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This WSJ editorial defends Gen. McMaster's record and policy planning in the Middle East. This editorial says some of the White House dysfunction is a result of Bannon.

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Following the Wisconsin primary Ted Cruz plans his campaign to prepare for a contested convention. The strategy is to focus on California, and states such as Nebraska and Indiana, and on delegate selection, so that Trump has little chance of winning the required 1237 delegates on the first ballot at the Republican Convention. To do this Cruz plans to hire additional staff, and work at the local city and county level winning endorsements from local and state officials. A similiar process unfolded in the Wisconsin primary, with local Republican base support that was crucial to his win. The focus inside California is on Orange County, San Diego county, San Fernando Valley, rural agricultural Central Valley, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo his wife's home town. In the New York primary where he is behind Cruz is planning to win delegates in heavily Democratic Congressional districts, using ads by pro-Cruz super PAC Trusted Leadership, to add to his delegate count. Cruz is depending on mid-size donors with the help of Jeb Bush and previous backers of Senator Rubio, for additional fundraising to increase campaign efforts....

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DJT deportation sweep in Chicago. DJT's model is Operation Wetback deportation of Eisenhower administration in 1954 after the Truman administration had appointed a commission in 1952 to investigate the issues from large scale illegal migration. Truman appointed the commission as he objected to racial quotas against Asians. The US Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, vetoed by Truman, the veto was overridden in the US Congress.  Operation Wetback of Eisenhower in 1954, conducted by Lt. Gen. Joseph Swing, and Attorney General Herbert Brownell, returned about 1.2 million migrants from Mexico who had crossed the US Border back to Mexico by ship or by road into the interior of Mexico. From 1942 for each year the immigration enforcement increased from 12000 in 1942 to 727,000 in 1952, the last year of the Truman administration. This is a pattern similar to what was seen in 2014-2024 under Obama-Trump-Biden. ...

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A new West Coast Model is emerging with ballot measures in the states of Washington, California and Oregon. The model is to make up for decades of faulty income distribution which favored tech communities in west coast states leaving behind people from minority communities and the working class outside tech hubs such as San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle. During this period budgets for education and healthcare, social services and essential infrastructure suffered as budgets were squeezed for local governments. Minimum wage also lagged behind and communities struggled to keep up. Washington votes for a ballot measure that raises the minimum wage to $13.25 statewide and mandate paid sick leave for workers. In California a ballot measure makes permanent an income tax surcharge on millionaires to use these funds for education. In Oregon measure 97 places a gross receipts tax on corporations with annual sales in Oregon over $25 million, raising $3 billion a year for schools, health care and other programs. The California and Washington measures are likely to pass, Oregon uncertain, say experts. And even in Oregon supporters have learned from the experience to put forward new proposals on the ballot. The Washington measure is supported by Nick Hanauer, and Zach Silk, president of Civic Ventures in Seattle, who say it is essential to put more money in workers wages to increase growth and to bring better lives outside the tech hub areas. Most of the tech booms of the last two decades have not touched the areas outside tech hub metropolitan areas. The conservative approach adopted in Louisiana and Kansas of reducing taxes first and then when holes in state budgets developed to cut education, health and other service expenditures has not worked, and it has led to the backlash in the form of the new West Coast Model, which is expected to be brought up in other states in the east and midwest. The tech hub areas have grown with the boom in tech but this has largely ignored the rural areas, communities just outside of the tech cities, and led to uneven and distorted growth shortchanging the working class and the middle class, and hurting investment in education and healthcare across each state. Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution conservative think tank ,says that its hard to deny that the balanced growth for all communities across the state has lagged far behind as the tech booms boosted growth in the economies of California, Oregon and Washington. An article in the German online site Zeit on Silicon Valley described this vividly showing how this can happen in communities sitting side by side in the San Jose area, with minority Hispanic communities and working class communties seeing very little of the benefits of growth. ...

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This report in the WSJ on a Gallup study with 87,000 interviews points to Trump supporters being affected more by racial isolation and cultural anxiety, health prospect anxiety,  than merely by being working class or in lower income groups affected by the shift in manufacturing jobs overseas. The report confirms previous observations that these Trump supporters are more likely to be whites without bachelors degrees. The information does'nt show that they face abnormally high degree of economic distress as those who have lost jobs in this recession, as they are shown to be less likely to be unemployed, more likely to be self-employed. The Gallup study does not show areas more adversely impacted by trade competition to have higher support for Trump. This is a critical finding.  An interesting finding is that Trump supporters are more likely to live in areas with higher mortality rates and poorer health outcomes, higher obesity rates, and lower rates of intergenerational mobility. This combines with living in much higher rates of being surrounded by whites, whiter and more racially isolated. The finding is that they have high cultural and economic anxiety from not finding their well being and prospects for children meet expectations. This may also explain the tendency not to be able to reason out possible outcomes based on policies of each candidate, less openness and more inward looking behaviours.   ...

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Ted Cruz has put together a strong organization for the Iowa caucuses. This report by Martin and Flegenheimer of the NYT describes the approach taken by the Cruz campaign- with a organizational head for each of Iowa's 99 counties, captains in 1537 of 1681 precincts, and 10,000 volunteers. Cruz campaign has carefully selected voters who vote consistently and who are likely to respond to one of a list of appeals based on research in behavioural psychology, points which precinct captains and volunteers use to make notes for talking to voters. Turnout is expected to be 121,000 to 140,000, and the Cruz campaign says it is prepared if the count is much higher with new caucus participants. Voter turnout is an important aspect of their campaign, saying their organizational effort with about 15,000 calls made each day from Iowa Cruz offices, is striving to improve performance by 2.5 to 5 percentage points and deal with a "swell" in voters by identifying additional voters. The Trump campaign is based more on campaigning generally to voter sentiment, drawing large numbers to rallies appealing to the white working class, voters who are less committed and less likely to vote- counting on a swell in new voters some who sign up as Republicans at the voting location....

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William Burns, a former Deputy Secretary of State, and a former ambassador to Russia 2005-2008, looks at the U.S. and European Union relationship with Russia following the expulsion of Russian spies in 2018. He says the U.S. and the European Union should take strong action, yet hopes this is a passing phase so that a healthier relationship can be built with Russia in the long run through diplomatic channels. Expressing views expressed by former president Obama and other experts, Burns says Russia lacks the alliances and broader support that the U.S. and European Union have, and is much smaller than the larger economies of the Western alliance. Under Putin a strong interventionist position has made Russia look better at home but may not be the best for Russia in the long run, says Burns.   Burns calls for stronger sanctions on the economic elite and business leaders under president Putin. Yet the sanctions have not deterred president Putin and a long run solution needs to be found, including issues such as Ukraine and issues that affect the Russian economy so that the change in relations since 2014 can be reversed. After the Berlin Wall collapsed hopes for integration of the Russian economy into the West were raised yet were not realized for Russia in the years following the Yeltsin government and the Russian economy suffered, first during that period and then during emerging market crises. Russian disillusionment with the West was followed by a more inward looking economy under Putin to help stabilize the Russian economy, accepting devaluation of the ruble to make the Russian economy more competitive in a period of low oil prices. Foreign investment collapsed following the Ukraine crisis but the Russian economy adapted to the shock from oil prices. This was followed by efforts to preserve these gains with an interventionist policy that made the Putin administration look better at home and win popular support with strong action in Crimea and Ukraine. This interventionist policy has played out too far with the meddling in U.S. and European elections creating a backlash that is now taking place. With the European Union, having a traditional policy of restraint and good relations with Russia, openly questioning Russian policy under Putin. Much of that period when Russia responded first to the collapse of the Berlin Wall with the collapse of the Russian economy, and in the following decade facing emerging market crises and collapse of foreign investment -which created a more inward looking Russia under Putin in his third term- is shown in Lyrarc.com. In some ways the Russian response in Ukraine, the effort to bolster popular support at home in elections, and the interventionist approach are linked to the efforts to find a Russian response to the economic crises Russia faced since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Seen in this way a shift to better relations is still possible as a broader perspective is gained.  ...

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How will posterity view Angela Merkel. As she ends a fourth term this BBC News report says it will remain a contested legacy. Much of what went right has already been written. A woman, a pragmatic scientist who hewed to the center not just as a scientist but with a knack for politics. Much of her early period in office was one in which she had to tackle the eurozone crisis. The euro's weakness had its roots in the way Mr Kohl allowed eurozone membership for countries such as Greece without adequate entry requirements. Some of the other problems were also left behind by an overzealous mentor Helmut Kohl who pushed for German reunification that never really happened in terms of bringing all east Germans into the idea of the Federal Republic. These problems in a neglected eastern part of Germany around Dresden were never tackled by Merkel. They were social issues that Merkel's pragmatic thinking failed to grasp. Letting in migrants from Arab and African countries was a move that Merkel made without realizing the full implications. This policy was reversed but led to the emergence of extreme right wing sentiment in parts of the country. It is left to a future German leader to tackle the social and economic disparities that affect Germany today. As time passes people reflect and a more careful view prevails. Dr Rudiger Schmitt-Beck reflects this when he says that the Merkel years were about  a bizarre mix of modernization and backwardness. Merkel rejected nuclear energy after the events at Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. As a scientist she was able to tackle such issues. Yet on the major social issues of the day Prof. Schmitt-Beck of the University of Mannheim, says she left Germany "grotesquely behind"- on child care, climate policy, digitization, infrastructure building, on demographic change. These are the issues that the Social Democrats and the Greens are standing up for today. Ironically Merkel may be remembered more for something that is not even mentioned in this BBC report. This is the European solidarity shown by action to financially support all EU countries including Italy with EU funding during the coronavirus pandemic.  This may be her biggest achievement because it will be lasting. Without it Europe would not be the better place it is today, resilient in the face of the pandemic.  Seen from outside Merkel will be seen as a German leader who failed to see the potential for India and other Asian countries with almost twice the population of China. Fascinated with 13 visits to China she studied Chinese history, politics and economics, says the WSJ. And did too little to balance Germany's close business and trade ties with China, with efforts in India and other countries. Seen from America as pointed out in the WSJ front page on September 23, Merkel made no effort to rebuild US relations with the Biden administration after the tumultuous period under presidents Obama with spying on her phone and with Mr. Trump over the EU's participation in NATO defense. She seemed resigned to a view that America had seen her best years, a belief that today does not exist anywhere in America. US president Biden's first phone call to Merkel was put off for a few days says the WSJ, and Merkel continued to build close ties with China, ignoring the fact that this was a new administration closer to that of presidents FDR and Harry Truman who did so much for Germany. And a president very different than any of Biden's five predecessors. ...

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Attorney General Barr issues a 4 page summary of the 300 page Mueller Report on investigation into interference in the 2016 election campaign. Democrats in Congress, including the Judiciary Committee chairman Mr. Nadler called for the release of the complete report to Congress and the public. 

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France's Foreign Minister Ayrault says of Boris Johnson: "He lied a lot to the British. Now, he is the one with his back against the wall." He sees missing in Johnson the "clear, credible and reliable" person with whom he can negotiate. Ray Stegner, deputy chairman of Germay's Social Democrat Party says "May looks weaker after such a choice of personnel. Now he is negotiating Brexit. Enjoy the trip." In China he is seen as a celebrity not a serious person. Bildt, ZDF, see in this a part of British humor. Jurgen Hardt, foreign policy spokesman for Christian Democrats Party in Germany had a different take on Johnson- seeing this as an astute move because if the government one day comes to conclude that Brexit should not be completed then having Johnson on board to explain it to the people would guarantee support in her party and with the people of England. In her first speech May emphasized that she was a "Unionist." Her first important meeting was with Nicola Sturgeon of Scotland and made Scotland's agreement necessary before invoking Article 50. Her talk of "burning injustices" for the poor and the underprivileged also goes to address the root of the problems behind the Leave vote. By having Johnson on board she can focus on the issues that really matter and which were on the minds of people in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland- to ensure that the economic system works for all.   ...