Dr. Sammy Lee has passed away at the age of 96.  Awhile ago I had name the 10 best Asian athletes I knew.  I did not name athletes from sports which are dominated by Asians.  Since diving is dominated by China, I did not think of putting any diver on the list.  In retrospect that was an error on my part.  Dr. Lee was not only the first Asian American to win a gold medal in the Olympics, he did it when public pools did not allow nonwhites to us the facility.  So not only did Dr. Lee shot down the stereotype of Asians not being good athletes, he did it while being discriminated against.

At 5 foot 1 inch, Dr. Lee was short in stature but he cast a giant shadow.  He won two gold medals plus a bronze.  He graduated from medical school while training and serving in the army.  He is like our Dr. Roger Bannister.  After retiring from diving competition and the army medical corp, he coached numerous Olympic level divers.  Among them were Bob Webster who also won two gold medals and Greg Louganis, probably the greatest diver in history.   Both Webster and Louganis stated that Dr. Lee was not only their coach but their mentor in life. 

So rest in peace Dr. Sammy Lee.  You have been and always will be an inspiration for us.

As in life, the death of Fidel Castro invokes controversy.  Many in Miami are celebrating his death while some others mourn it.   There are condemnation of him from leaders.  But there was also admiration such as that expressed by Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada.  Trudeau called Castro a great leader for his people who improved literacy and healthcare in Cuba.  While it is true that for a third world country, Cuba did accomplished a lot under Castro in terms of education and healthcare, it is wrong to simply admired him for these accomplishments.  If you are going to mention the good, you must mention the bad.  Castro was a brutal dictator who killed many of his enemies.  Like many dictators, he also ran the country's economy to the ground.  So I have a lot of trouble with Trudeau's eulogy of Castro.

On the other hand, Marco Rubio and other conservatives not only criticized Trudeau but also criticized Obama for not mentioning the crimes that Castro committed.  The difference is that Obama did not call Castro a great or even good leader for his country.  He did not list Castro's accomplishments like Trudeau did nor expressed any admiration.  He simply mentioned that this is a passing of an era and that the American people look forward to work with the Cuban people to improve relationships.  It is similar to the statement made by president Ford upon the death of Mao Zedong.  There is no point to rehashing the negative on a day that someone died.  It would not help China-U.S. relations by calling out the failures and crimes of Mao.  Nor does it help Cuba-U.S. relations going forward by mentioning the failures and crimes of Castro.  I think both Ford and Obama did the right thing.

I understand that there are many people who are happy to see Trump get elected.  I can understand the people who hated Clinton and voted for what they think is the less of two evils.  But there are people who are gleeful that Trump won.  Among them are David Duke and the white nationalists movement.  On the international front there are also supporters of Trump.  Among them are Putin, Kim Jong-Un  and Robert Mugabe.  I am not saying that Trump is like any of these people but you have to wonder why they are so happy that he is elected.

Romney met with Trump to supposedly discuss about Romney becoming secretary of state.  I had said in the past that I would be ok with McCain or Romney becoming president because they are honorable men.  If Romney takes a cabinet position in Trump's administration, my opinion of Romney will take a big dive.  After all he called Trump a fraud and that Trump will lead to trickle down racism.  This is a person he is willing to work for?  After Trump called him a disaster candidate and that Romney would have knelt down if Trump had asked him to?  Come on Mitt, have a little backbone.

Saw Trump on 60 Minutes tonight.  He was less bombastic than he ever was.  Perhaps the realization that winning the election is the easy part and that he now has to govern.  He had spent 90 minutes at the White House with Obama.  A meeting that was supposed to last 15 minutes.  He called Obama a good and intelligent man.  Maybe that is just political talk but I suspect that deep inside he knows that Obama is intelligent and that he has done a good job in his 8 years.  Maybe Obama even lectured him on some issues.  Trump probably realizes now that being bombastic and bullying will not get the job done.

There are some issues that Trump already is showing signs of backing down before he even takes office.  There is no chance that he will appoint a special prosecutor to try to put Clinton in jail as he said he would during the campaign.  He will not try to take away gay rights that have been won in the courts despite his promise of appointing conservative justices to the Supreme Court.  Even with Obamacare he is softening.  He says he will not take away the right of coverage for people with  preexisting conditions.  Of course how are you going to cover these people if then you don't have a mandate for everyone to buy in?  The two highlights of Obamacare go hand in hand.  If you keep one and not the other the costs will skyrocket.  And by keeping some of Obamacare, you are not really repealing it altogether are you?

Some of the positions that he has not back tracked are also will not be doable.  He will not be able to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it.  With control of both houses of Congress, he certainly can enact tax cuts as he promised.  But if he has cuts such as 35% for the middle class and decrease of business tax from 35 to 15% then he will be in such deficit that he will not be able to rebuild the infrastructure and increase military spending.  Mitch McConeel already said that rebuilding the infrastructure is not a priority.  Of course it will not be:  there will be no money for it.

I am sure more promises made to the conservative, blue collar workers in the rust belt will not be kept.  There is no reason for the liberals to be out protesting.  Trump's supporters will have buyers' remorse soon enough.

As promised I am writing a blog on election night.  I am too angry to write much but I am keeping my promise because I am sure our next president will not.

It looks like America has elected a snake oil salesman.  I guess the majority buys the rhetoric that Trump will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it.  The majority is also naive to believe that he will bring manufacturing jobs from abroad when his own company outsources to China and other places.  So if you believe all this nonsense, I have ocean view property in Cleveland I want to sell you.


I do know the sun will rise tomorrow.   As an immigrant, like all those who came before me, I will survive this crazy man's "leadership".  Unlike Trump, I believe the strength of this country is people like me who came from elsewhere and prosper in this country, not people like him who blame immigrants for the troubles of this country.  Just wake me up in four years and we can vote him out of office.

Just as Clinton was beginning to get over confident, the FBI served notice that it ain't over till it is over.  The FBI revealed that it found emails in Anthony Weiner's computer that maybe related to the investigation of Clinton email earlier.  It seems weird that this comes out with just over one week left till the election.  It is reported that the FBI found these emails a few weeks earlier.  Supposedly they couldn't look into them because they only had warrant to look into Weiner's stuff, not those of his wife.  So why didn't they ask for another warrant earlier so they had time to look over the emails before announcing their existence to the public?  After they announced further investigation, they promptly got the authorization to look over those emails.  The only problem is that this will not likely be finished before the election.  So basically the FBI is putting itself in the election storm.

The Democrats are furious and they have a point.  If this happened to Trump, I am sure he would called this part of the rigged election.  I am not going to say that it is a conspiracy by Director James Comey to hurt Clinton.  He has a difficult job since if he kept this till after the election, the GOP would be upset.  But although he was appointed to the job by Obama, he was a registered Republican before office and he served as deputy attorney general in the Bush administration.  So it is easy to say that he would may want to help the GOP.  I doubt that is the case but he would have done better if he asked for the warrant right away after he found the email and may have been able to see if they revealed anything before announcing it to the world.  I think after all these time of investigating Clinton, unless there are new evidence that shed new light, there should be no announcement from a supposedly neutral agency like the FBI.

By the way, why would Weiner dare to share a computer with his wife? 

Clinton has a solid lead in the polls with just over 2 weeks left.  But you never know what will happen on election day.  So I am wondering what would happen if Trump wins.  Obviously he would have to name people to his cabinet.  So I am trying to think whom he would appoint.  Here are a few possibilities.

For the important job of secretary of state I think Trump would nominate Sarah Palin.  After all she can see Russia from her home and Putin will be Trump's biggest ally.   So it would be easy to send Palin over from her house whenever it is needed.

For secretary of treasury, Trump will nominate his accountant.  Trump has avoided paying income tax for so many years thanks to his accountant's understanding of the tax code loopholes.  So if he wants to increase revenue to the treasury he needs his accountant to close all these loopholes.  Sort of like hiring a hacker to protect your secrets in the computer.

For homeland security Trump would appoint Rudy Giuliani.  He would stop and fritz all Muslims, blacks and Hispanics in the country. 

For secretary of transportation Trump will appoint Chris Christie.  Look for bridge closings in all the states that did not vote for Trump.

For secretary of defense Trump will nominate Dick Cheney.  If he can shoot his friend in the face imagine what he would do to the enemy!

Trump will nominate judge Aaron Persky to the Supreme Court.  Judge Persky is the one who gave a  Stanford athlete only 6 months for sexual assault.  Trump figures he should hedge the bet.  Bill Crosby, for one, will agree with the choice.

Trump will also want to appoint some ambassador posts.  Paul Ryan, John McCain and Jeb Bush will certainly be called upon to fill the posts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.

Forget about his hand on the nuclear button.  These appointments are scary enough.  Well, at least Ryan, McCain and Bush will not accept.

With the problems Trump has had in the past couple of weeks, he is hoping that WikiLeaks will help him out with revelations of Clinton's email.  But so far I don't see anything in these emails that makes Clinton look bad for moderate voters.  For example, Clinton is revealed to have private and public positions on many issues.  Trump would say that this makes Clinton dishonest.  But he must know this is the art of negotiation since he thinks he is the master at it.  You tell publicly something that you know can't pass but you eventually compromise to what you wanted privately.  In the email she also disagreed with Sanders and Warren, which may anger supporters of those two.  But do moderate people really want the ideas of those two to become laws?

In fact all the talks about Clinton's speech to Wall Street and bankers, the speeches revealed that Clinton warned them about behaving badly and that they are losing the public trust.  Those seem to be good messages on behalf of the American people.  Ultimately, it seems that Clinton wants to have a moderate Democratic party.  One may not agree with her the definition of moderate, but I believe that trying to be moderate is way better than taking extreme positions on either side.

Trump's behavior this week is that of a child bully.  He said his accusers are lying.  He said that Bill Clinton said and did worse things.  He calls those who take back endorsements weak and disloyal.  He says that the election is rigged.  He says the media is is out to get him.  He is like the guy on the basketball court who calls foul on every play and when he is losing takes the ball home (even if the ball was not his).  The question after the election is that can reasonable Republicans like Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney and John Kasich take back the ball (the party) from Trump.

After the debate tonight, I am thinking of not bothering to watch the final debate.  There is very little substance to the debates and so much yelling and screaming.  I think they should have let the audience asked all the questions and when someone does not answer the question but veer off to talking points, the questioner should be able to yell at Trump or Clinton to get back to the question.  I think an audience questioner would be able to get the candidates to answer the question better than the moderators.  It was boring to watch and frustrating to see that this election is fought in the gutters.

Trump had to stop the bleeding from the tape scandal this week.  In the beginning he comes across as not being contrite at all.  By saying Bill Clinton was worse, he only appealed to the base.  Nobody else should think that that was a good excuse.  After that he settled down and did much better than the first debate.  But I don't think the debate is going to help him win back any voters he may have lost this week.  And the comment that once he is in office, he would prosecute and jail Clinton comes off as something a third world dictator would do.  But of course he can only be a dictator and fire everybody he doesn't like.  He can never function as a leader of a democracy.

I don't think the debate changed any minds tonight.  So any change in the polls in the next few days will be more related to the tape scandal than what happened tonight.  It will be interesting to see if and how much the polls change.  I find it ironic that the guy in the tape with Trump is a cousin of George and Jeb Bush. 

Recently Congress voted to let families of 9/11 victims sue the Saudi Arabia government in U.S. courts.  Obama vetoed the bill but Congress over rode the veto with almost overwhelming bipartisan support.  Within one day after the override, Congressional leaders expressed remorse about the bill saying some of it was poorly written so that it exposed American soldiers to charges in foreign courts.  I find this shocking.  They wrote the law and Obama had told them it was a bad law and then they voted again to override his veto and then immediately they saw the fault in the law?   Is Obama the only intelligent person in our federal government?

Under sovereign immunity people cannot sue foreign governments.  While this law seems to protect bad guys, it actually helps the U.S. the most.  The U.S. government and military operates all over the world.  So without sovereign immunity the U.S. will be more likely than any other nation to be charged with crimes by foreign citizens.  For example, any time we make a mistake and hit civilians with a drone strike, people theoretically can sue the U.S. if there was no sovereign immunity.  In the case of 9/11 even if families are allowed to sue the Saudi government, it is unlikely they can win.  The 9/11 Commission had said the the Saudi government had no direct role in the attack.  So the Saudis would use that in their defense and the families would have to come up with their own evidence.  So while everyone has sympathy for the families, this is an obvious political move on the part of the politicians.

It would have been easy for Obama to sign a bill that has such overwhelming support from both sides of Congress.  But it would also be wrong.  Obviously Obama is not up for reelection so he can do what he think is right.  But it is amazing to me that so many politicians can cave to the pressure on this.  But even more amazing, people like Mitch O'Connell said afterward that Obama is partly to blame because he did not bring the leaders of Congress to discuss this before the override.  I am just thankful the blame Obama game will end soon.  I am not thankful, however, that whoever takes over for him will be as intelligent as the members of the present Congress.