American intelligence has found that Russia is trying to meddle in the U.S. presidential election coming up.  Not surprisingly, it has found that Russia is trying to help Trump win.  What is interesting is that it also found that Russia is trying to help Bernie Sanders win.  So why would they try to help two people at the opposite end of the political spectrum?

Putin is again trying to help Trump because he is very happy with the result of his meddling four years ago.  Obviously, he figured that Trump would not be as tough on him as Clinton would have been.  He has been right.  Time and again, Trump has turned his back on his own intelligence and claim that Russia has not try to meddle.  You can almost say that Trump admires Putin, as well as other dictators.  In fact, based on what he has been doing,  it looks as Trump wants to be a dictator himself.

So why does Putin want to help Sanders?  I don't think it is because he thinks Sanders will turn the country into communist as Trump argues.  I think he wants Sanders to win the Democratic nomination because he thinks that Sanders will be the weakest opponent for Trump.  He is not rooting for the socialist to win he is rooting for the socialist to lose the general election.  I can guarantee that if Sanders is the nominee, Putin will stop helping him against Trump.

I saw Sanders on 60 Minutes tonight.  He added a new social program on his agenda.  Free universal childcare till age of 4.  Add this to his other programs: Medicare for all, free college tuition, forgiving student debt etc,  While most people may say that healthcare is a right, I don't think most people think that college or childcare is a right.  Also he doesn't tell you how much each of these programs will cost.  To pay for this program, he says the same thing he says about the other programs:  tax the billionaires.  Most Americans are not going to want to go to the same well for everything.  Pretty soon most Americans will be on the side of billionaires against Sanders.

There is an old saying:  the enemy of my enemy is my friend.  In the case of Trump and less so with Sanders, I think a friend of our enemy (Putin) is our enemy!

As I had expected, the coronavirus crisis in China has led to discrimination against Chinese in this country.  Kids have been bullied in school.  People have been turned away from motels because they are ethnic Chinese.  Even here in ethnic diverse southern California, we have experienced this.  Our county Chinese association is holding a Chinese new year festival on Feb. 29.  We have been asked by our local newspaper if this was going to be canceled.  Apparently some people have expressed concern about a large congregation of Chinese may spread the disease!

I wonder if this is racism or ignorance.  Maybe a bit of both.  One would be more likely to catch an infection at a Lakers game or at work than at a Chinese festival.  If one catches an infection anywhere, it will be thousands times more likely that it would be the seasonal flu than coronavirus.  In any case, unless you work at a hospital, you will be hard pressed to see more doctors at our festival than anywhere else. 

Some positive notes for Asians:  Parasites won the Oscars, the first non-English film to do so!  For the third season in a row, Asians have won America Got Talent.  Shin Lim won 2 seasons ago, Kodi Lee won last time and tonight an Indian group won.  We will continue to achieve.  We must continue to speak out against racism and ignorance.

Today I heard the sad news of the passing of Dr. Li Wenliang.  Dr. Li was the one who first told the world about the possibility of a virus, that is similar to the SARS virus, infecting people in Wuhan.  Unfortunately, his plea for public response was censored by the local government.  Not only that, Dr. Li was forced to admitting that he was passing false rumor.  Eventually Dr. Li himself was diagnosed with the virus and died.

Rightfully, Dr. Li is hailed as a hero today for both alerting the world of a possible epidemic and also for dying from taking care of his patients.  It is unfortunate that the government attacked Dr. Li instead of listening to what he said.  I understand that false rumors spreading through highly populated cities in China can cause panics.  But given that Dr. Li is a trained physician who was at the front line taking care of patients, the Wuhan government should not have silenced Dr. Li's alert.  If the investigations had started when Dr. Li alerted the authorities, at least some of the lives lost could have been prevented.  Maybe even Dr, Li's life.

I think the Chinese national government has done better this time than during the SARS epidemic.  But there are rooms for improvement, especially at the local level where the first response have to occur quickly.  Hopefully, Dr. Li has not died in vain.  Hopefully his legacy will be that when the next epidemic hits, China will do better.  Given the dense population of China, there will be a next epidemic.  Rest in peace, Dr. Li Wenliang.

Things are looking grim for our political system.  I didn't watch the State of the Union nor the Democratic rebuttal.   I saw that Trump refused to shake Pelosi's hand and then she ripped up his printed speech.  This is our leaders behaving like children!

Then there is the Iowa caucus.   The results, more than 24 hours later, is still not completely available.  I don't understand the technology of apps, which is what the Democratic party was blaming last night.  But if every precinct simply call in the results or fax the results, wouldn't we have gotten the final count after a few hours delay?  I mean, I saw that in these caucuses, everyone just line up behind their candidates' signs and then they count the heads.  There is no paper ballot even.  So it seems to me they count, write it on paper, send it to a centralized location and then add it all up.  How hard can this be?

With about 70% counted by midnight Wednesday on the eastern time, it looks like Pete is ahead on delegates won and Sanders ahead on the popular vote.  Biden did worse than expected, even though he was not expected to win.  Will Pete be the standard bearer for the moderates instead of Biden or Klobuchar?  Too early to tell, but it must be a boost for Pete and a big warning for Biden.

Besides the snafu on caucus night, I don't think that Iowa is necessary as important as some other years.  The population is way too white compare to the democratic electorate of most of the country.  Pete has a big problem with the black vote so what happens when the campaign goes to states with big black population?  More importantly, can he or anyone else bring out the black vote during the general election.  If whoever is nominated cannot get blacks to be enthusiastic near the level of when Obama was running, the Democrats are in big trouble.

On a light note from the last blog, Rick Barry was not on the Warrior team with Wilt.  The Warriors drafted Nate Thurmond and then traded Wilt before Barry joined the team.  Barry went to the ABA for a few seasons when the Warriors didn't want to pay him what he wanted.  If Barry and Wilt were on the same team, they would have had the distinction of two underhanded free throw shooters.  They would also have one of the best and one of the worst free throw shooter in NBA history on the same team!

The response to the coronavirus from China is much different than that of the response in 2003 of the SARS epidemic.  I think China has learned its lessons and is much more transparent this time.  They have not try to downplay the danger of the virus as they did last time.  They have also identified the DNA of the virus and share it with other countries so that other countries can respond quickly if their citizens got infected. 

China also has blocked people from Wuhan and other nearby cities from leaving.  This is very drastic given that it is the Chinese New Year where there is great deal of traveling in the country.  They have also started building a hospital, promising to be completed in a week.  Although that deadline is not going to be met, it looks like it will be completed in about 2 weeks.  That is still remarkable.  I don't think in a democratic country, you can block off cities with 20 million people total without a civil fight.  You also won't even get a permit to build a hospital in 2 weeks!

It is hard to say how bad this epidemic is going to end up to be.  But I doubt that there will be thousands of deaths, like how many we get in the U.S. each year from the flu.  Even the SARS epidemic ended with only about 800 deaths.  So maybe we never will blockade a major U.S. city.  But maybe we should mandate flu shots for everyone?  How about childhood vaccines?

Sad news that Kobe Bryant and his daughter died in a helicopter crash today along with 7 others.  One of the greatest player in the history of the NBA, he will be sorely missed in LA and millions of his fans in the world. 

Not a good start for the year of the rat.  Hope things get better as the year goes!

The Houston Astros have been found to have cheated in the 2017 World Series with stealing signs by electronic means.  The penalty?   The general manager and the manager got suspended and subsequently fired from their jobs.  Couple of draft choices and five million dollars (the maximum fine under MLB rules).  No players were penalized.  They still get to keep the trophy and their name in the record book.

I don't think these penalties are enough.  They certainly are not going to deter anyone from cheating in the future.  The Astros were warned before the playoffs that there will be penalties if they cheat.  That means that MLB had at least a good idea that this was going on before it happened.  But that didn't stop them.  Now that they get to keep their World Series trophy and the players get no penalty but get to keep their winnings and rings, why would future players and team not cheat if they have a new method to do so?

If someone is found to have cheated in the Olympics, his medal can be taken away and the others move up in the standing.  I don't think it is feasible to make the Dodgers the 2017 champion but they can vacate the Astros championship.  But MLB doesn't like to do this.  Even after Barry Bonds have been found to have cheated, his records still stand.  So MLB is weaker than the IOC which Americans have criticized a lot in the past.

Alex Cora, who was a coach with the Astros, became manager of the Red Sox and they won the World Series over the Dodgers in 2018.  Cora is being investigated for his Red Sox team now.  Could the Dodgers have been cheated twice in a row?  Maybe they should also investigate the 2019 Nationals!

I say vacate the 2017 World Series Championship.  Take at least three first and second round draft choicesfrom the Astros.  Take away all the World Series winnings of the players on the Astros playoff rosters that season plus 20% of their salaries for that season.  This may have a chance to deter cheating in the future.

The killing of Iranian general Suleimani is sure to escalate the tensions in the Middle East.  Suleimani was an enemy of the U.S. for sure.  But if the justification for killing him now is that he is planning attacks on the U.S. and his killing prevent us from going to war as Trump suggested, it is laughable.  I am sure that Suleimani and others were planning to attack U.S. interests all along.  The fact we kill the top dog in this will not deter anything.  If he had already made plans as was suggested, then surely they will eventually carry out the plans.  And if war has been deterred, then why are we sending more troops into the area?  It is obvious the chance for conflict is now greater, not less as Trump suggested.

This is another blunder on our relationship with Iraq and Iran.  First we helped Saddam Hussein get chemical weapons and used them against Iran.  Then when Hussein attacked Kuwait, we defeated him but did not finish him off.  Then Bush II decided to take his eyes off Afghanistan and invade Iraq with the idea of getting rid of Hussein once for all.  The Iraq war got rid of Hussein but cost our chance of getting rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan.  And the Iraq invasion has had more bad consequences.

Iraq is a Shiite majority country.  So is Iran.  They went to war in the 1980s because Hussein, who was a Sunni, ruled Iraq.  Once you got rid of Hussein, it was easy to predict that Shiites would rule the country.  That means instead of being enemies, Iraq and Iran can be friends.  Is that what the U.S. wanted?  The Iraq leaders are walking a fine line.  On the one hand, with a Shiite majority and a close proximity to Iran, Iraq had to cooperate with Iran.  On the other hand, the government depends on the U.S. for economic aids and military aids against extremists.  So the Iraq leaders do not want to offend either Iran or the U.S.

But with the drone strike that killed Suleimani, some Iraqis were killed also.  This raised anger not only in Iran but in Iraq also.  The Iraqi government could not be seen as allowing the U.S. to do whatever it wants to do in Iraq.  So the relationship between Iraq and the U.S. is sure to deteriorate.  It is likely that Iraq may demand that the U.S. pull out of the country altogether.  Iran's influence in Iraq and the region is sure to to grow.

Pence said that Suleimani and Iran had helped the 9/11 terrorists.  Either he doesn't understand the people of the area or he is just making things up.  Most of the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia which is a Sunni nation that is an enemy of Iran.  So the idea that Shiites would help Sunnis is not plausible.  There was no evidence of Iran supporting the 9/11 terrorists.  The Trump administration is saying anything to justify the assassination.  But this would not be the first time that our leaders fail to understand the situation of the region and just blindly use force without an end game plan.

As expected the House passed impeachment vote today.  The Senate will acquit Trump as expected early next year.  So I didn't bother to watch the proceedings today.  But couple of things I caught on tv today that maybe of interest.

There was a Congressman from Georgia who spoke out that Jesus had a more fair trial from Pontius Pilate than Trump got from the House.  First of all, the trial is to be in the Senate and has not begin yet.  I doubt that McConnell will be harder on Trump than Pilate was on Jesus.  This guy said that Pilate gave Jesus a chance to confront his accusers.  Well, Pelosi invited Trump to come to testify.  Trump said he was considering it but ultimately chickened out.  So none of what this guy said makes any sense.

How come no Christian has come out attacking this guy.  He is comparing Trump to Jesus!  I know more than half of Republicans think Trump is greater than Lincoln.  But do Christians really believe that Trump is being persecuted more than Jesus was? 

The other thing I saw was Trump mocking Debbie Dingell, the widow of John Dingell.  He even implied that John was in hell.  John Dingell was the longest serving Congressman in history.  He served 59 years from Michigan.  Trump is low class as always.  But again no Republican has come out admonishing his words. 

I don't know if Dingell is still popular in Michigan.  I think these crass remarks from Trump can be used against him in Michigan.  Maybe it won't change many votes but it is a battle ground state that Trump won by the thinnest of margins.  So a few votes may make the difference.

It is time for the Big Ten football bowl games predictions.  I will put up also the level of confidence I have of each of the predictions.

Michigan State over Wake Forest 75% confident
USC over Iowa  53%
Penn State over Memphis  90%
Ohio State over Clemson 51%
Cal over Illinois  53%
Alabama over Michigan 95%
Auburn over Minnesota  95%
Wisconsin over Oregon 55%
Tennessee over Indiana  60%

So that makes 4-5 for Big Ten.  I think it maybe the first time I predict that they will end up with a losing record.  As you can see there are 4 games that I have practical no confidence about my prediction, they are basically tossups to me.  Unfortunately, I am quite confident that Michigan has no chance against Alabama.  OSU dropped to second really is bad for them since Clemson is a much more difficult draw than Oklahoma would have been.  I think Clemson will probably be the favorite in Las Vegas although I was very impressed with OSU the two games I saw them play, against Michigan and Penn State.

The Democrats put out a 300 page report regarding the impeachment while the GOP put out over 100 pages to rebuff the Democrats even before the report came out.  Neither is going to change anyone's mind.  A poll from the Economist showed that 53% of Republicans think that Trump is a better president than Lincoln.  Probably 100% of Democrats think that Lincoln is better than Trump even though Lincoln has been dead for more than one and a half century!   It is impossible to argue with someone who believes the president who freed the slaves and defeated the confederates was inferior to Trump as president.  Apparently there are many people who are for the breaking up of the union and continuing slavery in this country!

On the Democrat side, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been criticizing Mayor Pete for saying that while he is for free college tuition, it should not apply to children of rich people.  AOC has also criticized Yang for saying he is for Medicare for all but would allow people who want to keep their current insurance to do so.  I understand the argument that if free tuition and health insurance is not for everyone then the Republicans will attack it, just like food stamps and welfare.  But they are going to attack it anyway as socialist no matter what.  Pete and Yang are right that the way the left presents these entitlements, they will not pass.  They can only hurt the chances of the Democrats defeating Trump next year.

As the most recent polls show, the lefts' candidates, Warren and Sanders, are not beating Trump in the battleground states.  The Democrats need to nominate a centrist candidate.  If Biden falters, Pete maybe viable.  The Democrats cannot put whoever is nominated in a position where he or she has to lean so far to the left that he or she cannot win those battleground states.