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Nikki Haley managed to get 20 to 30% of the vote in the 14 states that she lost in 2024 Super Tuesday contest- mostly moderate, higher income and better educated voters. This report says over half of voters for Nikki Haley will support candidate Trump in 2024. Of the remaining voters some may still support the Republican candidate others may support Biden or not vote. 

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Ed Sisken, a seasoned lawyer who worked at the White House for Obama, then worked for the mayor of Chicago Rahm Emmanuel, is president Biden's new White House Counsel. This report says there will be a higher bar for information that a small wing of the Republican party will seek from the White House for impeachment inquiry on president Biden. It is seen as largely political agreed to reluctantly by Republican Speaker McCarthy. Coming in the presidential election year of 2024 when Mr. Trump faces hearings on indictments, this is expected to involve media attention.

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How union membership is actively taking part in shaping union contracts at Longshoreman's union for US ports, UAW for autoworkers, at Boeing Southwest and other companies for a fair wage and benefits after decades of neglect of workers. The assistance of Biden/ Harris to workers and their families for "We the People," in 2024.

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Missourians get it they supported raising minimum wage to $15, and said no to Harris. Nebraska approved minimum wage increase and sick leave by 75% , and said no to Harris. Harris did not mention both in her closing messaging or make it a major part of her message. Harris muddled economic message is attributed to influence of Tony West, her brother in law, legal counsel for Uber, and by her efforts to avoid the label placed on her by Wall Street interests that she was "communist" by moving closer to corporate interests. President Biden ran his campaign and presidency entirely with a single theme- against trickle down economics, saying it did not put much on his father's table, and "the middle class built America, not Wall Street, winning 82 million votes more than the 74.3 million for DJT in 2024, 12 million more than Harris, 8 million more than DJT.  This simple Harry Truman like message carried the day in 1948 against Republican Dewey's increasing popularity after weariness over FDR long run in office, and got Biden 12 million more votes than Harris in 2024 or 8 million more than Trump in 2024- 82.3 million votes for Biden 2020. DJT was elected in 2024 with a fewer number of votes than he got in 2020- 74.3 million votes in 2024 and 75 million in 2020. Bernie Sanders, Congressman from Vermont says- "People want to understand what’s going on in their lives. Trump gave them an explanation,” “He attributed all of our problems to undocumented immigrants. What is the Democratic explanation for why the gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider and working-class people are struggling? You tell me.”   ...

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Guardian's David Smith has short memories as he compares response at Obama's stops and visits in 2012 and compares that to Biden's as he visits Detroit and Atlanta in May 2024. In 2012 in the last weeks of the election Mitt Romney was much closer than is remembered today. Obama was at risk of being a one term president and depended on a strong turnout from Latino voters. Mariachi bands were called out in states where Hispanic vote was critical in these closing weeks. This is also just after the pandemic once in a century event that has affected younger people more than other groups, and after the dislocation and misinformation, the suppression of real information about the massive investment in the economy by president Biden for the first time in 50 years. Obama then lacked the kind of bipartisan support from all groups including Republicans and suburban voters that Biden now has that were never part of the Obama coalition. As shown by Nate Cohn in NYT what Biden is after are the disengaged younger voters and new voters in 2024 that have no awareness of the president's efforts to improve standards of living of the American people, who president Biden is working hard at campaign stop after campaign stop to reach about 6 months before the election. ...

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Musk DOGE 2025 and the 1941 Truman Committee- cutting waste in $4 trillion in spending.  With the Biden Infrastructure Act and other infrastructure, science and chips spending of $4 trillion the US needs to act to have oversight on waste and overspending in 2025. We just want to show that it is in the American tradition of democratic government, that an obscure Senator from Missouri, Democrat Harry Truman initiated such an effort called the Truman Committee when he addressed the Senate on Feb 10, 1941. The US Senate site describes this Special committee to Investigate the National Defense Program adjacent to this article. As the US prepared to enter World War II in Feb. 1941 an obscure Senator from Missouri rose up in the Senate to call for oversight over the $10.1 billion Roosevelt had got approval from the US Congress to spend on war efforts. The oversight was to fight overspending, waste and fraud in spending the huge amounts dedicated to the war effort. The result was the Truman Committee in the US Senate with as chairman of the committee Harry Truman 1941-1944, James Mead (NY) 1944-46, Harley Kilgore (Wisconsin) 1946-47, Ralph Brewster a Republican from Maine in 1947-48. These were the years when the US spent on the war effort- $330 billion in 1945 dollars, $4 trillion in 2024 dollars $212 in US government borrowings, $136 billion in war bonds With the Biden Infrastructure Act and other infrastructure, science and chips spending of $4 trillion the US needs to act to have oversight on waste and overspending in 2025. ...

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Biden joins Harris at an event in Largo, Maryland on August 15 2024, the first time president Biden joins Harris for a rally after Harris takes on the role of nominee. Biden is sort of on this ticket as the nominee Harris's mentor and colleague. Harris runs on Biden's achievements and the president will forever be part of the Harris team with experience to get important legislation through Congress in the years ahead. At the rally Biden and Harris focus on cost of living and how Medicare now brings down prices of out of control pharmaceuticals. President Biden is the first president to restore Medicare's right and obligation to the American people to negotiate fair prices for pharmaceuticals. This right and obligation was stripped from Medicare by the younger president Bush in one of the worst decisions of a Republican president since World War II, causing terrible hardship from corporate greed to hard working American families. 

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Biden will talk to America tonight at 7pm after the passage of the historic and truly bipartisan Bipartisan Debt Agreement of 2023, that sets the pathways for America moving forward on this day in June 2023 meeting the challenge of leadership in the world.

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US president DJT on the craziness of UK, China, Japan, India getting their oil and gas from Hormuz Straits after frequent disruptions over 40 years. And expecting US to keep lanes open, expecting the US to do this alone when US is self sufficient and exports oil and gas in 2026. UK, China, Japan and India does not want a wider war, US also does not want a wider war, and has asked these countries to stop shopping for the best price and find alternative sources of oil and gas for many years. China and Japan get 90% of their oil from the Hormuz Straits region- the US president is asking does that even make sense? Are they doing this because it is cheaper, ignoring the other costs, and the hidden costs of unreliable supplies to the poorest countries paying $125-150 a barrel? Germany has set a better example for these countries to follow getting only 6% of its oil and gas from the Hormuz Straits and being far ahead in renewable energy. China and Japan, South Korea are oblivious of all that has happened, the disruptions in supplies of the last 40 years, and have made no serious effort to find alternative sources and supplies. Whatever happens in coming weeks Mr President DJT has a point. Even more so as the MAGA base has insisted on a focus on domestic policy and problems, the Biden base also had the same desire to focus on domestic policy and problems. Nothing should divert from this focus, particularly the needs of countries that have not made changes in energy policy and logistics they should have a long time back. ...

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To president Joe Biden the Democrats instincts of FDR and Truman, with the focus on building better lives for workers and families, comes naturally. Biden takes the Democratic Party back to what it was in the 1930's to the 1960's. Just today the Labor Department showed 336,000 jobs added and the unemployment rate steady at 3.8% for 2 years, 32 months of jobs growth. Brooks offers a clue on how this is happening- president Biden has aggressively directed American capital and resources to where it is needed most, in counties red or blue where economic growth has suffered in the past. Yet 57% of people polled cited by Brooks say the economy is in poor shape. There are another 14 months to go and the economy will get even stronger with the capital allocation and Biden economic policies of Build Better and America First. Workers and families will see real and tangible improvements in their lives in 2024.

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Le Monde publishes the speech JD Vance gave at the Munich Security Conference with it says added context and explanation. It is useful because it is easy to make hasty judgements in one direction or another. The focus here is on immigration to EU and to the US, a sore point. Vance does not mention a bigger sore point - the lack of recognition worldwide to the 490,000 American lives lost in the illegal flow of fentanyl into the US without needed action from CMC Canada, Mexico and China. And business as usual carried on by these countries and the European Union, and a failure to act by the US.  JD Vance said- "And of all the pressings—challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. Today, almost one in five people living in this country moved here from abroad. That is, of course, an all-time high. It’s a similar number, by the way, in the United States—also an all-time high. The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone. And, of course, it’s gotten much higher since.And we know the situation, it didn’t materialize in a vacuum. It’s the result of a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent, and others across the world, over the span of a decade." Fact Check- About 14 million of Germany's 84.5 million people are foreign nationals according to Destatis. This is 16.6% of Germany's population. Vance rounds it off to 20% not 17%. In the US there are 47.8 million people who are foreign born or 14.3% of the population in 2023. It increased by 1.6 million from 2022 to 2023, much of it coming from Venezuela and Central American failed states from left parties mismanaging the economy for hyperinflation and from gang violence. In 2022 EU member states welcomed 1.8 million Ukrainian nationals that was only 100,000 in 2021, which is two thirds of the increase. The reason for Vance's doubling. A similar situation happened in the US with Venezuela as a failed state with hyper inflation into 1000 percent inflation leading to migration to other Latin American countries and into the US during the Biden administration. Some of this happened because sanctions made things worse, mismanagement of the economy. A similar migration happened from Syria into the EU member states as a result of the civil war.     ...

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With the Biden Infrastructure Act and other infrastructure, science and chips spending of $4 trillion the US needs to act to have oversight on waste and overspending in 2025. We just want to show that it is in the American tradition of democratic government, that an obscure Senator from Missouri initiated such an effort called the Truman Committee when he addressed the Senate on Feb 10, 1941. The US Senate describes this Special committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. As the US prepared to enter World War II in Feb. 1941 an obscure Senator from Missouri rose up in the Senate to call for oversight over the $10.1 billion Roosevelt had got approval from the US Congress to spend on war efforts. The oversight was to fight overspending, waste and fraud in spending the huge amounts dedicated to the war effort. The result was the Truman Committee in the US Senate with as chairman of the committee Harry Truman 1941-1944, James Mead 1944-46, Harley Kilgore 1946-47, Ralph Brewster a Republican from Maine in 1947-48. These were the years when the US spent on the war effort- $330 billion in 1945 dollars, $4 trillion in 2024 dollars $212 in US government borrowings, $136 billion in war bonds With the Biden Infrastructure Act and other infrastructure, science and chips spending of $4 trillion the US needs to act to have oversight on waste and overspending in 2025. ...

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There were 2.5 million encounters at the US Border in Trump's first term says the BBC, under Biden's first term this number quadrupled to 10 million. Had the Biden administration done what it did for China policy and tariffs, quietly leaving them in place and tried sincerely to listen and work with Republicans, replaced Mayorkas in 2021 June when the migrant numbers reached 200,000 far surpassing the 150,000 high under DJT, and negotiated a new law by the end of 2021, this would have stopped asylum, added resources and closed the border in a timely delivery of needed action.

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One estimate fof US economic growth is for 4.6% growth in the third quarter for the US. The US economy is doing much better than expected, much better than either Germany or China in 2023, with the investment in infrastructure and renewable energy of the Biden administration.

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Joe Biden's efforts to rebuild the American economy are getting so little mention in either the NYT or WSJ or elsewhere that Biden writes this article in the WSJ to share what he has done for the American economy, workers and families in the US since 2020. It comes at a time when the US is being challenged in not only chips, science, defense, but also at amore basic level as education and healthcare, public services. Only one third of American children in 8th grade can pass NAEP test reading comprehension yet much of $346 billion going into ventures in 2021 is being wasted as America's capital allocation system and capital markets fail to serve the American people is shown in today's WSJ pages. The scale of what can be done with the right amount of capital going into the right places and not the wrong places and with determination to rebuild can only be imagined- Mr. Biden says here that additional $2.5 trillion can be reduced in the deficit by "cutting the wasteful spending on special interests and ensuring the wealthiest Americans and corporations pay their fair share of taxes." It also means vital investments can then be made in education, in infrastructure, science and technologies, and other areas where it is missing today through planned misallocation. ...

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Protestors on the side of governor Walz and mayor Frey both Democrats opposing the efforts of federal law enforcement create a situation where a car driven by Renee Good moves into the area with parked officers and leads to alleged car ramming and shots fired. An impasse in Minneapolis, with federal law enforcement efforts of immigration laws to remove migrants with criminal records opposed by Walz and Frey.  Following a surge in immigration under Biden, similar to that in World War II surge of migrants, which was followed by Operation Wetback in 1954 under Eisenhower. Walz was vice presidential candidate under Harris for the presidential election won by DJT. Political infighting and a alleged misuse of state funds have complicated the efforts. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem says today that the federal law enforcement by DHS had worked in Tennessee in cutting crime and made the city of Nashville safer, that there a Democrat Mayor had cooperated with federal law officers.She says about 490 people with criminal records were released into the city of Minneapolis by the state and local authorites under Walz and Frey, and not turned over as requested by DHS and Noem, under US law. On January 24, 2026, a man with a handgun and magazine of ammunition was in protests and in a confrontation with law enforcement was shot by a 6 year veteran of the federal law enforcement force. ...

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Hints left in this report by Catie Edmondson and Luke Broadwater in the NYT that there is another route to passing the raising debt ceiling legislation in Congress. This is by the rather delicate route that brings together the moderates of both parties and leaves a win win for both sides with nothing that president Biden considers burdensome to ordinary Americans Biden seeks to defend. It means progressive Democrats and extreme Republicans would vote against it and it passes Congress. All sides can say they did the right thing as they go into the 2024 elections.

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Rachel Ensign's WSJ report shows huge disparity in incomes and spending that has happened in the US even with the best efforts and intentions of the Biden administration in 2020-2024. US cumulative excess savings by income for the bottom 90% are a mere $291 billion compared to $1.2 trillion for the top 10%, 4 times as large. As a result about half of consumer spending comes from the top 10% in incomes says the WSJ. (Moody's Analytics). It provides clues on why Biden and even less so Harris failed to convince Americans, the middle class, blue collar workers, and others that large social gaps, income disparities and wealth disparities gap were being bridged under Democrats. And makes it harder for Republicans and Democrats alike to address such huge gaps built up over time by outshoring jobs and manufacturing, the 2009 financial crisis from banks speculation, the pandemic and supply shock cost of living crisis. As the $2.6 trillion in pandemic assistance from Biden faded people in the bottom 80% dipped into savings to pay for rising cost of living as supply chain bottlenecks and price gouging sent prices of groceries, housing, apartment rentals, cars up significantly. This has'nt happened to the top 10% or even the top 20% who continue to spend in the same way as before prices went up. Something like this is also happening in Europe and in China, India fueling and anti-incumbency mood, and dissatisfaction with governments. The Net Worth of the top 20% has grown by 45% or $35 trillion since 2019 compared to $14 trillion for the bottom 80%. (Moody's Analytics) ...

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An important investigation by the Wall Street Journal looks at the 60 day sprint to find the origins of the Covid virus that killed about 6 million people worldwide, with excess deaths three times that. Did labs in the US and in China and scientists experiments cause this or did it happen naturally in the wilderness or in wild animal markets in China. Were other points of view excluded, asks the WSJ by NIC in it's 90 day sprint meeting with president Biden on August 24, 2021. WSJ Investigation says the FBI WMD scientist Banaan and scientists at the Defense Intelligence Council Hardham, Cutlip and Chretien were kept away from the president at a crucial final meeting of National Intelligence Council with Biden on the 90 day sprint to discover where this virus came from. Comparable is the  25 million people who died in the Black Death plague in Europe in 1348- Europe's population did not return to its pre-1348 level till the 16th century, says Britannica.  A scientist working at the FBI offices in Virginia Banaan was brought to main FBI offices for WMD to look into the origins of the virus in Feb. 2020. He and the FBI expected to be called in to see president Biden at a special meeting with Avril Haines, James Murphy of NIC. The FBI and Defense Intelligence Council scientists were not called in to see the president. Scientists on the DIC Council section on the Virus were not given a chance to share views or join the meeting by the Director DIC Scott Berrier who had his own theory on the virus, says WSJ. These scientists had done genomics research that showed a spike protein part of the virus that enable it to enter human cells was constructed in a lab, says WSJ. The WSJ investigation says the investigation sought by president Biden in a 90 day sprint was done with the National Intelligence Agency officials under Avril Haines, a State department official who joined the agency after the 90 day sprint, and James Murphy of the NIC who headed it's WMD section. WSJ report says the heads of Defense Intelligence Agency and NIC believed in what is called the zoonotics theory that the virus was of natural origins and simply transferred from animals to humans. A Lancet article in Feb 2020 by a group of scientists including Daczak of EcoHealth Alliance that supported coronavirus research at Wuhan had supported this theory in the interest of global cooperation to fight the virus but called any alternative explanations conspiracy theory, says WSJ, politicising something that should never be politicized.     ...

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Republican candidate Trump wins 51% of the vote in Iowa to De Santis 21% and Nikki Haley 19%. Trump won among evangelical voters with 58% support. In cities his vote declined. In Story County home to Iowa State University in Ames, it was 34%, and in Johnson County where University of Iowa is located 36% supported Trump. In 2024 18percentage points separate Mr. Trump's support in low levels of college or post secondary education to higher levels of college or post secondary education. In 2016 Mr. Trump received 29% of the vote in low college education areas to 22% of the vote in high college education areas- a spread of 7 percentage points. Iowa is a state with a large farm and agriculture sector. Other states with manufacturing in the midwest tended to move away from Democrats in 2016. Some of this momentum has reversed with union support for Mr. Biden who has taken a pro-union stance in a way that is not matched by any Democrat since FDR and Harry Truman in the 1930's to 1950's. The shift of Clinton to globalism and Obama to tech companies cost Democrats heavily in 2016 with workers in manufacturing- something that is reversed in drastic ways since 2020 with Mr. Biden on the picket line at UAW union auto strikes in Michigan. ...

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Canada makes the decision to reinstate the visa requirement for Mexican citizens effective February 29th 2024. This was lifted by Trudeau in 2016 without a careful understanding of its implications. Since then Quebec insisted it was at the breaking point and pushed for reinstating the visa requirement. The Biden administration also pushed for the visa requirement as more people were illegally entering the US from Canada.

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US foreign direct investment to China goes down 40% in 2020 to 2022 compared to the period 2015 to 2020, for India this was up by 20%, according to IMF. India was the only G-20 country that received this level of foreign direct investment. Prashant Jha of the Hindustan Times correctly points out that the IMF paper and the model on which this paper is based are flawed. The paper sees countries based on alignment and India as a so called non aligned country not part of friendshoring, even though Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has openly called for friendshoring in India alongside finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. IMF experts have not caught up to Mr. Biden's remarks about the US- India relationship that it would be "the closest on earth." Closer even than America's relationship with Britain or Europe. On oil imports Biden and Jake Sullivan believe that after the pandemic India should import oil at the lowest possible cost to meet the long time denied aspirations of 1.2 billion people, and build the infrastructure that will make it a critical part of America's new supply chain. Every time there are military drills and blockade of Taiwan by China the people of America are moving a step further away from American companies that have overconcentration of manufacturing in China and closer to calling for a new supply chain that reduces concentration in China and builds new manufacturing in India.  ...

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Biden issued executive order on June 3, 2024 to close the Border with Mexico and deny asylum. Once border crossings reach 2500 a day the border is closed. Then it is opened only when crossings drop to 1500 a day and after 14 days. Officially permitted including humanitarian parole pathways are limited to 1500 a day. This is being done because the legislation that passed in the US Senate on bipartisan basis negotiated for closing the Border with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Republicans and Senator Lankford (R) was blocked in the Senate by Mike Johnson on instructions of Mr. Trump who sought to use it as an election issue. "Today I’m moving past Republican obstruction and using the executive authorities available to me as president to do what I can on my own to address the border,” said president Biden. The signs “SECURING OUR BORDER” were prominent in the White House East Room. “Frankly, I would have preferred to address this issue through bipartisan legislation,” he added, “but Republicans left me with no choice.” On this page the WSJ looks at the Border on August 5, 2024 and finds the border crossings have dropped to levels in 2020 and to levels seen during the last year of president Trump. The US and Mexico have cut border crossings with Mexico moving migrants back to southern Mexico in a Chutes and Ladders program where migrants head north, and the Mexican gocernment buses them back south, at which point some return to their home countries. At the Guatemala border there is busing to take them to other locations in the south of Mexico. ...

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Biden issued executive order on June 3, 2024 to close the Border with Mexico and deny asylum. Once border crossings reach 2500 a day the border is closed. Then it is opened only when crossings drop to 1500 a day and after 14 days. Officially permitted including humanitarian parole pathways are limited to 1500 a day. This is being done because the legislation that passed in the US Senate on bipartisan basis negotiated for closing the Border with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Republicans and Senator Lankford (R) was blocked in the Senate by Mike Johnson on instructions of Mr. Trump who sought to use it as an election issue. "Today I’m moving past Republican obstruction and using the executive authorities available to me as president to do what I can on my own to address the border,” said president Biden. The signs “SECURING OUR BORDER” were prominent in the White House East Room. “Frankly, I would have preferred to address this issue through bipartisan legislation,” he added, “but Republicans left me with no choice.” On this page the WSJ looks at the Border on August 5, 2024 and finds the border crossings have dropped to levels in 2020 and to levels seen during the last year of president Trump. The US and Mexico have cut border crossings with Mexico moving migrants back to southern Mexico in a Chutes and Ladders program where migrants head north, and the Mexican gocernment buses them back south, at which point some return to their home countries. At the Guatemala border there is busing to take them to other locations in the south of Mexico. ...

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US president Biden holds his first formal news press conference of 2022 on January 19. It comes at the end of Biden's first year in office. Biden's achievements include 200 million Americans vaccinated, and $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed with a direct impact on the nation's infrastructure gaps. A $2 trillion Build Back Better plan for building healthcare and education, and a climate change plan are next on the agenda requiring the president to increase support for national revival and addressing challenges of climate change.