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About 2.6 million eligible to vote people in Michigan and 3.5 million in Pennsylvania, and 1.3 million in Wisconsin did not vote in the 2016 election. The critical states this time are also Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and these three states went to the winner by less than 10,000 in Michigan, 20,000 in Wisconsin and 50,000 in Pennsylvania.  A NYT analysis of Census Bureau data for 2016 election reveals that most of these people who are eligible but do not vote have lost interest in both parties that show little interest in delivering for them. Many of them are shown to be lower income voters, voters doing 2 jobs, or voters struggling financially. Some are single child parents in today's social structures. Getting a small portion of this vote can make a difference in a close election.  From 1840 to 1900 the percent of voting age population that voted has been between 70 to 80%. By the 1920's this dropped to about 50%. And it has been around 55% since the period of the Great Depression except for elections in 1952 and 56 for General Eisenhower and 1960 for John Kennedy. Even Harry Truman's whistlestop train campaign in 1948 got only 51% out to vote. Even the Roosevelt FDR three campaigns in 1932, 1936 and 1940 got 52-58% of voting age population to vote. The highest of any election was the election that led to the Civil War in which Lincoln won where 81% of the voting age population voted. Is it possible that America was a relatively much more prosperous country in the period 1840-1900 before large scale immigration from poorer parts of Europe and then poorer parts of Latin America and Asia, and large scale urbanization. With ample land and independent farmers in the nineteenth century leaving less scope for the poverty that exists in urban areas and social decay in rural areas and small towns that is seen today. Resulting in a much more civic consciousness and awareness of America's future and destiny than exists today. By comparison voter turnout in India has increased to 66% in 2014 election and 67% in 2018 after alternating high and low between 50-60% since 1947. Some forecasts are for a high turnout in the U.S. in 2020 to exceed 60%. The bright side for democracy is shown by the 911 million people who voted in the last Indian election of 2018. ...

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Side work earns book royalties of $2 million for Barrett on "Listening to the Law" and Ketanji Jackson $3 million Sotomayor and Gorsuch also have books and royalty advances. This provides the public with a closer view of the Justices on the highest Court in the Nation. It also means Justices live a sheltered life away from the concerns of ordinary Americans about cost of living, cost of health care and pharmaceuticals, cost of childcare, cost of education, cost of fentanyl and other drug trafficking to American families and mothers. During the Depression only three Justices the most prominent of whom were Harlan Stone of New Hampshire and Wendell Holmes of Massachusetts supported New Deal legislation to provide government help with other Justices rejecting New Deal legislation right in the middle of the Great Depression when people were literally without food and shelter, without jobs and in despair. Today there is a permanent exhibition of Harlan Stone in the US Supreme Court for the longest service on the Court. It took till 1940 for FDR to appoint new Justices to get the Court to support the New Deal. Today Justice Barrett is a lone voice among Conservatives willing to listen to all opinions on both sides along with but more than Justice Roberts. This is heartening to both sides. Barrett like Justice Sandra O'Connor before her puts great importance on the Constitution's intent and wording, its pages are in her book. O'Connor from a rural ranch in Arizona carried the Constitution with her at all times and had her own books- the Lazy B about growing up on a ranch on the Arizona- New Mexico border in the middle of big country, big sky, so wide an expanse that she writes about it in her preface to her next book The Majesty of the Law citing Wallace Stegner. ...

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The President of the American Chamber of Commerce, Harley Seyedin, says that the days when migrant workers did not know their rights, labor laws were not enforced, and factory owners could keep wages low, are gone. With 787 million mobile phone users and 384 million Internet users- which includes migrant workers who can now get the news about the latest developments, send messages, video, and access the internet. For its part the government made serious effort to create awareness about new labor laws of 2008 through the state run media outlets. And workers have greater awareness and understanding of their rights for safe working conditions and double overtime pay, as well as other rights guaranteed in China's new labor laws. And something else is happening that connects the universities with workers. The expansion of the number of students at Chinese universities has brought more people from rural areas into the universities. This has created sympathy and support for migrant workers at the universities. Nine sociologists at Peking and Tsinghua universities signed an open letter calling national and local governments to implement actions that let migrant workers integrate into the city environment and share in the country's progress that they are creating. The government's security system has prevented the creation of a worker's movement in the past. But this time the government may be thinking of the need to develop China's domestic market, as the reliability of markets in the USA and European countries is uncertain as economic conditions change. For this to happen China's workers need higher wages to buy the goods China produces. ...

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Kansans come out at a town hall meeting in rural Palco, Kansas, setup by Senator Moran, to say they have serious problems with the healthcare bill in a Republican Congress. Kaplan of the NYT says few Republicans in Congress have setup town hall meetings to hear the views of people in their constituency because of the strong criticism from older Americans hurt by the bill's provisions. Rural Kansas is affected by the bill. Senator Moran says of the bill that he is from rural Kansas and wants to hear what people think. Senator Moran is one of the few Republican Senators who have come out against the bill. Kansans are realizing that policy matters after the experience with actions taken by Governor Brownback to cut taxes and spending. Now Kansans are also realizing that there is a cost to being ideologically driven in coming up with solutions whether from the right or the left of the spectrum. Senator Moran after all is in the mainstream and led the 2014 effort to give Republicans control of Congress. It is also the state of Dwight Eisenhower, whose hometown was Abilene, Kansas, known for being moderate on issues, a descendent of down to earth Pennsylvania Dutch families, and for saying- "a people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." Here Moran does exactly that, listening to how the Republican healthcare bill affects rural Kansas, without getting muddled up with the politics on the issue. ...

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Matt Damon takes time off for a year to devote time to a movie project of his own about how fracking to produce natural gas comes to a small town in rural northeastern America. The film is directed by Gus Van Sant and has Damon as the representative of the drilling company and Krasinski as the environmental activist, and shows the conflicting demands for development and the environment.

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District court Judges are the first tier of the three tiered system of judiciary power. A series of US District Judge rulings stop the federal payments system, birthright citizenship, federal employees offered buyout plan, and other executive orders issued by DJT in first 72 hours in office. They were all designed to cut the federal bureuacracy in the US and gut agencies with overspending such as USAID $40 billion when rural America's needs are unmet, and tackle birthright citizenship which allows mothers to fly into the US and depart just to get citizenship for children. The White House plans to appeal these rulings to the next level the appellate courts in the US, all the way to the US Supreme Court. Some of the arguments against USAID $40 billion budget was that it funded bureaucrats pet projects, something that Senators such as Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky have fought against for 25 years. Coming after trillions of dollars in spending under the infrastructure Investment Act oversight over such spending is in the American tradition. No less than Harry Truman as Senator from Missouri made his mark by tracking down overspending and waste, during the Second World War. Another problem not discussed enough is that in today's world more can be done with good governance and leadership, avoiding unneeded wars, and investment from India, China, EU and US than can be done with $40 billion spread thinly over the whole world. Sri Lanka is just one example where its undoing is waging ethnic war, corruption, and India is leading its recovery in ways that USAID could never do. ...

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The UN badge and logo for sustainable development goals is becoming highly popular in Japan. It has 17 colors for the 17 Sustainable Development goals set by the UN- ending poverty, reducing inequality, improving education, other aspirations of the people of the world. It is something India, the US, Canada, Britain ,Germany, France and other nations should adopt in the way Japan has done. India has taken up specific goals, clean India, clean water, electrification, and made it available to all 1.2 billion people, in its own version of SDG. Introduced into Japan by 2016, this badge is now so popular that there it is everywhere says this report in NYT. In children's playgrounds, in comic books, on NHK broadcaster's video with about 1 million views, on Buddhist temple websites, and used by businesses. In 2016 it was made official national policy by Mr Abe's government and a task force established on them by the government. In 2017 it was adopted to its charter by Keidanren, the business federation.  In the US very few know about S.D.G.'s but in community oriented Japan it has been taken up with zeal. It is part of the conversation and one survey shows 40% of Japanese business were working towards the goals in 2021. It has been adopted by Education Canada Network and it is a good way to bring this idea in education to schools and colleges in North America, Britain, EU, India and China, as well as Africa and Latin America, other parts of Asia. In India some of the SDG's are already the focus of campaigns by the Modi government Goal 0  Clean Nation one that has not been coined yet one that is called Clean India or Swacch Bharat Goal 1 Zero Hunger was taken up during the vaccination for covid campaign to get free foodgrains and vegetables to all 1.2 billion people. Goal 2  Clean Water and Sanitation or Har Ghar Jal getting clean tap water to all rural homes by 2024. Goal 3 Infrastructure, Industry, Exports Goal 4 Renewable Energy The sequence is different from the UN SDG's. The difference is it is a goal set for universal meaning everyone and delivery meaning by a specific date, and the priorities are set in the numbering. The Indian SDG campaigns under the Modi government and at federal and state levels are unprecedented in history for a population of this size, and now present a model for all nations in Asia, Africa, Latin America on how to go about doing the SDG's in practice. ...

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Adly Mansour, a judge with the Supreme Constitutional Court in Egypt, is appointed by the military as president of Egypt. He was to take office as Chief Justice before the June 2013 protests in Egypt intervened to delay this. On July 3, 2013 he was sworn in as president before the Supreme Court. Mansour is one of two judges selected by president Morsi. He is a graduate of Cairo University, and studied public affairs and management in Paris before joining the judicial sytem in 1977. His decisions as judge went against both Mubarak and Morsi, showing his independent position as a judge on the Supreme Court. The judiciary is now taking an important role in Egypt similar to the role it has played in Pakistan, another Muslim country adopting democratic forms of governance after decades of coups and military rule since the 1950's. The larger Muslim countries in the Middle East, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, and Egypt are faced with the challenge of balancing the demands of modernization with tradition, the demands of educated urban population with the more devout Islamist rural population, and creating stable transitions in democratically elected government. Islamists such as president Erdogan in Turkey who described western democratic forms of government as a train to get to a destination have still to take in to account the need to incorporate opposing secular views in governance. In this sense Turkey is not the model for governance as it once appeared for Egypt, Pakistan Iran and other Muslim countries. A new consensus in society needs to develop that respects all aspects of democratic governance including respect for the role of the opposition in a democracy, the role of an independent impartial judiciary, and the role of independent media. This will take time to develop just as it took time to develop in Europe and North America....

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Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and Arvind Panagriya of Columbia University, offer contrasting views on the performance of the Modi administration. There is a significant difference in the point of view. Dhume expresses the view of small business and some of the middle class hurt by demonetisation and the government move to check the growth in black money resulting in cooling off real estate prices. Panagriya cites the initiatives helping the poor and rural classes in an unprecedented way across the entire country.  Memories are short about the last 2 years of the Congress led government says Panagriya, when inflation was twice as high as it is now. Inflation then was 9.3% compared to 4.3% average for 4 years of the Modi government. GDP growth averaged 5.9% in the last 2 years of the Congress led government. The average GDP growth for the 4 years of the Modi government was 7.3%. Foreign investment dropped during the last 2 years of the Congress led government, and allegations of corruption in issuance of telecom licenses dominated the news. Indecision of the Congress led Manmohan Singh government led to a serious lack of sense of direction in government in 2013-2014. ...

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All the extreme rhetoric on how Project 2025 is going to be adopted under a DJT administration has led to unease that there will be deterioration in the government and society.  Yet it simply may not work that way.   A second objective look at Project 2025 and how it's value to Republicans will be carefully evaluated piece by piece by DJT is needed. Keeping in mind 2026 House and Senate elections, winning broad support for the traditional Republican conservative line of thinking, and maintaining the support of all Republicans in the business, government, media and other sectors.  1. Replacing federal employees with party loyalists. This happens at the top of every agency of the government for every government in the US and Europe after an election for the last century. At today's unemployment level of 4 percent, adult males actually 3.9% and adult females 3.6%, and considering the higher salaries paid in the private sector, the tenuous nature of joining as a party loyalist as the national mood can shift at any time and things change again in 2027; where was the federal government going to find employees to be replaced at mid and lower levels? There is also the situation seen in 1928 when a Republican Hoover victory made Democrat NY Governor Al Smith compel a reluctant Franklin Roosevelt, who was just recovering from polio, to run for NY Governor. By 1931 over 3 years Franklin Roosevelt and Columbia University's Frances Perkins tested programs to stabilize employment in the US, introduce unemployment insurance as a new concept, and a 40 hour week also new, in the entire northeastern + midwestern states, all governors working together. By 1931 in just 3 years Franklin Roosevelt was on the clear path to sweeping victory in 1932 with a tested program to stabilize employment. 2.  The No. 1 goal is to restore the traditional family. It is clear in 2024 that the vast majority of Americans, whites, women as well as men, of all age groups, whites as well as Latinos and Asians, blacks, see that things like transgender "have somehow gone too far." 3. Cultural Literacy is needed for any nation to long survive. This is not even on any platform. Yet knowledge about America's history of settlement of the continent -correcting for treatment of American Indians, blacks, Chinese, Japanese without pointless race controversies- is being rapidly lost, and with it an understanding of America's civic institutions and Constitution, its founders and presidents, and evolution of the nation over the 20th century with the Industrial Revolution. The very terminology that has defined public knowledge about these United States is fast disappearing. It is a cause for unease in the minds of people in rural and urban, conservative and other parts of the political spectrum alike of what will happen to America as this is lost. 4. On immigration  a consensus was reached by president Biden that migrant flow was mishandled and the Lankford legislation offered by Republican leaders accepted by both parties to stop the flow. During his first term president Eisenhower conducted a program of returning illegal migrants to their home countries, Germany is doing this now and the UK's Labor party has made it No. 1 priority to stop migrant smuggling. 5. An effort to increase oil and gas production. This will help bring down the cost of living by reducing energy costs in the US and also helping Europe to do the same. Biden had already accepted the idea of the temporary need to do this to ease cost of living burden on the people of this Nation. The economic cost of wind and solar, are ultimate drivers for expanding renewable energy as major form of climate change action. In the first term of DJT 2016-2020 the lower cost of natural gas made it economical to switch from oil to gas. In the Biden term 2020-2024 all the effort to increase EV's on the road ran into the problem of lack of charging stations. It is possible that spread of charging stations could reverse this in the second term of DJT. It is the private sector and also the local governments that play a big part, climate change action will continue, and new R&D breakthroughs will happen to jump start it again.    ...

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Russian ambassador to Kabul Mr Kabulov talks about his experience in the Russian Afghan war when was the top KGB person in Kabul. He describes what he learned from the war, which he is telling Americans there and Nato forces leaders there. He makes a couple of important points. First, he says the Soviet record is largely unknown or unpresented, when it comes to helping modernize Afghan society in the cities like Kabul. This modernizing mission led to billions of rubles being spent on education, advancing the role of women, and building roads, dams and an industrial infrastructure. Of the mistakes Americans are making, he lists them one by one. "Because we deployed very easily into the major cities, we did'nt give much thought to what was happening in the countryside." He says there is an "irritative allergy" in the countryside, which is hard to control in a vast mountainous region, has historical basis which the British experienced, and is easy to stir up by sending large number of troops from European or Western powers. When these troops have to take retailatory steps such as destroying villages where insurgents are found along with the civilians there. That is why he thinks increasing American troop levels to double troop strength from current Nato levels of 65,000, can only stir up this"irritative allergy." The Soviets had 140,000 troops and this did not help. What he thinks would have beeen better was to let the Afghan army do the job, and for the Russians to say goodbye. America may be about to do just that, but in the meantime there may be an effort to create a respected Afghan government and army which inspires confidence and support in the meantime. What is clearly different here is that America is not fighting a proxy war with a superpower, and it is fighting awar for the soul of Pakistan now, so that at some point the wholehearted support of the people of Pakistan may be marshalled, especially if the Taliban alienate moderate Islamic Pakistanis and America can wean away Afghan Islamic moderates and get rural support from tribes and other sources....

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Exports measured in dollars were 2.8% lower in December than a year ago, and imports down 21.3%, according to the customs agency. Measured in yuan exports were down 9% from a year ago. To get a sense of how big an impact this is, consider that the exports were growing an an annual rate of close to 30% in summer 2007. The result is millions of workers having lost heir jobs heading back to homes in rural areas by train. The slow down in imports also reflects exporters cutting back on purchases in anticipation of falling demand. Importers in the USA are finding it harder to get letters of credit financing, and rates are as high as 20% according to Bank of America, Sr VP Treasury products. This suggests the slowdown is just beginning and could be severe in 2009.

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This and other WSJ, NYT, and other articles say Minnesotan Tim Walz started out as a moderate in a rural Republican leaning district, and shifted to being "liberal" and "progressive" using labels that have by 2024 lost meaning and lost common sense. Tim Walz is accused by the existing culture of being this or that label when he is simply following his instincts about what it means to live in the Age of the Enlightenment that marks all European societies and gave them a head start over Chinese and Indian feudal society during the 19th century Industrial Revolution. When one looks back at the period after Kennedy-Johnson in the sixties, American political economic social and culture has gone through a shift to turn its back on workers and families, turn its back on the "Enlightenment" itself under a culture shift. It happened under administrations both Republican and Democratic over 50 years since 1970. Under a Republican Congressman, and following this a Governor of California, a Texas Congressman and Texas Governor, and under Governors of southern states Georgia and Arkansas, a Congressman from Illinois, and a NBC television show personality. That culture shift has become so instilled at this point that labels such as progressive and liberal are attached in ways that make no sense, lack common sense. Do school meals have anything to do with politics, do you prefer poor family kids going hungry, is that your cultural thing? Is supporting college education for the depressed income groups have anything to so with politics? Only when one rejects the "Enlightenment" that accompanies the Industrial Revolution in Britain in the 19th century, the idea of modernity ushered in by the rejection of feudalism by the French Revolution,  would one reject the idea of giving access to education and through it to a better life for workers and families to all parts of society. ...

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Garrison Keillor asks the President to "lets start making our way out of Afghanistan," in his own inimitable style. He also quotes U.S. Marine Officer Matthew Hoh, who resigned his Foreign Service post- "American families must be reassured their dead have sascrificed for apurpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can be made any more." And Keillor summarizes Hoh's reasons and does it so well- that our presence among the Pastun people, the people in the villages, the rural religious people, is only wosening the conflict, the role of the Taliban and Al Quaeda is not the main thing here, the real issues are tribal and cultural. The last phrase deserves repetition- the real issues are tribal and cultural, which no foreign nation can overcome.

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In a aspirational country where even US president John Kennedy's grandparent's father Patrick Joseph arrived from Ireland during the potato famine in the 1850's and aspired to reaching the level of the more educated Americans over 2 generations, whose grandson JFK's father worked as a manager in the Quincy shipyards in Massachusetts, this extraordinary concentration of support for Republicans among less educated is astonishing, perplexing, and at odds with what America is. Super Tuesday results analysis of 1000 counties in 14 states in 2024 show Republican Trump getting 83% of the vote in counties with a higher share of voters without a college education. Where voters are a higher share of the college population this drops to 61%. A sharp drop in support is seen in counties with a higher percentage of voters who have college a rapid fall as one has college education.  A strange phenomena can be seen in graphs shown in WSJ of voters by counties and income, education. A large cluster of voters in incomes below 70,000 and without a college education then falling off like off a cliff. In Iowa, New Hampshire primaries it was seen as being mostly rural voters, more isolated and in less proximity to other people. The question remains how well this category of under $70,000 without a college degree reflects the country as a whole in 2024, how has the country changed since 2012, 2016 and 2020. It is easily said there is a polarized country yet this ignores the unusual nature of this support where it is concentrated so heavily in one group in this way with cutoff of $70,000 falling precipitiously in support for Trump for incomes above that. At above $70,000 support quickly drops to 80% and falls steeply with every $1000 increase in income after that. In a country like the US this means almost the entire educated population in the US and the entire population above the $70,000 per year level excluding itself from support, so sharp is the fall off from moderate income and education levels, and so heavily clustered is the support almost like a ball up in that corner of the graph with just a few specks on the rest of the graph. This is most unusual for the US and may not be reflective of the whole population of the US in 2024. This is also unprecedented in US history since 1776, may not compare to 2016, and for the Republican party even more unusual. Two questions also come up what happened to all the country club, more educated voters who voted Republican and made the party what it was an upper class business supported party, and what happened to all the factory workers, teachers, nurses and others in America who make about $70,000 or $80,000 and who are generally Democratic. These people will be part of the electorate for the whole country in 2024. ...

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WSJ reports that the former president's supporters will rally to his side but swing voters might be repelled by this latest legal controversy including the context in which it happened that of a sordid affair. Mr. Trump built his support base out of two mistakes of president Obama, his neglect of rural America, and neglect of American manufacturing. And of the mistake of president Bush in pushing America into two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that put money into wars with no productive purpose that needed to be put in rebuilding America's infrastructure. Others could have done this, Mr. Trump aggressively pushed ahead and found himself first. President Biden has closed the chapter on the wars by ending them, he has also closed the chapters of neglect of American manufacturing and put working families and America at the top of his agenda at every point. And as he did at the State of the Union address in 2023, made it personal by reciting what his father has told young Joe about standing up for working families. Biden's abilities rival that of president Lyndon Baines Johnson, who had as much experience in the US Congress as Biden, and delivered the passage of Medicare and Social Security for all Americans. Biden has done something that ranks similar with trillions of dollars for the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS and Science Act and pandemic assistance, and has the conviction that there is much more to be done. ...

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This NYT analysis of fund raising by the Republican and Democratic parties for the 2020 election campaign shows Republicans hardly raising any money from people with incomes over 250,000 and very little from incomes over $200,000 with most funding coming from the base white working class and lower and upper middle class. For Democrats fund raising is significant at the levels of income over $200,000. Geographically the Democrats get most of their funding from the east and west coast areas.  This reflects the changes in the parties starting in the the 2008 elections when higher income groups in software, finance, and in professions of law and medicine and Silicon Valley tech shifted to Democrats. The Democrats also held onto minority votes. In 2016 this changed with a sharp turn with tech on the west coast and finance professionals on the east coast shifting to the Democrats. The PPP agreement under Obama favored tech over the auto industry, and renewal fossil fuels such as solar were favored over the oil industry and fracking. In 2016 this helped shift the votes in Michigan and Pennsylvania to Republicans. Older manufacturing industries, oil and fracking were supported by Republicans who pushed back against ceding global dominance in manufacturing to China. By 2020 these changes are now entrenched with white working class voters in industries decimated and communities destroyed by foreign imports mainly from China, supporting Republicans. Republicans under Trump have made regaining the manufacturing leadership of the U.S. that was the situation after World War II, a top priority for the U.S.  The minority vote shifted with Hispanics moving towards Republicans to a much larger degree than before. The urban rural divide is similar to Europe where the similar impact of foreign imports mainly from China have destroyed older industries and led to sharp decline in older towns and communities outside major cities. This is the situation facing the U.S. and Britain, France, Italy Spain, and Poland. Germany as a manufacturing country dependent on exports is also affected but to a lesser degree. The unwholesome aspect of this is that the larger urban areas are divorced from the rest of the country  and rural small towns, smaller cities. In some form reintegration has to take place. The vast majority of the working class classified in today's terminology as the less educated lacking a college degree and white are  paradoxically with Republicans, and the wealthy professionals and industries in software, finance with Democrats. Nothing makes this more evident than a quick look at the map of the U.S. with blue on the opposite coasts for Democrats and mostly red in between and in the south. This is unprecedented in American history. A rising tide that lifts all boats in the U.S. and the return of the U.S. to the position it held after World War II could change this in the next decade. ...

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America will not long remember what happened in 2018 or 2024, but it can never forget the loss of literacy and cultural literacy from loss of reading comprehension, among American children, the basic building blocks for democracy or economic progress. This WSJ report by Randazzo and Barnum uses a lower bar for reading proficiency called the Basic. There is a second bar that is the Proficient Level for Reading Proficiency in NAEP test scores which is shown here. The US should strive for NAEP Proficient standard in Reading Comprehension not some Basic standard, to strive for leadership in a world that strives for NAEP Advanced. Only 8% of NAEP Test scores for 4th graders were at Advanced level in the US schools in 2024, only 31% making it to Proficient level standards. NAEP defines Basic as- "This level denotes partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that are fundamental for performance at the NAEP Proficient level." This is an inadequate standard and only leads to student in 4th grade struggling as readers in 9th grade leading to being not proficient for entry to college or skills programs for work. Dismal reading scores from before pandemic only get worse in 2025. Two thirds of American 4th graders across the 51 states, across urban, rural and suburbs fail to pass PROFICIENT reading levels on NAEP test scores in 2024. Lyrarc.com's Movement for Global Literacy was launched in 2016 in response to raise the reading comprehension and cultural literacy across America. This is across party lines, across gender, race, incomes and region- a goal for ALL AMERICANS and a basic entry point to meet the aspirations of all Americans for a better life through knowledge and education. 2024 NAEP Test results students performing 4 percentage points below the level in 2019 for 4th graders in reading comprehension. Thirty-one percent of fourth-grade students performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level on the 2024 NAEP reading assessment, which was 2 percentage points lower compared to 2022 and 4 percentage points lower than 2019. This WSJ report by Randazzo and Barnum uses a lower bar for reading proficiency called the Basic. There is a second bar that is the Proficient Level for Reading Proficiency in NAEP test scores which is what we are showing here. The US should drive for NAEP Proficient standard in Reading Comprehension not some Basic standard, to strive for leadership in a world that strives for NAEP Advanced. Only 8% of NAEP Test scores for 4th graders were at Advanced level in the US schools in 2024. NAEP defines Basic as- "This level denotes partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that are fundamental for performance at the NAEP Proficient level." This is an inadequate standard and only leads to student in 4th grade struggling as readers in 9th grade leading to being not proficient for entry to college or skills programs for work.   ...

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During the election campaign Obama talked about sending at least 2 more combat brigades to Afghanistan. The Defense Department is already planning to send 20,000 additional troops in response to a request of General David McKiernan, top commander in Afghanistan,including 4 combat brigades and an aviation brigade with helicopters, increasing the American troop levels to 58,000, with an additional 30,000 NATO troops already there from other countries. The timeline for this is 12-18 months but with the escalating insurgent attacks in Afghanistan this will probably be done more quickly. Obama and some Democrats talked about Afghanistan as somehow being the good war and he vowed to defeat the Taliban and militants in Afghanistan. But Afghanistan is a different place and most military experts are suggesting that a good strategy will be needed, for example winning over the tribals and some of the militants, and not trying to win militarily. However with the deteriorating situation there the only way to win over tribals and militants may be to get the situation to where the NATO and US forces are in a strong situation. The two big handicaps in this are first history, where the terrain and rural distribution of the people make it difficult to exercize any control over the vast region of mountains and deserts. So throughout history no one has controlled this region and there is no history of centralized government, with different tribes controlling their regions. The other is the problem created by the corruption and lack of any popular support for the Karzai government, which is made worse by the involvement of its officials in the opium trade with opium growing booming in the southern part of Afghanistan. How does the US and NATO create an effective Afghan army and police under a state that does not enjoy any popular support. And yet the strategy that Gates. Petraeus and McKiernan are pursuing involves preparing the Afghan army and police for the task of controlling the vast mountainous region against a rural insurgency that knows its way in the mountains enjoys rural support because of the independent spirit of the Afghan people who find it easy to see the NATO forces as white foreigners in their country. The Afghan army is small for such a vast mountainous region, only 70,000 in a nation of 32 million people, and the police forces of 80,000 mostly corrupt and ineffectual. The present plan is to build the Afgan army to 134,000 still small for such a large region. The other problems stem from the Pushtun population in Pakistan that supports the rural insurgency in Afghanistan and the support of tribal people in the border areas of Pakistan. The picture tells the story, a small number of NATO soldiers in a remote ridge in Afghanistan. And the problems actually are across the whole of the far northern region of what was once British India, of Afghanistan and Pakistan, as the Pakistan government is quite fragile, having an army that operates as a power center of its own with little accountability to the central government. And years of war during the previous military government of Pakistan under Zia Ul Haq, in which Zia with the support of the Reagan administration supported another rural insurgency in Afghanistan that drove the soviets out of Afghanistan, and the subsequent sponsorship of the Taliban movement by the Pakistan military in Afghanistan, has created a situation in Pakistan where militants now operate freely and with impunity in Pakistan itself, disregarding both the Pakistan military and the Pakistan elected government's power structures....

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Connors and Magalhaes provide an exceptional account of the work of nine young prosecutors in Brazil, including Deltan Dallagnol, a Harvard trained law graduate, Carlos Santos Lima, a Cornell law graduate, and Paulo de Carvalho, in looking into the corruption and money laundering at Petrobras. Contracts for work given out by Petrobras to construction firms were inflated in value, and 3% of the inflated value was given to executives at Petrobras, or to the fund of the ruling Workers Party of Brazil. Dallagnol is a prosecutor in Curitiba, a small provincial city. He detected unusual movement of money, where a local car wash showed a new Land Rover being gifted to a Petrobras executive, in an apparent money laundering effort. Appointments at high levels are made by the government, and the current president who has not been implicated, was at one time chairman of Petrobras. In Brazil, as in India, Nigeria, and other developing countries, politicians were known to have misused public funds, but were able to act with impunity because the legal system made it difficult to impose strict penalties. The effort by the young prosecutors in Brazil is an effort to bring changes to the legal system so that this type of near impunity no longer exists. It is the first step to bringing serious changes and increasing public awareness for change. The result in Nigeria is a huge loss in Africa, with the electricity system for the entire country the size of what it would take to light up one medium sized American city. In India with the lack of roads and electricity in rural areas of many states, the misuse of public funds is a similiar burden on the people. Brazil is coming out of a borrowing binge in the last ten years which is leading to a credit crunch in the country and near junk bond status for Petrobras, Brazil's largest company, which experts predict will lead to a contraction in the economy in 2015-2016. ...

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David Brooks of NYT povides this exceptional essay on a long neglected question. If so much of the politics today is about different communities that are alienated from each  other, what is it about these communities that makes this happen, and how did this come about? After decades of integrating communities and building the economy after the second world war through a strong middle class, what has happened now to see all that progress reverse itself. Rural America and the less educated voted in one way and the urban areas voted in the opposite way, one feeling neglected and the other becoming more segregated in cultural outlook, education, and work. Brooks cites a new book by Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution called the "Dream Hoarders." The book shows two structural barriers that divide America. One is the residential zoning restrictions, housing and construction rules that keep the less educated away from the opportunities and schools in cities such as Portland, San Francisco and New York. The second structural barrier is the college admissions game that favors the parents and children of the better educated classes. The immigrant communities who come from families that are struggling hard to get into the middle class and upper class work hard to get an edge. As a result about 70 percent of the students in the top 200 competitive schools in America are from the top 25% in the income distribution.  Other barriers are formed by the extent of investment parents in one group put into their children, estimated at 300% by Brooks compared to a flat line for the other group. This accelerated investment leaves the other group far behind. Social barriers form to prevent the kind of interactions one would find normal in an open democratic society. Brooks say the cultural differences show up in the language and product selections, in food and other choices. Just take a typical Brooklyite and someone from western New York state. It is not the intent of one group to look upon this as a desired result. It is their indifference to what is happening that is alarming for a free, open and democratic society. It is their lack of understanding about the implications for life in a free, open, democratic society, of segregating themselves from the vast expanse of humanity around them. It is their lack of knowledge of the history of this continent built on the idea of education and opportunities for all from the time of Benjamin Franklin in Pennsylvania and the early settlers, the idea of out of many one- E Pluribus Unum. Yet out of this crisis something good can emerge if a way is found, and leadership is needed in the right direction with the right ideas, consistent with the ideals that guided the best leaders from its past. What resentment, alienation and wrong direction cannot do, courage, perseverance and right direction can do.     ...

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The Times correspondent in Beijing says he sees two Chinas one that is showing technological advancement in 5G, in space technologies, in information technologies, infrastructure building in big cities. The other China is in rural areas away from the big cities, in smaller towns in regions away from Beijing and Shanghai. These areas have suffered neglect and have changed little over decades, with the focus during industrialization on larger cities and the coastal areas. This is evident in the manner health services infrastructure and development of medical personnel and doctors were neglected in the rush towards building manufacturing and infrastructure of road and rail. There is a shortage of doctors and hospitals, health services are costly, and waiting lists for beds at hospitals is huge. Doctors are also not held in high esteem because the focus is on profit in the market economy that has taken over the health sector.  Education of citizenry on respecting the common welfare which is expected and normal in Europe and America has also suffered during the rush to industrialization. Efforts to ban and eliminate use of certain wild animal foods not being respected by fellow citizens can be seen in this context. This caused the SARS virus epidemic and the epidemic today from the coronavirus. Seen from this angle a slowdown in construction, infrastructure building, and a slowdown in the economy, can even be healthy, so that focus can be shifted to better health, better sanitation, and better medical infrastructure including medical human resource capabilities. Investment in public education on health and self enforcement of rules by citizenry for a better society is indispensable for progress. It is in these conditions that the challenge of the national and international emergency of the coronavirus can be seen today. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on progress so far and the needs of the future. These challenges are even tougher than repeating what one has done before such as building more and more infrastructure, as they involve building a better society through public discipline along with investment in health and education services. This provides a lesson for many Asian, Latin American and African countries in the rush to industrialization. Turning over the health sector to a market economy making services costly and distributed unevenly in the population has not worked in the U.S. for the betterment of all citizens and a healthy society. Carrying this over from U.S. to China and not learning from Europe in what Europe has done well in the less costly and broad distribution of health services for the people, is one of the poorer lessons learned. This is also true for India and South Asia, South East Asian countries in their rush towards industrialization.  ...

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"Ram Rajya" is a concept of a just society that serves the needs of the people based on the ancient history and ancient paths of Bharat or India. It is easily understood among the farmers and ordinary people of India. During the long period of colonialism it meant to Gandhi and hundreds of millions in the villages of India a sense of society free of colonialism and colonial rule that did not invest in the country or its people, no matter their religion or caste or language group. In this sense Ram Rajya is all about a just society of governance that meets the needs of all the people, that makes investment in the resources of the country to the benefit of the people. In the modern period in the transformation of rural societies such as China or India or other parts of Asia, Ram Rajya or Buddha Rajya as an extension of the same concept, and about what Abraham Lincoln called society for the people, of the people, by the people, in his call to America for a Just Society. In this sense it has connotations for the world as it struggles to build a style of governance in society that builds the infrastructure, invests in the education and minds of the people, in their health and wellbeing along all dimensions. In this way it is a social concept that is embodied in the best of human society throughout history. It embodies the aspirations of the people of Asia to modernity inspired by ancient tradition, aspirations to science and technology and building modern societies. Of India with Ram and the Buddha, China in its connections to the Buddha, to the people of Indonesia with the connection to Hanuman, and the people in South East Asia and Japan through their connections to the Buddha which were embedded in the ancient society of Ram and the Upanishads in the land south of the Himalayas. No one is too small, no effort is ordinary or small- "I am very small, I am very ordinary, if someone thinks so one must remember the contribution of the squirrel. Remmbering the ocntribution of the squirrel will dispel our hesitation, and teach us that every effort big or small, has its strength and contribution. The foundation of Sabka Prayas (everyone's efforts) will be the foundation of a divine, and capable, just and good Bharat or India for all its 1400 million people."   ...

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Lohr describes changes underway in capitalism. Capitalism not purely as economic but rooted in the communities it is in and the overall society. As government becomes a partner of business in navigating this perod of acceleration of changes, that were already underway, whats important to society as a whole is taking prominence. At the WSJ summit recently, CEO's cited obesity in America as a number one concern. Issues like climate change and pollution are taking on more weight, especially with the US playing a role in global efforts to control it. Overconsumption of energy and of resources like oil also become a concern that business works to address. The modern corporation, the salaried manager, the industrial peace with unions and management working together, were not always with us, they were a result of the problems experienced in the years between the 2 wars. And the technologies of telephone, railroads, and telegraph, and the automobile created the mobility and communications that accelerated change in societies and communities, rural and urban areas throughout the growing USA. Now another set of changes will accelerate trends already underway. And business will have a more social face with society becoming interwoven with the other things business does and coloring all aspects of what it is trying to achieve....

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How Petraeus won support in Congress and with public opinion, while at the same time changing the nature of the effort in Iraq. His struggles with General Fallon even though he reported directly to President Bush, who wished to disengage too quickly to make adifference in the failing effort to bring security. The first effort was to bring security with the surge in troops, then to build the Iraqi forces. To keep public opinion informed about tangible achievements of modest goals such as security for ordinary Iraqis, and fewer American casualties, rather than some beacon of democracy goal for the Middle East. A detailed account by the Washington Post of how this played out in the words of key players like Petraeus, Fallon, Ambassador Crocker and others, and what it may tell one about the lessons for another very different effort in a rural mountainous backward country like Afghanistan. One that emerges is to set modest goals like security, try new approaches but with a clear eye on the field, put in younger leaders who can bing flexibility and imagination and intellect, but disengage on favorable terms that achieves these modest objectives....