support Trump? He says it is because the truth is that the Democratic party has abandoned its roots. He does not go into this, yet it can be said that the rise of the Tech industry in the last two decades has led to tech billionaires and business people coopting the Democratic party for their agenda. In the last year of the Obama administration it was evident that Rural America and people who represent rural America such as Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack of Iowa felt ignored while Obama spent more time with tech and internet business people. Former president Trump simply stepped into this void as Democrats failed to turn up for rural America. President Biden has turned things around by making Tom Vilsack an important part of his administrations with the president listening to  him and others speaking for rural America. The passion with which Senator Pat Schumer talked recently on CBS Face the Nation about bringing broadband to rural America shows how Biden and Harris, Harris and Walz see Rural America. This Democratic ticket is fighting for Rural America every step of the way to bring hope and a better life to Rural America. Sanders reminds people of FDR in 1936 after four years of fighting the Depression and improving lives there was so much that needed to be done. It is the same today and Sanders is wading into this fight with Harris and Walz in the same way as FDR did in 1936. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Haberman and Thrush of the NYT provide an account of what happened at the White House when U.S. president Trump met privately with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to work out a deal on the Dreamers, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, called DACA, that under president Obama allowed 800,000 young immigrants to stay in the country. President Trump had earlier said he would reverse DACA. DACA was setup under an executive order by president Obama in 2012 to allow immigrant children brought in under the age of 16 to stay in the country, with maximum age 30. In 2014 a second executive order by president Obama expanded this to include children under the age of 18, with no maximum age. Both executive orders were opposed by Republicans. In the meeting Chuck Schumer answered Trump's question on delaying or changing Trump's mind on DACA, "what's in it for me?"  Schumer said Democrats would work with Trump on new legislation on border security, but not on funding for a border wall. Trump agreed to work on a deal, including no deportations for a six month period. After different back and forth in the media, typical of the politics in immigration issues, the president says he is ready to work out a deal on DACA, if the Democrats work with him on toughening border security. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress now agree that steps have to be taken on border security in stages. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Rex Tillerson, U.S. Secretary of State takes a strong stand on North Korean missile testing and nuclear program in a visit to Seoul and Beijing. He said the U.S. would be forced to take pre-emptive action "if they elevate their threat of their weapons program"  to an unacceptable level. Continuing a policy of the Obama administration following missile tests by North Korea, the Trump administration has rejected any talks with North Korea. Tillerson said that "the policy of strategic patience has ended." It was also meant to signal U.S. intentions before Tillerson goes to Beijing from Seoul. President Trump commented on Twitter; "North Korea is behaving very badly. They have been "playing" the United States for years. China has done little to help." Because China sees North Korea as a bargaining chip with the U.S., Japan and South Korea, the situation has ended repeatedly in a impasse with the North Korean nuclear and missile program continuing during the Bush and Obama administrations. This has also meant that North Korea was unlikely to collapse on its own, with China pursuing a policy of using North Korea as part of its defense policies in the region, as pointed out by Sanger in this report. As the North's missile program continues the U.S., and with the North seeing the missile program as the only way to ensure the survival of the regime, the U.S. needed to come up with a new way to tackle the situation.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
In making his announcement to run for president in 2024 president Biden told a trade union audience that for Mr. Trump reviving American manufacturing was merely a punchline- not much happened. Krugman in this NYT report shows that Mr. Trump never acted seriously to directly make that happen. President Biden has passed legislation that creates trillions of dollars of investments in infrastructure, renewable energy, chips manufacturing, electric vehicles, and advanced manufacturing technologies. Krugman says in addition to what the government is spending private companies are also planning to invest trillions of dollars. As a result the US is in the process of building its manufacturing base for the first time after decades of neglect under the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama and Trump administrations.  Economists have created a major handicap for investments in manufacturing with theories that are no longer relevant, and by their lack of understanding of the realities of workers and families in the US as manufacturing shriveled. They never figured into their analysis the loss of tax revenue base supported by factories in the US that led to disinvestment in towns and communities across the US. As public services and investment in these communities dwindled without the local revenues to support them. Mr. Krugman lacks the keen grasp of these issues that Biden as the longest serving Senator in the US has. Biden had so much time on the ground observing the situation in Scranton and other parts of Pennsylvania and Delaware, and much of the midwestern US seeing what happens first hand as factories close. Krugman is not able to make the case that manufacturing so truly needs. Yet even Krugman has some sense of the big changes underway in the US that Biden has created that will lead to the renewal of America. ...