The death of Justice Antonin Scalia must send shock wave to the GOP.  Scalia and Thomas are the two most reliable conservative votes in the Supreme Court.  If Obama is able to get someone through the Senate to replace Scalia, the liberals will be the majority in the Supreme Court.  So the GOP has to do everything to prevent Obama's nominee from getting confirmed.

The GOP does control the senate and so can prevent an Obama's nominee from getting confirmed.  But there is a big risk in this.  Most likely, Obama will nominate someone who had been confirmed with GOP votes in the past for appellate court.  This will force the GOP to renounce someone they had voted for in the past.  If there is no action from the GOP then the court will operate with just 8 justices for the year.  If there is a 4-4 vote then the decision from the lower court will stand.  This means that cases that would have been reversed if Scalia was still alive will not be reversed.  So the conservatives will lose some cases they would have won even if there was no new justice. 

The Democrats will denounce inaction on the part of GOP not to confirm.  GOP voters will be on the side of no action so that would seem to be a wash.  But I think the majority of independents will see the GOP as obstructionists here.  To go a whole year without taking action is just wrong to neutral observers.  Even if the GOP does not lose independent votes, the big fight over this is sure to get heavier voter turnouts in the election.  Since heavy turnouts usually favors Democrats as demonstrated in big turnouts in 2008, this will be problematic for the GOP.  With more GOP senators up for election than Democrats, a heavy turnout can possibly throw the senate to the Democrats.  I am sure Obama and his party is not counting the chickens before they hatch, but the possibility of losses in all 3 branches must be frightening to the GOP today.

Nice for Peyton Manning to probably end his illustrious career on top with a Super Bowl championship.  He must give thanks to his defense and to the Panthers for making all kinds of mistakes. 

The race for the presidency is like football playoffs.  In order to get to the finals, you have to win your conference.  And in order to win your conference, you have to win your division.  So basically Christie, Bush, and Kasich have to beat out Rubio to win the division of the establishment in order to have a chance to beat our Trump and Cruz for the Republican conference.  So with Rubio ahead, the other three are attacking him rather than Trump and Cruz right now.  So will see if that makes a difference in the NH primary this week.  Sanders and Clinton are in the Democratic conference finals already.

I am no fan of Fiorina but I think she should have been allowed to be in the last debate.  She would have been in the JV debate if not for Huckabee and Santorum dropping out.  I mean, if a JV team doesn't have enough players, it stands to reason that the one left over player should be moved up to the varsity.  It does not seem fair that we had 10 debaters before in the main event and now they can't accommodate a seventh debater.

Just watched a documentary on Vietnam called "Hearts and Minds".  It reminds me of the rhetoric of the presidential candidates who are saying they will destroy ISIS.  In particular, Ted Cruz, who said that he will "carpet bomb them".  This shows how little Cruz and others like him have a grasp of history.  The last time we carpet bombed somebody was in Vietnam.  That was totally unsuccessful.  Never mind that carpet bombing is borderline war crime.  The aim is to destroy an entire area, whatever or whoever is there.  In Vietnam, it was not military targets but an entire city like Hanoi.  That did not destroy the North Vietnamese army or the Viet Cong.  This will work even less against ISIS since they have no country and they are not even the majority in a city.  So if you carpet bomb  a city you won't destroy ISIS but will get more resentment and more recruits.

All these rhetoric of shouting I will destroy the enemy or make American great again are just rhetoric.  There are no reasonable strategy in this.  In fact there is a lack of understanding of the world outside America.  This remind me of General William Westmoreland, who commanded the troops in Vietnam.   He claimed that his counterpart in North Vietnam is fighting a war of attrition by sacrificing thousands of men at each battle.  He said that "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner...We value life and human dignity.  They don't care about human life and dignity."  I find this view racist.  Beyond that, this lack of understanding of other people led to our defeat in Vietnam.  I think some of these candidates will lead us into the same disaster if one of them is elected.

I would not go as far as Michael Moore who called it a racial crime and ethnic cleansing.  But I am shocked and appalled at what happened in Flint with its water.  I would agree that if this was happening in a rich suburb of Michigan or the state capitol, Lansing, this would have been resolved a long time ago.

There are a lot of blame to go around from what I can see.  First, you would think that if you are switching to a different source of water, the new source must be tested way before to be sure it is safe.  In this case there was lots of chloride in the Flint river water and it is corrosive to pipes.  That was not difficult science to understand.  When the residents complained of bad smell and color in the water, it was ignored.  Can't see that happening in Bloomfield Hills.  Then GM would not use the water because it was corroding engine parts.  If it is bad for engines, wouldn't someone figure that it was bad for pipes and people?  Then when finally the city council voted to go back to Lake Huron water, the emergency manager appointed by the governor vetoed the move.  Given the evidence at that point, how can he morally do that?  And at that point, nobody in the governor's office see the problem already?

There are probably more blame to go around but I only recently read about this.  I hope someone from Michigan can give more insight to this.

It looks like the sanctions against Iran will start to be lifted.  Iran has been fulfilling its obligations so far to dismantle its nuclear arms program.  There is no guarantee that it will not start the program in the future but this agreement has delayed Iran from getting a nuclear bomb for at least more than one year.  There are still skeptics, of course.  But if there was no agreement, Iran would have gotten the bomb by now and Israel may have attacked. So we have avoided that and if Iran goes back on its word, then attacking is still an option.

One plus as the result of the agreement is that at least there is a dialogue between the U.S. and Iran.  This led to release of four or five hostages today.  There was also the quick release of American sailors who wandered into Iran waters.  Somebody made a big mistake here and gave Iran an opportunity for propaganda.  But with sanctions about to be lifted Iran acted better than they would have otherwise and released the sailors by the next day.  The GOP candidates were screaming for Obama to act tough.  But what do they want to do?  Start a war over the capture of 2 boats and 10 sailors?  Obama and Kerry did the right thing by not escalating things and quietly negotiated for the release of the sailors.  Apparently some people mistake talking tough as being competent or smart.

It seems like everyday now I read that a Sikh is being attacked because some idiot thinks he is a Muslim.  Of course those idiots have no reason to attack a Muslim either since overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists.  A Sikh bus driver in California was beat up recently.  Somehow he was able to prevent the bus from crashing.  Somehow the perpetrator has not been charged with a hate crime.  He was calling the driver a terrorist before attacking.  If that isn't a hate crime, I don't know what is.

More than a year ago I wrote about Cliven Bundy who owed the government a million dollars in fees and fines for grazing on federal land.  Now his son Ammon is the leader of a group that is taking over a federal building in a remote area of Oregon.  Previously I said that the government should approach the Cliven Bundy situation cautiously.  There is no need to turn this into another Waco.  But more than a year later that situation has not resolved.  Bundy still owes the money.  Now his son has seized this building and is not clear what his ultimate goal is.  Again, armed men are involved and are threatening law enforcement with violence if they try to getting them out of there.

I have no good solution to peacefully end this.  Apparently law enforcement has none either since  they still have not gotten the money from Bundy after all this time.  I am quite sure that anyone who owes the IRS a million but has no guns will be in jail already.  So is this going to lead to others who will just use threats of violence to ward off the government?  Is that what the Second Amendment is about?  I also wonder what the response would be if a group of armed black men take over a federal building?

Well, the Big Ten was mediocre, winning half of their games.  That is still better than my 4-6 record in my predictions.  Even with that in mind, I will ring in the new year with my predictions for 2016.  Do not take these predictions to bet in Las Vegas!

I predict that Clinton will become the first woman president of the U.S.  I have this feeling that Ted Cruz may actually be the GOP nominee.  But regardless who it is, Trump have done enough damage for it to be unlikely that the GOP will beat Clinton.  I don't think Trump will run as a third party candidate but he will still be a thorn on the side of the nominee. 

The stock market will have several wild gyrations but will end up within 3% of today's level.  China will have even slower growth rate this year than last but the Chinese government will still be able to stimulate it out of deep trouble.  Otherwise the world economy will tank.  The slow economy in China is going to affect commodity prices and will affect countries like Australia and Brazil which depend on Chinese purchases.  The U.S. will not be affected as much and with oil prices continue to be low will actually see the dollar gaining in value.

There will be 3 major terrorist attacks in the world but the overall strength of ISIS will decrease.  They will hold less territory than this past year.  With oil prices dropping and being mired in Syria, Putin will be less aggressive but will still be a pain in the butt for the world.

I don't think there will be a terrorist attack at the Olympics.  But there will be a lot of problems like transportation, venues not up to par, protests and crime.  The U.S. will win the medal count over China.

Odds against it happening are quite high, but I predict that NE will beat Seattle again in the Super Bowl since I am not convinced any other team out there, including the Panthers, are likely to win.  I take Cleveland over GS in the NBA because I think that Curry may not be healthy for the finals and Lebron will have Kevin Love and Irving back this year.  Don't know anything about the NHL anymore so I will just take Montreal since they haven't won in a while.  I like Dave Roberts and I think Ryu will come back to help Kershaw carry the Dodgers to a World Series title over the Tigers.

I am sure not many people watched the latest Democratic debate.  It doesn't make much difference anyway.  Clinton will be the nominee barring a big scandal.  Sanders is more of a sparring partner than an opponent in the ring.  So Clinton appears to be taking more shots at Trump than his "opponents".  I agree that Trump will serve as a recruiting tool for ISIS.  But I think Clinton went too far to say that there are ISIS videos featuring Trump right now.  There is no proof of that so far that I can see.  There is no point to exaggerate things.

But I don't understand the bromance happening between Trump and Putin.  Putin says Trump is bright and talented and Trump says there is no proof that Putin has killed any journalists.  Trump also says it is a great honor to be praised by Putin.  Since I don't think Putin has our country's interest at heart, I think he must want to deal with Trump than somebody else after next year.  So I can see why he praise Trump.  But is Trump really that stupid to defend a dictator?  It would be like FDR accepting the praise of Hitler and say that there is no proof that Hitler killed anyone.  But then I guess Trump's supporters don't care what Trump says.

Once again is time for my AAAAA-Angry Asian Absolutely Accurate Assessment of Big Ten Bowl picks.  I have Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan, Northwestern, Ohio State  and Penn State winning.  I have Nebraska, Wisconsin, MSU and Iowa losing.  So I predict 6-4.

I think the playoff games are unpredictable.  The consensus among the so called experts is that Oklahoma and Alabama are the two best teams.  I think that is a stretch.  I think all four teams can win the title and all four could easily have not been here except for some luck.  But there is no controversy of the four being here.  I have Alabama slightly favored over MSU but I think the line of Alabama favored by 10 points is ridiculous.  If I am a betting man, I would take the points.  Oklahoma is favored by 3 and half over Clemson.  I also would take the points here.  In fact I pick Clemson straight up over Oklahoma.  I would like to see the semis before deciding on the final to see how each winning team played against another top team.  But if I have to pick right now, I pick Clemson because I think Alabama may beat MSU but they will be beat up pretty badly physically from this game.  I think Clemson will have a easier time against Oklahoma.

Obama went on tv tonight in an attempt to reassure Americans about the threat from terrorists.  I don't think it changes anything.  Those who are against him will say the same things and those on his side will not change their tunes.  There are no good and easy way to do this.  This will continue into the next presidency.  And whoever is elected will not have any better idea than Obama.  If someone like Trump gets elected, God forbid, he will find that rhetoric will not get rid of ISIS and in fact plays right into terrorists hands and increase their ability to recruit.

You know, there are a lot of Americans who are angry that more is not done about ISIS.  There are also a lot of Americans who have great fear of terrorism.  But despite what happened in California this week, terrorism have not cause many deaths since 9/11.   The chances of getting killed from terrorism is miniscule compared to the chances of getting murdered by fellow Americans.  So how come those people who are angry at Obama are not a thousand times more angry about the people who don't want to stop gun violence?  You don't want to stop people who are on no fly lists from getting guns?  Really?  Obama may sound careless when he described ISIS as a jv team.  But we are not living in the most dangerous time as people suggest.  Remember the 1960s when we were frightened of what the USSR will do to us?  Compared to the USSR, ISIS is jv.  Also 50,000 Americans died in Vietnam during that time.  So the chances of Americans dying due to a conflict was much greater then.  It was also greater during the Iraq war under Bush than now.  So let's have some perspective.  It took a long time to get rid of the threat from the USSR.  It will take a long time to get rid of the threat from ISIS who by the way came into existence thanks to our invasion of Iraq.