It looks like Trump and Clinton are going to be the nominee of their respective parties after tonight's primary results.  With Trump sweeping all five states by big margins, I don't see how the GOP will be able to deny him at the convention even if falls short of the majority.  It does not seem like any strategy Cruz, Kasich and the establishment tries has work at all against Trump.  I guess there are a lot of angry Republicans out there.  They just want to punch out the established politicians.  I don't think Trump can beat Clinton.  But if he does win, I say to those angry Republicans:  Be afraid of what you asked for!

San Francisco police officer Jason Lai was found to be sending racist text to fellow officers and others.  This is really appalling.  Even if Lai himself had not been victim of prejudice, I am sure he had family members who were victims.  So now he is in a position of power, he looks down on other people?  Having just witnessed the Peter Liang situation, I am wonder what this is going to do in recruiting of Asians in law enforcement and if this hurt the good Asian cops out there.

Officer Peter Liang was sentenced to 800 hours of community service and five years of probation today after judge Danny Chun reduced his manslaughter conviction to criminally negligent homicide.  A few weeks ago I wrote that Liang should not have been charged with manslaughter and that he was made a scapegoat for all the previous shootings and beatings by police officers.  I also did not think he deserved anywhere the maximum of 15 years for manslaughter.  I thought that by assigning Judge Chun to the case, he would get a long sentence since it would look bad for an Asian judge to go easy on a convicted Asian officer.  Turns out I was wrong.

I am not sure that criminally negligent homicide sounds a lot better than manslaughter but apparently it gives Chun more leeway.  I have not heard anything about riots in New York.  Maybe they are too busy voting for Trump and Clinton!  I had wrote that Liang deserved to be punished but maybe only for couple of years in jail.  He got off much better!  I would totally understand if blacks are upset over this sentencing.  Either Chun is very courageous and want to do the right thing or he is biased.  I am not sure.  Now, I also read that the prosecutor asked for probation and community service and no jail time.  So if that is the prosecutor's belief that Liang deserved no jail time, then why go for the manslaughter conviction?  Is this all a show that the government won't let officers get away with it but still protect the officers?  I am happy for Liang that he doesn't have to spend years in jail but I feel badly for the Gurley family that the justice they thought was within reach was taken away.

On the cover of the Time magazine I got this week is my name and the fact that I owe $42,998.12.  This is the amount that every American man, woman and child would need to pay to erase the $13.9 trillion U.S. debt.  There were a few pages inside devoted to how we got here.  But there wasn't any good solution from the author that I can see.  Forget about the presidential candidates.  Independent analysis found that the policies of the remaining candidates, if enacted, would increase the debt and/or decrease the GDP.  I am no economist but I understand that economists believe that debt as a percentage of GDP becomes dangerous if over 90%.  We are at 73.6%, according to the article.  So it is not panic time yet, but it will be if we don't do anything about it.

The argument from the GOP is cut spending.  The argument from the Democrats is raise taxes.  Neither by itself will work as demonstrated by the analysis that none of the candidate's policy would work.  And there are tons of arguments about what to cut.  Also our tax codes are ridiculous with millions of pages that even accountants have trouble understanding.  I propose that we do an across the board cut of 5% and an increase of 5% taxes. To reach the 5% increase, we use a flat tax with no loopholes or exceptions.  We then calculate the flat tax rate that would give 5 % more total than we get now. 

Of course the above will never get passed in real life as both sides will be against it.  One more thing that I feel strongly about is that we have to find a way to get rid of all those off shore accounts.  Money going into those accounts are worse than any domestic spending for our bottom line.  For example, a person on welfare gets his check will likely use all of it in the domestic economy.  This money will circulate, creating more economic activity and taxes.  The money in a Swiss bank account does not circulate here and taxes are avoided.  So cleaning out these accounts is more important than any budget cuts we can make.  Of course again, this will never happen.

The Panama Papers revealed hundreds of thousands of offshore shell companies in 200 countries.  There was more info than Snowden's intelligence leak.  While it is not shocking that dictators and wealthy individuals hide money in untraceable account, the enormity uncovered from the records of one law firm in Panama is amazing.  The prime minister of Iceland has already lost his job over this.  Although people like Putin and the king of Saudi Arabia are not going to lose their jobs, I think there are going to be world wide consequences.  One of which is the confidence in the capitalist system which allow this. 

This is not just a problem in third world and communist countries.  I read where Switzerland and Hong Kong are one and two in hiding accounts.  But surprisingly, the U.S. is number three.  Lots of companies are set up in states such as Delaware and Nevada where the real head of the company is not on record.  The LA Times reported that gambling tycoon Sheldon Adelson bought the Las Vegas Review-Journal with a shell company registered in Delaware so that people would not know that he owned the paper.  I think we have to stop this type of dealings.  Otherwise there will be more anger over the system.  There may actually more call for socialism.  Bernie Sanders has already tap into this.  But if more revelation of tax cheating from the wealthy 1% come out, candidates like Sanders will be more successful in the future.  I believe that capitalism is the best economic system in history.  But I always said that capitalism without regulation is just chaos.  So lets try to have stricter regulations before the confidence in the system diminish significantly.

Well, now that FBI got someone to hack into the iphone of the San Bernardino terrorist without the help of Apple, I think we can conclude that nothing can be totally private.  Apple, having refused to help the government, now has egg on its face.  The world now knows that its products are not impenetrable.  For us consumers, if there is something we don't want anyone else to know, do not put it in computers, email, smart phones, icloud etc.

Scottie Pippen claims the 1995 Bulls would sweep the Warriors of today.  Total nonsense.  It is not really possible to compare generation to generation but to think that anyone of any era can sweep the Warriors is ridiculous.  I would not put the Warriors as the best of all time even if they beat the Bulls' record of 72 wins.  They would have to repeat the championship first to be in the conversation.  But I think they match up well with the Bulls.  I think the Big Two of Jordan and Pippen are better than Curry and Thompson due to superior size and defense.  But Draymond Green is better than Dennis Rodman, the Bulls number three.  Harrison Barnes and Andrew Bogut are better than Ron Harpper and Luc Longley.  So let say the top five are pretty even.  But the Bulls bench was very thin.  Toni Kucocic is good and Steve Kerr would be a bigger player today with the importance of the three point shot.  But there is practically nobody else any good beyond those two.  The Warriors has Andre Igudala, Speights, Ezelli, Livingston, Barbosa, Rush.  All those are excellent reserves and in case of Igudala, a former all star and playoff mvp.  I don't know who would win but I don't think the Bulls are better.  By the way, if they do play, will Steve Kerr devise a strategy to stop Steve Kerr?

Opening day for baseball is here.  I don't follow baseball too much anymore especially since I don't get Dodgers games on tv.  Time Warners tried to decrease the price of the Dodger games this season to entice Directv and others to opt in.  No taker so far.  I don't want to pay extra for local games even if this is Vin Scully's last season. Vin Scully himself has said he feels uncomfortable being used as a negotiation ploy in this impasse.  I will take Toronto to win the AL and the Mets to win the NL and the World Series.