Death and genitals are things that frighten people, and when people are frightened, they develop means of concealment and aggression. It is common sense.

While Trump keeps the spotlight on himself, the "respectable" Republican establishment chips away at government programs that benefit the general population.

There's an interesting book by the former Brazilian ambassador Celso Amorim. In 2010, he initiated an effort along with Turkey to settle the whole Iran issue. Nobody outside of the United States takes it to be much of an issue. They made a deal with Iran for Iran to essentially give away its low enriched uranium to Turkey for storage, and in return, the Western powers. It was immediately scratched by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And the main reason was they didn't want anybody else to be involved in it. We were supposed to run things, but we didn't say that.

Reagan was extreme. Beginning of his administration, one of the first things was to call in scabs - hadn't been done for a long time, and it's illegal in most countries - in the air controller strike.

Most of what is done I think is to kept secret so the public won't know. The same is true of what Wikileaks exposed.

It's a lesser-known story, but the Japanese government (after the Russian-Nazi pact, which split Poland) did allow Polish Jews to come to Japan, with the expectation that they would then be sent to the United States. But they weren't accepted, so they stayed in Japan.

Arab public opinion does not regard Iran as a hostile entity. In fact it's so supportive of Iran that a majority would think the place would be better off if Iran had nuclear weapons. The main enemies are the United States and Isreal, in the 80, 90 percent range.