Took couple of weeks off and was surprised to see that there were 21 views yesterday.  I figure that it must be that the people are waiting for my predictions for 2018, so here it goes!

First there are people who are predicting that we will go to war with North Korea.  I don't think that will happen.  Trump and Kim will continue to exchange insults but there will not be war.   Kim won't start it since he knows that will be suicidal.  There are people who will hold Trump back so the U.S. won't attack first.  North Korea will continue to make progress on the nuclear front.

The Mueller investigation will conclude at the end of the year.  I don't think he will find collusion.  But he will find somethings that are embarrassing to Trump such as tax irregularities and Russians have "dirt" on him.  GOP won't call for impeachment so there won't be any as they still control Congress.

The Democrats, however, will win back the House.  So they may call for impeachment in 2019.  But given that the Democrats have to defend 26 out of 34 seats in the senate and then win 2 from the Republicans, I think the GOP will keep the senate.

China will become more important in the world stage.  It is not that they are doing great but it is the trouble of other nations that make China more important.  The U.S., under Trump, will pull back from world leadership.  We will also lose prestige as a result of this president.  Populism and conservatism will make leaders like Merkel less powerful in Europe.  Oil price drop will make Saudi Arabia less powerful in the Middle East.  It also will make life more difficult for Iran and Russia.  South America is a big mess.  So China will keep rising by default.

Here are some obvious predictions:  The Wall will not be built with one peso from Mexico.  There will be fire and drought in the west, hurricanes and flood in the southeast, tornadoes in the Midwest.  Trump will continue to tweet from his bathroom at 3 am.  More sexual harassment by powerful men will come to light.  More mass shootings will occur.

With the tax cut, Wall Street is happy and so the market will continue to go up for at least first half of the year.  Then reality hits and there will be some pull back.  Will it end slightly positive for the year or a significant decline will depend on the result of the Mueller investigation.  Is it just personal dirt or financial improprieties that shake the confidence of regular people?  My guess that the market will be in the red at the end of the year.

Finally, sports predictions.  New England to win the Super Bowl.  The Warriors repeat in NBA.   Dodgers to win World Series.  Ohtani will hit about .260 with 20 home runs while DH about 85 games and pitch in 25 games with a 10-5 record and era of 3.20.  I give up on predicting the NHL since I think it is like throwing a dart blindly.  The U.S. will get the most medals in the Winter Olympic games.  I am 100% sure they will out medal Russia!  An athlete will win one of the two seasons of DWTS.

Happy new year, everybody!

It is time for my Annual Angry Asian Absolutely Accurate Assessment (AAAAAA) of Big Ten football bowl games: 

USC over Ohio State,
Penn State over Washington
Wisconsin over Miami
Michigan over South Carolina
Michigan State over Washington State
Northwestern over Kentucky
Iowa over Boston College
Arizona over Purdue

That makes a 6-2 prediction.  But I admit the only one that I am very confident about is Northwestern over Kentucky, assuming they are not playing basketball instead.  I think that both USC and Ohio State feel they were robbed of not getting into the playoffs.  But as much as I hate Alabama, I think neither team have a gripe.  Getting clobbered by Notre Dame and Iowa should mean elimination.  I think MSU have a gripe that Michigan getting a new year bowl instead of them  even though the Holiday bowl is a decent one.

Looks like Trump and the GOP finally won a legislative victory by passing the tax bill in both the Senate and the House.  So it looks like we will have a big tax cut for the rich and the corporations and a temporary small cut for all others.  The argument that Trump and the GOP put forth for these cuts are that it will spur economic growth and thus will not cause a deficit.  Most of the economists and the CBO disagree with this.   I am no economist but I am thinking when Bush did his tax cut, it didn't turn out so well, did it?  The idea that corporations will take the extra money they saved from taxes and hire more people is wishful thinking.  A survey of CEOs recently asked that question and an overwhelming majority of them did not say they will use the money to hire more workers.  I think one of the things they would use the money would be to research into more automation and eventually decrease the number of employees.  All the talk about outsourcing, I think automation will cause more people to lose jobs in the future.  For example, if all the trucks and tractors can be driven without drivers, how many jobs will be lost?

So why is Wall Street so happy with the tax cuts.  Well, most of the companies will use the money to buy back stocks.   In fact that has been going on already.  This has the effect of increasing the price of the stocks and line the pockets of the big investors and the executives who have stock options.  It also makes the company look good.  For example, if there are 1 million shares of the company on the market and the company earns 1 million dollars, the earning per share is 1 dollar.  But if 100,000 share are bought back, all of a sudden the earnings per share is now 10% higher!  Investors who research the company find that the earnings per share has improved, may then buy more shares and thus raise the price further.  So that is why Wall Streets like this tax cut.  This euphoria may go on for a year or a few years.  By then Trump maybe out of office for other reasons, and he can brag that while in office, the Dow was way up and then when he is out, it crashes!

Two of the most narcissistic people I have ever seen are Donald Trump and LaVar Ball.   So it is funny to see these two going at it.  Ball refused to give credit to Trump for getting his son out of China and Trump then said he should have left them in jail.  Neither is on the right side.  The truth is that the three UCLA players got off easy not because of Trump but because Xi wants to play Trump.  Throughout his visit to China, Trump was treated like royalty.  There were deals sign so that Trump can claim credit for getting concessions from China.  In reality, those deals are either not binding or were already agreed to before Trump showed up.  Add those to releasing the players and let Trump take credit for it, Xi will be looking for something in return later.  Don't expect any Trump announcement of China being a currency manipulator or something similar to that in the future.

While the players apologized, LaVar doesn't seem to think the whole thing is a big deal.  Stealing, in a foreign country at that, is not a big deal?  There were supposedly recordings of the incidents.  Even if there were not, in Chinese courts they were certainly were going to be convicted.  Jail sentences would have been years.  So it is a big deal.  I think UCLA should suspended them for the whole season.  They got off easy already by not spending a year or more in a Chinese prison.  I am sure there are Americans in Chinese jail right now who do not get to come home because they were not playing for UCLA.  I believe anything less than a whole season suspension would be wrong.

Thanksgiving is coming up, so I think there should be a chain of giving thanks.  Harvey Weinstein should than Kevin Spacey who in turn should thank Louis C.K. who in turn should than Roy Moore who in turn should thank Al Franken.  Al Franken should thank Trump for attacking him.  After all, people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.  So Trump is actually take some heat off Franken.  On that note, happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

I want to ask is there any American who thinks that Putin is more truthful than James Clapper, the former head of the CIA?  Yet our president believes Putin is genuine when he denies any involvement in the U.S. election.  Clapper believe that Trump is being played by Putin and I think he is right.  Trump has more problems with people like John McCain, Jeff Flake, Mitt Romney, all Republicans, than with Putin.  He thinks CNN is fake news and yet let Russian journalists tour the West Wing while denying American journalists.  He accused China of raping our economy and said that he was going to call China a currency manipulator.  Yet in China last week, he call Xi a special leader and that he doesn't blame China for the trade imbalance.  Looks like he is being played by Putin AND Xi!

Lets say that Trump did not collude with Putin.  Why does he like Putin so much.  Well, I think he owes parts of his play book from Putin and Xi.  Dictators have two big tools.  Blame foreign powers or people and bring on nationalism is one.  The other is try to get rid of opposition by charges like corruption or fraud.  Nationalism is easy, thus Ukraine for Russia and South China Sea for China, for example.  On the domestic front it is easier to get rivals for fraud and corruption than to accuse them of being against the government.  Saudi Arabia just did that last week.  Xi has been trumping (no pun intended) up charges for corruption in the past year.  Putin is the master of this.  So Trump is trying to do this by calling for America first thus spurring nationalism.  It is much harder to trump up false charges and make it stick in the U.S.  But the firing of Comey shows that he is not beyond what dictators might do.

So either Trump has a lot to hide or he is just wishing he can have powers like Xi and Putin.  That is why he praises the Saudi government over the latest "corruption charges" against the rivals of the crown prince.  I am sure that he is rooting for right wings to win in Europe as well.  As of now, I have not heard what he is going to say in Manila.  But I am quite sure he is not going to call out Duterte over human rights abuse under him.  I don't think the term "leader of the free world" applies to the American president anymore.

So the Dodgers lost and Yu Darvish is taking the brunt of the criticism.   It is justified in the sense that he did pitched poorly in his two starts.  But it is a team game.  Given that the Astros starter hit four batters it was obvious that he was not on his game either.  But the Astros hitters took advantage of Darvish while the Dodgers hitters did not take advantage of the Astros starter.  So one person did not lose this game.  The front office also took a hit since they acquired Darvish instead of Verlander.  But overall the team of Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi did a good job of putting together this team.  It is interesting that a Jew and a Muslim work together to form this most diverse team.  There are three Asians on the team and also players from Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Dominican Republic and Netherlands Antilles.  While they came one game short this season, I think they will be in contention for next few years.

Chief of Staff Kelly says that the Civil War was the result of not able to compromise on both sides.  Well, there is no compromise for ending slavery.  He says that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man who chose state over country.  I say he was a traitor.  If a Korean American general helped the U.S. defeat the Germans and then helped North Korea in the war against the U.S., would this man be a hero and have monuments put anywhere in the country?  Sorry, General Kelly, I would not compromise with you on this.

Houston owner McNair said that we can't let prisoners run the asylum.  So the true color of rich white owners are shown with those remarks and those of Cowboys owner Jones couple of weeks ago.  Forget about holding hands with the players in the beginning of the season.  It was all fake.

The World Series has been riveting.  Hopefully there are two more games to be played.  But the stupid gesture by Yuli Gurriel has marred the games.  Yu Darvish, on the other hand, has been magnificent in his response.  I don't have problem with forgiving Gurriel as Darvish did.  But I have trouble with some people who defended him.  There were people giving a standing ovation yesterday when he came up to bat the first time!  I understand Houston fans cheering him after his home run.  But standing ovation before he bats means they were cheering his disgusting gesture.

A LA Times sport writer who is half Hispanic and half Japanese defended Gurriel slightly by asking people to take things into context.  He said that the word Chinito was used by his soccer friends and family members  on him and he was never bothered by it.  Well, I agree the context is important here.  I am sure his soccer friends and family members like him and the word Chinito is a term of endearment in this situation.  But this was not a term of endearment from Gurriel to Darvish.  He had just hit a home run off Darvish and he made the gesture and mouthed the word in the dugout.  The intention, obviously, was to mock Darvish even if it was not intended to be racist.  If he had done the gesture and mouthed the word while running the bases, there would a brawl.   Even a flip of the bat and staring at the flight of the ball before running the bases would have been unacceptable in baseball culture.  So no, under any context this was ugly.

I am not worried about Darvish being hurt by this.  Just like when a player recently was called the N word at Fenway Park, the big time athletes maybe annoyed but they are not intimated.  They know their team, their league and the media have their backs.  I am worried about the youth league or high school players who are attacked as such and feel intimated.  They may be suffering in silence.  That is why as Darvish said, this has to be an education moment.  Kids look up to professional athletes.  So when athletes do something wrong, they must be punished and made clear that this type of action is unacceptable at any level.

Now that we see General Kelley is learning from his boss, I think rather than control Trump's out bursts Kelly is going to have outbursts of his own.  The situation of four soldiers killed in Niger is an embarrassment to the country.  There is some fault that lies with the Congresswoman involved but Trump is, as usual, acting like a child.  Now his chief of staff is making things up like his boss. 

But what I am wondering is:  why are we in Niger in the first place.  Trump had nothing to say when the killing happened probably because he didn't know where Niger is and certainly didn't know why we are there.  Some pundits say that we are there to advice the government to prevent terrorists groups from gaining a spot from which to flourish.  I don't buy that.  Having watched the Vietnam war documentary last month, I am more convinced than ever that we should only send troops for good reason.  There must be a define goal and end point and there must be an ally on the ground that is reliable.  Neither of these things are in place in Niger and other places in Africa where we have "advisors".  By having our soldiers there it just helps terrorists recruit people.  This is particularly true since we use drone strikes where we often accidentally kill civilians.  So we should learn our lessons and be way more careful about getting involved in places where we have no good allies and no obvious end points.

In lieu of accomplishing anything legislatively, Trump is trying to destroy accomplishments of past presidents, most notably those of Obama.  From DACA to NAFTA to the Paris accord, Trump is destroying and not offering any better alternatives.  This week he signed executive order that would sabotage  Obamacare but not offering any alternative that economists and health care providers deem workable.  He is also trying to decertify the Iran nuclear deal.  I don't think any of the other countries involved will go along and so we would be the only one putting out sanctions.  Now if you are North Korea, you see that the U.S. would go back on its words, would you negotiate or double your effort to build your nuclear weapons and missiles?

Maybe some people would agree with Trump on all those things I mentioned above.  But unless you live and work in coal country, I don't think you would agree with Trump's elimination of the Clean Power Plan.  He claims that with the elimination of the CPP, coal will make a come back and coal miners will go back to work.  That is absurdly false.  The coal industry is dying not just from the CPP but also because natural gas is cheaper and cleaner.  Trump also wants to provide subsidies for coal.  This is patently stupid.  China has woke up to the fact that pollution from coal is killing its people.  Its solar energy and electrical cars industries are growing faster than any other country and is way ahead of us.  While we are trying to prop up an industry of the 19th century, China is looking ahead to the industries of the 21st century.  This is a mistake by Trump that cannot be refuted.

Jeremy Lin has his hair in dreadlocks!  Lin has been playing around with his hair in the past couple of seasons.  He usually enlists a teammate or two in setting his hair style.  In particularly he made sure he consulted his teammate Rondie Hollis Jefferson before getting his hair done.  He did not want in anyway offend African Americans with his new hair style.  Of course an ex NBA player Kenyon Martin tweeted against Lin suggesting that he tries to be black when he is not.  Lin responded with a diplomatic tweet thanking Martin for his opinion.  He subtly noted that Martin had tattoos of Chinese characters on his body.  Public opinion came out for Lin.  But Martin got some racist remark directed at him.  Lin then tried to tell his supporters that they should not do that and that everyone is titled to his opinion.  

Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  So I don't see any problem with Lin in dreadlocks anymore than Halle Berry in straight hair.  It is quite different than the Cleveland Indians logo which looks silly to me.  Personally, I don't see why athletes want to have dreadlocks.  It must be more sweaty than short or no hair.  And if you play in the NFL, it is a disadvantage because tackling by pull on the hair is NOT a penalty!  But as long as the coach allows it, a player can wear his hair any way he wants.  But like Lin said, Martin is entitled to his opinion and I hope Lin fans do not keep attacking Martin.

So VP Pence shows up at a Colts game and leaves after the national anthem because some players from SF kneeled.  I think this was all planned by Pence to rally his and Trump's base.  He knew all along the SF players were going to kneeled at the anthem and by leaving right after, he draws more attention to the controversy.  In fact, it was reported that he told his security detail to be prepared to leave real early.  I think maybe at this time, both sides are preaching to the choir!

Well, this is going to be awkward!   Trump is going to Puerto Rico on Tuesday.  This after the mayor of San Juan and others complained about the slow federal response to the storm destruction and Trump basically saying the Puerto Ricans are too lazy to fix their own problems.  When Trump fought with the NBA players, he just uninvited the Warriors so he doesn't have to face them.  He is not going to show up at an NFL game soon and the Super Bowl champs next year can forget about an invitation to the White House.  But Trump needs the photo op and at least pretends he cares, so he is going to show up in Puerto Rico.  Everybody will probably be polite but it would not be Obama meeting Chris Christie in New Jersey for sure.

I watched most of the PBS show by Ken Burns on the Vietnam war.  I thought it was very good and a very balance look at the history of this tragic war and the impact on all sides.  I hear some South Vietnamese and American veterans say that the documentary is biased and is a propaganda for the communists.  I don't agree with this.  I think there is criticism of leaders of all sides who could have prevented this tragedy.  There is  sympathy for the soldiers of all sides who had no choice or just believe that they were doing the right things.  There is also sympathy for the civilians on both sides of Vietnam and the families of American soldiers back home.  So I thought it was well made and balanced.  If anyone had seen it, I would like to hear what he or she thinks.

I read recently that after 9/11 there was a call for workers to clean up the World Trade Center site. Not much money, about $10 per hour for very hard work.  But immigration status was not asked.  So most of the clean up work was done by undocumented immigrants.  They had little protection other than cheap masks.  Of course many of them ended up sick.  There are health programs for  people affected by 9/11.  But for undocumented workers it maybe difficult to to prove they were even in the country.  Some were paid off the book as the city tried to get things clean up as fast as possible.  Some of these workers are even afraid of deportation if  they come forward.

Now that Texas and Florida face clean up and rebuilding after the hurricanes, I wonder how much they are going to rely on undocumented immigrants?  When New Orleans had to be rebuilt, guess who came forward and did most of the work?  Now with the threat of deportation, will enough come forward this time?

LBOAYM pointed out an article on the China-India conflict recently.  I had mentioned a little about that on the last blog, pointing out that Modi had gone to China for the BRICS meeting days after India and China had resolved their dispute in Bhutan.  The relation of these two giants will probably be subject of a large blog in the future.  Today, I will just make some comments on this relationship.

The article that LBOAYM mentioned was in The Diplomat, which was founded in Australia and HQ in Japan now.  I think there is a bias against China in this article.  It is as if China is trying to take over all of Asia and India is the only country willing to stand up against it.  It talks of border conflicts frequently between the two countries.  I am no historian or politician and since I am Chinese American, perhaps I have my own bias.  But I see things differently than this article.

For one thing, compare to European countries who share borders, India and China have been relatively conflict free through history.  One reason is that their border is mostly the Himalayas.  Who wants to go over the highest mountain ranges in the world to attack the other side?  So the only "war" that the two side really fought was in 1962.  I think if you were to read about the history of that short war from a western perspective, you would believe that China was the lone aggressor.  From a Chinese point of view, and I am not supporting all of its version of events, that is far from the truth.  China was unhappy with India for helping the Dali Lama and the Tibetans.  At the same time, Mao and Khruschev were not getting along.  So the USSR was aligning itself with India.  So Mao was fearful that there is an U.S., USSR, India alliance at his border.  India, felt that it was being backed by super powers, put up outposts north of the McMahon Line which the the British had drawn up as the border between China and India.  Given this circumstance, Mao felt that he had to teach India a lesson.

China was able to do this because the U.S. and the Soviets were involved in the Cuban missile crisis.  So neither could pay attention to India.  Truth of the matter China knew it can't have a lasting victory in India.  Fighting a war in mountain conditions take a terrible toll.  There was no point in holding land that was really no use because nobody wants to live there.  So China offered peace to Nehru after a few round of victories.  But Nehru, under pressure at home, refused.  So China pushed further than it wanted to and then unilaterally declared cease fire and then withdrew.  So that was hardly China aggression to try to take over India. In fact, I think China did India a favor by exposing its weakness and dependency on foreign powers.  It prepared India for conflicts with Pakistan later.

As a communist country trying to assure itself as a super power, China is going to rub people the wrong way.  I don't think it is China's intention to conquer other countries.  It does want to be the super power of Asia, if not the world.  So it views everybody in the neighborhood as its little brother.  For a country like India, with a long proud civilization, that is hard to take.  It does not want to be anyone's little brother.  So there will be dispute between the two.  But I don't see war as that is something that will disastrous for both sides and the world.  I think there are only two international relationships that is more important in the world in the near future.  Those between the U.S. and China and between U.S. and Russia.  If China and India can cooperate with each other, it will bring prosperity to the whole world.

When Trump was complaining about North Korea, South Korea and China last week, I was at my in-laws house.  They were watching a soap opera on a Chinese station when it was interrupted by special reporting from Xiamen.  This was the location of the BRICS summit.  Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are the nations of BRICS.  This year, China invited five other countries to attend, among them were Mexico and Egypt.  The Chinese station showed the leaders of these countries, including Putin, arriving at the convention center.  When each got out of his car, he would walk a long red carpet, perhaps 50 yards or so by himself, to the door.  There were no high up officials to greet anyone of them.  They were greeted, finally, at the meeting room by Xi Jin Ping.  It reminds me of the ancient history where foreigners would come to the Middle Kingdom and walk quietly to kowtow to the Emperor.  This seems to me what Xi had in mind when he greeted the leaders this way.  And they all went along with it, including Putin.  Can you imagine Trump tell Putin to walk from the gate of the White House to the inside before greeting him?

There was no response to Trump's rants from any of the leaders there.  It is as if they don't care what he says anymore.  It is all about economic cooperation.  I don't think they are going to follow China in the future all the time.  But consider India was just in a border dispute with China the week before and Modi showed up to take the long walk, you get the idea that they all feel the need to deal with China.  Mexico is significant due to the border wall dispute with Trump.  Egypt gets lots of aid from the U.S. because it had made a peace deal with Israel.  So there is some strategy on Xi's part with those invites.  Along with the Belt and Road Initiative and heavy investment in Africa, China is increasing its soft power in the world.

So while all this is going on Trump is ranting not about our enemies but our allies such as South Korea and NATO.  While China is working on BARI and BRICS, Trumps is trying to get rid of NAFTA.  He is being outplayed in world politics by a dictator.

North Korea has tested a H bomb.  This is supposedly more powerful than before and can be carried on missiles.  So all the fire and fury talk did not work.  Trump is used to bully people with hyperbole.  But in Kim he has found a person who uses hyperbole greater than him.  Of course, Trump has more powerful weapons but no expert think that there is any good military options.

A lot of people think Kim is irrational.  But I think in this case, Kim is more rational than Trump.  If you believe that your enemy can destroy you in any war, then your only rational option is build up nuclear weapons as a deterrent.  Trump, on the other hand, is tweeting about South Korea appeasing the North and is unfair in trade with the U.S.  So his recent words are just making Kim want to move faster in nuclear weapons and making our allies worry that the U.S. is not reliable.

The truth is that nuclear weapons are not that difficult to achieve any more.  So countries like North Korea and Iran were going to get them no matter how we threaten them.  The Pandora's box had been opened.  So while the GOP were angry at Obama for making the deal with Iran, would they not want the same deal with North Korea right now?

Couple more observations about racism.  I am wondering if Asians with torches are walking around saying black and white people are inferior and there are counter protesters, will Trump say both sides were at fault?

ESPN changed announcer Robert Lee's assignment from the Virginia football game to another game because they worried that the name would cause trouble in Virginia.  This is as dumb as complaining about the USC horse mascot named Traveler mentioned in the last blog. 

Racism is not limited to any race.  Chinese rapper Fat Shady raps about f--king stupid foreigners.  Why do rappers everywhere use obnoxious lyrics like this?  Can you imagine a foreigner walking down the street in China and hear this from bunch of young punks?  It shows racism is everywhere.  Ironically, China has not censor this!

Trump is not the first person who says that getting rid of confederate monuments is changing history.  That is a frequent argument used by those who defend the monuments.  It is a nonsensical argument.  History is written in books and stored in the minds of people. Those monuments, by honoring confederate leaders, is in fact giving a false narrative of history.  These are not American heroes but are traitors of America.  Besides, a lot of these monuments were put up in the 20th century to intimidate those who want civil rights in the south.  So do not say they have any historical value unless you put up plaques on them that say they are traitors.

I do not , however, condone those who vandalize or destroy monuments on their own.  Public monuments should be taken down after a government entity have decided that they should come down or transfer to museums or private areas.  We are a nation of laws, not a nation of mob rules.

Another absurdity I read about is that some people are calling for the removal of University of Southern California horse mascot name Traveler because Robert E. Lee's horse was named Traveller.  The two names are not even spelled the same.  There is no solid evidence that the first Traveler was named after Lee's horse.  I am sure USC had no intention of honoring Lee's horse.  Besides,  I am quite sure that no horse has ever supported slavery nor fought against America on its own!

Been away for awhile and just returned.  Frankly I had to take a break from all the mess that is Trump.  But with what happened yesterday in Virginia and Trump's response to it, I have to comment.  Even Republicans are complaining that Trump's speech on the violence was poor.  Here is a guy who screams about everything but has very little to say about this racist and violent event.  While his staff and daughter are condemning neonazis KKK etc. today, Trump is absolutely quiet.  Frankly I am not surprised.

Trump complains about everybody who is not helpful to him.  So people who are his allies but has not helped him much are blasted.  McConnell and Sessions are just the most recent.  But he has nothing but good things to say about Putin.  Even when Putin ejected American embassy staffs from Russia, Trump thanked him!  He let Russian press into the WH while barring American press.  Why?  The same now with the white racists groups.   He even put an alt-right leader, Bannon, in the WH.  So why would I be surprised that he doesn't want to name these groups as responsible for violence and bigotry?  It is obvious to me that Trump owes the Russians and the white racists groups.  That is why he is bombastic against everyone else but is scared of Putin and white racists groups.  I hope Mueller gets to the bottom of this before the next election!

 Been away this week and so have not been keeping up with the news.  So I have not read carefully about Trump Jr. and his meeting with the Russians.  But my initial reaction is that with so much happened already and the Trump core supporters are still supporting him, this will not affect anything.  We are just going to have to wait for Robert Mueller's investigation to be completed and see where this goes.

But I am struck that Trump Jr. was so willingly to meet with the Russians to gain an advantage over Clinton.  As a business man doesn't he know that if someone gives you something, he expects something in return now or in the future.  Russia is an arch enemy of the U.S. so even to listen to a deal from Russia strikes me as naive at least.  But I would say that he is taking his father's interest over that of the country.  If someone disagree with this, consider what would happen if a Chinese American was running for political office and he accepts invitation from China to discuss aid from that country.  I am sure there will be people calling him a traitor.  And I don't buy that Trump Sr. did not know this meeting took place.  As I said before, if this whole thing with the Russians is nothing, why would he fire Comey?

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong going back to China.  The last time I went back to Hk, 10 years ago, things were stable.  The territory continued to grow.   The infrastructure and business climate were amazing.  While the government answered to China, the press was free and people went about their lives as if nothing much had changed in 10 years.

I do not have time to go back this year but I understand there has been lot of changes.  Obviously there has been protests about losing freedom in HK.  They were mostly political protests.  But there are also anxiety in HK about the economy.  On the surface, HK is still growing.  Its vibrant climate is still the envy of most of the world.  But there are signs of problems.  Shanghai's port is way bigger than that of HK now.  More of world finances are going to Shanghai, Beijing and other cities in China.  In 1997, China, with a much bigger population, had a GDP that was only 7 times that of HK.  Today it is 35 times larger.  Whereas most developed countries invested in China through HK 20 and even 10 years ago, most of them have direct lines into China now.  China used to depend on HK investment, now mainland Chinese are buying up properties and companies on HK. 

China's investment in Hk is a double edged sword.  It keeps the economy humming but the prices of properties in HK is so high from China's money that ordinary HK people can't afford decent housing anymore.  All these have led to anger over China.  But unlike Taiwan, which has its own military force, HK is at the mercy of the big bear from the north.  Hong Kong people are resilient.   In the past, despite brain drain to U.S. and Canada while under British rule, the colony prospered to where its per capita income exceeded those of its British master.  But it is hard to imagine HK can shake the grasp of China unless China itself becomes democratic.  So I have a feeling if China tighten its grip on freedom of HK, there will be more brain drain out of the territory.

I was stunned by the decision of the Pacquiao fight last night.  I had not watched the Pacman's fights in the past because I was too cheap to buy pay for view.  So I was happy that ESPN was televising the fight.  It is a good move for boxing to get some future stars on free tv.  Otherwise it is losing the next generation to MMA.  By getting Pacman on, it should have helped promote future fights on the network.   But boxing shot itself in the foot last night.  The Pacman won by 4 rounds on my card and that of the ESPN analyst.  But the judges all voted for Horn.  One guy had Horn winning by 6 rounds!  Horn fought a good fight and the two fighters made an enjoyable fight.  But ridiculous decisions like this will further hurt boxing.

The loss of the Democratic candidate in the special Georgia election last week is important not only in that the Democrats failed to pick up any of the four seats vacated by Republicans who went to work for Trump.  It seems now that just tying GOP candidates to the unpopular Trump is not enough to win in 2018.  Beyond that there are couple more things that are related to this loss.

If the Democrats had prevailed last week, it is likely that the GOP health bill in the senate will fail.  Centrist Republicans will be afraid to vote for it.  There would also be Republicans in the House who might think of retiring rather than to fight a difficult fight.  Now I think the Republicans are more emboldened.  I think there is greater than 50% chance that the health bill will pass.

I think it is time for Nancy Pelosi to step down as minority leader.  Democrats use Trump against the GOP but the Republicans use Pelosi against the Democrats.  Her name is just as toxic as that of Trump.  Whereas the GOP cannot get rid of Trump, the Democrats should get rid of Pelosi as leader.  It is time for fresh leadership anyway. 

The health bill, if passed and reconciled with the House bill, will help the Democrats greatly in future elections.  Instead of the GOP complaining about Obamacare, which is gaining popularity, the Democrats can complain about Trumpcare, which Trump himself has declared "mean".  By decreasing Medicaid funding and insurance subsidies, the eventual GOP plan will hurt the poor white people who voted for Trump more than other groups.   Right now no matter what Trump does, there are 36% of people who would support him.  I think when some of them lose their Medicaid or insurance subsidy, then we will see his core support erode significantly.

Lastly, no tape?   What a shock!  Given his claim of Obama's birth, should anyone believe Trump when he hinted there were tapes?  As is many cases with him, the emperor has no clothes.

Today is the 35th anniversary of the beating death of Vincent Chin.  Chin got into a fight in a bar in Detroit after two layoff auto workers called him a racial slur.  The fight was broken up and things should have ended right there.   But the two men waited outside for Chin with baseball bats, chased him down the street and beat him to death.  For this they  made a deal for manslaughter and got probation.  Not a single day of jail for murder.  That is right, murder.  To me the death did not occurred in the heat of battle in the bar but after they had a chance to cool off.  It was a short premeditation, but it was premeditation.  The justice system had failed Vincent Chin.

The death of Vincent Chin did serve to galvanized Asian Americans.  While we are still under represented in government and politics, we are making progress.  We certainly are less afraid to speak out.  I read an article recently about Bill Maher using the word chink on his show.  He never apologized for that even though he apologized for using the N word recently.  I guess there are not enough Asian views for his show.  I would boycott his show except that I don't get premium channels and thus never watched his show anyway.

I think some people think that using derogatory words can't be that bad given that people in certain  ethnic groups would use the words among themselves.  I think the context is important.  For example, when someone at a NY baseball game shout Yankees, nobody is bothered by it.  But if you are an American in some foreign country and someone yells: "Yankees go home", I think  the American may get upset.  A white guy may call himself white trash to make a joke.  But if he is in the inner city and black guys call him white trash, I am sure he will feel uncomfortable at the very least.  So supposedly liberals like Maher should understand this.

I don't think the Comey hearing changed many minds.  If you believed Trump obstructed justice, the hearing reinforced it.  If you don't then Comey didn't persuade you. There has been a parade of experts who went on CNN and argued about whether Trump obstructed.  Some were quoting sections of the law and I find the language confusing.  One reason people don't like lawyers, I supposed!  But to me, whether he obstructed in terms of the law is not the important thing.  I think he acted like a third world dictator by firing Comey because he was investigating Russia.  He even said it himself.  Despite what his supporters said, Trump did not fire Comey for his performance before that because in that case he could have fired him long before he had private meetings with Comey.  If you are going to fire the guy, why would you have private meetings with him?  So you can argue that Trump has the right to fire Comey.  But it still makes him look like a dictator.

Couple of weeks ago, Trump came back from his trip declaring great things done abroad.  Well, he was seen kissing up to the Saudis and he thinks that is going to help the situation in the Middle East.  Well, this week, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE got together and isolated Qatar.  They kicked out Qatari diplomats and not allowed transportation by air or sea into Qatar.  This is supposedly because of Qatar's support of terrorism.  Talking about the kettle calling the pot black!  Saudi Arabia and Egypt have done way more support of terrorism than Qatar.  The reason for this is because al -Jazeera which is based in Qatar has been an advocate of the Arab Spring which these countries' governments hate.  Qatar also has close ties to Iran which these countries hate.  So they are trying to give Qatar a big lesson.

Trump supports Saudi Arabia and tweeted his approval of this.  I am not sure he realizes that Qatar is home of the largest U.S. base in the area.  If Qatar is driven more toward Iran it can mean danger to our troops stationed there.  At the very least, we may lose the base.  This does not help fight terrorism but will make the area even more unstable.  Instead of trying to get the two sides to reconcile, Trump is flaming the issues with his statements.  Another example of lack of knowledge of the world that is making things more dangerous for us.

It is always about Trump even when it isn't.  Kathy Griffin gets into trouble by holding a fake severed head of Trump.  This is indefensible.  Even Al Franken and Anderson Cooper refuse to have anything to do with her after this.  She gave an apology and then made that hollow with her news conference.  She complained about getting death threats and that Trump is trying to destroy her life.  While nobody should be getting death threats, I don't know what she expected. And Trump did not cause her to lose all of her gigs.  Nobody wants to associate with her after this.  She is apparently doubling down and is saying she will continue to attack Trump.  So is this a case where I have nothing else to lose so just keeping digging?

Of course there are those on the right who say that Griffin should be investigated for threatening the life of Trump.  Come on, if the Secret Service cannot protect Trump from Griffin, we have a big problem in this country.  I would think that Ted Nugent is a more legitimate threat to Obama than Griffin to Trump.  Griffin is just being more grotesque. 

Back to Trump directly.  He is saying that to fight terrorism we have to get rid of political correctness.  So I guess that he is going against political correctness when he banned people from certain Muslim countries even though none of those on the list have killed Americans here.  Is it political incorrectness that he kiss the butt of Saudi Arabia, the country that actually produce terrorists against us and have supply much of the money for terrorists?   Is it because of fighting political correctness that he admires the likes of Putin and Xi while have not so nice things to say about our European allies?  Is it political incorrectness to scrape the Paris Accord to cede the leadership role in fighting climate change to China?  I guess there is a lot stupidity to go around this week.

In the 1970s I read an article about dominance of drivers with blue eyes in auto racing.  It asked:  Is blue eyes an advantage in auto racing?  It was not a subtle way of saying whites are better drivers.  In the years since, Italian, Brazilian, Argentine race champions make this blue eye argument absurd.  But it was not until Lewis Hamilton won the F1 championship that one can definitely say that no one race has a monopoly on driving skills.  That point was driven home again yesterday when Takuma Sato won the Indy 500.

I think most reasonable people would agree that chances of participation rather than genetic makeup is the prime reason some groups are more dominant than other groups in certain fields.  That is why I find it interesting John Hawkins wrote "We live in the strongest, most powerful, most prosperous nation in human history and if we are being honest, white men probably deserves 95% of the credit for that."  He did also say: "That may be unfair because women and black Americans weren't given the opportunity to significantly contribute for most of our nation's history, but it is true."

I think there is truth in the first statement by itself.  But the second statement makes the first statement absurd.  It would be like saying in 1960 that the NBA is by far the best basketball league in the world and white American players are responsible for that.  That statement would be true in itself  but it would be nonsense looking at it now.  So Hawkins' statement will be nonsense 50 years from now.  The rest of the world was way behind us in basketball in 1960 so that we did not need black players to win easily.  But can we say the same today?  We need the best players to beat the likes of Spain, Serbia, Croatia etc.  The same with our nation in general.  China was a sleeping giant in 1960.  Even Japan and Germany had not fully recovered from WWII.  But we need everybody in the country, regardless of race or gender if we are going to stay on top. 





So the race of the winner of Indy 500 is not important but the racial makeup of our politicians, scientists, generals etc are important.  So it is imperative that we let everybody have the opportunity to contribute or we are not going to stay top. 

By the way, VP Pence was at the race yesterday.  I wonder what his thoughts are as a Japanese driver win in his home state.  I wonder if he is worried that an openly gay driver will win in the near future?

While the Trump administration is embroiled with Russiagate last week, China quietly took over the international stage.  China hosted a summit on its $900 billion Belt and Road Initiative.   This creates a trade and infrastructure network that pass through south and central Asia to Africa and Europe.  Part of it traces through the old Silk Road trade route.  Third world countries such as from Pakistan to Kenya may benefit from this.  Of course, China is not doing this for pure benevolent reasons.  This will help China become the top trade partner with a number of countries.  It is also a way of building soft power that will make it eventually a super power opposing the U.S.

Of course, this may not work the way China wants it to.  Already there are grumbling about Chinese workers getting the jobs the locals need and want.  It is not clear that the railroads and ports that China is building will be profitable.  And when one ethnic or national group become a dominant force in a county, there is bound to be resentment toward the group.  So instead of the term ugly Americans, there will be a term of ugly Chinese soon enough.  But as a Trump administration looks inward, a Chinese push outward is going to help China in this attempt to catch up to the U.S. in the world stage.

Just finished reading a book called "No Wall Too High".  It is the story of Xu Hongci translated into English by Erling Hoh.  Xu was a young man who joined the communist party of China and was moving up the ranks and was sent to study medicine by the party.  He had thought that Mao Zedong and the communist party had fought well against Japan and will lead the country to prosperity.  But he became disenchanted by Mao's policies and spoke out.   Of course he found out Mao and others in the party do not want to hear this.  He was sentenced to hard labor.  He was accused of spreading false rumors regarding the regime.  After many years and several escape attempts, he eventually was able to escape to Mongolia.  It is a fascinating story of survival.  But it is also a fascinating illustration of how an authoritarian person and government can make life miserable for millions of people. 

Interestingly, Mao suppressed news that shed bad light on him and his policies.  He called these "false rumors" counterrevolutionary.  Sort of like some leader today calling news that reflect badly on him "fake news".  I am, of course, referring to the president of FIFA who said that the accusations of FIFA being corrupt and nontransparent are just fake news.  That is what every dictator in third world countries say.  Yeah, those dictators and the leader of the free world.

People are comparing to Trump's firing of FBI director Comey to the Saturday Night Massacre of 1973 when Nixon fired special prosecutor Cox.  I do not agree.  I think this is worse for the country.  For one thing, Watergate was about a failed attempt to influence a presidential election by Americans.  This investigation is about a successful attempt by a foreign government to influence a presidential election.  This has far more potential disaster for our democracy than Watergate.

The second thing that makes this worse is that when Nixon decided to fire Cox, his attorney general and deputy resigned instead of taking part in the firing.  Those two Republicans put the nation ahead of their party.  Jeff Session, on the other hand, signed on to the firing even though he has supposedly recused himself from the investigation.  Also so far, other than John McCain, no other prominent Republicans has come out and say this is outrageously wrong. 

The third thing is, as I have said before, Trump is a bully.  Beyond that now, I think Trump is acting like a dictator.  Why do you think he sings the praises of Kim, Duterte, Sisi and Putin.  Just like them, if you are against him, he is going to try to get rid of you.  At least so far he has not had anyone killed yet like those dictators.  But with his firing of Comey, I am afraid that we are going down that slippy slope taking us away from our democracy.  Think about it:  the president is being investigated for colluding with the Russians and he fires the man in charge of investigating him.  His party, which runs the government refuses to acknowledge that this firing is undemocratic.  The president's best foreign friends are dictators.  So yes, I think the situation is worse for the country than Watergate.

Last week the GOP was able to pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.  Interesting picture of Trump declaring victory with many GOP Congressmen behind him.  They were all white males.  I am sure the Democrats will use that picture in coming elections.  They will also use the yes votes of GOP incumbents in contested districts against them. 

There is no point in going over the bill at this point.  All I will say that almost all nonpartisan analysts believe this bill is worse than Obamacare.  Of course this won't become law.  The Senate will not pass a bill exactly like this.  The GOP majority in the Senate is a lot slimmer and there are higher percentage of centrists among senators.   If they can pass a bill, it will then go to a conference committee with the House.  Can the Senate and House hammer out a compromise then?  I don't know but if they do, I doubt that the final bill will pass both the House and Senate again.  So I don't see those same white males standing behind Trump and declare victory again on Trumpcare.

I see the FCC is investigating Stephen Colbert for his remarks about Putin and Trump.  I did not hear the "joke" but I can't see him getting censored.  The show is at 11:30 p.m., well pass kids' bed time.  I am sure the words are beeped out so I don't see censoring being appropriate.  I do think some of the jokes by all comedians regarding acts of sodomy, size of sex organs etc. are pedestrian.  I have more respect for comedians who don't go to those kinds of jokes.  Most of the time Colbert does a good job of roasting Trump and since this has helped him increase his rating, I don't see him stop using Trump as a punching bag. 

Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the LA riot due to the Rodney King trial.  Many stories have been told on film and books regarding black vs white or cops vs blacks.  Somewhat forgotten over the years were the pictures of Korean owned businesses being vandalized during the riot and the Koreans holding and shooting guns trying to protect their businesses.  But now after 25 years there are stories of the Koreans during the riot on films and books.  Some of the stories are written by Koreans who were kids 25 years ago and are now adults.  They give a perspective of what they and their parents go through during this time.

But another perspective these authors and film makers give is that of the relationship between blacks and Koreans in LA during that time.  Obviously, they talked of the violence that made life miserable for their families.  They also talked of being called "gook" and other discriminatory words.  But as these young people grew up, they also recognized the pain and anger the black community was going through.  I think it is easy to understand the discrimination that some cops had toward blacks.  But these Koreans also felt there was a lot of discrimination from the Koreans toward blacks.  They all condemn the shooting in the back of a young black girl by a Korean grocer who subsequently got probation only.  How can that possibly be fair?

Thankfully there are progress.  Korean and black leaders having been reaching out each other over the years.  For the 25th anniversary they along with other groups in the city met at the First AME church to remember the events and victims.  Roy Choi, the food truck guy, opened a restaurant in Watts providing healthy meals and jobs for an under served area.  The restaurant just won restaurant of the year award given out by the LA times.  Certainly, the tension of the two groups are not anywhere like that of 25 years ago.  We don't have utopia, but we do have hope.

The end of this week marks one hundred days in office for Trump.  After promising all sorts of things will be accomplished in the first 100 days, now Trump is saying this is an artificial day of no significance.  Whatever!  I will wait till end of this week to make more comments. So today I just want to mention that Vivek Murthy was fired as Surgeon general by Trump.  He was appointed by Obama and was a supporter of Obama.  Also he said proliferation of guns in the country is a detriment to health.  So not too surprised that Trump fired him.  What?  Healthcare is political?  Shocking!  Interestingly, his replacement is a nurse.  Maybe I am biased but doesn't SURGEON general imply only a licensed physician can hold this job?

By now I think everybody has heard of the Asian American doctor who was dragged off an United Airline plane because the plane was overbooked and there were not enough people who voluntarily get off the plane.  There are a lot of outrage over the incident.  There are some people who believe that the passenger was picked because he was Asian.  There are also some people who believe the police and the airline did nothing wrong.  So this is my take.

First of all, I don't know why United let everybody board the plane knowing darn well there were not enough seats!  If there were 105 boarding passes obtained and there are 100 seats, I would randomly select 5 people and don't let them board.  If it turns out some people with boarding passes didn't make it to the gate, then you can start letting those 5 people on, one by one.  If there turn out there is not enough seats, then the negotiation can take place at the gate, not on the plane.  It is a lot easier to not let people on than to drag someone off. 

I am a doctor so if I was being kicked off, I would use that as a leverage just as this passenger did.  This obviously failed but I would then try to get as much compensation as possible in writing.  But failing that I would not put up a fight like that guy did.  It is not worth the bodily harm.

But what if I am a 6 foot 5, 300 lbs offensive lineman for Michigan and not a 69 year old man?  Would the police still try to drag me out of my seat and down the aisle?  What is the next procedure on the airline manual?  Would the police use a taser on me?  A gun?  How about if I am a 20 year woman, would the officers grab me?  In this age of cell phones the police still acted so aggressively so can you imagine in the old days when there were no cameras around?

Finally on third writing the CEO of United makes an apology.  It is too late.  Unlike his employees who had to make a decision at the gate and plane, the CEO had time to think over things before going public with remarks.  This comes right after the young women legging incident.  I would think he would have gotten crisis management advice before blabbering his mouth.

In the long term, I don't think United will lose a lot domestically.  People will forget and the top four airlines dominate the U.S. market so the choices are limited for customers.  But United is one of the airlines trying to break into the high potential China market.  This will be a big hit for United there.  The Chinese airlines will NEVER let Chinese consumers forget this. 

One day after I asked the question: It is not so easy when you are the president, is it?   Trump makes it look easy by firing 50 tomahawk missiles on the air base that launched the chemical attack.  I should have said it is easy to do a one and done attack.  The question is, does Trump have a long range plan follow up to this that will make a difference.  I doubt it.

In retrospect, I should have seen this coming.  Just because he and Tillerson said that we will leave Syria alone and look out for our own interest first, I should not be surprised that Trump would do this.  This is a relatively safe operation.  No U.S. military people are at risk.  The chances of civilian casualties are low even though there maybe fake civilian casualties on tv tomorrow.  But of course it is not going to change anything in Syria.  It won't even stop chemical attacks because the chemicals are still there.  Assad just have to use a different delivery system, maybe even other planes in other airfields.  So we basically spent tens of millions of dollars (Tomahawks are not cheap) to beat our own chest and shout we are strong.

But beating his own chest is something that Trump likes to do.  He is basically a immature young man still and this is perfect for him.  To him it is a video game but with real ammunition and destruction.  He talked about how seeing beautiful babies being killed by chemical weapons and it affected him to act.  Well,  in 2013 the attacks were bigger but he tweeted that we should not get involved.  So I doubt that he is doing this because of seeing the carnage.  I think it is an opportunity for him to get an easy victory after all the problems of the first 100 days.  It also draws attention away from all the Russian influence problems.  Like dictators all over, when in trouble at home, attack some enemy to arouse nationalism and get people behind you.  That is the reason for this attack, not humanitarian reasons.   If humanitarian reasons are in his mind, it would be more useful to the Syrians for Trump to lift the ban of refugees.

I find it interesting that it is reported that Trump gave the Russians a heads up before the attack because there were Russians on the base.  Wouldn't that risk the Russians tipping off the Syrians and move the planes.  Even if the Russians don't say anything the fact they high tailed it out of there would look very suspicious to the Syrians.  And what will Putin's response be?  Trump was also hosting Xi Jinping today.  What will China's reaction be?

The only thing that may be good in this is that it gives a warning to Iran, Syria and even North Korea that Trump can change his mind and attack any time. Dictators want to survive and  so they may back off some.  But they also know that history shows that the U.S. will always win the first strikes because of overwhelming military power.  But that does not mean mission accomplish as George Bush found out.

I am not sure that the old saying where there is smoke there is fire is always true.  But it is worth looking into because you don't want to miss the fire.  In case of Trump's associates, there is smoke all over the place.  It is hard for me to believe that anyone running for president would collude with Putin.  But it is amazing how many of his people had contacts with the Russians.  I don't claim to know everybody involved but I am going to see if I can summarize what has been in the news regarding this.

It started with Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign manager who may have been paid millions by a pro Russia political party in Ukraine.  He represented Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Putin in business transactions.  He resigned from the Trump campaign last August. 

Roger Stone is a Trump advisor and used to run a political lobbying firm with Manafort.  He claimed he had direct contacts with Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks and correctly predicted release of private documents by WikiLeaks.

Jeff Sessions, former senator appointed to be Attorney General by Trump.  He did not reveal that he met with Russian ambassador to the U.S. during his confirmation hearings.  He has recused himself from the investigation of Russian involvement in the election.

Jared Kushner, son in law of Trump, who met the head of a Russian bank that was under U.S. sanctions.  I don't know why he would do that, consider it is easy to know that this bank is under sanctions and is connected to Putin.

Michael Flynn, former national security advisor, who resigned three weeks into the term after it was disclosed that he had spoken with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. and then lied about it to vp Pence and others.

There might be others but that is all I can think of.  Michael Flynn's attorney said that Flynn would testify if given immunity.  That is interesting because he was accused of talking about lifting sanctions to the Russians before he took office.  Not great ethics but I kind doubt he would be jailed if that is his only crime.  Also, prosecutors don't give immunity for testimony unless the accused can give up somebody that is more important to the prosecution than the accused.  So who would Flynn give up?  The smoke thickens.

Got so tired of writing about Trump that I had to take a week off.  I was trying to find something else that was more interesting to write but given all the craziness of the Trump presidency, I have to come back to it.  If anyone has some suggestion for future blog subjects, please do not hesitate to let me know.

As David Gergen of CNN who worked in the White House of two Republican and one Democrat administration wrote, it is the worst first 100 days of any recent presidency.  With a majority in the House and Senate, the GOP has failed to do what they promised, repeal and replace Obamacare.  After seven years of criticizing and trying to get rid of Obamacare, the GOP has failed to come up with a plan to replace it.  Sure the so called Freedom Caucus blocked it but the plan was worse than Obamacare in the first place.  The CBO said it will cause 24 million people to lose their insurance in the next 10 years.  Various group like physicians, nurses and patient advocacy groups are against the GOP plan.  So this is what they come up with after 7 years?  It would have made sense to try to improve Obamacare but not to replace it with something worse.

Trump ran on his ability to make the deal.  Well, he couldn't make a deal even with his own party members.  You see, it is a lot easier to tell people what to do when you are their only boss and they have to do what you tell them.  In government that is not the case.  It will not be case when he tries to deal with foreign governments for sure.  So Trump's bulling will not work as shown by his ultimatum to vote on Friday or else.  After the Freedom Caucus said else, he blame the Democrats.  He says he will let Obamacare implode and then it will be Obama's fault.  That is like FDR saying that the Depression is Hoover's problem and now that I am president, let the country go down the drain.  What happened to "the buck stops here"?  By the way Trump was also fuming about his daughter Ivanka and husband Jared Kushner taking a ski vacation while the health plan was in  jeopardy.  Well, that is what happens when there is nepotism.

While this is a defeat for Trump, I think it would have been worse for the GOP if the plan had passed.  All studies show that the plan will have the most negative impact on blue collar, middle aged whites who overwhelmingly supported Trump.  When they realized that Trump had made things worse for them, it would not be good for Trump in four years.  Right now, I wonder how many of these people realize the GOP does not share their economic interests? 

Somewhere Jim Boehner is working on his tan, lighting up a cigar, wiping away a tear and enjoy watching Paul Ryan getting pushed around by the Freedom Caucus.  While I am glad the GOP plan did not pass, it is frightening that a small minority on either side can derail what the majority wants.  I am sure the extreme liberals in the Sanders camp failed to support Clinton and thus leading to her loss.  In order to move the country forward, I think we need to get centrists from both parties to come together and defeat the fringes of both sides.  But the way it is today, both parties catering to either the left or right rather than to reach to the other side.  So we will continue to have a dysfunctional government.

AG Jeff Sessions have fired U.S. attorney from the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara.  The Trump administration had asked resignation from over 40 U.S. attorneys.  This is not unusual as new administrations want their own people in these positions.  But usually there is not a big turnover like this suddenly.  When Bill Clinton did this in 1993, he was heavily criticized by the conservatives.  The situation with Bharara is also strange in that Trump had asked him to stay on in November when Trump was elected.  Bharara is in charge of the highest profile district in the country.  The targets of his office is often big rollers in Wall Street and other important people in Manhattan.   In fact the main character played by Paul Giamotti in the show Billions is loosely based on Bharara.  He is seen as a crusader against corruption.  While he has targeted many Republicans on Wall Street, he has also convicted NY assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, and sent him to prison for 12 years.  He has also began to investigate NY mayor De Blasio, another Democrat.  So it is surprising that Bhararar was asked to resign in the middle of this investigation by Trump.  Bharara, an Indian American, is a fighter.  He refused to resign and forced Trump to fire him.  I am sure we are not going to see the last of him.

The Congressional Budget Office is supposed to be a non partisan entity.  Presidents and Congressional members have, however, criticize the CBO in the past when the CBO findings are not in their favor.  But the GOP and Trump is criticizing the CBO BEFORE its findings of Trumpcare come out!  So I guess the GOP already know that their numbers are so bad that there is no way the CBO will find their plan better than Obamacare.  This is not surprising given that Trump said recently that he did not know health care is so complicated.  DAH!

Does anybody believe that Wiki Leak is helping democracy?  It claims to be that by making government policies transparent.  So now it leaks CIA secrets.  It seems odd to me if Wiki Leak wants to promote democracy, why has it not leak anything from Russia, China, or ISIS?   Is the U.S. and Europe easier to hack or are there other motives Wiki Leak has that it is not revealing?  It seems very hypocritical to me.

Trump wants to increase funding to the military and ICE.  The GOP want small government but is willing to spend money in areas with poor returns.  We already spend more than the next ten highest nation combined for the military.  Trump says that this will convince other nations to know that we are the most powerful.  If we can't convince them now with what we have, increasing the military budget further will not convince them.  In fact, everybody from Russia to China know we are the most powerful.  But if Afghanistan and Iraq have taught us anything, it is that powerful military by itself does not ensure good outcome.  The pentagaon is probably the most wasteful branch of our government so I would think trying to decrease waste is more important than pouring in more money.

Giving more money to ICE is also a waste given that the inflow of undocumented immigrants is down.  Besides, didn't Trump say a wall will solve the problem?  By the way the wall is going to cost a lot more than Trump lets on.  And of course, Mexico will not pay for it.  So we are going to spend a lot more money on areas that will not make us safer but will decrease funding for our domestic problems. 

Trump calls for journalists to give names of their sources.  He calls all bad news about him fake news.  But now he says Obama wire tapped him but gives no source or evidence.  So it seems that Trump is providing fake news.  This is obviously an attempt to distract from his own problems.  Instead of the buck stops here, it is being deflected here!

While watching Jeopardy College championship finals last night, it occurs to me how wrong Trump and the GOP are on immigration.

First, it is widely reported that Trump and ICE are deporting lots of immigrants in this early stage of the administration.  I think it is a way for Trump to show how tough he is on immigration and that he is serious about his promise to build a wall paid by Mexico and so called putting Americans first.  I think that by putting fear out there, he thinks Mexicans will actually self deport as Romney said they would do.  Some may actually do that.  In fact, since the recession of 2008, more Mexicans have left the country than have came in.  So the trend may continue under Trump but not necessary be because how tough he is.  I would say most of the people who are scarred and decide to leave are good people.  The criminals are going to stay regardless of the policy.  In fact, if people are scarred of going to police in fear of getting deported, the criminals will be more free to operate.

Beyond the threat of deporting illegal immigrants. there are also threats to legal immigrants.  Senators Tom Cotton of Ark. and David Perdue of Georgia have proposed to decrease legal immigration and refugees by half of the 1.1 million.  They say immigrants take away jobs of Americans.  That is absurd.  I have never seen a white or black guy working in the fields here in California.  There are engineering and science jobs and graduate schools positions that cannot be filled by qualified Americans.  So by restricting immigration, our economy will shrink and the country suffers.  Also the age of Americans is rising, without young immigrants, soon we will not have enough of all kinds of workers.  And with not enough workers to pay the taxes to fund social security and medicare.

So how have all these got to do with Jeopardy?  The three finalists last night consist of an Asian woman from MIT, an Asian man from the Naval Academy, and a south Asian man from Stanford.  (The woman won).  Jeopardy has been a game show that has been dominated by white male contestants in the past.  This year the 9 semi-finalists consisted of one white male.  I think as the second and third generations immigrant Americans become more involved in American culture, they are not just science nerds but are capable of dominating in other fields. 

Trump doesn't want any Syrian refugees.  Did he not know that Steve Jobs' father was from Syria?  Without this Syrian immigrant, there is no Apple.  Other immigrants that are crucial to our country include Sergey Brin, Andrew Grove and Elon Musk.  Who is to say the next Jobs will not be child of an illegal immigrant from Mexico or a refugee from Somalia?  Throughout history, empires fall because the people get complacent.  We have immigrants who come here and push us to continue our excellence.  Instead of blaming immigrants for the ills of this country, we should embrace them and ask those who are born here to step up.  There is no law that say native born Americans can't go to MIT, Stanford or the Naval Academy.

Taking a break from the dramas of Trump, we will put in the final installment of evaluation of Obama's presidency.  We will talk about foreign policies.  I think the worst mistake for Obama occurred with saying that he is drawing the line in the sand if Assad uses chemical weapons.  Assad crossed that line and Obama did not do anything.  You should only draw the line if you know that you can act if that line is crossed.  There was and is no good options in Syria.  So one should never promise big things if one can't deliver.  The second mistake was underestimating ISIS.  ISIS maybe a jv team to him but they are still dangerous and a big headache.  So I think Obama could have done better against these terrorists.

But of course Obama was not the founding father of ISIS as Trump pointed out.  ISIS happened because Bush invaded Iraq.  I think thev history of U.S. foreign policies are poor.  We supported dictators in Vietnam and Iraq and went to war in those countries for no good reason.  We supported the Shah of Iran and then allowed Hussein to use chemical weapons against Iran.  So if I am to grade Obama on his own merits, he would get a B- but if we grade on a curve with other presidents, I give him a B+.

The reason for the relatively high grades if that I agree with him on the Iran deal, opening up Cuba, staying out of ground wars in the middle east.  He also tried to pivot toward Asia which I think in the long run will be more important than the middle east and terrorists.  I also agree with not fighting the Russians over Ukraine.  But interesting enough some of my conservative friends demanded that Obama take action against the Russians over Crimea (never said what action should be taken).  Now we know that Trump was going to lift sanctions.  Really tough actions!   And anyone who doesn't get along with Netanyahu is good in my book.

Michael Flynn was fired for misleading VP Pence regarding his conversation with the Russian ambassador.  Flynn served as director of U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama.  He was ousted in 2014.  He criticized Obama's strategy on terrorism and implied that that was the reason he was fired.  Obama supporters claim that Flynn was abrasive to others and was not a team player.  The fact that he criticized Obama probably helped him get the job in Trump's administration.  But it looks like he is a liability just as he was with Obama. 

There is also the question of why he sat next to Putin at a dinner for RT, the Russian propaganda network.  Given that Trump's admiration and defense of Putin, I wonder if there is more problems and conflicts besides Flynn in the administration.  Now it appears that the DOJ had warned Trump about Flynn 18 days ago.  So is Trump also trying to hide something from his own VP?

From the previous blog:  I know I am being dramatic when I say 20,00 people killed by people with guns.  I know that even if guns are totally banned, there will be people killed by illegally obtain guns and other weapons.  But even if we discount all the killings by criminals and gangs, we still have a lot more killings by guns than most other countries that have strict gun laws.  Guns make it easier for mass killings, road rage killings, killings of passion, killings by accidents etc.  I don't think Zimmerman would approach Martin if he was not carrying a gun.  To believe that guns are not the major reasons for killings in this country, one would have to believe that we are a country of higher percentage of criminals and people with mental problems than other countries.

Unbelievable, two guys walk into Dearborn police station in armour and carrying guns.  Supposedly they were trying to see if the Dearborn police are going to protect their rights under the open carry law in Michigan.  See, this is why such laws are stupid.  It seems to me by the letter of the law, these guys cannot be arrested and shouldn't have to give up their guns.  Of course, does anyone blame the cops for not wanting to have people walk into their station with guns?  Obviously they can't tell if these guys are going to shoot them.  So by the same token, how would they know if they come across them in the streets  they would not shoot the cops or anyone else?  By the same token, how do you or I know that the guy walking down the street with a gun in a holster will not start shooting at me or you ?   If this guy cuts in line in front of me, can I complain without fearing for my life?  So this about carrying guns make us safer is absurd.

By the way, I wonder if two black guys walk into a police station with guns would they be shot before given the same opportunity to surrender as these two guys were?

Seems surreal that last week we were just talking about the Red Wings moving into a new arena.  Now the news come out that Mike Ilitch has died.  Rest in peace Mike, I thank you for all the good that you did for Detroit.

Great game!  Brady just cemented himself to be the best qb ever!   There isn't much else to say.  Regardless of what I think of him now, I will have to salute his greatness on the field. 

The new "24" is off to a good start.  It is weird without Jack Bauer and the main female actress was on  previous season of "Homeland"!  I will watch it and see if the new chapter lives up to the "legacy".

I have finally calm myself down over Trump's executive order to ban people from certain countries from entering the U.S. and stop accepting refugees to write about this.  This is the worst decision since Bush sent troops to Iraq.  The similarity is that Bush didn't know anything and trusted Cheney and the neocons.  Now Trump doesn't understand the world at all and trusts Bannon and the alt right to make decisions for him. 

I can't think of any attacks on U.S. soil being perpetrated by a citizen from any of those countries that are banned.  So how is this going to make us safer?  San Bernardino, Boston, Miami all those attacks are by home grown terrorists.  Just this week, Quebec experienced a terrorist attack so maybe Trump should stop French Canadian nationalists from coming here!  As was the war in Iraq, this action will help ISIS and other terrorist groups recruit.  We will be in more danger than ever. 

I can see the bad guys are going to be able to recruit more people within the U.S. to attack.  It won't matter that we prevent people from coming in.  There are plenty of people who can be radicalized here and Trump is helping to make this happen.  A vicious cycle may happen:  A few Muslim Americans became Jihadists, American public became even more scared, Trump doubles down and order internment of Muslims, the world becomes angry at the U.S. as a whole and attacks against American businesses abroad occurs, the world economy tanks and people become more fearful etc.

It is not just terrorism, but the average American view of immigrant issues are wrong.  I am tired of immigrants being made scapegoats for the ills of America.  The truth is that the intellectual immigrants outshine the intellectual Americans.  Look at the high percentage of immigrants working in Silicon Valley.  Will we still be at the top of tech world if not for immigrants.  At the other end of the scale, immigrant workers do the dirty work Americans don't want to do.  They work harder for lower wages making the products from this country more competitive.  Trump says immigrants are rapists and criminals but I bet immigrants have lower crime rate than Americans in the same socioeconomic class.  Every dynasty and empire in history of the world have died off.  Our only chance is that we get new blood from other countries to keep pushing us to improve.  Without immigrants, this country will lose its empire just like all those before it.

I am rooting for the Falcons.  I have lost respect for Brady for backing up Trump.  This explain deflategate and all other controversies the Patriots have been involved in over the years.  I had rooted for Brady all these years because he was an underdog through out college and was a low draft choice.  Plus he was from Michigan.  But throwing the cell phone away when being investigated?  Refusing to answer why he supported for Trump?  It shows maybe he is similar to Trump--Rules don't apply to him.  If you have been picking against the Falcons, don't change now because you may jinx them.

Back to the Obama years in review.  The most important legislation during the Obama presidency is of course Obamacare.  I think Obama wanted to have a one payer system for health care but he knew it was impossible at this time.  So he promised to decrease the number of uninsured in the country by emulating Romney care.  As much the right wing hated Obamacare, it was not all that radical.  It was less socialistic than the plan put up by the Clintons.  It was not out to get rid of insurance companies.  That is why the insurance industry did not put up a fight against it.  Remember how they attacked Clinton's plan and made it fail?   So by proposing a plan that the insurance companies may actually make more money, Obama was able to get legislation through, barely.  I think he believed that having Obamacare in place, it will be a first step toward a national health system.  Eventually, Obama believed, that he will go down in history as the president who started the road to universal health care.

As expected Obamacare was under attack before the ink was dry on the bill.  It also got a rocky start as the internet site crashed for a prolonged period.  That is a big mistake on the Obama team especially given that they won elections with superior internet skills.  Obamacare is far from perfect.  But it was meant as a start.  I don't think health care is a right.  But if the majority of the country think it is, then the only way to achieve it is by having a one payer system.  I give Obama credit for starting down that road as he promised in his campaign.

So now that Trump is in office and promises to get rid of Obamacare, and with majority on both houses of Congress, it would seem that Obamacare will be gone.  The problem for the GOP is that they have no alternative.  Now the GOP is split between those who want to get rid of all subsidies and thus mean all those who got covered under Obamacare will now be uninsured, and those who want to tweet Obamacare but retain subsidies, keep no preexisting conditions, and no life time limits in coverage.  The House wants to get rid of all subsidies because Congressmen are usually in safe districts.  Governors and senators want to keep most of Obamacare because they are afraid lots of  people losing insurance in their states and thus vote them out. 

I think Obamacare will lose in the short run with some part of it destroyed.  It may even get repealed.  But I think eventually people will realize that the GOP alternative, whatever they come up with, is not better.  In fact you may turn back on the road for a while but eventually I think the country will go back on the road to universal care as Obama had envisioned.  The reality is that if you believe that people have the right to health care, then we will all have to pay.  Obamacare or anything else that will cover people who can't afford it will mean higher costs for everybody else.  It is either higher premium for those who are not sick or higher taxes for those who pay taxes.  There is no way around that. 

So I think history will be kind to Obama about his signature legislation.  It may take 30 years but eventually people will give Obama an A for his effort in health care.  The original implementation was a C as he could have come up with a better bill and getting the whole thing started better.

I will step back from analyzing the Obama presidency and talk about Trump since he was just inaugurated.  Trump's speech is one of the most pessimistic I have heard.  He talks about American carnage and how America is in the dumps, the country mired in poverty and being ripped off by foreign countries.  Apparently he does not know about crime statistics are falling, the stock market is at all time high and unemployment is low.  That is not to say we don't have a lot of problems.  But compared to the Depression and even eight years ago, we are way better off.  Whatever happened to "we have nothing to fear but fear itself"?

Trump said that he will unite the civilized world against radical Islam terrorists.  Yet he said that NATO and the UN are irrelevant.  He is now moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  So he is angering NATO, UN and the Arabs.  What countries are then in his coalition against the terrorists?  As America looks inward and Trump is applauding nationalism in western Europe, the world will become more dangerous.  I think rise of nationalism has been one of the greatest causes of wars throughout history.  Will our allies trust the U.S. if Trump constantly talk about other countries have to defend themselves?  Will Japan and South Korea build nuclear weapons?  Will Southeast Asian countries and Australia turn more to China?

I find it shocking that Trump's administration is saying that this is the biggest inaugural when there are pictures showing that it is way smaller than recent inaugurals, particular those of Obama.  I guess he thinks that if you say it long enough people will believe it.  I see why he likes Putin.  They are the same, they just keep lying.  Just like most of the world don't believe Putin, soon the rest of the world won't believe the U.S. either.  Trump and Putin have no credibility in the world stage.  Did you see Putin scored bunch of goals in a hockey game?  The defense was worse than one at an NHL all star game.  Nobody will believe that Putin is a skilled player watching that tape.  Almost as bad as Kim Jong Un scoring a hole in one for 18 straight holes.

Then words came out that Trump is not planning on releasing his tax return when the audit is finished.  His mouthpieces go on tv and said that the American people elected him even though he did not release his returns so that means people don't care about it.  Of course when he was campaigning he said he will release them.  Those who took him at his words are also the ones who believe that he will build the wall with Mexican money.  And I am sure Putin does not release his tax return either.

Unlike Mitch McConnelll who said his first priority is to make Obama a one term president, I will give Trump a chance to prove me wrong.  But I am not optimistic about a person who has kinder words for Putin than our European allies, Canada, Mexico and Japan.  One last note:  he says that D.C.  has been a boon not for the American people but for small group of rich people.  Yet his cabinet are full of those kind of people.  I guess they are the ones who will build the wall and get the Mexicans to pay for it.

As Obama is about to finish his presidency, I am going to look back at how he did.  Today I am going to look at the economy.  I do not believe that a president has a great deal of control over the economy.  With globalization, what happens in the rest of the world has more influence on the pocket book of Americans than the president.  But most Americans don't believe that.  That is why Clinton beat Bush even though Bush had won a war.  But if the economy is so important and Americans think that the president has great influence, then I don't see how the GOP can claim that they can do a better job than the Democrats.  Clinton presided over prosperity with a budget surplus.  Bush the second presided over a disastrous economy.  Obama brought back stability and the economy is doing way better than 8 years ago with the stock market at an all time high after crashing in 2008.  So it seems that Obama has done a great job.

The GOP will say that after any recession, there is bound to be a recovery and that this recovery is not that great and been slow in coming.  A Bush advisor recently faulted Obama for the slow recovery.  But this is from a guy who was part of the administration when the economy collapsed.  How dare he make this argument?  I personally don't fault Bush for the economy.  I don't think his tax cut led to the down fall. But I don't see where you can argue that a tax cut is going to be the solution for our problems.  If a manager led a team to last place, and then someone else led them to the middle of the standing, you can't argue that the first guy was a better manager.  That makes no sense whatsoever. 

There were very little choice when Obama took over.  He had to save the big banks and GM.  Those who argued against that are just wrong.  If he did not do that and more banks, insurance companies and auto makers fail, we would be in dire strait today and Obama would have been blamed for it.  So I think he did what he had to do and given that the U.S. economy has recovered better than those of Europe and Japan, I think he did well.  Let's face it, most manufacturing jobs will not come back no matter what the president does.  For those who want to drill more oil, mine more coal, you are wrong.  Clean energy is the future and Obama tried to help that industry.  There were mistakes made but to continue depend on the old industries will make our economy and environment worse in the future.  Overall I give Obama an A for effort in economy and B for results.

I see that Trump has nominated Betsy DeVos for sec. of education.  She is from Michigan and is perhaps the biggest advocate for charter schools and vouchers to be used by families at any school, public or private.  Since she is basically the mother of charter schools in Michigan, I try to find out how successful these school have been in Michigan.  It seems there are a lot of back and forth between the critics and supporters of these schools.  Some have called them total failures and that some advocates of charter schools have stayed away from supporting the Michigan schools.  Some say that these schools improved the reading and math results of students by two to three months per year, especially in Detroit students.  It seems these reports are conflicted and I wonder if anyone living in Michigan can shed some light on the success or failure of these schools.

I see reason to support and criticize both sides of this debate.  I think that the public schools in large urban areas in this country are doing a poor job.  The teacher unions in these districts are not helpful to the students.  They serve mostly to protect the teachers.  On the other hand, I don't think vouchers or charter schools are the panacea that their supporters paint them to be.  For example, most private schools have admission standards so they are taking in better students.  The parents and students who take vouchers and go to these schools are putting in more effort in their education than most of those who stayed behind.  The private schools can also expel students who are disruptive but it is much more difficult for public schools to do so.  So to me in order to say that a private school is better than the neighborhood school, it will have to produce graduates that are way better than the neighborhood public school.

In many countries, including my native Hong Kong, the public schools are better than private schools because its tuition is way lower and you have to pass exams to get in.  So again, whoever is able to pick the students, is going to produce better graduates.  Some countries, like Sweden, abandoned the voucher system after finding it did not do better than regular public school.  So there are no easy solutions.  I don't know if Betsy DeVos is competent for this job.  But I hope she will try to get a lot of opinions from different sources and not just go ahead and dismantle public school education.

Took a little time off to ponder what the heck happened in 2016 that led to the election of Donald Trump.  I still don't have enough energy to analyze what will Trump do this year and what will happen to the country under his watch.  But having made my trip over the holiday, I feel that we can survive the next four years with Trump.  But 8 years?  Yikes!

I went to Las Vegas and Grand Canyon over the holidays.  Being in Vegas, I have concluded Americans will party and spend no matter who is the president.  So even though I am skeptical of Trump's economic policies, I think the economy is strong enough at this point to hang on for next four years.  Visiting Grand Canyon gives me a chance to reflect how small we are and how little time we are on this earth.  That canyon is so vast and was formed over million of years that I think what will happen in the next four years will be insignificant.  So overall I feel better after this trip to two vastly different places.

One thing Vegas and the Grand Canyon have in common is the ethnicity of the visitors to both places.  The Asians are the plurality if not the majority at both places!  I am not surprise about Vegas.  For some reason, Asians like to gamble and they don't usually have religious ties to Christmas.  Just like Thanksgiving, a lot of Asians don't care to cook a turkey,  so they flock to Vegas.  But I was surprise that there were a lot of Asians visiting Grand Canyon.  For whatever the reason, I am glad that there are great number of Asians who are taking in the beauty of the outdoors instead of the sedentary life of Vegas.