USA: Democratic Primaries: ‘He’s the best we got’:- But Biden supporters admit his mental fitness has them on edge - by Samantha Chang

Many of Joe Biden’s own supporters admit that they’re worried about his deteriorating mental acuity and unending stream of gaffes but still support him because he’s the best choice among a motley crew of lackluster Democrat candidates.

Author Raymond Arroyo, a Fox News contributor, interviewed Biden supporters at a recent rally, where he asked: “There are a lot of stories emerging about the mental acuity of Joe Biden — people worried about his recall and slippage of facts. Does that concern you in a debate situation?”
Many voters said it did concern them. One man said: “I wish he was younger, but he’s the best we got.”

Read more at: ‘He’s the best we got’: Biden supporters admit his mental fitness has them on edge

US Economy: America′s massive debt load a no-show on the campaign trail

Public health care, education and gun laws are the hottest issues in the US election campaign. But neither Democratic nor Republican hopefuls are eager to discuss the burning question of the country's financial future.

US President Donald Trump is not exactly known for being humble when it comes to describing his leadership credentials. Already in the run-up to the 2016 elections that swept him to power, the then Republican candidate pledged to "eliminate" the $19 trillion (€17.4 trillion) of US debts within a period of eight years.

Now, almost four years later, a look at Trump's debt reduction record is sobering by all counts. Instead of lowering America's debt load, figures recently released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) show the upward trajectory of the country's financial problems.

Since assuming office, the Trump administration has added a net total of $2.5 trillion in fresh debt, with the US budget deficit in the first four months of 2020 alone rising by 25%. This means that Trump has already spent close to 40% of the entire deficit last year.

The primary reason for the budget gap is Trump's 2017 package of tax cuts, which he once described as a "great Christmas gift to the middle class."

With overall US debts spiraling to $22.5 trillion, the CBO now has warned that such a high and rising debt load could pose a severe financial risk to the United States. The nonpartisan agency has estimated that state spending could surpass revenue by $1 trillion in 2020.

Surprisingly though, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have made this an issue in their campaigns for the US presidency.

The US "Trump dollar" is totally overvalued

Trump also didn't waste a word on the debt problem in his latest State of the Union address and failed to chart out a clear reduction strategy. All he came up with was the lofty promise of trimming state expenditure by $4.4 trillion over the next decade. At the same time, however, Trump plans to increase spending for the military, the space industry and for the wall he wants to building along the border with Mexico.

Among the Democratic hopefuls, too, the US's dire financial straits seem to be on the backburner of their campaigns. In their first televised debate, all of the candidates conspicuously ignored the debt issue, with the ugly "deficit" word not being mentioned once in the 4-hour road show. Public debts were only once briefly touched upon.

Political observers believe the Democrats have many reasons to keep America's miserable finances flying under the radar during the presidential primaries.

"The average American has no interest in US debt at all," says G. William Hoagland, senior vice president at the Washington-based think tank Bipartisan Policy Center. He told DW that the booming US economy of the past years, including low interest rates and unemployment, had Americans feeling less worried about the mounting deficit.

"So why should Democrats address such a sensitive topic and stick their neck out for it," he says, and notes that most of the voters are satisfied overall with their current financial situation.

Read more: America′s massive debt load a no-show on the campaign trail | Business| Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW | 25.02.2020

USA presidential elections: Mike Bloomberg qualifies for next Democratic candidates debate Wednesday night

Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has qualified for this week's Democratic presidential debate in Nevada, putting him on the same stage as his rivals for the first time in the race for the party's nomination.

Read more at:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/bloomberg-nevada-debate-1.5466874

USA Presidential election: A Putrid Election: the Horserace as Farce - by Andrew Levine

Presidential elections are a spectator sport.   A well-known cliché likens them to horseraces.

Horseraces are more interesting, however.

This is why the people who pay the most attention are inveterate obsessives – “political junkies,” according to another cliché.

But in much the way that interest in horse racing picks up on Kentucky Derby Day, interest in presidential elections picks up when the candidates “debate.” The scare-quotes are appropriate because their debates aren’t much like the genuine article; they are more like joint campaign appearances.

There have been a lot of them this electoral season.

Republican aspirants for their party’s nomination debated over and over again.   Towards the beginning, more than a dozen or so of those dunces would be on display at the same time – with yet more of them, those who didn’t make the cut, waiting, as it were, in the wings.

Were the contenders not so well groomed, it would be apt to call the result a series of freak shows; or, were their debates better executed, to refer now to The Goon Show or the Three Stooges.   The sensibility was much the same.

Trump “won” the debates by stealing the show each time.   But his hectoring got old fast. Before long, all but diehard Trump diehards therefore lost interest. There wasn’t even a Sarah Palin around to lighten the mood; there was only Trump.

The Democrats’ debates were different because, on the Bernie Sanders side, there was some genuine political organizing and consciousness-raising going on; and the debates were part of the process. It would have been more satisfying had Sanders gone, Trump-style, for Hillary’s jugular, but at least he did oppose her for some of the right reasons.

For an audience accustomed to hearing only the hard right’s case against the Clintons, this was eye opening.

Read more: A Putrid Election: the Horserace as Farce

Race for the US Presidency - Reflexions on the "debates". - editorial

Republican Debaters minus three

Maybe I have lost touch with reality, but my perception on all the presidential candidates debates so far - Democratic and Republican alike - is not one of praise.

Instead, more of  a worry about the quality of today's US politicians to tackle the enormously difficult problems the country and the globe is facing.

What a charade last night! One one side of town a "showman clown" doing his "thing" and on the other side of town a bunch of frustrated politicians, arguing with each other about statements they made in the past.

Certainly not a positive debate with visionary discussions as to  the future of America.

I will miss, and hopefully many others along with me, Obama's intelligence,vision, oratory skills and successes after he rides away in the sunset.

EU-Digest

US presidential elections: A missing topic in the debates: Obama’s handling of the European crisis - by Neil Irwin

The debates are done: Three face-offs between Mitt Romney and President Obama, totaling 4¹ / ₂ hours and combined transcripts of more than 50,000 words, longer than “The Great Gatsby.” But this was a novel with some glaring plot holes.

There were a startling range of issues that were never broached, a list that includes climate change, housing policy and appointments to the Federal Reserve. But one topic stands out for the mismatch between how much it has affected the economy — and how much of Obama’s time and energy it has claimed — relative to its nonexistence in the debates.

Europe’s financial woes have weighed on U.S. economic growth — driving down earnings among American companies that do business there and walloping financial markets on both sides of the Atlantic — amid persistent worries that the euro currency could unravel. It is impossible to know what the U.S. economy would have done over the past three years absent a fiscal crisis in Greece and other European countries (or if Germany and other financially stronger nations on the continent had responded to that crisis crisply and decisively). But it is easy to imagine that this was the difference between steady emergence from the nation’s deep doldrums and the muddling along that has occurred.

Read more: A missing topic in the debates: Obama’s handling of the European crisis - The Washington Post