Hope everybody had a merry Christmas.   This is likely the last blog of the year unless something drastic happens.  There are three things that surprised me this year which in retrospect I should not be surprised about.  These three things also caused me distress over the future of the country.

Obviously, COVID-19 is the biggest news of the year.  I am surprised by the number of people who claim that restrictions as a result of the virus are infringements on their freedom.  Decades from now I think people will look back and wonder how badly we responded to the pandemic.  They will wonder that a country that will certainly lose more than half a million people before the vaccine will save it, could have been so selfish to not lose a small amount of freedom to save lives.   This is the same country that was willing to give up a lot more freedom in the Patriot Act after losing 3,000 lives in 9/11.

I should not be surprised that people use the second amendment rights to walk into the capitol of Michigan to protest against restrictions with automatic weapons in hand.  I should also not be surprised that people can walk the streets of Kenosha with automatic weapons and not be stopped by the police except to offer them drinks.  To me, this is not about freedom but about lawlessness and different treatment of races by the police.  While the mainstream media did cover these events, I have not heard many mainstream commentators who expressed shock at these event.  What would happen if a large group of Black men enter a government building to protest police brutality while holding automatic weapons?  I want to see what Fox News would say about that.  Don't worry, no Black group will do such a thing.  They know what the outcome would be.

We may be rejoicing that Trump lost by a landslide of over 7 million popular votes.  But if we take away the margin Biden won by in California (5 million) and in New York (2 million), we can see that in the other 48 states, it was a draw.  Given how poorly Trump has handled everything from the pandemic, to the economy, to foreign policies, not to mention his lack of morality, it distress me that outside the two most populous liberal states, he was able to win 50% of the vote.  This shows how divided we are.  So it is unlikely that Biden or anyone else can get things done in the future.

I think I am done ranting for the last time this year.  Thank goodness this crazy year is ending.  Hopefully 2021 will be much better.  Happy new year, everybody.

 I have not been writing about Trump's obsession of trying to overthrow the election result with ridiculous and false claims.  Those claims are so outrageous that even the justices in the Supreme Court who were appointed by him have ruled against him.  So I figure eventually this will die down and he would have to leave office.  Better spend time worrying about the virus, the economy and all other problems in the nation than worrying about Trump's crazy claims.  But every time it looks like Trump and his allies are coming to the end of the road for them, he will not give up and puts the nation into more danger.

I know Trump does not care about the country and its citizens.  The death rate and hospitalization rate are getting worse.  The economy is plummeting.  Russia is hacking into computers of our companies and government institutions.  Yet Trump just talks about the non existing election frauds.  As our intelligence agencies are accusing of Russia's espionage, he is saying that it is not Russia.  He says it is maybe China even though the evidence is overwhelming that it is Russia.  Why is he so scared of Russia and Putin?  Time after time he has defended Russia over our own intelligence.  Even after Pompeo says it is Russia, Trump tells his staff to stand down on this claim?  Why?

Now there are reports that he wants to appoint Sidney Powell to be special council to investigate election fraud.  The same Powell who was on his team alleging voter fraud.  How is that for a democracy.  Michael Flynn is advocating that Trump declare martial law to prevent the transfer of power?  How is that for a democracy?  It seems like Trump and his supporters think we are a banana republic.  I think four more years of Trump in power will turn U.S into one.

I thought all along that Trump is doing all this even if he knows he can't win is because he can raise millions of dollars.  He loves money and given that he is deep in debt and probably need defense funds after he leaves office, he is trying to get as much money as possible.  Those people who four years ago believed that he will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it, are now contributing money for overturning the election.  Once again these people are taken by this snake oil salesman.

But at least these people taken by Trump are just losing their money.  The really dangerous people are those who threatened the REPUBLICAN election officials in Georgia and other states for not overturning election results.  The idea of martial law is attractive to them.  They think Trump will help them overthrow the government.  They won't be successful.  But I am sure Russia will be willing to lend them a helping hand!

 My wife had an experience in the past couple of weeks which illustrates that after almost a year, we still have not figured out how to contain this pandemic.  The scientists have figured out a lot about this virus but we have not used the knowledge we have acquired and turned that into actions that will decrease infections and thus save lives.

My wife volunteers at a free clinic one or two days a week.  She was contacted by the clinic on a Saturday that one of her fellow volunteers had tested positive for COVID.  My wife had last worked at the clinic on Monday before this.  She had brief contact with that fellow volunteer but she believed it was less than 15 minutes and both were wearing masks.  So it is unlikely that my wife would have been infected.

My wife checked the protocol for this and was told that she should quarantine for 2 weeks from that Monday.  If she has no symptoms during the two weeks, then she should get tested after to be sure she is negative.  The quarantine is right, but I don't see the benefit of getting the test after the quarantine is over.  The most infectious time after exposure is from 4 to 10 days.  So ideally she should get tested as soon as she found out about the positive test of her co-worker.  This way, if she is positive, she can warn the people she had contact with from Monday to Saturday of that week.  Getting a test after two weeks of quarantine would not help anyone she had contact with during those first five days.  (The only contacts she had during that time was mainly me.  We saw couple of friends but we were outside and wore masks.)

The ideal thing would have been that we can get quick antigen tests which would give us results right away.  We should have been able to test daily from day 5 (Saturday) until at least day 10.  If there is a positive result then we should have gone in for a PCR test to confirm.  But we cannot get the antigen test and the county told us not to go in for the PCR test until after the quarantine is over.

So after the 14 days was over, my wife went to get tested.  She waited in line for 40 minutes and then was told that they had run out of tests and to come back another day!  Two days later she went back and got tested.  She finally got the expected negative result 4 days after that.  I ask:  What good is it to get a test result 20 days after the exposure?  She was not going to infect anyone after two weeks even if she had been infected herself.  The testing timeline is not according to the best scientific data, in my opinion.  There is not availability of the quick antigen test.  If we are still depending on the PCR tests, at least have them available at all times and have turn around times of no more than one day.  Otherwise, tests are not doing much good.

Also there was no contact tracing.  My wife got the news from her clinic.  There was no contact from the county health department.  We had to inquire ourselves about the protocol, which is not correct, in my opinion.  I am wondering, given this lack of on time testing and contact tracing, if the infection counts in my county or elsewhere in the nation is anywhere near correct.

Well, maybe the vaccines will eventually bail us out.  But meanwhile, unnecessary infections and deaths are bound to continue.  The authorities are still not doing a good job almost a year into this.  A large portion of the public are also not doing their part by wearing masks and social distancing.  This is still going to be a bad winter and spring, unfortunately.

 The inequality of black and white was again vividly on display in Staten Island last week.  The manager of a bar which had defied restriction orders due to COVID, ran away from the police and then drove his car with a cop on the hood of the car.  This was caught on video.  The man said that he was running away from two men who did not identify themselves as policemen.  Yeah, right!  

The guy was eventually arrested without injury.  Not only that, he was released without bond!  Now, what would happen if this guy was black?  A black guy running away from the police?  Probably shot.  A black guy made it into his car and then hit a cop?  Probably shot.  A black guy arrested after above action?  Probably beat up, if not get kneed to death or given an injection of ketamine at a dose twice his weight.  A black guy goes before a judge after hitting a cop with a car?  Certainly he would not have gotten out without bail.  Maybe a black guy could have come out of this unscathed, like this Staten Island guy.  But don't bet on it.  

Those who support this white guy would say the government deprived him of his freedom to operate his bar.  They deprived him of his freedom not to be intimidated by the police.  But do any of these people support black people who are deprived of their right to be treated as equal human beings?

 I was going to write a couple of days ago but there was a power outage our neighborhood from 9 am Monday until 3 am this morning.  So it was about 42 straight hours where we had no electricity or internet.  We also had an outage last Thursday from 5 am to 7 pm.  So a quick calculation: we had no electricity for a total 56 hours in the past 142 hours.

The frustrating  thing is that the power outage was not directly caused by nature but intentionally by the Southern California Edison.  We were told last year that Edison have devised a plan to shut off electricity based on factors such as wind velocity and direction, humidity and so on.  The reason being that there has been fires started by wind knocking down powerlines and igniting fires.  The thing is, California has always had strong winds periodically.   There has been practically no rain this season and so things are very dry.  But again, droughts are not unusual in California.  

I think what is somewhat different is that there has been more lawsuits against electric companies for start of fires.  So I can understand that Edison is trying to prevent fire from down lines as much as possible.  But the last few days, the wind conditions were not among the worst I have seen since I moved out here.  And the outages are longer than they need to be given the winds had died down well before power was restored.

I think shutting down power whenever the wind blows is not a solution to fires.  The main problem is that there are too many power lines above ground.  Wind would not affect power lines underground.  Edison and the government is reluctant to spend money to put lines under ground.  I also believe that the upkeep of existing lines is not up to par.  Just turning off electricity cause Edison less.

This is an example of the poor infrastructure of the country generally.  I had been thinking about writing about our infrastructure.  This last few days has been another wake up call for the many things that need to be fixed but there is a lack of political will to do so.  More on this in the future.

 I read yesterday that of the nurses who have died from COVID, 30% of them are Filipinos.  Filipinos make up about 4% of the nurses in this country.  So the death rate of Filipino nurses is more than 7 times of what is expected based on their percentage of the total nurses population.  There are, of course, multiple factors involved.  But the death rate of Filipino nurses, like that of all healthcare workers in this pandemic, could have been much lower if all of us had done better.

I don't have the statistics but based on my own experience, the Filipino nurses tend to work in ER, ICU and nursing homes.  Those are areas that have been hit hardest by the pandemic.  I also think they tend to end up at locations where it is difficult to recruit American nurses.  I also suspect when PPEs and other precautions were lacking, the Filipino nurses were less likely to complain and demand safety measures to be implemented.  

Yes, there may be personal factors also.  Filipinos have a higher rate of hypertension and diabetes which are risk factors of having severe complications from COVID.  As immigrants, they may also have to live in homes with more people.  While these factors cannot be changed easily, the actions of the American government and American people should be improved.  

We, the people, should take all the precautions to prevent the spread of the virus.  The less people end up in the hospital, the less chance healthcare workers will get sick and die.  There are people who still believe this is a hoax.  Some still believe in Trump's version of this disease.  I say to these people:  don't go to  the hospital when you sick if that is your belief.  You can stay home and take hydroxychloroquine and inject disinfectants into your body as Trump suggested.

There are still a few weeks until the Biden administration take over.  Until then, not much will change as Trump has basically checked out.  He even left the G20 meeting about the pandemic and went to play golf.  We can't count on anything done before he is out of the White House.  Biden will do better but I notice that the task force he named for the pandemic does not include a nurse.  I think that is a bad omission.  I think the nurses are the ones closest to the patients and their experience in taking care of these patients will give great insight in the war against this virus.

 As the country reaches 250,00o deaths, it is incredible that a big part of the population does not believe in the science of wearing a mask.  In fact, some of our "leaders" still attack people who advocate wearing a mask.  Ted Cruz, for example, called a fellow senator an ass for asking a fellow lawmaker to wear a mask in the senate chamber.  Shortly after, Senator Grassley of Iowa announced he contracted the virus.  Since then two more Republican Congressmen also got infected.  Attacking someone when you are completely wrong is despicable.  I won't call Cruz an ass because an ass cannot lick somebody else's ass as he has been doing for Trump.  

Cruz is such a little man that he kisses Trump's ass even though Trump called him all kinds of names and belittled him during the 2016 campaign.  But Cruz has no pride and he resorted to kissing Trump's ass in order to survive his Senate campaign last time.  But even though he won't be up for reelection until way after Trump is out of the office, he is still one of Trump's sycophant.  That is because he thinks he can win the nomination for president in 2024 so he doesn't want to lose Trump supporters.  Everybody, including Trump supporters, know that he is a weak man in 2016 and today.  He has no chance to get the nomination.   And according the GOP thinking, he is not eligible anyway.  He was born outside of the U.S. and if the GOP think that Obama was not eligible because he "may" have been born outside of the U.S., shouldn't Cruz be ineligible since he was definitely born outside of the U.S.?   But then the Republicans are hypocrites, of course.

 I have obtained a copy of another letter from Xi Jinping to Donald Trump congratulating him on his reelection.  This is obviously quite different from most world leaders who have congratulated Joe Biden.  So lets see what Xi has to say.

Dear President Trump

Congratulations to your win last week.  I know the fake press in the U.S. have declared Sleepy Joe as the winner but we both know better.  I understand you are heroically fighting to retain your job and I have great admiration for your courage.

I see that there are many traitors in your country who are trying to undermine the will of the people.  So I think you are doing the right thing by ignoring your own Department of Homeland Security which has declared that this election is the most secure.  Putin has information that this is not so.  So I think you should fire your DHS staff for not announcing that the election was a fraud.  

You have taken the right step of firing you Secretary of Defense.  I believe you will also fire your head of the CIA and FBI.  You don't need these people to run your department.  Put in your friends who will defend you against traitors in your country.  If you need help with world order, I will be glad to run things for you in Asia and Putin will run things for you in Europe.  No hurry to hire new heads for your departments.  And don't share intel with Biden.  Who knows what he will do with the info?  In any case, why would he need those?  You will still be president for the next four years at least.

It seems to me there were a lots of fraud in your election.  If I were you, I would call for recounts in all the states you "lost".  I am sure the UN will be happy to send election watchers to all your states to monitor the situation, making sure all the recounts are done correctly.  The UN, under the direction of the U.S. has sent many teams to various banana republics in the past to monitor elections.  So I am sure they can return the favor this time.

I know you have been preoccupied with the COVID situation in your country.  No need to worry, I am sure Doctors without Borders and other organizations will be happy to come here to help your health workers.  They have experience going to third world countries for decades.  Given your situation, though not due to your fault, they will come to the U.S. to help instead of Africa soon.

Due to leaders like Mao Zedong in my country, we have become the number 2 power in the world in a short time.  I am sure with your similar leadership, after your next 4 years as president, you will be able to make the U.S. the number 2 power in the world!  Such an achievement in such a short time!  Much admiration!  Good luck.

Your comrade in power play

Jinping

 After three days and nights of watching the election playing out, I finally got some decent sleep and exercise over the past couple of days and can now look back at this roller coaster ride.  Amazingly, even though my predictions were not as accurate as I would have liked, if things hold as it is now, the finall tally will be 306-232, exactly as I had predicted!  Basically, I got wrong on NC and a district in Maine wrong but that was balanced on the opposite wrong call from Georgia.  It balanced out!.  So now let's review the past 5 days.

November 3rd started well for the Democrats as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania were all going Biden's way.  But the jubilation quickly turned into despair as those three states along with Wisconsin and Michigan all seemed to be going Trump's way.  The only bright spot was Arizona which may flip to Biden.  I stayed up until 1:30 am Pacific time with not much hope.  Trump declared victory even as pundits say that mail-in ballots will go toward Biden.

November 4:  I woke up at 6 am and checked the tv wearily.  Surprisingly, Biden had overtaken Trump in Wisconsin and Michigan.  Pennsylvania was still in Trump's column but the margin had decreased from over 700,000 to a little over 200,000.  Even though North Carolina didn't look good, Georgia began to look more promising.  

November 5:  Wisconsin and Michigan are called for Biden.  Pennsylvania and Georgia continue to tighten.  I feel much better because if Arizona and Nevada remain with Biden, he gets to 270.  But Arizona is tightening  and so Pennsylvania and Georgia maybe our plan B.  A sign that is good is that Trump is threatening lawsuits in states that he is leading.  He seems desperate so he must know things are turning against him.  

November 6:  Biden has taken over the lead in Pennsylvania.  Georgia is also closing in.  Arizona is tightening up.  Nevada looks to be staying with Biden.  While this is looking good and I am more relieved, it looks like the so called blue wave is not happening.  In fact, the GOP will gain in the House, even though the Democrats will stay in power.  The Senate will not flip to the Democrats.

November 7:  Finally, Pennsylvania is called for Biden and it is over except for the final margin.  It is a great day for America and the world.  Trump had not conceded and who knows if he ever will.  He wants to litigate all the way to the Supreme Court even though he has not presented any evidence of fraud that changed the election.  Biden and Harris make good speeches to try to unite the country.  The feeling is that they have a hard road ahead of them.

The first tough task for the new administration is the pandemic.  Five straight days of record breaking cases with the last 3 days recording over 120,000 cases.  I don't envy Biden and Harris.  Without the Senate and the Supreme Court on their side, it will be tough to implement their strategies.  Good luck to them.

 It is time for the AAAA, ie, the Angry Asian Accurate Assessment.  Usually this is a prediction of the Big Ten football bowl games results.  But we have a much more important topic today:  the American presidential election.  So here we go.

It is obvious there are states that are in the pockets of either the Democrats or the Republicans.   So off the bat, Biden has 216 votes in his pocket and Trump has 125.  I will also give Biden Minnesota and Nevada even though Trump thinks it is competitive.  So that means Biden has 16 more votes and a total of 232 so far.  I will give Trump Texas even though Biden camp thinks it can flip it.  I don't think so.  So Trump gets 38 votes and now has 163.

Florida 29 votes, Trump wins by 1 percentage point, 

Georgia 16 vote, Trump wins by 1.5 points

Ohio 18 votes, Trump wins by 2 points

Iowa 6 votes Trump wins by 2 points.  So Trump total 232.

Wisconsin 10 votes, Biden wins by 6 points

North Carolina 15 votes, Biden wins 1 point

Pennsylvania, 20 votes, Biden wins by 4 points

Michigan 16 votes, Biden wins by 6 points

Arizona 11 votes, Biden wins by 1.5 point

District in Maine, Biden wins by 3 points

District in Nebraska, Biden wins by 2 points  So Biden has  a total of 306

What is amazing is that this is exactly total that Trump beat Clinton in 2016:  306-232!  Basically, I am predicting that Biden flip the "blue wall" back to the Democratic column and add North Carolina, Arizona and the the two districts.  I will also predict that Biden wins the popular vote by 6 points.

I will also predict that the election won't be decided tomorrow.  Florida maybe able to finish counting tomorrow and if Biden wins there, it will be all over.  But I think Trump will win it and then we have to wait of the blue wall results.  Pennsylvania isn't even allowed to start counting early ballots till tomorrow and the urban votes will come in even later than the rural votes.  So it is likely that Trump maybe ahead there at end of tomorrow night.  If North Carolina and Arizona comes in for Biden, it also will be over but both will be close and unlikely decided tomorrow.

So Trump may declare victory tomorrow night without any neutral sites agreeing.  By Wednesday night, I think the tide will turn and Biden will look like the winner.  There maybe litigation as Trump had promised.  But I believe that results will be decisive enough to prevent the country from getting into chaos.  Otherwise we will look like a banana republic.

I will also predict that the Democrats will win the senate.  They will lose Alabama but flip Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina.  That will give them a net gain of 3 which is enough if Biden wins.  I also think they will flip Iowa, although that will be very close.  They may flip one of the Georgia seats but it is likely that nobody will get 50%, leading to a runoff later.  Without a presidential election, the Democrat candidate will be at a disadvantage.

 Two days left before the most important election of our time!  Tomorrow I will try to make my prediction of the election.  So try to check it out.

As a physician, I am offended by Trump saying that the COVID deaths are inflated because doctors get paid more if they diagnosed COVID as the cause of death.  This is again another attempt to deflect blame for his incompetence in handling the pandemic.  Everyone from the Chinese government, the state governors, and Fauci had been blamed by Trump before.  Now he goes after the doctors who treat COVID patients.  Never mind that some of those saved his life.  As I said before, if he doesn't believe the science and thinks he know better than the doctors, why didn't he take hydroxychloroquine and inject disinfectants when he got sick?

The truth is that the COVID deaths totals are probably under counted.  There are more than 100,000 excessive deaths this year compare to the average.  That means you take the total numbers of deaths this year (up to end of October), subtract the number of deaths due to COVID and you get around 100,000.  There maybe increase in deaths due to other illnesses this year.  There also could be more people died at home because they were too scared of going to the hospital during the pandemic.  But at least some of these excessive deaths are probably caused by COVID but were not diagnosed.  So I think the number of COVID deaths have been under counted.

Trump complained about Fauci talking to the press.  That is because Fauci is telling the truth and Trump doesn't want the people to hear it.  He does want his "expert" Scott Atlas to talk because he says what Trump wants to hear.  The problem is Atlas is a neuro radiologist and has no expertise in infectious disease and epidemiology.  This is like me, an internist, talking about open heart surgery.  Or a neuro surgeon running the department of HUD.  Oh, Trump did appoint one of those.

So Atlas goes on RT America which is a Russian operation whose goal is to spread Russian propaganda in the U.S.  Atlas claims that he didn't know what RT is.  Maybe he could have looked it up before the interview?  During the interview, he spew his usual agenda of ant-mask, anti-lock down and anti-testing of asymptomatic people.  Not only was he giving the Russian media access to somebody close to the president, he looked foolish with his views which I am sure the Russians will be too happy to share with the rest of the world.

Sometimes people who has great academic credential do not have a lot of common sense.  My wife told me she talked to a friend of ours recently and found out he voted for Trump again.  This man is Chinese American with a doctorate in science from one of the top university in the country.  He also recently lost his job with a top U.S. defense contractor.  The pandemic was the reason given for his layoff.  His reasoning for voting for Trump?  Tax cut.  He understands all the lies, all the mishandling of the pandemic, and the racial tension under Trump.  But the tax cut trumps all those!  It is impossible to debate this.  If I am mean, I guess my final response would be that, yes, he will be paying lower taxes this year.  After all, your income tax surely will certainly fall without employment income!  And that is directly related to mishandling of the pandemic!

 In this political season I expected to be bombarded with political advertising.  This is true, but unexpectedly I am also getting political advertising both for and against China.  Every couple of weeks or so, a supplement called China Watch is placed inside the Sunday edition of the LA Times.  Also every couple of weeks or so, I get a copy of the Epoch Times in the mail.  With our own election going on, I have not read either one much.  I am not sure if either publication believe it can influence the minds of Americans.  But obviously, they are trying hard to do so.

China Watch is published by the Chinese newspaper China Daily and it said so on the front of the paper.  So it is obvious to readers that it is a publication from China.  It tends to show China in a positive light, including in minority areas such as Tibet and Xinjiang.  I think most Americans will see through this and take the articles with a grain of salt.  There maybe truths in these articles but I bet most Americans who read the LA Times, a liberal publication, will be skeptical of the paper.

The Epoch Times is a media arm of the religious group Falun Gong.  It claims to be a multi-national publication.  Falun Gong claims to be oppressed by the Chinese government.  So it is no wonder that Epoch Times is fervently anti-Chinese government.  So to many Americans, it may very be a fair reporting of the bad things happening in China, especially when it comes to putting down dissent.  

What is not obvious to the casual reader is that the Epoch Times back far right politicians in Europe and Donald Trump in the U.S.  It has association with Steve Bannon who has called for the overthrow of China.  The Epoch Times has also spread conspiracy theories such as QAnon and anti-vaccine propaganda.  

I don't know how successful China Watch and Epoch Times are in influencing Americans with their free papers.  But I would bet that few Americans, either left or right leaning, will suddenly think that everything is great in Tibet and Xinjiang after reading China Watch.  On the other hand, some Americans who lean right, may find the Epoch Times stories to be believable.  So I think the misinformation from the Epoch Times may be more dangerous than those from China Watch.

 Didn't watch much of the debate tonight.  Did watch the analysis afterward.  It was pretty much what I expected.  I am comparing this year's debates to a soccer playoff of 2 games.  In the first game, Trump scores bunch of own goals and so needs a big game tonight.  Biden just needs to not collapse.  So the final score tonight was nil nil.  Biden wins the overall debates.  Kristen Welker was a much better referee than Wallace was in the first debate.  But there were less fighting this time and Walker could hand out yellow cards (muting) this time.  So this was a much easier game to officiate.

So it looks like Biden is in good shape.  But who knows if a James Comey thing from 2016 will happen this year.  Trump and his people are trying to use Hunter Biden to change the narrative like Comey's announcement about Clinton's email last time.  But I think Biden is more liked and trusted by people than Clinton was.  So they are less likely to believe a Biden scandal.  So hopefully Trump will fail to change the narrative this time.

The World Series is getting serious!  I thought that the Dodgers were in good shape with better pitching.  But the young guys are not doing as well as they did in the regular season.  Buehler is the ace and is scheduled for game 3.  That would seem a good situation until I realize the Rays have Morton who beat the Dodgers in 2017 game 7, beat the Astros twice this year, including game 7.  He and Buehler are matched up for games 3 and possibly 7.  So this will be interesting!

 Didn't watch any of the townhalls yesterday.  Figured the baseball game was better.  It didn't turn out that way as the Dodgers got clobbered.  The townhalls went about as expected, according to the pundits, with Trump fighting the moderator and Biden being too boring with details.  But there were a few surprises.

I had expected that Trump will get the better ratings since he is bombastic and try to make absurd claims all the time.  Being a reality tv guy, I would think he knows how to get better ratings.  People hate to admit it but they watch car races awaiting for an accident to occur.  If it is just cars going around in circles, fewer people would watch for sure.  But the preliminary ratings had ABC with Biden beating the combine ratings of NBC, MSNBC and CNBC with Trump.  One of Trump's aides had said that Biden's townhall looks like Mister Rogers Neighborhood.  So I guess Mr. Rogers beats train wreck this time!

Trump, having feasted of softballs from Fox all the time, had trouble answering hard balls from Guthrie.  He basically admits not having tested himself before the first debate, admitted that he only paid a small sum of taxes, admitted that he owes $400 million.  He also refused to condemn the conspiracy theories put out by QAnon.  You would think that without an opponent to attack, he would have to answer questions from the moderator and the audience.  Yet he had no good answers.  Well, maybe there are no good answers possible.

Chris Christie is discharged, which is good.  He also admits he has been wrong.  At least his bout with the virus changed his outlook.  That is unlike Trump who did not see the light but instead doubled down.  He will never change.

Two and  a half weeks left till the election.  Will we finally get rid of this guy or will we turn into a banana republic with a dictator trying to hold on to power and total chaos erupt in the country?

 I was watching CNN last night about Melania's former aide who is promoting her book on Melania.  She had taped some of their conversations and it was not flattering to Melania.  So I was thinking that the tax thing on Trump came out last week and now this.  All seem to be timed for maximum effect before the election.  Still, neither may make any difference.  I was about to get back to watching baseball playoffs.

Then Bloomberg reported that Hope Hicks, one of Trump's closest aide tested positive for COVID.  The timeline seem to make no sense.  As reported, Hicks felt sick on Wednesday night and tested positive on Thursday morning.  She was shown going on Marine One and subsequently Air Force One with Trump and others on Wednesday morning.  None were wearing masks.  So I am thinking everybody on that staff, including Trump, had to know Hicks was sick and should have received tests at latest Thursday morning.  Even if all others were negative, they should have been quarantined.  Yet Trump left for New Jersey Thursday morning for a fund raiser.  There was also no announcement about Hicks' positive test or the results of the tests of anyone else.

Later Trump went on Fox and admitted that Hicks was sick and he got tested and was waiting for the result.  Eventually at 10 pm my time or 1 am on the east coast, Trump tweeted that he and Melania were positive.  It should not have taken the whole day for the results to come back.  He should not have gone to New Jersey even if his test initially was negative.  There was no transparency for the whole thing until Bloomberg broke the news.  The WH spokeswoman must have know about Hicks in her morning press briefing and yet she never talked about it, even though some of the journalists were traveling with Hicks the day before.

So now what?  Who knows!  Trump joins Boris Johnson and Brazilian president Bolsonaro as COVID patients.  All three were skeptical of the effect of the virus in public.  Johnson had a change of heart after spending time in the ICU.  Will Trump do the same?  Will he get sympathy vote from the public even if he is responsible for much of the spread of the virus itself due to his "leadership".  The second debate is probably off.  What would his ardent followers think?  More important, what do the independents think?

Biden, being on stage with Trump on Tuesday, will have to be tested everyday until at least Monday to be sure he didn't catch it from Trump.  God forbid, if Biden got it what kind of chaos will follow?  Trump won't be able to travel to campaign.   Biden may have to play the good competitor and don't campaign in public as well.  But it won't affect Biden as much as he has been careful and has not campaigned in large rallies.

Well, that is all for now.  But this story will dominate for the next two weeks at least.   Will the WH be more transparent?  Will Trump and the WH follow guidelines now?  Don't hold your breath?  Trump won't be able to change the subject as he has been trying.  But at least the tax thing and Melania story will be put on the back burner for now.  

 This is democracy in action?   China and Russia are laughing at us after the so called debate tonight.  It was more like a wrestling match, WWE style.  Trump was hitting below the belt, throwing chairs at Biden and punching when referee Chris Wallace was trying to break it up.  Biden was trying to stay calm and play by the rule.  I wish that he would have pull on Trump's wig and put him on a choke hold!

It was expected that Trump would come out swinging and try to drag Biden into the mud and force him to make errors.  But I think Trump overplayed his hand.  He interrupted way too much and frankly did not even give Biden a chance to make a mistake.  He went against the previously agreed rules for the debate so much that Wallace had to try to rein in many times.  Wallace was not successful (who would have?)  But Wallace, I thought, actually helped Biden by challenging Trump to answer his own questions and not interrupt Biden.  There was almost a separate debate between Wallace and Trump.  Given that this is a Fox News debate, it was better moderated for Biden than expected.

I think that Biden could have hit Trump harder.  For example, when Trump claimed that if Biden was president there would have been many more dead from COVID.  All Biden had to say was that if Trump did such a great job, why is the U.S. so much worse off than other countries?  Trump is obviously worse than the leaders of almost every country in the world.  When Trump attacked Biden's intelligence, saying he was last in his college class, Biden could have said: "I didn't need to pay someone to take my SAT.  Also my doctor did not order a dementia test for me!"  Sometimes you have to respond to a punch below the belt with a kick to the groin.

Trump once again refuses to refute white supremist groups and violence.  Instead he gave a shout out to the Proud Boys, a neo Nazi group, and told them to stand back and stand by.  The GOP can say that it is not a call to the group to get ready to battle.  But the Proud Boys are rejoicing and so you know how they interpreted that remark by Trump.  This is the exact type of chaos Russia, China and Iran like to see in our political process.

This debate probably won't change the minds of many people.  But if Trump and his supporters think that this will close the gap between the two, I don't think so.  Biden was not great but he held serve and given how badly this debate was, I am sure the ratings for the other two will be lower.  So there will be less chance for Trump to make up ground.  There are no winners tonight but Biden's supporters will be relieved.  The loser, however, is American democracy.

Taking a little break from politics and discuss college football today.  Well, that actually is politics as Trump has been telling the Big Ten and Pac 12 to join the other three big conferences to play this fall.  The Big Ten has decided to play an 8 game schedule and the Pac-12 will probably announce that they will play also.  Is this the right choice?   

I was against playing college football before.  I think college basketball with much smaller rosters and less physical contact, is much more safe to play.  Given that the southeast and southwest areas of the country were still seeing high number of cases, I thought that those conferences should not have started.  There were quite a few positive cases when training started but they kept going.  I have not heard much about cases in those conferences recently.  Either things are much better now or they are hiding the truth.

The other day the LSU coach said something to the effect that a great number of his players already had been infected.  They have recovered and are able to play now, he said.  He would not say how many players were/are infected.  It seems very suspicious to me.  Sure most young people are asymptomatic or recover quickly after being infected by this virus.  But they can transmit to other people and since they are not in a lockdown like NBA players and they are young and in many cases immature, I think the transmission rate would be high.  Also many young athletes develop myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, after being infected.  It may not lead to damage but we are not so sure about it, especially years down the line.  So I still think it is risky for them to play football now.

Having said that, I think the Big Ten and Pac-12 are in better positions than the other conferences when they start in October.  They will have daily testing.  There is the antigen test which is cheaper than the standard PCR test.  The results are available in minutes as oppose to sending the tests to labs and results may not come back for days.  If the athletes are tested daily, then the chance of a positive person transmitting the virus will be very low.  I believe the antigen test, which is not as sensitive as the PCR test but is much faster and is good enough for screening purpose, gives college football a much better chance of successfully play out the season.  If this occurs, it may be used for opening schools for in person learning throughout the country.

The playoffs spots will be even more controversial this year as teams are mostly playing within the conferences.  How do you judge teams from different conferences when there are no interconference games?  It will be even more of a beauty contest than ever before.

 It is with great sadness that I hear the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  Justice Ginsburg is certainly a great icon in American law.  A great talent, a great fighter for justice and in the past twenty years a great fighter against cancer and other health issues.  She will be greatly missed.

The possibility of her dying has been a great fear among Democrats since Trump was elected.  Certainly if Clinton had been elected, RBG would have retired.  But when Trump was elected, she did all she could to stay alive so that she would not be replaced by a Trump appointee.  She did not quite make it to January of 2021.  But maybe she stayed alive long enough to avoid the unthinkable:  McConnell being able to confirm a third Trump nominee.

Mitch McConnell is going to try to ram a nomination through before Biden becomes president.  Never mind the hypocrisy of him blocking Obama's nomination for eight months before the 2016 election.  Now with about one and half month left before the 2020 election, McConnell thinks it is legitimate for the GOP to grab another Supreme Court seat.  This just shows what kind of people McConnell and most of the GOP are today.

The GOP has 53 seats in the Senate.  With Pence being the tie breaker, the Democrats need to flip 4 votes to prevent McConnel to succeed in this travesty.  Collins of Maine and Murkowski of Alaska have indicate that they don't think it is right for this nomination to go forward.  Romney may be another vote.  Chuck Grassley and Lindsay Graham have indicated in the past that it would not be right to have a nomination late in the year of a presidential election.  These two are iffy at best though.  There is also the possibility if Kelley wins in Arizona in a special election to replace McCain, then he could be sworn in as early as November 30 instead of January.  That would make a lame duck confirmation of the appointee by Trump to be less likely.

There is also the possibility of an expansion of the number of Supreme Court justices if Democrats win the Senate and the presidency.  Chuck Schumur has threatened this if McConnell insisted on ramming this nomination through.   I don't know how legal this is and how hard politically this is.  I understand there is not a set number of justices according the constitution.  But will have to see how this shakes out.

How is this going to affect the election?   I don't know.  Is it going to pump up partisans on both sides?   I think so.  I would think that the Trump side will be more pumped up as I think they believe that they are going to lose ground in the election.  But the unfairness and hypocrisy of McConnell and the GOP may turn off some independents.  So we will see.  The other thing that I worry is that this becomes the main story each day, taking away the important discussions we need regarding the pandemic, the racial divide, foreign relations and the economy.  It is going to be a crazy month and a half.  Probably much longer because the election results maybe contested long after November 3, and a lame duck Senate may still be deciding a justice nomination into January.

 While traveling the past week, I didn't have much chance to watch sports.  But I did catch the men and women championships of the U.S. Open tennis.  They were both exciting and tension filled matches that went to the maximum number of sets.  Both champions won by coming from behind.  There were no spectators so you don't get the usual excitement and roar after great shots.  Still the telecasts showed that for a few hours sports can give relief to the problems of the world.

But the women championship did not hide the problems of the world.  Naomi Osaka had refused to play the semi-finals of the previous tournament in protest of racism.  The governing body of tennis backed down and postponed the tournament a day and she then agreed to play.  During the U.S. Open, Osaka wore a mask with the name of a victim of racial violence when she came onto the court before each match.  She also wore the mask during interviews after the matches.  This raised attention to systemic racism in the country.  While the NBA and other sports supported the protest movement, Osaka was the only top tennis player who openly supported the movement with her actions.

Osaka is now a three time major champion.  She is also at age 22, the future leader of women's tennis.  Her activism is to be applauded.  It can't be easy to be a champion on the court at the same time a champion for social issues off the court.  Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova were two names I can come up with who did the same.  But I think they were older and had been on tour longer when they became spokeswomen for their causes.  Prior to this, Osaka was seen as a young woman who laughed at herself for giving poor interviews and acceptance speeches.  It is amazing she is now an activist with  potential to be a great leader among sport stars.

 If you work for Trump you are going to have to be a liar.  The new medical advisor whom Trump is leaning on for the COVID response is Dr. Scott Atlas.  He has been shown on camera where he basically call for herd immunity to stop the virus.  Now that he is being challenged for this view, he is saying that he never advocated for herd immunity but that he is not surprised that people frame him because this is Washington!  Well, he is Washington now and he has the audacity to call people liars when what he said was recorded!  But Trump will like that he is caught with a lie because that has happened to Trump many times before and he and his base don't care.

Atlas has also questioned the effectiveness of wearing masks.  He and CDC also said that asymptomatic people don't need to be tested.  The FDA has said that a new vaccine may be fast track to market even if phase three trials are not completed.  I doubt that most scientists in the CDC and the FDA agree on these declarations.  It seems that the politicians are calling the shots in the Federal government and not the scientists.  Add to that of local and state level people like DeSantis of Florida and Kemp of Georgia, we can see that we will not be winning the fight against this virus any time soon.

When the CDC gave the new guideline that asymptomatic people don't need to be tested, Dr. Fauci was under anesthesia for surgery.  So they did not want to get the opinion of the top scientist on the epidemic before making such a decision.  In China when this pandemic started, they called on Dr. Zhong Nan Shan, their Dr. Fauci.  When he said the country needed to go into lock down mode, it was advice followed.  Here, we listen to incompetent people instead of our top scientists.  So we will continue to suffer.

 Having written about the Democratic convention each day last week, I will write about the GOP this week.  This is going to be hard to do as I get angry listening to what some of the speakers have to say.  Of course I only watch the highlights (or lowlights).  I can't possibly sit through these speeches in their entirety.  I couldn't even do that with the Democrats either.

So the first night the GOP bring out their diversity starting lineup, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott and Hershel Walker.  I would be interested who they have coming off the bench the next three days.  From what I can see, they did very good jobs.  I think Haley is eyeing for a 2024 run.  So we may very well have two Indian women competing for the presidency in 4 years!

Trump had said that the Democratic convention was dark and his will be uplifting.  Yet the picture the GOP painted if Biden wins is most very scary and dark.  It was obvious they were trying to scare white people into voting against Biden.  The St. Louis couple who pointed guns at protesters said so as much.  

Donald Jr.'s speech could have been lifted from one of his dad's.  It was full of lies and hyperbole.  The greatest economy ever?   The China virus?  Beijing Biden?  It was deflection of blame by using China just as his dad.  His eyes looked watery.  Does he have allergies or has he been crying?  His girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle made Don Jr. look soft spoken.  I think she was channeling Howard Dean.  Wasn't she used to be married to Gavin Newsome?  Talk about changing teams.  This is more like changing planets!

There was no sympathy for the COVID victims.  There was no taking responsibility for the pandemic response.  In fact they tried to change history by saying how well they have done.  I don't think any objective observer would buy this.  This was all trying to play to the base and Trump himself.  I understand Melania is speaking tonight.  Who will she copy off this time?  I am not sure I can stomach 3 more days of this but I will try.

 What is going to happen to college football this fall?  The Pac 12 and the Big Ten have decided not to play, at least this calendar year.  The ACC, SEC and the Big 12 are still scheduled to play.  If these three major conferences do play, are we still going to have a national championship playoff?  Are we going to have bowl games?  What if they played out their schedule, crown a national champion and then the Big Ten and Pac 12 decide to play in the spring?  

I think it is crazy that the three conferences are still trying to play given the situation of the pandemic right now.  There is no sign that we are turning the corner.  With flu season coming, the health system may be completely overburdened in the fall.  While there has been success with professional sports playing while in a bubble, this is not possible with college football.  Most of the teams in the three conferences are in the south and southwest where the pandemic is hitting the worst at this time.  How many Florida and Texas teams are going to be able to play out the season without players getting sick and/or passing the disease to other people? Oklahoma went back to practice and immediately have 9 cases already.

With most schools opting for at least partial virtue learning, I don't see how it can be justified that student athletes are going to play a game where there is contact on every play.  Even the huddles are a good place to spread germs.  The Big Ten and the Pac 12 are doing the right thing while the other three are jeopardizing the lives of young men just for money.

 A historic day as Joe Biden picks Kamala Harris to be his running mate.  I don't think this pick will change the dynamic of the race.  It is still a referendum on Trump and I think Biden wants to keep it that way.  Every name on his list of running mates have some baggage or question marks.  Ultimately, I think Biden thinks that Harris is the safest choice.  She has been vetted in the big stages of running for attorney general and senate in California.  She also ran for president.   So her baggage is well known and will not be a surprise under the bright light.  That is not the case with other women on the list with the exception of Warren.  Given her race and age, Warren was never going to be picked anyway.  I think the Treasury post is right for her.

There will be racist and sexist attacks from the right against Harris.  But that would have been the case for any of the other black women on the list.  Harris can dish as well as take.  She did very well in senate hearings where she grilled Sessions, Barr and Kavanaugh.  So I don't think she will have trouble going up against Pence.  The VP candidate is often a bull dog attacking so the person on the top of the ticket can be seen as presidential.  Harris will attack Barr which indirectly will mean she will be attacking Trump.

By picking Harris, Biden also pulled a Ronald Reagan.  Harris attacked him during one of the debates.  It was like Bush attacking Reagan by calling Reagan's policies voodoo economics.  Reagan forgave and forgot after he won the nomination and picked Bush to be his running mate.  Biden is doing the same here.  This is also a contrast with Trump who does not forget or forgive anyone who crosses him!

 I would have to say that Trump is clever in signing executive orders that he claims will help the people and help the economy.  Besides the constitutionality of these executive orders and the inability of his people to coherently talk about the details of these orders, these will help the people or economy very little.  What these orders do is again deflect blame from Trump.  By claiming that these orders break the deadlock between the House and the Senate, Trump is able to say that he is doing something for the American people.

Instead of $600 weekly, the unemployed will get $400 if the states are willing to put up $100 of the $400.  If the state you are in is not able or willing to pony up the $100,  you will get nothing from the Federal government.  Payroll taxes will be delayed, not eliminated for now.  But if you have no job, no wages, this would not help you at all.  Trump says that there will be extension of no evictions.  But that is not true if you read the fine print.  In any case, there will be no improvement in the economy if all these executive orders are enacted.  And who complained about Obama's executive orders in the past?  None other than Donald Trump.

But by signing these orders, Trump can claim that it is the Democrats who are delaying relief to the people by not coming to an agreement.  This is especially true that the Democrats are taking Trump to court over constitutionality of these orders.  The people don't care about the legality of it, they just want relief.  So this may actually hurt the Democrats.  I say let these orders go through.  With virus still surging in many areas of the country, nothing will help the economy anyway.  The U.S. economy decrease 32% in the last quarter, while that of Germany decreased 10% and that of China increased 3%.   When these orders do nothing to change the situation, Trump will be responsible if these orders were put into action.  If the Democrats delay the implementation of the orders and things continue south, then some people will think that the Democrats are responsible.

Given the positive cases of COVID-19 among the Marlins and Cardinals in baseball in the past few days, I am not optimistic that MLB will finish the season.  I think it is 50-50 right now.  I am more pessimistic about the NFL given it is way more contact with way more players than baseball.  The Patriots already have several players opting out.  I would say that health of many players will be in jeopardy if the NFL is played.  Most serious,  I don't think college football should be played, at least not this calendar year.  The idea that student athletes play a contact sport in the middle of a pandemic while regular students are taking online class only, is ridiculous.

The NBA and NHL probably can finish their season.  They, like the MLS and women soccer, have the players living in a bubble.  But baseball and football have players going home after games and travel from city to city,   So the chances of getting infected, even if the players are careful, are still greater than the general population.  They get tested frequently so maybe able to control an outbreak better.  But as you can see with the Marlins, things still can get out of hand.  I thought originally, MLB was going to go into bubbles in Florida and Arizona, but that did not happen.

Major sports leagues such as the English Premier League have been able to finish or almost finish their restarted seasons without significant problems from the virus.  This is because these countries waited until the curves had not only been flattened but had turn downward significantly before starting their sports leagues. We are starting leagues in the middle of a surge, so our chances of success are diminished greatly.  This is a lesson for the economy as well.  If you start too early, things will go south and the second shut down will be more painful than before.

I think there is more than spying or hacking that caused the Trump administration to close down the Chinese consulate in Houston last week.  That consulate has been around for decades and I am sure they have been doing spy work for just about as long.  So now they are accused of hacking into research facilities.  It seems to me they can do that from anywhere in the world.  I think Trump said hackers don't have to be from the Russian government, they can be doing it from the basement.  So why can't the Chinese do the hacking from the basement of their family homes?

I think Trump is trying to do anything to deflect his handling of the pandemic, economy and racial tension.  Calling it the China virus, defending confederate flags, sending federal troops into cities are all his tactics to try to reverse the poll numbers.  If he only works as hard at solving real problems as he does of dividing people and making people angry, the country would be better off.

Of course, China is going to retaliate every time Trump does something.  They closed the American consulate in Chengdu.  Is this going to be the end of confrontation?  Not even close.  As the election gets closer and Trump gets more desperate, he may try to provoke China into greater confrontations.  I am afraid he is may try to provoke military actions, probably in the South China Sea,  If China responds, which it will have to, it will be extremely dangerous.  Trump may do this because when there is military conflict, the nation tends to rally behind its leader.  He may try this in a desperate attempt to steal the election.

I didn't wait for the Trump conference because I knew there wasn't going to be anything that would be helpful in fighting the pandemic.  He said that wearing masks was the right and patriotic thing to do.  It would be much more helpful if he said that four months ago.  I do wonder what those non journalists at Fox will be saying about the pandemic now.  Is it still a hoax to defeat Trump, according to them?  Now that their incompetent leader has admitted he was wrong, at least while  reading from a script,  will these fake journalists continue to mislead the American people?

On the subject of testing the president a lot, I don't have problems with it.  The president certainly should be tested more than athletes.  Even if everyone at the White House is tested a lot, it is still lot less than all the professional and college athletes who are being tested.  But how can you justify not providing federal funds to get more testing, as the administration is suggesting, if you believe it is important that YOU and others around you need the tests?

You must have missed my comment from the last blog where I talked about federal agents attacking and arresting protesters in Oregon.  I talked about hiding data and using secret police were the exact same thins that the U.S. accuses of China all the time.  So is Trump taking us into a dictatorship?  The letter I found from Xi to Trump is not so fake after all.

Did you see the navy guy who was beat up by federal agent in Portland?  They swung batons at him and broke his arm.  He was just standing there and asking them who they were and why they were there.  I thought he must be a young guy.  It turned out he is at least in his 50s and was a navy veteran.  He is one tough dude.  After they beat him with the baton, he just stood there!  I would be on the ground, crying in pain.  He is very brave.  But if he was black, they probably would have shot him!

I agree that it will get ugly if troops are sent into Chicago and other cities like Detroit.  As I said above, the protesters will be more black in those cities and the agents may be more likely to shoot as opposed to using batons.  It maybe worse than what happened in the south, Watts and Detroit in the 1960s.

Soccer has started, NBA players are in Orlando practicing, MLB is getting ready to start in a couple of days.  So it seems that things are going well with the restart of professional sports.  The thing is, all these players are getting tests for COVID-19 frequently, sometimes everyday.  The results are coming back quickly as well, certainly no more than one day.

Meanwhile, here in California and elsewhere, people who are trying to get tested for COVID-19 have to be in line for hours.  Then it may take a week or more for the results to come in.   Isn't there something wrong with our society where healthy, young millionaires are treated so much better than elderly folks or people with health issues so that billion dollar industries can keep going?

Florida, which is now the epicenter of this country, is hosting all of the basketball and soccer teams.  California has five teams in MLB, which has no bubble.  The players will be going home to their family after games and after traveling to other cities.  I just don't see how this is reasonable.  Toronto, which along with Edmonton, is hosting the NHL.  But Toronto refuses to let the Blue Jays play in Toronto.  Does that make much sense even though the NHL is a bubble so there is less traveling?

Back to the guy who is defecting blame for the pandemic, Trump.  Trump bragged about acing a cognitive test.  He was called out by Chris Wallace on Fox.  I have administered such a test to patients in the past.  It is to rule out dementia, not an intelligence test.  So unless you have dementia, you should ace the test.  Trump kept telling Wallace the test is very hard.  When Wallace showed one of the question of identifying an elephant, Trump said the last few questions were difficult.  No they are not.  The questions test things like the date, time and place.  I think most third graders would ace this test.  The fact that Trump keeps saying this is a hard test shows his dishonesty and narcissism.

Chris Wallace is not the liberal that his father was.  But I am surprise how hard he went after Trump, debunking his lies such as Biden signed to defund the police and the U.S. has the lowest mortality rate due to COVID-19.  At least a few Republicans are tired of all the BS that Trump is putting out there. 

One day after the Trump administration told the country's hospitals to report COVID-19 data to the HHS instead of the CDC, some data are not available already.  The missing data so far are hospital and ICU occupancy from the virus, healthcare worker staffing and PPE status.

When the announcement came out about the change of reporting, I thought to myself that it looks suspicious.  Since the HHS is under the control of the administration, can they falsify the data to make things look better?  I would think that they can't possibly get away with that. could they?  Well, the three types of data missing would all be alarming.  Occupancy in ICUs are rising, healthcare workers in many states are stretched thin, and PPE problems were never addressed adequately.  So all these would be embarrassing to Trump.  But by not reporting these, it just highlights the problems.

Given that the press already noticed this, I am sure these three data will be reported soon.   But will something more sinister like under reporting of cases and deaths be next? 

So now ICE is saying that foreign students taking classes at colleges which will be online instead of in person, will be deported.  That is a grossly unfair rule.  The students have no control over a school's decision to shut down physical classes.  The students are already paying way more tuition than Americans and they will not be getting the full education they envisioned when they came to America.  Now they will not even be allowed to stay.  Some of them have already paid deposits for housing already.  

This whole thing is another way for Trump to appeal to his base of xenophobic Americans.  It is not only unfair but is detrimental to the country.  As mentioned the foreign students paying a much higher tuition.  Add to the housing, food and other expenses, they are a big contributor to the U.S. economy.  

The argument that the students are learning and taking technology from the U.S. and bringing it back home is absurd.  There are benefits to the students and their countries but many of them stay and make a big difference in America.  In fact, most STEM graduate programs in the U.S. will not function well without foreign students.  Silicon Valley would be in trouble without foreigners who stayed here.  There is a history of immigrants helping America.  We may not have been the first the get the atomic bomb without immigrants.

So as usual, Trump is blaming immigrants and foreigners for the country's ills.  He is not the first and will not be last.  But he has blame Mexicans for murders and drug problems in this country.  He is blaming China for his incompetence in his handling of the pandemic.

Of course, Trump doesn't just blame foreigners.   He also blames Dr. Fauci for the handling of the pandemic.  Really?  This from the guy who calls this thing a hoax and would suddenly disappear.  The same guy who thinks that he can detergents to get rid of the virus.  It is beyond crazy.

In the early 1960s, China was in dire poverty.  People were dying from the Great Famine.  There were not enough doctors or hospitals to take care of the sick.  The life expectancy was only 35 years.  Infant mortality was 200 per 1,000.  There was no money to throw at the medical problems.  China came up with an inexpensive stop gap solution.  It trained tens thousands of so called barefoot doctors and sent them out to the rural areas.  

These medical practitioners were called barefoot doctors because they treated patients who mostly worked in the rice paddies barefooted.  The practitioners did not have higher education, maybe barely finished high school.  They were taught simple western medicine along with traditional Chinese medicine.  They learned wound cleaning and infection control.  They learned and then taught good hygiene.  They learned to give the appropriate vaccines available at that time.

By concentrating on primary care, preventive medicine and vaccination, these barefoot doctors did a great job for the country.  By 1982, the life expectancy had increased from 35 to 60.  The infant mortality had decreased from 200 per 1000 to 34 per 1000!

Today with the COVID-19, we have over 130,000 deaths and many more who were treated in ICUs at a cost of thousands of dollars per day per patient.  As we have found, most of those who die or needed ICU care had medical conditions.  Diabetes, hypertension and obesity are some of the medical problems that make someone a high risk for complications from this disease.  Better primary care and preventive care would have decreased the number of hospitalization and deaths.

We spent more money on healthcare per capita than any industrialized country and get the worst results.  We spend a lot of money on expensive machines and drugs.  If we spend more and target primary care and prevention, we would do much better all the time, not just during this pandemic.  We can also do better by addressing the inequality of our system.

Of course, the general public has do its job as well.  It cost almost nothing to wear masks, social distance and wash our hands.  But many of us are not willing to do these simple, inexpensive things.  Many also refuses to take vaccines.  We end up paying for expensive treatments.  It is the old saying, pay little now or pay a lot more later.

Now that the pandemic is surging again, we must look at why the U.S. is doing so poorly.  Trump is obviously a big part of it.  It is too exhausting to go over all the things he has done wrong.  But what about the country as a whole?  How many of us are not doing the three things that would be most helpful:  frequent hand washing, social distancing and wearing masks in public?  I think I would have to give Americans a failing grade overall.  After what we have gone through and still going through, there are still many Americans who argue about beach closings, larger gatherings, and wearing masks.

We are doing worse than all industrialized nations.  Europe was in the same trajectory as us three months ago.  They have bottomed out in cases while we are rising again.  When China got things under control in Wuhan, people say that we can't do what China did.  We are a democracy and we can't lock everybody in the house like China did.   Well, Europe is free and they got out of trouble and are banning us from going there now.  We are nine times bigger than Canada but have 27 times the number of cases as Canada.  Why is this?

It seems that Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have followed the Asian examples and doing a much better job of social distancing and wearing masks.  There have been some exceptions like when Liverpool won the Premier League championship,  masks and social distancing went out of the window for a day or two.  But for the most part, there are little arguments about using masks or the rights of individual to not listen to medical advice as is the case in the U.S. 

Part of the problem, of course, is Trump and the extreme right in this country.  But other countries have conservatives also.  But those conservatives still follow the science.  Like the opposition in Canada is agreeing with the work of the health department there which is run by liberals.  So now all these countries are opening up and businesses are returning while we are shutting down again.

Starting with baseball in Asian to now soccer in Europe, professional sports are returning to many countries.  We are supposed to start soccer, baseball, hockey, and basketball this month.  Football, both NFL and college, is on schedule to start on time.  But I have my doubts.  Given the rising cases, I don't think the sports leagues are going to be able to finish their seasons, even if they start them.  I hope I am wrong.  But if I am right, we have nobody to blame but ourselves for not following science and the examples of other countries.

Despite the FBI saying that the noose found in Bubba Wallace's race car garage is not a hate crime against him, I have some questions.  Since none of the other garages in all the race tracks in NASCAR have a door pull that resembles a noose, why is a noose in this garage.  This type of rope knots take a lot of time and work, why would anyone bother to do all that for a door pull?  Somebody knows who did this, I am sure.  So why not have this person tell why he did all that work?

Just because it probably wasn't aimed at Wallace since this noose was there last year as photos attest, was it a crude joke or was it aimed at some other African American in the circuit?  Also, given that there were 40 drivers in that race and maybe more who went there to qualify, what are the odds that Wallace was assigned that particular garage?   Who made the assignment or was it a random draw?  I think there are still questions to be answered.

On the question of taking down statues, I am all for taking any Confederate related statues.  Most of these were not there just to honor the men but to intimidate blacks post Civil War.  In any case, there is no reason to honor those who betrayed our country by fighting against it for a terrible cause.  Other statues are more difficult for me to decide.  I would have to go case by case if I am asked.  For example, I would not take down Washington and Jefferson.  They did a lot more for this country than those who fought on the Confederate side.  The view about slavery was a lot different back then than now.  It doesn't make it right but all humans are flawed.  We have to judge the overall accomplishments and sins of a person. 

Trump's Tulsa rally is now over.  It did not bring in 60,000 to 100,000 people to the city as his people predicted.  The area was not full to its capacity of 20,000.  There was no over flow crowd as even the arena itself wasn't filled.  Trump then falsely accused protesters of blocking people from entering.  If that was the case, there would be a lot of people outside which Trump was scheduled to address.  But that address was not necessary as there was hardly anyone outside.

The people behind Trump when he spoke were not wearing mask even though they are elbow to elbow.  Trump then said that testing was a bad idea since the more you test, the more infection you find.  The WH claimed later that it was a joke.  But his audience didn't laugh, they just applauded as if they agree.  That is not surprising since it was not a joke and these people that showed up obviously have the same beliefs about the pandemic as Trump.  Now I know why Trump claim that this rally won't increase the Covid-19 cases.  His supporters are not going to get tested!

He also called this the Kung Fu virus, continuing the deflection of blame by using a racist term.  Again his supporters cheered.  There is nothing else to say about this president.  He is a dangerous, incompetent racist.  I know there are still Asians who support him.  I want to see how they defend the things he said tonight.

John Bolton's book tells of Trump asking Xi of China to help him win reelection.  Bolton says that everything Trump does is in term of himself getting reelected, not in the interest of the country.  This is not surprising.  I think even most Republicans know that Trump is a disaster for the country.  But this is such a divided country that even this revelation by a staunch conservative who had first hand knowledge of the Trump White House, will not change many Republican's votes.

But talking about self interest.  If Bolton believes that Trump is such a disaster for the country, why didn't he speak up during the impeachment?  I know that Trump blocked him and he can say that the vote in the Senate would not have changed.  But if Bolton claims to be a patriot, wouldn't he just called a news conference and alert the country that Trump asked China for help?  But Bolton was not patriot enough at that time because his book was not ready for sale yet.  Now he is patriot enough.  And he has the gall to attack the House Democrats for only concentrating on Ukraine, not China!  It is like saying the police didn't catch the criminal because I didn't tell them who that criminal is.

I think one of the few things Trump got right was when Bolton left, Trump said that if Bolton had stayed, he might have started WWIII.  Yes, Bolton is that hawkish and dangerous.  But then why did Trump hired him in the first place?  They deserved each other.

The killing of black men and women by police in the U.S. has been making news all over the world.  Racism is obviously a big concern.  But I read that U.S. cops kill citizens of all colors at a higher rate than the cops in other countries.  So yes, we need to figure out a way that blacks and other minorities are treated the same as whites by the police.  But if we don't decrease the overall killings by the police, then an equal death by cop rate among all citizens still mean a lot of people who should not have been killed.

One reason I think that cops in this country kill more is the gun culture.  In the UK, Germany, Japan etc., the police are less likely to be confronting someone with a gun and so they are less likely to get into a shootout.  Not only that, the thought that the person you are confronting is more likely to have a gun will make you more likely to pull the trigger yourself.  A Japanese cop facing a drunk guy reaching for his pocket is not likely to believe the guy is reaching for a gun.  So less likely the cop himself will pull his gun and shoot.  Cops shot a kid in Ohio who was holding a toy gun.  I am not excusing this carelessness but in what country would a cop think that a 10 year old is holding a real gun?

The so called Blue Line of Silence and the powerful police unions contribute to the problem by protecting rogue cops.  I am not sure if these two problems exist in other countries but I suspect that it is more so in this country.  It seems a lot of people in this country consider snitching on someone is worse than the crime that the person committed in the first place.  The guy who killed Floyd had many complaints against him by the public.  If that is the case, shouldn't his partners also have complained about him?  There are many people who are hired into police departments who should not be cops.  But the screening process is far from perfect.  Without on the job evaluations by fellow cops, the dangerous cops will stay on the force and commit crimes.

So I believe that we have to change the culture about snitching.  We should applaud those who come forward with legitimate concerns in all walks of life.  Cops are not the only ones protected by the culture on silence.  Priests and doctors are other examples of powerful people who in the past have not been reported for doing something wrong.  The player who squealed on the Astros for their cheating in the world series have been shunned by some players.  That is not right.  We should be more concern about calling out wrongs and not more concern about supporting those who did wrong.

Back to the problem of racism in police forces.  While it is important that we have better training to combat racism, I think there are people in the forces who are racists to begin with and no matter the training, they are not going to change.  These are probably a small minority.  But to get rid of them, other officers have to speak out.  We need to change the culture.  I saw on tv last night that a cop actually went against another cop's testimony regarding a shooting.  The cop was shunned and had to retire from the force.  This needs to change.

Guo Wenqui, also known as Miles Kwok, is a Chinese billionaire who had escaped to the United States when he was accused by the Chinese government of corruption, fraud, bribery and rape.  He has been advocating for "democracy" for China since his escape.  Some have accused him of funding the protest movement in Hong Kong.  On June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Guo and Steve Bannon announced the founding of the New Federal State of China!

Yes, the same Steve Bannon who was the trusted aid of Trump, the spreading of fake news on the coronavirus pandemic and supporter of white nationalists.  So Guo and Bannon are announcing their goal of overthrowing the Chinese communist party which is the same as the overthrowing of the Chinese government.  Their announcement is on Youtube.

I don't know how much money Guo has and if he is funding the protests in Hong Kong.  Some Hong Kong protester leaders have called for the people on the mainland to rise up against China.  Given Steve Bannon's relationship with Trump, this is rather scary.  Someone close to the president of the United States is advocating for the overthrow of the country that is a threat to the super power of the U.S.  If someone close to Xi calls for the overthrowing of the U.S. government, what would the response from the U.S. be?  A cold war can be turned into a hot war quickly.

I had said yesterday that things cannot get worse.  But I was wrong.  Today Trump had the police tear gassed peaceful demonstrators outside of the White House.  This was done to clear the way for Trump to walk to St. John Church for a photo op.  He looked ridiculous by the way, holding a bible while standing outside the church.  He did not go into the church.  One of the clergy said that Trump hasn't been at the church since St. Patrick's Day last year.  He also said that the protesters were peaceful and that he himself and other clergies were there with the protesters. 

I was able to obtain a copy of a letter sent by Xi Jinping to Trump to thank him.

Dear President Trump

Thank you for your lesson of how to obtain law and order in your country.  This is going to be very useful in the future if China faces domestic terrorism.  I had passed a law recently that would allow me to arrest people who are subversive to the country, commit treason or terrorize Hong Kong.  I actually didn't have to pass such a law.

You show me that you can just tell a policeman to kneel on someone's neck till he died if he committed forgery.  Terrorism and subversion are much worse than forgery.  So imagine what my cops can do to those people.  Hong Kong's cops have not kill anyone for awhile now, minority or otherwise.  They must be not as tough as American cops.  They will have to do better, thanks for your lessons.

Those thugs in Hong Kong will not dare to burn down the subway stations, break into the government building and occupy the airport like they did last year.  You are going to send in the military for some looting and burning.  Given the standard set by you, I will be very comfortable sending the PLA into Hong Kong next time these ungrateful people act up.

I see that you were heroically walking to a church today with only a dozen men armed with guns, after tear gassing some protesters out of the way.  You are so brave, holding a bible, daring the devil to strike you dead.  I will now be brave next time when I visit Hong Kong.  I am sure the people there love me just like the American people love you.

Thank you for not wearing a mask, indicating that this virus from my country is really no threat to the American people.  I wear a mask when I go out only as a fashion statement.  You look good without the mask, same with your vice president.

You are so smart to dislike NATO. You embrace Saudi Arabia and North Korea just like me.  I think we should get together with Putin in Hong Kong and celebrate the formation of the new Triple Alliance.  We will be the three amigos. 

With Much Respect

Jinping

Can things get any worse?  Over 100,000 dead from the virus, record unemployment, businesses going bankrupt, another police killing of a black man on camera, peaceful protests turning into riots, burning and looting.  Meanwhile our president says that he going to name a domestic group terrorists and threatens to use the military on our own soil and not against a foreign power.

Well, it certainly can get worse.  With the country opening up as the virus stabilized, we may get a second wave, if not during the summer then likely during the winter.  I think the death rate will decrease because many of the most vulnerable, such as the elderly in nursing homes, have already been victims.  We know more how to protect those who survived and even though we don't have a cure or a vaccine, we will be able to treat patients better.  But there are plenty of people who will be infected because they are not careful, because people around them not careful, or because they have jobs that make them more vulnerable.

Even with businesses opening up, the economy will continue to be poor.  Many people will remain unemployed as businesses go bankrupt.  There will be little confidence in the economy.  Travel, restaurants, entertainment may improve for a time but if there is any outbreak again, people will stay away from these businesses.

Police killing of black men followed by riots are like mass shootings, we are almost numb to them.  A journalist can just use the same article he wrote before, just change the name, date and locale.  Just like mass shooting we don't seem to be able to do anything about it.  Before the trial of the cop who killed Floyd is over, I predict there will be at least another killing of a black man by a cop or vigilante claiming self defense caught on camera.

The frustration of the public, in particular the African American community, is understandable.  But that does not excuse those who destroy properties and loot business establishments.  These people do not honor the men who were murdered.  Nor do they advance the cause of freedom as the peaceful protesters are trying to do.  In fact, the looting and burning will turn some Americans, who may otherwise be sympathetic to the protesters, to against them instead.

One person who is not sympathetic to the protesters is the president.  His leadership from the virus to the trade war, to the division of the country is beyond terrible.  He threatens to send in the military and shoot the "thugs".   I wonder what the protesters in Hong Kong think of the U.S. government after asking it to rescue them from China.  Well, that is for another blog, we have too much problems on our own hands right now.

Fareed Zakaria of CNN is one of my favorite journalist on television.  So when CNN advertised a special report by Zakaria titled "China's Deadly Secret", I was extremely worried that this moderate journalist is joining those who are bashing China.  I have already seen liberal comedian Bill Maher said that those who say that we should not call this the China Virus are being too sensitive.  So with Trump bashing China to deflect his incompetence, I am afraid there will be more hate toward China which will lead to hate toward Chinese Americans and also Asian Americans in general.

So the timeline that Zakaria presented on his show goes like this:
Mid December 2019, patients start to stream into Wuhan hospitals.
Dec. 30, Doctors raised alarm about rate of new type of infection
Early January 2020, Dr. Li Wenliang reprimanded for spreading rumors on internet.   Turned out he was right.  Authorities in Wuhan mandated that approval needed to report cases.
Jan. 9, Virus is identified and genome sent to rest of the world.
Mid January, big banquet in Wuhan to tried to break world record for the largest pot luck party!
Mid January Lots of cases already but local authority failed to report cases.
Jan. 14, teleconference between Wuhan officials and Beijing.
January 20, China warns world
Jan. 21, First known case in U.S. occurred in Washington state.
Jan. 23, Lock down in Wuhan started.

It would seem to me that there were mistakes by the local officials in Wuhan and they were probably tried to cover it up and hoping that it will not be too bad and things will blow over.  But there is little evidence from this CNN timeline that the national government knew exactly what was happening till January 14.  There is a period from the 14th to the 20th that Beijing could have warn the world.

 Xi Jinping did send Dr. Zhong Nanshan, the renown physician who did great work on the SARS epidemic, to Wuhan to investigate.  He reported back on the 20th and while at first he thought things can be controlled and peak in February (later he revised it to April), he did believe this was going to be bad.  Perhaps Xi wanted Dr. Zhong's opinion before giving the warning and start the lock down. 

In any case, Zakaria makes the point that China may have delayed things by 6 days.  But Trump delayed things by 6 weeks.  Peter Navarro, a hawk in Trump's administration, had warned Trump about the infections based on CHINA'S information.  So one can't argue that the lack of transparency by China led to the majority of cases and deaths in this country.  Taiwan got the same information and first case near end of January.  Today Taiwan has 7 deaths.  If Taiwan has the same population as the U.S., they would have only 100 deaths.  So to deflect blame to China is totally absurd.

So the program was not really China bashing.  It is fairly presented, blaming China for some of its early actions or inaction, but points out that it is important for the two big powers in the world to solve problems together, not blaming each other.  I don't think it changes the mind of people in this country.  Trump supporters will still blame China.  The problem I see for Chinese Americans is that even the Democrats are not necessary worry about hatred toward us.  Biden will also blame China even as he and other Democrats blame Trump.  He cannot appear soft on China while Trump appear  to stand up to China.