It has been a crazy last few days with the shooting at a Kroger store in Kentucky, multiple bombs sent to various people associated with the Democratic cause and CNN, and the tragic shooting in a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh.  Unbelievably, there were Trump supporters who had claimed that it was liberals who had sent the bombs to make Trump look bad!  Even now with the perpetrators of these crimes arrested, I am sure that there are still people who think these were all set up and that there was no chance that any of these bombs were going to go off. 

Once again Trump does not take responsibility for his words that might have incited violence.  I did not expect him to do so but I can't believe that he actually blames the media for inciting violence for their attacks on him.  He said that the media is the real enemy of the people.  This is the exact type of rhetoric that is spewed by dictators.  They are the ones who cannot take criticism and attack the free press.  The liberal media never said that the refugees on the caravan are coming to attack the U.S.  The killer who shot up the synagogue heard those false words from Trump and he used those words to justify his killings because the synagogue was part of a group that helped refugees.

Even if Trump is not directly responsible for the violence, at least he can do is pay attention to it.  He tweeted about the Dodgers losing the game Saturday night because Dave Roberts took our Rich Hill.  Leaves it up to Hill to  say that maybe the POTUS have more important things to think about in light of the synagogue tragedy than result of a World Series game.  Hill is absolutely right.  Baseball is not life or death, what happened in Pittsburgh was.

I was going to mention a congressional race in Orange county, CA in this blog but not the one that LBOAYM mentioned in the last blog.  That race involved a Korean American woman who is a Republican.  She would normally win in conservative OC with a sizable Asian population.  But the Democrats are painting her as a Trump puppet.  She, of course, denies this.  I don't know enough about her or her opponent to have an opinion on the race.  But it is one of those races that may tip the balance of power in the House and gives an indication of what the Trump effect has on the GOP.

The race in the OC that I was going to mentioned involve an obvious Trump supporter name Dana  Rohrabacher.  He is a very conservative Republican who had voted multiple times to repeal Obamacare.  But now with the midterm coming up, he has released a commercial where he said his daughter was diagnosed with leukemia at age of 8.  So he is now saying he wants to keep rules on preexisting conditions from the ACA.  There are other GOP candidates in various parts of the country who are running similar ads.  Of course, nobody should believe any of this.  Rohrabacher and others like him, have voted numerous times against the ACA.  Now that the ACA is more popular and its election time, they have changed their tunes.  Not only that, they shamelessly put family members in ads to show they are sincere.  Rohrabacher's daughter looks way older than 8 now, so he did not know the importance of the ACA rules all these years?  Mitch McConnelll has said that if the GOP retains the senate, he will try to repeal the ACA again.  So nobody should believe anything these GOP candidates are saying.

I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer.  He said that without the ACA, he would not be getting the treatments he is receiving now.  His family were all conservatives who had railed against the ACA.  Now they are completely silent because they can see first hand how it has affected one of their love one.  For the majority of people who are lucky to be healthy, the ACA is a government intrusion.  But for the minority who became ill and couldn't afford insurance otherwise, the ACA is life saving.  So it is easy to complain about something, but those who are complaining, including the majority of GOP lawmakers, they have no better solutions.

I see where the POTUS had called Stormy Daniels horse face!  I am no fan of Stormy Daniels.  She said Trump was gross and had a small penis.  But when someone asked why she slept with him, she could not give an answer.  Now the POTUS responds, very undignified for his office, that she is horse face.  Does this make Trump look good?  You go to bed with someone who has a horse face, and pays for her $132000?  Does that make you look smart?  What kind of face do you have if you had to pay someone with a horse face to sleep with you?  You both deserve each other but I think Stormy came out on top since she got the money and Trump paid!

It looks like the Democrats have a good chance to flip the House but the GOP will keep the senate.  What is just as important are the state elections.  If a state like Michigan goes from the GOP to Democrats in the governor's office and legislatures, it will make a big difference in the election of 2020.  Michigan will probably lose a seat in Congress and electoral college.  Thus it will have to redistrict.  If the Democrats can win the legislature and governorship in two weeks, they will be in charge of redistricting.  There are a few other states that will need redistricting for 2020.  So this midterm election is more important than usual in these states.

The affirmative action case involving Asian Americans against Harvard goes on trial this week.  I would like to make couple of points here.  Asian Americans are the only group that has decreased its support for affirmative action in recent years.  For many this is a zero sum game where if a black or Latino student is admitted due to affirmative action, it is one less spot for an Asian with a higher score and grade.  But this implies that if the spot is lost, you will suffer greatly.  This is not the case.  The advantage of the U.S. higher education system is that there are many great universities where one can earn a great degree which lead to a great career.  Anyone not admitted to an Ivy League school but would have qualified for one, can go to a great school and do well.  Too much is emphasized on the name of the school rather than what you accomplished there.

Having said that, I find Harvard and other elite schools' defense of their admission policy lacking.  They always say that diversity is of utmost importance.  But then they admit that legacy students have an advantage.  Something like one eighth of the student at Harvard had at least one parent who went there.  To me that is affirmative action for rich white people.  So how is admitting children of alumni help diversity? I would argue that is the opposite of diversity. 

The schools also say that they use an holistic approach to admission so that traits such as leadership and good personalities are parts of the evaluation.  But if Asians are not admitted in the percentage that is expected based on grades and scores, then it must be concluded that the schools decided that on the average Asians are not as good leaders or as good people as other groups.  In that case, I would think that there is racist undertone there.

So for those students with great credential who didn't get in their first choice school, I say it is not the end of the world.  Go to your school and prove what great leaders and people you are.  I do think this suit will force the schools to look at themselves in the mirror and realize that they are not as progressive as they think they are.

The truth is, most schools are more interested to look good statistically than to really have a great impact on minorities.  Take the case of Elizabeth Warren.  Harvard listed her as minority professor because she claimed to have Native American blood.  This turns out to be true as proven by her DNA test.  (By the way, President Trump, please fork over the million you promised to charity if Warren does do an DNA test.  I am confident the president will keep his word.  NOT!)  But Harvard took Warren's word before any proof because having a Native American woman on staff makes their stats look better.  Of course Warren would be hired regardless of her race or ethnicity because of her great credentials.  But if there is a choice between a rich student that is say one sixteenth black vs an Asian, who do you think Harvard would choose?

While hurricane Michael was devastating Florida, Trump was hosting Kanye West in the oval office!  Can you imagine if Obama was hosting a black musician in the oval office during a natural disaster, what would the Republicans say about that?  Remember when West grabbed the microphone from Taylor Swift when she was accepting an award?  Obama was asked about that and he called West an unprintable name.   I am sure Trump and his supporters thought or said the same or worse thing about West at that time.  But now that West is ranting about how great Trump is and that slavery was a choice, Trump and his supporters love him!

Also going on was the report that a Saudi journalist may have been killed by the Saudi government in Turkey.  Trump had little to say about it other than he doesn't like it.  Wow!  Not only that, he doesn't think that he will stop the sale of billions of military hardware to Saudi Arabia.  I guess making money is important than justice for criminal acts.  Also the Saudis have been saying great things about Trump, something that leaders of other countries are not.

These two events show that Trump loves it when people kiss his butt.  He doesn't care if those people have mental issues or are not really friends of the country.  But people who kiss your butt can also come back and bite your butt!  Something he should have learned from Omarosa and Michael Cohen.

Kavanaugh was confirmed as expected.   But I think the FBI report should have been made public.  The GOP, including Collins, say that the investigation was thorough.  I think the whole country, not just the senators, should be the judge of that. 

Three people I used to have respect for in the past, tick me off in this sad affairs.  Feinstein, who had been a long serving Democrat, looked weak and indecisive as the ranking member of t he Judicial committee.  By her delayed action, she gave the GOP a target to deflect attention from Kavanaugh.  I think it is time for her and Pelosi to exit the Democratic leadership roles. 

Lindsay Graham acted as a bulldog for Kavanaugh which means he was essentially a bulldog for Trump.  This comes from a man who called Trump all kinds of names in the past.  Now he is practically subservient to Trump.  Remember Graham was also one of McCain's best friend.  McCain must be rolling over in his grave seeing what Graham is doing.

I used to think Jeff Flake would be a good candidate for president from the GOP.  I thought he had a good grasp of foreign issues.  While he is a conservative, he was open to progressive ideas.  He had been attacking Trump.  Of course, he knew Trump supporters were out to get him, so he retired instead of running for reelection.  But he admitted that he would not had the gut to insist on FBI investigation if he was running for reelection.  Turns out he did not vote with his conscience because he had said that Kavanaugh would be disqualified if he lied.  It is obvious he lied about his drinking and about some of his actions.  But Flake voted for him anyway.  I guess Flake does not like to burn bridges, in case he returns to politics later.

While the result is disappointing to the Democrats, they should understand there was no good outcome to begin with.  I don't think there was any way the FBI could have come up with something in one week.  This was a fig leaf to let the GOP claim that they did a thorough job of vetting him.  Even if something came up and Kavanaugh had to be dropped, it would not help the Democrats.  Trump would then appoint a conservative WOMAN, which would still stack the court.  So there was no win for the liberals in this case.

The only way for the liberals to win is to win the midterm this year and the election in 2020.  Without power, all the protests do no good.  In fact, this whole process has energized a somber GOP and make it more difficult for the Democrats to win the midterm.  Now that GOP won this battle, maybe their energy will be slightly less than if Kavanaugh had to be dropped.  All the talk about impeaching Kavanaugh is detrimental to the cause.  It is going to energize the GOP even more.  Even if the Democrats win the House, impeachment is not going anywhere without a super majority in the senate.  So why bother wasting all the energy while energizing the other side?  Put the focus on ballots!

While we are waiting for the result of the FBI investigation and what happens to Kavanaugh after that, I will give my take on the trade pact that Trump has made with Mexico and Canada.

Surprise!  I give Trump credit for getting it done.  I know that Trump doesn't really understand trade and doesn't understand the detail of the agreement.  But he did make the demand for changes in NAFTA.  Sometimes a president gets lucky and things work out and sometimes despite great intentions, things fall apart.  Like I give Obama credit for making the call to get bin Laden.  He didn't know how to find him nor how to get the SEALS in position to get him.  But he was at the helm at the right time, so he gets credit.  So does Trump here.

Having said that, most experts don't think the new agreement will help the economy much.  It may help dairy farmers.  It will force car makers to pay Mexican workers more to avoid tariffs.  But I am not sure that it will bring back auto jobs back to the U.S.  Due to the power of the U.S. economy, Canada and Mexico had to make some concessions.  But only time will tell if this worked out for the better.  Ironically, before Trump, the biggest foes of NAFTA were the unions.  So will see how this works out for Trump and his strange bedfellows, the unions.  By the way, economists also see similarity between this agreement and the TPP which Trump had withdrawn the U.S. from.  So this would be like Obama trashing Romney care and then creating Obamacare!