Matthew Hoh was a decorated Marine infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, turned civilian aid manager for the State Department in the latter war zone.  Now, he works full time for peace as a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington.  He’s spent a lot of time recently conversing on-line with students and analysts in Iran in the backwash of the US assassination of Gen. Qassem Suleimani.  He says a lot of young Iranians are not ready to write off future relations with the USA.  

From the brink of war with Iran to a simulation of a peace deal for the Palestinians and Israeli, the Trump Administration has certainly had an active 2020 in the Middle East.  Long-time CIA Mideast analyst Emile Nakhleh, now the Director of the Global and National Security Policy Institute at the University of New Mexico says the danger hasn’t ended with Iran and the peace process is unlikely to start quickly in Palestine.

So it’s come down to this, the Democratic Party’s nominee to run against President Donald Trump will either be Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, a man with one big, revolutionary idea – Medicare for All versus the man who believes in small steps along the conventional liberal path.  Conventional wisdom is the small idea guy the Big Idea of 2020 is beating President Donald Trump. John Nichols has been following the campaign for The Nation. 

If the American image of prosperity is “a chicken in every pot,” in China it’s pork on every plate and that spells trouble for the greenery of the Amazon Basin.  Melissa Chan went to Brazil for The Atlantic to report on the connection.  What is it?  Here’s a hint, what does every good pig want to feed on? Soybeans.  And guess where more and more soybeans are being grown, and changing everything from the local economy to the global environment.

R D Rosen has had a successful career as a mystery novelist.  His series – I’m a big fan – centers on a retired major league baseball player, Harvey Blissberg.  His new book, Tough Luck,  is non-fiction, the biography of NFL quarterback Sid Luckman centers on a solved, if under-reported murder, committed by the athlete’s father.  Part of Rosen’s research involved telling Sid’s son what his Grandfather had done and how his father – and collaborative sportswriters -- had kept it a secret.  

Today is Super Tuesday, the biggest single day on the Presidential Primary calendar.  The high stakes were apparent in the almost-hysterical intensity of last week”s Democratic debate, where all the other candidates said – what’s wrong with Bernie Sanders is, “he can’t beat Trump.”  Pollster and market strategist John Zogby has been analyzing the race.  He pre-called the results in Iowa by focusing on the Democratic Socialist’s appeal to young voters.  It’s a start, among an age group mostly un-attunded to Trump.  But is it a enough to win the White House? 

 For the first time, the world had a day with more new cases of Coronavirus COVID-19 outside China than in its country of origin.  While the World Health Organization ponders if this makes it a medical pandemic, Keith Johnson of Foreign Policy says, we are already dealing with an economic pandemic with global implications.  And he says, it is hitting many countries like Japan, Italy and Iran where the national economy was already in trouble.

The President Tweets and the Secretary of State holds news conferences.  This is what passes for American foreign policy these days.  But back when the State department did diplomacy, there were heroes on the front lines. The Ambassadors is the title and subject of Paul Richter’s new book. In case you hadn’t noticed, the work Richter describes is something the Trump Administration has chosen not to do.  As some of the Ambassadors quoted in the book can tell you, disinvesting in diplomacy has `a high cost. 

In every important way, US Immigration Courts are different from all other Courts under federal, state or local jurisdiction.  And in many important ways they are worse than any other American court.  Amy Taxin was part of an Associated Press team that spent two weeks at Immigration Courts in 11 cities and found a growing backlog already near one million cases.  Judges say they’re asked to do too much, too fast to do justice in too many cases.  And then there are the children, before the judge or just in the courtrooms, or in the hallways.  Too many children. The system is still unprepared for them.  

What we know depends on what we’re taught, and what you’re taught about America in our public schools varies from state to state.  Dana Goldstein led a New York Times team that examined social studies textbooks made for among other states, Texas and California.  History tailor-made for Mars and Venus.  The added information in California is less significant than what’s taken out for Texas, There, students my never know what they weren’t told about African-American achievements, for example.