Candidates mislead voters on trade

All three presidential candidates are pandering to voters on trade rather than educating them to the complexity of the issue. Demagoguing it, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders simplistically blame trade pacts for disappearing jobs and dimmed future prospects. Back in 2012,  Hillary Clinton, an early advocate of NAFTA.  said the Transpacific Partnership was "the gold standard of trade …

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Normalizing relations with Cuba: not so fast

Polls make it clear that the American public is way ahead of Congress in supporting normalization of relations and reopening trade with Cuba. But positive numbers from several polls  don't mean that the normalization process will be easy or fast. That was unequivocally confirmed by Gonzalo Gallegos, Deputy Assistant for Western Affairs, at a State Department briefing Monday for 30 members …

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Sanders risks undoing his contribution

Bernie Sanders deserves credit for putting issues of economic inequities, Wall Street greed, Citizens United distortions, and the self-serving Washington establishment on the front burner. His  cranky old man persona was even mildly endearing when he was railing against the rigged system, helping give voice to the unbridled aspirations of young people and the frustrations of the struggling middle …

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Anyone but Trump?

Donald Trump will be the Republican Presidential nominee unless the sun over Cleveland rises from the West on July 18th. So what's a newly defined "reasonable" Republican to do? People like the Bushes 41 and 43, Mitt Romney, Charlie Baker, former Mass. GOP Chair Jennifer Nassour, Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, and scores of other …

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Some advice for Clintonites: lay off Sanders

If I feel sick to my stomach at the thought that Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee of the Grand Old Party, I can't fathom how I will feel on the morning of November 9 if he is the President-elect of the United States. This just can't be. How can so many millions of people …

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