I only watched about 15 minutes of the debate last Thursday.  It was painful to watch.  The next leader of the free world is either a senile old man or another old man who lied the entire night.  Everybody knew this was the choice for several months now but I was hoping that Biden would show some life and convince the undecided that he at least can make it through another four years.  After all, he had time to prepare and supposedly people helping him prepare.  I don't think it is hard to counterattack Trump and all his lies.  Yet it looks if nobody prepared him.  So either Biden is really senile or he had idiots helping him.

So the question for the Democrats is: Should and can they replace Biden?  If so, who should replace him?  If they had a good replacement available, I would say yes, go for it.  But Harris is terrible and most democrats don't want her or believe that she can win.  But who can?  Three governors:  Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Whitmer of Michigan and Newsome of California seem to be the three politicians who are mentioned the most.  Shapiro is Jewish and given the problems with Israel right now, I don't see him in a good position to run.  Newsome is attractive to many but I think he comes across as too slick and beholden to the left wing of the party for the moderates to accept him.  Whitmer maybe a good choice since she likely would win Michigan, a swing state that the Democrats must have.  But she is not that well known nationally and coming from a state with many Arabs, will it hurt her the opposite way for Shapiro?

I know this whole thing may not happen anyway since Biden won landslides in the primaries.  He would have to pull out himself after listening to others.  This is unlikely.  Also bypassing Harris would make it seem like the Democrats did poorly in the last four years also.  But if say Biden drops out and Harris is not nominated, I nominate Jon Stewart!  Stewart would destroy Trump in a debate.  It would not only energize the base but I think it will bring in independents who want no more politicians.  Yes, the same people who voted for Trump in 2016 just because they want a big change.   Stewart may not be a great leader but he wouldn't be worse than Biden and Trump.  He is intelligent and full of energy.  He also did a lot for the 9/11 responders.  It is a longest of long shots but I think the Democrats may need a hail Mary at this time.

 Just realized that the Democratic convention is in Chicago this year.  It was also in Chicago in 1968.  That was the first time I took an interest in our national politics.  There were a lot of protests of the Vietnam war.  It was total chaos.  I think Dan Rather, who was a young reporter then, got hit by the police inside the convention hall.  The republicans blamed the democrats for allowing lawlessness.  Ironically, mayor Richard Daly had run the city like a republican would have.  He was very tough on the protesters.  Add to the infighting between the liberals and the centrists of the party, the convention contributed to the defeat of Humphrey by Nixon in the general election.

So will the democratic convention this year in Chicago turn out to be a repeat of 1968?  Will it be a disaster for Biden?  Only time will tell.  But the protests of the Gaza situation seem eerily similar to the protests of Vietnam.  The only thing is, the U.S. is not fighting today in Gaza.  Also, no young men are being drafted today.  But things will be volatile still.  And given the closeness of the election, if the convention is not peaceful, it will hurt Biden.

 As Pro-Palestinian protests rage across the country's college campuses, I find it hard to not say anything about the hypocrisy of so many of the people in power.   For the most part the demonstrations have been peaceful.  Yet many students and faculty member have been arrested.  There are calls from many politicians to send in the National Guards and arrest and kick the students involved out of school.  There have been businesses which fired employees for supporting the Palestinians.  There have been powerful law firms which have said they won't hired those students involved in the protests when they graduate.   Wealthy donors have threatened to take back donations to schools if they continue to allow the protests.  Is there really free speech in our country?

Josh Hawley, Senator from Missouri, is one of those people who advocated the National Guards be deployed to stop the protesters.  This is the same guy who went to Hong Kong to root on the so called democracy seeking students.  Never mind those protesters burned people and subways, built bombs and stormed and took over government buildings.  Yes, sort of like the January 6 insurrection in our country.  Hawley was also photographed giving the insurrectionists a power fist to encourage them.  So Hawley encourages people protesting violently and trying to overthrow governments but is against people who are protesting peacefully.  This is a great example of hypocrisy of those in our government.

 The World Cup has started.  Before it started, there has been controversies regarding Qatar hosting the competition.  Western media have accused Qatar of bribing to be the host.  This, of course, has been debated over 12 years.  But add human rights issues, including the bad treatment of foreign workers, and you have critics and defenders of the country going at each other.  The head of FIFA said that given Western countries' human rights record in the past, they have no right to complain about others.  He was then being criticized for "what aboutism".  In other words, defending someone by accusing others of doing the same in the past.  So here is my take.

Regarding bribes, I think it is pretty well-known that money and favors are exchanged in deciding the host of every major sporting event.  Salt Lake City was accused of that in securing the Winter Olympics.  Even if no money directly changed hands, there are always direct or indirect favors secured for the votes.  Members of the committee to decide the host are wined and dined at every candidate city.  They are all rich people with perhaps business deals in the backburner.  Qatar, I am sure bribed.  But the whole system was installed by Western powers with most of the powerful positions controlled by Western countries.  So the Western media should attack those people and countries, not candidate cities who are only playing the game the way it was set up.

Qatar was not the only host country in a major sports events who was accused of human rights abuses.  But it is the only country I think of that is actually created by Western powers, especially the UK.  It was an UK "protectorate" until 1971 when it was given independence.  Basically, the British and Americans chose a monarch that was on their side and promised free flow of oil.  The UK set up the government for Qatar.  The Western powers all know that this government is not democratic nor would it uphold human rights.  But they did not care.  Even today, they get more angry with the decrease production of oil from OPEC than their human rights abuse.  It is like the police letting the mafia run the city and is benefitting from that arrangement and yet pretend to be shocked that the mafia is extorting money!  This is not about "what aboutism", but about hypocrisy.

 Almost all midterm election results are in.  I think by now everybody knows that the Democrats are retaining the Senate while the Republicans are likely to win the House with a slim majority.  The results are much better than the Democrats expected.  So here are some winners and losers from Tuesday.

The biggest loser is Trump.  His endorsed candidates, most of them deniers of the 2020 election results, lost in most cases in competitive states.  These candidates, most of them incompetent, may have been the reason that the GOP lost the Senate again and did much worse than expected in the House.  This shows again the Trump is bad for the Republicans.  But that was obvious even in 2020 and many still followed him.  Will this finally convince the GOP to get rid of Trump?

The big winner was Ron DeSantis who is also one of the reason that Trump is a big loser.  DeSantis did not pledge allegiance to Trump and won big.  His victory margin was impressive and may make him the front runner for the GOP in 2024.

Mitch McConnell is a loser.  Even though not his fault, by not winning the Senate, many in the Republican party want to oust him as minority leader.  I don't like McConnell but he has done a great job serving GOP interests in the Senate and it would be a mistake for them to oust him.

Kevin McCarthy was a winner and a loser.  He most likely will become Speaker.  But he will not have the majority he needs to push his agenda through without the Tea party extremists.  So his hands are tied and he may have to seek compromise with the Democrats to pass relatively moderate agenda.  But if he compromises with the Democrats, he will likely to have his leadership position challenged by the extremists in his party.  He may even lose his leadership position.  But given McConnell and McCarthy are both spineless, I don't feel sorry for either one.

One who did not lose but may lose influence is Joe Manchin.  If Warnock beats Walker in the runoff, the Democrats will have an extra vote in the Senate and may not need to kowtow to Manchin in many issues.  He may lose his position as the most powerful man in the Senate.

A possible winner is our democracy.  By defeating most election result deniers and not having much controversies in this election, hopefully our democracy is more stable than any time since Trump was elected in 2016.

 Rishi Sunak is the new prime minister of the UK.  The first person of color tapped for this job, it is an important milestone.  There are also celebrations in India as Sunak is of Indian descent.  But as in the case of Kamala Harris, Sunak is brown on the outside and white on the inside.  Even more than Harris because he is one of the richest person in the UK and is the leader of the Conservative party.  So his policies are likely pro corporations and the wealthy.   He was the equivalent of the Secretary of Treasury under Boris Johnson and so it is unlikely that his policies will be much different those of Johnson and Truss.  Those policies have not been working so I doubt that Sunak will be able to get the UK out of the financial crisis any time soon.

I understand that the parliamentary system means that the leader of the party with the most members of parliament becomes prime minister.  But there has not been any election since Boris Johnson led his party to victory.  So basically Truss and Sunak are not elected by the majority of the people but by just members of the Conservative party.  This is democracy?

Trevor Noah showed someone calling in a show in England who said that as a white country it makes no sense that an Indian guy becomes the leader.  He said it would be like him going to Pakistan or Saudi Arabia and become their leader.  Hmm!  I think that has been done before.  But the white guys in those situations used guns and bombs to gain power.  Sunak won by voting, even if it is just by the members of the Conservative party which are mostly white.

 Trump recently made racist remarks about Elaine Chao, his former Transportation secretary.  Chao is married to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.  When asked about Trump's racist remarks, McConnell had no comment.  Is he so spineless that he cannot defend his wife against racism?  Interestingly, Chao also had no comment.  Is she so hateful of her Chinese ancestry that she did not think the comments were racist?  Or is she keeping quiet because she is being accused of helping her family's business while in office?  So maybe these two terrible people deserve each other!

 Just returned from a trip to Detroit.  It was a good trip for my nephew's wedding and seeing my family.  The return back to LA area was not pleasant, however.  The flight out of Detroit was supposed to be 9:45 p.m.  At around 7:30 there was an announcement that the pilot was not going to make it on time and the flight had been pushed back to 10:30.  Around 8, the gate agent brought a cart full of snacks and drinks for us.  I told my wife that it is never a good sign when they are offering snacks at the gate.  Sure enough, it was followed by announcement that the pilot had just been cleared to take off from New York.  The flight will be delayed until 11:30.  I didn't have a good feeling about that since it is not known how long the pilot had been stranded in New York and if he is in shape to fly to LA when his plane lands in Detroit.  Sure enough, just around 10:45 it was announced that the pilot does not feel he is in shape to fly to LA when he lands in Detroit.  So the flight was canceled and rescheduled to 7 a.m. next morning.

We had then stand in line to get vouchers for hotel and food.  We were among the first in line but still took 15 minutes to get the vouchers.  We then had to make reservation for the hotel and find the shuttle to that hotel.  Since the hotel did not anticipate a sudden surge in business, it had to get the shuttle out to the airport and that took about 20 minutes.  When we got to the hotel, there was one clerk who had to work the system of vouchers.  It took another 20 minutes to get our room.  So it was well past midnight when we got to bed.  We had to get up at 4:30 to catch the plane.  Thankfully we made it and the plane took off as scheduled.

When we got to LAX, we had to get an Uber or Lyft.  We were jammed into a bus to take us from the arrival area to the rideshare parking lot.  The bus was jammed with people.  The drive to the parking lot took 20 minutes even though the lot is less than a mile from LAX!  The parking lot was jammed with buses.  People were wandering off the bus to find where Uber, Lyft and taxis were located.  Massive amount of people from buses with luggage.  We looked like bunch of refugees.  Once getting in our ride, it was an hour and half through LA traffic to get home.  

So for someone who hates to travel, it was not a fun experience.  I am sure a lot of people had experienced much worse than this.  But that is my point.  The airlines had no back up plans.  The airports are horrible, although DTW is a lot better than LAX.  Traffic everywhere and no good public transportation.  LAX has been under renovation for years and I doubt it will improve much after renovation is completed.  And it will still have no train going in and out of the airport then!

I also want to rant about the gas prices here in California.  It is again over $6.  The official word is that Saudi Arabia raised the price of oil to the U.S. and that there are several refineries in California  undergoing maintenance and are offline.  Well, the refineries were being maintained a few months ago when the price surged.  Do we have such ancient refineries that we have to maintain them every few months?  The price of gas jumped almost a dollar in the one week I left LA.  The price of a barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia went up 20 cents.  Since a barrel of oil can produce about 20 gallons of gasoline, that means each gallon should only go up a penny!  Someone need to explain the math to me here!

 Just returned from a vacation to visit my 7 months old grandson.  It was a lot of fun to see and play with him.  But back to reality.  I just saw this article in CNN where the life expectancy of the U.S. has declined by more than two and a half years since the pandemic started.   To put into perspective, a change of a few tenths in a year is very unusual.  The current life expectancy of Americans stand at 76 years, the lowest since 1996.

Half of the decline is due to COVID.  The second largest cause of the decline in drugs.  The sad thing is that both of these causes could have been mitigated.  They are both unforce errors by us and the leaders of our government.  While American Indians had the worst decline among all ethnic groups, no group is spared.  Whites, for example, had the least decline in 2020 but had the second highest decline in 2021, worse than Blacks and Hispanics.  I think this is because Whites had the best health care and got in line first for the vaccines so they did better in the beginning.  But in the past year, Whites are among the worst of the anti-vaxxers.  They are also the most likely to call for freedom of not wearing masks in crowded public places and opening up of everything.  Advantages forfeited.

I have always said that the first freedom, in my opinion, is the freedom to be alive.  No freedom if you are six feet under.  Asian Americans did the best among the ethnic groups in these past two years.  I think many Asian Americans came from countries where individual freedom is not as important as the well being of the whole society.  I think if you live in Idaho or Wyoming, it may not make much difference what you do.  But if you live in crowded places like LA or NY, I think there is a responsibility to make it safer for each other.  I won't waste my breath here ranting about the ineptitude of our government in the pandemic, opioid crisis and mass gun shootings.  Too many unforced errors to talk about!

 The FBI raided Trump's Mar-A-Lago estate.  Supposedly, there were documents that Trump took from the White House that should not be taken out.  I don't know if they can find any of these since Trump would have had plenty of warning that the Justice department was looking for these things and he could have disposed of them before the raid.  Maybe down the toilet?  But in any case, the justice department felt it was important enough to get warrant for the raid and they did carry it out.

Of course, Trump and the GOP are up at arms over the raid.  Saying this is all political and the Justice department and the FBI are doing the work of the Democrats.  But the judge who signed the warrant was appointed by Trump.  The director of the FBI was also appointed by Trump.  So it is absurd to say this is just the work of Trump's enemy.  Of course this argument doesn't prevent the GOP from calling for defunding the FBI!  Who is against law enforcement now/

During a deposition, Trump answered only one question:  his name.  He pleaded the Fifth to every other question.  What was that he said about those who plead the Fifth?  Oh right, must be guilty otherwise why would one has to plead the Fifth?

 Now that Nancy Pelosi has left Taiwan, here is some of my takes on the subject.

I still don't know why she decided to go after being warned by the military and Biden that this was a very bad idea.  You don't become a leader in the U.S. government without being pragmatic.  Certainly human rights issue is not consider a pragmatic part of our foreign policy.  Witness Biden kowtowing to the Saudis.  Even if she is really concerned about human rights, going to Taiwan is not going to help the democracy of the Taiwanese people.

Some people say that she is going to distract the problems of her husband and that they have investments in semiconductors which is dominated by Taiwan's TSMC.  I don't think her trip is helping in regarding to both.  Certainly if it provokes China, the semiconductor business throughout the world will be affected.  Prices may go up initially but if war breaks out TSMC will be destroyed and the whole industry will be decimated, as will all of tech sectors because the reliance on chips in the world.

I do think that like all politicians in the U.S., she is beholden to the military industrial complex.  Just tension from the possibility of war is enough to help the industry earn more profit.  So there is call in both sides of the aisle to support Taiwan like Ukraine.  No regard for the fact that by pushing Putin into war, Ukraine will be destroyed even if the war is a stalemate.  Same thing will happen to Taiwan.  No American troops will go into Taiwan if war breaks out.  Taiwanese and Chinese people will die.  But that is not the concern of American hawks and their industry benefactors.

Propaganda is already all over Western media.  CNN had a retired admiral who said that 70% of Taiwanese want independence.  True fact is that only 10% want independence now.  Overwhelming majority want the status quo.  I can guaranteed practically nobody in Taiwan want to fight a war to gain independence.  Certainly not those who are eligible to be drafted into the military.

Also propaganda is that Pelosi can go anywhere she wants.  Taiwan is a separate country.  Newt Gringrich went to Taiwan as Speaker 25 years ago.  But Taiwan is not a separate country.  This fact is recognized by 180 countries, including the U.S.  It would be like the third ranking Chinese leader go to Texas and meet with the people who want to secede from the U.S.  Newt was member of the opposing party to then President Clinton.  So his visit is not considered an official position of the U.S. government.  Coming after the Biden gaffe that the U.S. will protect Taiwan from attack, you can see that this visit is a provocation to China and goes against the Shanghai Communique.

So what is the response from China.  It would seem that Xi is losing face by doing nothing except military exercises.  I certainly did not believe that China would shoot down the plane or force it to land.  That would start a war.  Xi has to be measured in his response.  If you look at  the plans for the military exercises, they are planned to surround all sides of Taiwan.  It is a demonstration that at any time Taiwan can be blockaded.  As an island, Taiwan depends on lots of imports.  So any blockade would be problematic.  China does not need to invade.  Now, is the U.S. aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan going into the same area during the exercise?  That would be more tension and more danger.  Accidents happen during training and adversaries being close together is making accidents more likely.

Even if Xi loses face because the people in China believe the response is not strong enough, he will get his third term.  Being a one party country, China can look at long term.  Eventually China will catch up to the U.S. and Taiwan will be reunified with the motherland.  This is Xi and others' thinking.  So this will not hurt them too much.  

Pelosi and the Democrats just committed an unforced error.  By telegraphing she is going, she had no choice but to go because the GOP already said that if she does not go, it shows weakness.  But having gone, Trump already accused Pelosi of causing chaos.  Same with Tucker Carlson.  I am sure even those who egged her on to go will not say the trip is stupid and that Biden cannot control his own party.  So even politically, I think it is a loss for Pelosi and the Democrats.

So it was a stupid thing to do and I don't know what Pelosi is thinking.  Nobody wins except for the military industrial complex.  The only good thing is that WWIII did not happen.

 The country of Sri Lanka is in an economic crisis.  I am no economist and I can't explain how the situation got so dire for Sri Lanka.  But after some research, I can say for sure the Western narrative of the China debt trap is too blame is bogus.

The critics of China say that after loaning money to Sri Lanka and building its port and airport, China now owns the port and may eventually turn it into a military base!   But the debt Sri Lanka owed to China for the constructions are very small amount of its total international debt.  In fact the total amount Sri Lanka owes China is only about 10% of its total debt.  Japan is also owed 10%.  Most of the other 80% are owed to banks affiliated with the IMF, World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.  The first two are controlled by the U.S. and Europe.  The ADB is controlled by Japan and the U.S.  So to say that China is using debt to control Sri Lanka is laughable.

The deal that Sri Lanka made with China during the crisis is that 70% of the port will be leased to China for 99 years and 30% to be kept by Sri Lanka.  In exchange China gives Sri Lanka 1.12 billion dollars which was used to service debt to other foreign banks.  Before the port was built, feasibility studies were done by Canadian and Dutch firms.  So it is believed that it can be profitable.  If the Chinese company that takes over now can produce profits, it will get 70% and Sri Lanka gets 30%.  Will it work?  Too early to tell but in 99 years the port will revert to Sri Lanka control.  Sort of like the British deal with Hong Kong.  Except China gives money to get the deal and not use gunboats to force the deal.

So Sri Lanka has not lost its port to China.  Certainly no military base is being built.  If 90% of the debt in owed by someone other than China, why is China being accused of a debt trap.? As I said about the accusation of Chinese debt traps in Africa, if the Western countries are so concern then just give these countries a better deal than China.  These countries are not stupid. They won't take the worse deal.

By the way, I think I wrote this before.  The only high finance guy on Wall Street who was convicted of fraud during the last economic disaster in 2008 was from Sri Lanka.  I found it hard to believe then that he was the only guilty person during the financial meltdown.  Now I find it hard to believe that no Western financial institution has anything to do with the Sri Lanka meltdown.

 Watched the hearings last night because I thought it was the finale and they will give the final conclusion.  Well, this is a few things I learned:

There will be a sequel in September!  With new witnesses and facts.  So stay tuned.

It was almost all Republicans who testified against Trump.  Those people will be attacked.  Some was already last night.  

They should have people like Hannity testify why they advised Trump to stop the riot when it was going on.  They have been silenced since and even accused the Committee as a witch hunt.  They seem to believe it was a disaster when it was happening but no big deal now.  Last night FOX didn't even air the hearing.

Trump told McCarthy that it was Antifa that was rioting, not his supporters.  If that is the case, I would think he would have ordered the military to stop it quickly.  But he let it go on.  McCarthy and Trump got into a swearing contest.  But McCarthy is kissing Trump's butt today.

Trump looked stupid and weak while trying to make videos to address the nation.  I am surprised these tapes were kept.

Pence's Secret Service people were fearing for their lives.  These people were supposedly brave enough to die to save the person they were guarding.  But the texts from Trump's Secret Service details were erased, and looks to be done so after they were asked for.  It is hard to believe that the texts were erased accidentally.  Lots of theories out there.  I believe that some of the agents were either supportive of the rioters or some of them did not want to protect Trump because he is a traitor to the country.  Either case, it shows the danger our democracy is in.

 Haven't written for about three weeks due to vacation and not finding a topic I want to write about.  I decide to write about former prime minister of Japan, Abe, who was assassinated more than a week ago.  I didn't really want to write about him after his death because in the past I have written to a newspaper editorial criticizing him.  I don't want to be critical of someone who was just murdered.  Then someone pointed out to me about the opinion I wrote about Abe and wonder if I am happy he died.  Well, not really because things are not always black and white.

I criticized Abe because as prime minister, he visited the graves of Japanese war criminals.  An American politician wrote an opinion that the Chinese should get over what happened during WWII and that it is the Japanese prime minister's right to visit the graves.  I wrote wondering if that same politicians would write the same thing if Jews were appalled by the Chancellor of Germany visiting the graves of Nazi war criminals?  Add to that, Abe's grandfather was a war criminal but was not prosecuted because the U.S. felt that he was useful as a politician who could run the agenda the Americans wanted for Japan post war.  Sort of like the U.S. helping Nazis escape prosecution if they were useful to America as scientists for example.

But while I did not approve of what Abe did and what his grandfather did even more, Abe was basically a politician who tried to stay in power.  His agenda included a stronger Japanese military.  Maybe he believed it was necessary to counter the rise of China, although Japan is protected by the U.S. anyway.  He most likely called for a stronger military and visited the graves of war criminals to satisfy the far right in Japan.  At one time he actually called for better relations with China but that was probably shot down by the far right.  So yes, things are not all black or white.  So while I don't particularly like Abe, I don't feel any happiness about his assassination.  The world is not safer when political leaders are killed rather than being judged at the ballot box.

 Roe v Wade was overturned today by the Supreme Court.  This was not surprising given that the ruling was leaked several weeks ago.  Still it is a day of infamy in  American democracy.  Look, I am not for abortion but this is about the right of women.  Let's been frank.  If men are the ones who get pregnant, there will be no laws restriction abortion.  Birth controls would have been invented long ago and we would not only have plan B but also plans C, D, and E today.

This overturn of Roe v Wade demonstrate that elections have big consequences.  Trump appointed three of the justices that voted for the overturn.  He will be a hero to the conservatives just for this alone.  Majority of the country want to keep abortion legal.  Yet a guy who got less popular votes than his opponent single handily change the law of the land.  Well, he did have help from Mitch McConnell who helped the GOP steal two of those three justice seats.  So it is imperative that we get out the vote to keep the slim Senate control in November and keep the White House in 2024.  

Even if are able to accomplish that, it maybe years before we can overturn this decision.  On another note, there is gun legislation that looks to be passed.  Still, it will not go as far as the majority of the country want.  So this begs the question:  If majority of the people cannot get what we want by voting, how free are we really?

 It has been fifty years since Watergate which was the first time in my lifetime that there was a constitutional crisis in the U.S.  We were lucky that disaster was avoided fifty years ago.  But can we avoid disaster this time?

Richard Nixon, unlike what he proclaimed, was a crook.  He tried to cheat on an election and then tried to cover it up.  Donald Trump is worse.   He asked the Russians openly to help him win an election.  And when the CIA said that Russia was trying to interfere, he agreed with Putin rather than our own intelligence service.  Nixon at first refused to turn over the tapes but eventually did although with 18 minutes missing.  Trump refused to turn over records and has some records missing.  We still have not seen his taxes yet.  Some of Nixon's cronies went to jail.  Some of Trump's cronies may go to jail.  It is obvious that the scandal went all the way to the presidency in both cases.

Nixon actually won reelection and probably would have won anyway without cheating.  Trump lost fair and square and then promoted conspiracy theories about fraud in the election.  This led to the insurrection which Trump encouraged.  Nixon resigned peacefully and let Gerald Ford become president and healed the nation.  Trump did not care if the mob killed his vice president.  Trump is still at it now, trying to divide the nation.  

Back in 1972, I was glued to the tv after school for the hearings.  I didn't understand what was going on a lot of the time.  But I, like many people in the country, wanted to see the truth come out and make judgment based on facts.  Today, most people don't care to watch because they have their minds made up depending which party they are affiliated with.  Back then we have Walter Cronkite, whom everybody trusted.  Today we have the conservatives and liberal media with their own distinct audiences.

Back then, many Republicans see that Nixon's actions were bad for democracy and the country.  Today. the Republicans, with the exception of a few like Liz Cheney, only want to get power back and could careless about the state of democracy in the country.  Nixon knew that he would be impeached if he did not resign and there was a good chance he would have been convicted and kicked out of office.  Today, regardless what criminal acts Trump did, there was never enough vote to convict him in the Senate.

So that is why I believe that Trump and his followers are much worse for the democracy of this country than Nixon and his supporters were fifty years ago.  And that is also why I am much more worried about the future of our country than I did fifty years ago.

 I thought that the Jan. 6 Committee did a good job of presenting the case last week in the first of the televised hearings.  To have Ivanka Trump agreeing with Bill Barr that the election results were correct and that it was not stolen was big.  But did it change any minds?

The people who believe Donald Trump's lies would not have tuned in.  After all, they would be watching Fox and other conservative news outlets.  If they had believed all those outrageous lies up to now, I don't think anything presented would change their minds.  All the people who believe Trump caused the insurrection obviously would not change their mind.  So it is like preaching to the choir.  Maybe I am being pessimistic, but it seems like we are too divided to even agree when somebody is trying to kill our democracy.  I will continue to pay attention to the hearings but I doubt the opinions of the country will change significantly.

 Peter Zeihan is a China hater who has claimed that due to low birth rates and other factors. China will have half of its current population by 2050!  He also claimed that China will collapse soon and it knows that so it will invade Taiwan soon while it still can.  He also claimed that Taiwan will have nuclear weapons at a moment's notice and will use it to turn back China.  Despite these outrageous claims, he has a lot of followers who believe he is an expert in foreign relations.  Of course, lots of people make outrageous predictions and have followers.  Gordon Chang comes to mind.  But I was shocked that with such unintelligent babble, Zeihan was deemed credible enough for our defense community to be invited to speak at the Eisenhower School of National Security.

The Eisenhower School is part of the Armed Forces education system and is highly regarded in turning out leaders in the military.  Eisenhower himself graduated from this school which had another name in the past.  So I would think the school would be careful in inviting speakers who should be credible.  It is not credible that China will lose 700 million people in population by 2050 unless there will be a war the magnitude of which we have never seen before.  There is no way that demographic extrapolations will come up with this conclusion.  I have never heard anyone else make that prediction.  

Even if China is on a downward spiral, it does not mean it will invade Taiwan.  And while Taiwan has the talent to produce a nuclear weapon, it would be unlikely that it would make even one on a moments notice, let alone multiple warheads.  Zeihan said that Taiwan can destroy Beijing and Shanghai.  Even if that is the case, China still has dozens of cities of over a million people.  

Zeihan's claims become even more ridiculous.  He said that China then will send millions across the strait in fishing boats with the hope of landing enough to overwhelm Taiwan forces.  But he believes that Taiwan and U.S. navies will destroy these boats before they land, killing millions of Chinese and thus the invasion will fail.

It is laughable what he said.  If Taiwan uses nuclear weapons on China, wouldn't China respond in kind with even more nuclear weapons?  Maybe half a dozen would destroy the whole island, so why would they bother sending people across the strait?  In fishing boats, when they have a powerful navy?  Maybe Zeihan doesn't know that China has a navy and hundreds of nuclear weapons.  If that is the case, what makes him an expert?

What bothers me is that our young officers who are learning geopolitics and military strategies are exposed to such clowns.  It is like Trump listening to his cronies instead of real experts and make idiotic decisions that cause a million American lives.  I think we can understand why Fox News keep inviting Gordon Chang and others like him to blast China.  But who in our defense department invited this fool to speak at one of our prestigious military institutions?

 Have you seen the video of Steve Kerr on the shooting in Texas?  If not, go see it because I can't write better than what he said.  He said it with emotion and anger.   I can't duplicate or even approach that on paper.  But I share the same anger.  Enough is enough!

I don't understand the greed of the members o the NRA and all the politicians who are bought off by the NRA.  Don't these people have children, grandchildren and love ones.? Don't these people and their love ones go to church, grocery stores and schools?  I wonder if these people would still back the proliferation of guns if they or their ones were the ones in that grocery store in Buffalo or that church in Laguna Woods or that school in Texas?

What kind of democracy we live in when 90% of the people want stricter gun laws and an organization can buy off politicians to prevent these laws from passing?  I guess it is the same kind of democracy where politicians follow conspiracy theories rather than science leading to deaths of over a million people in a pandemic.  It is easy to say we love freedom.  But I say the first freedom that a government should protect is the freedom of knowing you and your love ones are safe.  There is no freedom if you are six feet under.

 Yesterday marked the end of the English Premier League season.  It was a fascinating day with Manchester City coming from a two goal deficit late in the game for a 3-2 win and beating out Liverpool by one point in the final standings.  Liverpool had been tied 1-1 in their must win game when they brought in an injured Mohammed Salah in desperation.  Salah scored a goal to help Liverpool win 3-1 to delight their fans until the bad news from Manchester.  It was quite a final day.

With the one goal, Salah finished with 23 for the season to win another golden boot as the league's leading scorer for the third time.  This time he shares it with Son Heung-Min of Tottenham Spurs.  Both beat out the great Cristiano Ronaldo who finished third.  In fact, eight of the top ten scorers are either non-white and/ or born outside of England.  I guess that is why despite having the top league in the world for many years now, the English national team has not done well in international competition.  But the diversity of the Premier League is one of the reason the league is followed by fans in most countries of the world.

Son is the first Asian to win the award and is not surprising that he comes from South Korea.  South Korea had done the best among Asian nations in international competition.  They finished fourth when they co-hosted with Japan.  They beat Italy and Spain on the way to the semi-finals.  This begs the question: why South Korea, with a much smaller population, is way more successful than China in soccer?

It can' be the lack of training or competition.  China has put in a lot of money to bring coaches from all over the world and to improve facilities.  China has been successful in the summer Olympics and has even made in roads in the winter Games this year.  But it has only qualified for the World Cup once!   They had a later start than Japan and Korea but they had caught up in other sports.  Their professional leagued is not as well known as the Japanese J League but has been bringing in foreign imports in recent years to improve the level of play.  Yet I would say that Japan and South Korea is more ahead of China now than China is ahead of Vietnam and Thailand.  So what is the problem?

Well, for some reason which I can't fully explain, it seems to me the communist countries don't do as well in soccer compared to other sports.  Russia and the former USSR were world powers in many sports but they were also rans in European soccer.  East Germany had more medals in Olympics than West Germany but West Germany was way better than East Germany in soccer.  Cuba is great in baseball and boxing but is very weak in soccer.  Does communism stifle creativity and soccer demands creativity?  Is this one area that capitalism always trump communism?  Well, China can still say it can beat Taiwan and Hong Kong on the pitch although that is no consolation.