The withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan that started under Trump is more than half way completed.  Biden has said that it will be finished by Sept. 11, 2021.  It would be 20 years since the attack on our soil.  What have we accomplished during that time with all the deaths and other casualties of war? Not much.  There are pictures of Afghan soldiers putting down their weapons to the Taliban in various parts of the country already.  It is predicted that within 6 months after the withdrawal is completed, the Taliban will take over Kabul.

Could things have been different?  I think so.  I think there was overwhelming support of going after bin Laden and the Taliban which had supported him.  But before we finished the job, we changed direction and attacked Iraq under the false pretenses of WMD.  In reality it was another attempt of the U.S. to change regime in an effort to build democracy in another country.  Efforts like this have failed every time since Vietnam.  We got rid of Gaddafi in Libya.  But what was maybe the most vibrant country in Africa is today a big mess.  We have failed the Kurds who fought for us in Iraq and Syria.  Now there are countless Afghans who sided with us who will probably be killed once the Taliban take over again.

Do you think we have much credibility around the world today about building democracy in other countries?  Do you think that people will follow us given what happens to the South Vietnamese, the Kurds, the Libyans, the Iraqis and the Afghans who sided with us?  Do other people still think that American democracy is so great after January 6th?  We need to concentrated on our own democracy, our domestic terrorism and the divides we have here before we try any more misguided foreign adventures.

 Today, June 15 marks the reopening of the state of California!  California has done well in the past few months with one of the highest vaccinated rates in the nation and one of the lowest cases per capita in the nation.  So there was already confidence before this official date arriving.  

But I don't think California or any other state is out of the woods yet.  This loosening of restrictions may still have come too soon.  Hopefully not like last year when California was doing so well but once the restriction was lifted, the big surge occurred.  I think it won't be so bad this time because about half of the population in the state has been fully vaccinated.  But we are nowhere near herd immunity and the vaccinated rates is dropping despite the prize gimmicks.  

If we don't reach herd immunity by the fall, a surge may occur with the more contagious variant getting out of control.  But even if we achieve 80% fully vaccinated in California, other states may not reach that level and if many people travel to places like Disneyland, we still can get a surge.  So we are not out of the woods yet and those who have not been vaccinated need to do that ASAP.

 I had the honor of speaking at an anti-Asian hate rally on Memorial Day.  I spoke about the Vincent Chin case and how scapegoating of Asians in the 1980s led to his murder.  I also drew the parallel of what was happening then in Michigan to what is happening today throughout the country.  That is, once again, Asian Americans are being scapegoated and thus leading to many victims of hate crimes.

Obviously, most people do not think that the scapegoating of Asians is justified.  But inadvertently, many say or write things that help the causes of the racists.  For example, Bill Maher said that there is nothing wrong with using the term China flu since Ebola is an area in Africa but that name is used to name a disease.  He doesn't realize that no Ebola Americans have been scapegoated for that disease, unlike Asian Americans with names like China flu or kung flu?  Agreeing with Trump just help him deflect blame and give racists excuses to attack Asians.

Now an article in the Wall Street Journal claim that an unnamed intelligence source said that three staffers from the Wuhan Lab went to hospitals before the first case of COVID-19 was reported.  Three Chinese people going to the hospital during the flu season?  Not unusual given that there are few private clinics in China.  No diagnosis was given, no evidence of positive COVID test, no evidence that they were admitted let alone being in the ICU.  So what is the significance of this?

But then other media picked up this non story, even liberal media like CNN and Sixty Minutes.  They make it sound like that the virus was leaked from the lab even though this is not really evidence of anything.  But next thing you know, Biden is asking the intelligence community to investigate and come up with the answer in 90 days.  He doesn't have more information than this article?  We need to investigate the origin of this virus, of course.  But this is a scientific endeavor, not an intelligence or political one.  We have not been able to figure out how HIV started after decades, so I doubt the CIA can do this in three months.

Now for my own conspiracy theory.  The author of the WSJ article is Michael R. Gordon.  This is the same guy wo used to write for the New York Times before the invasion of Iraq.  He wrote then that unnamed intelligence source said that Hussein had WMD, the same talking point of neoconservatives who wanted to wage war on Iraq.  His sources, if he actually had any, were totally wrong.  But not only did he not lose his job but he was the only journalist embedded in the military during the war.  Thus he got great access for reporting and later wrote books about the war.  Obviously, his writing helped the hawks convince the American people the need for the war.  In return, his status of a journalist was greatly enhanced despite him being totally wrong.

Is Gordon doing the same here?  I don't know but if the U.S. wants to make China look bad, one way would be to use both the conservative and liberal media to do the job as it did in selling the Iraq war.  If this time it leads to war again, what will happens to Asian Americans in this country?

 More than 4 months after Biden had been sworn in as president, there are still many out there who thinks that Trump will be reinstated as president.  In fact some are calling for the overthrow of the government in a military coup similar to the one in Myanmar recently.  Among those who said that a coup is possible are Sidney Powell, former attorney of Trump, and Michael Flynn the retired general.

I know an ordinary citizen calling for a coup is not something you may want to prosecute.  After all, that are many people who have been seduced by the false narrative that Biden stole the election.   But a former general has to be held to a higher standard.  Flynn had taken an oath to defend the U.S. and for him to make up lies against the government and advocating a coup is borderline treason.  He tried to walk that back but it is similar to the time when Trump changed what he said to "Why wouldn't it be Russia?"

In this country, the civilian president is the Commander In Chief of the military.  So the military cannot overthrow the government.  So anyone planning a coup is committing treason.  But I guess a lot of the Trump supporter don't know or believe that.  They rather have the U.S. become a third world country where coups can overthrow the civilian government.  Maybe they should move to Myanmar!

 Three states:  Ohio, Maryland, and New York are now holding money lotteries to incentivize people to take the vaccine.  Are we that selfish that many of us won't do something that is essential for the well-being of the country without a chance of getting money?  There are many reasons for vaccine hesitancy but the bottom line is that there are many people who won't do the right thing unless they are paid or at least have a chance of hitting the jackpot.

I understand the reason for these three states using lotteries to get more people vaccinated.  We have vaccines waiting to be used as the vaccination rate is dropping.  About 20% of the people in this country say that they will refuse the vaccine.  Since 75 to 80% of all people need to be vaccinated for the U.S. to reach herd immunity, it means we have to get practically everyone on the fence to buy in for herd immunity to occurred.  So we have to get all those who does not object to getting vaccinated to get the jab.  And they need to do it as quickly as possible before variants appear that make the vaccines less effective or ineffective altogether.  

It is too bad we have to resort to these money give away in order to get some people to do what is a civic duty that also may save their lives.  We should be ashamed that we are not taking advantage of the vaccines that we have.  Many countries would love to have the vaccines that we don't use.  We don't appreciate what we have here.  Instead, look for other states to follow the lead of these three states in the coming weeks.

 Will be going on vacation in a couple of days.  But I will answer any comment tomorrow.  Today is a quick note on couple of disappointing developments here in California.

The census result came out yesterday and California will be losing a Congressional seat for the next decade.  This will also mean a loss of one electoral vote.  Overall, the states that voted for Biden loses three seats and those who voted for Trump gained three seats.  With the next presidential election expected to be a lot closer, this maybe important.  Also the Democrats hold a slim lead in the House and this can make a difference.  But who knows?  I mean North Carolina and Florida can flip blue and Michigan, Pennsylvania and Colorado can flip red.  In the long run the greatest hope for Democrats and the greatest fear for Republicans is if Texas ever flips.  Texas gained two seats this time and will probably continue to get people moving from California unless we cut way down on use of fossil fuel.

Another blow is that Newsome is being recalled.  The opposition has enough signatures for a recall election to occur.  Newsome will most likely survive as he and the Democrats will bill this as a Trump supporters attack.  But he will have to fight hard and that may mean loss of concentration for his job.  Worse, he may lean a little more to the right and cut back on COVID mandates even if there is another surge in the next few months.  There will be expenses for the state due to the special election.  There will also a big circus as all kinds of people, mostly unqualified, decide to jump into the race.  This includes Caitlin Jenner who somehow is a Republican even though that party is not exactly a friend of transgender people.  There is also a porn star in the race along with bunch of has beens.  So if Newsome loses the recall, one of these people may be our next governor!

 Finally, justice is done.  Three guilty verdicts on the Floyd case brought celebration in the streets rather than protests.  To me, it is more relief than celebration.  Relief that the jury got it right, but no celebration because it took such overwhelming evidence to get justice.  Relief that we maybe improving in our understanding of the fear and pain that Black people go through.  No celebration yet as we still have a long way to go.   Relief that there won't be violence in the streets tonight over a verdict.  No celebration because I see many potential fire in the streets over verdicts in the near future.

Another concern is that Maxine Waters may have given the defense a pathway to appeal.  Her not so subtle message for violence if the verdict was not guilty was not smart at all.  The judge, while saying the Waters' rhetoric should not affect the jury, did say it may give the defense a chance to appeal.  Well, I don't see how her words would affect the jury at this point.  I am sure that everyone on the jury has heard of all kinds of rhetoric before Waters.  They are also well aware of the probability of violence if they return a not guilty verdict.  After all there have been many post verdict protests before.  Still, Waters was not helping here.

Also the GOP saying Waters is inciting violence is hypocritical.  Did the same people called out Trump, Cruz and others for inciting the violence on the Capitol?  

 The CDC release the stats of causes of death in 2020.  COVID deaths was third most cause of death behind cardiovascular diseases and cancer.  These top two causes together was more than 3 and half times the number of deaths due to COVID.  So now some people are saying that CVD and cancer are caused mostly by people eating bad food and smoking cigarettes.   Yet we don't stop people from doing these things but we force people to wear masks and shut down the economy because of COVID.  People should be free to choose what they want to do with their health, not dictated by government or the CDC.

What these people do not recognize is that if you make bad choices, you still may live years before you get CVD or cancer.  If you don't wear your mask and you catch COVID, you may die tomorrow.  If you make wrong choices and you get CVD or cancer, only you will die.  You can't give other people these diseases.  But if you get COVID, you can pass it to someone else and kill them.  No doctor or nurse ever died of treating patients with CVD or cancer but many have died treating COVID patients.  You do not have the right to cause someone else to get sick or die.

And it is not just a choice of minimizing death or save the economy.  China shut down it economy early and not only saved lives but also had positive GDP growth last year.  We do half way effort at shut downs and rarely enforced wearing masks.   As a result, not only our deaths skyrocketed, our economy also tanked.  So for those who believe that freedom to do what you want is more important than public health,  well, you are dead wrong.

 What is happening to this country?  While the trial of the killing George Floyd is still going on, a Minnesota policewoman shoots and kills a black man at a traffic stop.  She supposedly mistook her gun for a taser!  How is that possible?  I understand that the gun and taser are supposed to be worn on different sides of the body.  Do they look and feel the same?  Is it true that cops have trouble differentiating other objects from guns?  They have shot people and then claim that they thought the person was holding a gun when in fact that person was holding something else.  So cops have trouble identifying their own guns now?

Then you have the cop who sprayed maze on an army lieutenant wearing his uniform at another traffic stop.  The soldier was in a car without a license plate but had a temporary paper license in the back windshield.  The cops couldn't recognize the temporary license?  There must be many of those on the road everyday and once the car is stopped, they should have seen the license.  People have said that black men should not wear hoodies or gang clothing to make cops more suspicious of them.  This guy was in an army uniform!  What else can he wear to make him more of a good guy?  Yet he still was treated like a criminal!

Couple weeks ago the big stories were attacks and killings of Asians.  I am sure the attacks are still going on.   But there is no attention to that now as mass shootings and cops attacking blacks are once again taking over the news.  So many things are wrong now that the school shooting in Tennessee today will hardly be noticed among the national news tomorrow.

 Biden is calling for a two trillion dollars investment in infrastructure.  The GOP is calling this unnecessary expensive.  Of course, they are not complaining about the expensive tax cuts.  I found out recently that the cost of the new F35 fighter jets, including their lifetime operating cost is about two trillion dollars.  I think THAT is unnecessary expensive.  Our older fighter jets are still the best in the world.  The jets, while giving us superiority in the sky, will not be effective in the wars we are fighting today.  We bombed the hell out of Vietnam and the Middle East and what have we got for it?   Lots of death and destruction without achieving our goals.  More jets will not make us more competitive in the world economy either.  Infrastructure upgrade is what we need the most to be competitive.

While China is building bullet trains and railroads to accommodate them, we can't build a single one here connecting SF and LA.   While China is building bridges and highways, our roads and bridges are falling apart.  China is building new airports and LaGuardia and LAX are shameful examples we have.  So yes, I agree with Biden that we need to improve our infrastructure now as fast as we can.  

The GOP does have a point in that we have not been transparent about the cost and timing of our projects in the past.  That is on both GOP and Democrat administrations.  It cost billions to add couple of miles on an existing subway and to add three stops in New York and took many years.  Why is it so expensive and take so long?  GOP also want to have bipartisan participation in deciding what to build.  Projects should not be doled out as pork to influential Congressmen or Senators.  Of course, when the GOP want to have bipartisan involvement in deciding the projects, it is another way of them saying: we want some of the pork too!