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.