Having written about the Democratic convention each day last week, I will write about the GOP this week.  This is going to be hard to do as I get angry listening to what some of the speakers have to say.  Of course I only watch the highlights (or lowlights).  I can't possibly sit through these speeches in their entirety.  I couldn't even do that with the Democrats either.

So the first night the GOP bring out their diversity starting lineup, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott and Hershel Walker.  I would be interested who they have coming off the bench the next three days.  From what I can see, they did very good jobs.  I think Haley is eyeing for a 2024 run.  So we may very well have two Indian women competing for the presidency in 4 years!

Trump had said that the Democratic convention was dark and his will be uplifting.  Yet the picture the GOP painted if Biden wins is most very scary and dark.  It was obvious they were trying to scare white people into voting against Biden.  The St. Louis couple who pointed guns at protesters said so as much.  

Donald Jr.'s speech could have been lifted from one of his dad's.  It was full of lies and hyperbole.  The greatest economy ever?   The China virus?  Beijing Biden?  It was deflection of blame by using China just as his dad.  His eyes looked watery.  Does he have allergies or has he been crying?  His girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle made Don Jr. look soft spoken.  I think she was channeling Howard Dean.  Wasn't she used to be married to Gavin Newsome?  Talk about changing teams.  This is more like changing planets!

There was no sympathy for the COVID victims.  There was no taking responsibility for the pandemic response.  In fact they tried to change history by saying how well they have done.  I don't think any objective observer would buy this.  This was all trying to play to the base and Trump himself.  I understand Melania is speaking tonight.  Who will she copy off this time?  I am not sure I can stomach 3 more days of this but I will try.

 What is going to happen to college football this fall?  The Pac 12 and the Big Ten have decided not to play, at least this calendar year.  The ACC, SEC and the Big 12 are still scheduled to play.  If these three major conferences do play, are we still going to have a national championship playoff?  Are we going to have bowl games?  What if they played out their schedule, crown a national champion and then the Big Ten and Pac 12 decide to play in the spring?  

I think it is crazy that the three conferences are still trying to play given the situation of the pandemic right now.  There is no sign that we are turning the corner.  With flu season coming, the health system may be completely overburdened in the fall.  While there has been success with professional sports playing while in a bubble, this is not possible with college football.  Most of the teams in the three conferences are in the south and southwest where the pandemic is hitting the worst at this time.  How many Florida and Texas teams are going to be able to play out the season without players getting sick and/or passing the disease to other people? Oklahoma went back to practice and immediately have 9 cases already.

With most schools opting for at least partial virtue learning, I don't see how it can be justified that student athletes are going to play a game where there is contact on every play.  Even the huddles are a good place to spread germs.  The Big Ten and the Pac 12 are doing the right thing while the other three are jeopardizing the lives of young men just for money.

 A historic day as Joe Biden picks Kamala Harris to be his running mate.  I don't think this pick will change the dynamic of the race.  It is still a referendum on Trump and I think Biden wants to keep it that way.  Every name on his list of running mates have some baggage or question marks.  Ultimately, I think Biden thinks that Harris is the safest choice.  She has been vetted in the big stages of running for attorney general and senate in California.  She also ran for president.   So her baggage is well known and will not be a surprise under the bright light.  That is not the case with other women on the list with the exception of Warren.  Given her race and age, Warren was never going to be picked anyway.  I think the Treasury post is right for her.

There will be racist and sexist attacks from the right against Harris.  But that would have been the case for any of the other black women on the list.  Harris can dish as well as take.  She did very well in senate hearings where she grilled Sessions, Barr and Kavanaugh.  So I don't think she will have trouble going up against Pence.  The VP candidate is often a bull dog attacking so the person on the top of the ticket can be seen as presidential.  Harris will attack Barr which indirectly will mean she will be attacking Trump.

By picking Harris, Biden also pulled a Ronald Reagan.  Harris attacked him during one of the debates.  It was like Bush attacking Reagan by calling Reagan's policies voodoo economics.  Reagan forgave and forgot after he won the nomination and picked Bush to be his running mate.  Biden is doing the same here.  This is also a contrast with Trump who does not forget or forgive anyone who crosses him!

 I would have to say that Trump is clever in signing executive orders that he claims will help the people and help the economy.  Besides the constitutionality of these executive orders and the inability of his people to coherently talk about the details of these orders, these will help the people or economy very little.  What these orders do is again deflect blame from Trump.  By claiming that these orders break the deadlock between the House and the Senate, Trump is able to say that he is doing something for the American people.

Instead of $600 weekly, the unemployed will get $400 if the states are willing to put up $100 of the $400.  If the state you are in is not able or willing to pony up the $100,  you will get nothing from the Federal government.  Payroll taxes will be delayed, not eliminated for now.  But if you have no job, no wages, this would not help you at all.  Trump says that there will be extension of no evictions.  But that is not true if you read the fine print.  In any case, there will be no improvement in the economy if all these executive orders are enacted.  And who complained about Obama's executive orders in the past?  None other than Donald Trump.

But by signing these orders, Trump can claim that it is the Democrats who are delaying relief to the people by not coming to an agreement.  This is especially true that the Democrats are taking Trump to court over constitutionality of these orders.  The people don't care about the legality of it, they just want relief.  So this may actually hurt the Democrats.  I say let these orders go through.  With virus still surging in many areas of the country, nothing will help the economy anyway.  The U.S. economy decrease 32% in the last quarter, while that of Germany decreased 10% and that of China increased 3%.   When these orders do nothing to change the situation, Trump will be responsible if these orders were put into action.  If the Democrats delay the implementation of the orders and things continue south, then some people will think that the Democrats are responsible.

Given the positive cases of COVID-19 among the Marlins and Cardinals in baseball in the past few days, I am not optimistic that MLB will finish the season.  I think it is 50-50 right now.  I am more pessimistic about the NFL given it is way more contact with way more players than baseball.  The Patriots already have several players opting out.  I would say that health of many players will be in jeopardy if the NFL is played.  Most serious,  I don't think college football should be played, at least not this calendar year.  The idea that student athletes play a contact sport in the middle of a pandemic while regular students are taking online class only, is ridiculous.

The NBA and NHL probably can finish their season.  They, like the MLS and women soccer, have the players living in a bubble.  But baseball and football have players going home after games and travel from city to city,   So the chances of getting infected, even if the players are careful, are still greater than the general population.  They get tested frequently so maybe able to control an outbreak better.  But as you can see with the Marlins, things still can get out of hand.  I thought originally, MLB was going to go into bubbles in Florida and Arizona, but that did not happen.

Major sports leagues such as the English Premier League have been able to finish or almost finish their restarted seasons without significant problems from the virus.  This is because these countries waited until the curves had not only been flattened but had turn downward significantly before starting their sports leagues. We are starting leagues in the middle of a surge, so our chances of success are diminished greatly.  This is a lesson for the economy as well.  If you start too early, things will go south and the second shut down will be more painful than before.

I think there is more than spying or hacking that caused the Trump administration to close down the Chinese consulate in Houston last week.  That consulate has been around for decades and I am sure they have been doing spy work for just about as long.  So now they are accused of hacking into research facilities.  It seems to me they can do that from anywhere in the world.  I think Trump said hackers don't have to be from the Russian government, they can be doing it from the basement.  So why can't the Chinese do the hacking from the basement of their family homes?

I think Trump is trying to do anything to deflect his handling of the pandemic, economy and racial tension.  Calling it the China virus, defending confederate flags, sending federal troops into cities are all his tactics to try to reverse the poll numbers.  If he only works as hard at solving real problems as he does of dividing people and making people angry, the country would be better off.

Of course, China is going to retaliate every time Trump does something.  They closed the American consulate in Chengdu.  Is this going to be the end of confrontation?  Not even close.  As the election gets closer and Trump gets more desperate, he may try to provoke China into greater confrontations.  I am afraid he is may try to provoke military actions, probably in the South China Sea,  If China responds, which it will have to, it will be extremely dangerous.  Trump may do this because when there is military conflict, the nation tends to rally behind its leader.  He may try this in a desperate attempt to steal the election.

I didn't wait for the Trump conference because I knew there wasn't going to be anything that would be helpful in fighting the pandemic.  He said that wearing masks was the right and patriotic thing to do.  It would be much more helpful if he said that four months ago.  I do wonder what those non journalists at Fox will be saying about the pandemic now.  Is it still a hoax to defeat Trump, according to them?  Now that their incompetent leader has admitted he was wrong, at least while  reading from a script,  will these fake journalists continue to mislead the American people?

On the subject of testing the president a lot, I don't have problems with it.  The president certainly should be tested more than athletes.  Even if everyone at the White House is tested a lot, it is still lot less than all the professional and college athletes who are being tested.  But how can you justify not providing federal funds to get more testing, as the administration is suggesting, if you believe it is important that YOU and others around you need the tests?

You must have missed my comment from the last blog where I talked about federal agents attacking and arresting protesters in Oregon.  I talked about hiding data and using secret police were the exact same thins that the U.S. accuses of China all the time.  So is Trump taking us into a dictatorship?  The letter I found from Xi to Trump is not so fake after all.

Did you see the navy guy who was beat up by federal agent in Portland?  They swung batons at him and broke his arm.  He was just standing there and asking them who they were and why they were there.  I thought he must be a young guy.  It turned out he is at least in his 50s and was a navy veteran.  He is one tough dude.  After they beat him with the baton, he just stood there!  I would be on the ground, crying in pain.  He is very brave.  But if he was black, they probably would have shot him!

I agree that it will get ugly if troops are sent into Chicago and other cities like Detroit.  As I said above, the protesters will be more black in those cities and the agents may be more likely to shoot as opposed to using batons.  It maybe worse than what happened in the south, Watts and Detroit in the 1960s.

Soccer has started, NBA players are in Orlando practicing, MLB is getting ready to start in a couple of days.  So it seems that things are going well with the restart of professional sports.  The thing is, all these players are getting tests for COVID-19 frequently, sometimes everyday.  The results are coming back quickly as well, certainly no more than one day.

Meanwhile, here in California and elsewhere, people who are trying to get tested for COVID-19 have to be in line for hours.  Then it may take a week or more for the results to come in.   Isn't there something wrong with our society where healthy, young millionaires are treated so much better than elderly folks or people with health issues so that billion dollar industries can keep going?

Florida, which is now the epicenter of this country, is hosting all of the basketball and soccer teams.  California has five teams in MLB, which has no bubble.  The players will be going home to their family after games and after traveling to other cities.  I just don't see how this is reasonable.  Toronto, which along with Edmonton, is hosting the NHL.  But Toronto refuses to let the Blue Jays play in Toronto.  Does that make much sense even though the NHL is a bubble so there is less traveling?

Back to the guy who is defecting blame for the pandemic, Trump.  Trump bragged about acing a cognitive test.  He was called out by Chris Wallace on Fox.  I have administered such a test to patients in the past.  It is to rule out dementia, not an intelligence test.  So unless you have dementia, you should ace the test.  Trump kept telling Wallace the test is very hard.  When Wallace showed one of the question of identifying an elephant, Trump said the last few questions were difficult.  No they are not.  The questions test things like the date, time and place.  I think most third graders would ace this test.  The fact that Trump keeps saying this is a hard test shows his dishonesty and narcissism.

Chris Wallace is not the liberal that his father was.  But I am surprise how hard he went after Trump, debunking his lies such as Biden signed to defund the police and the U.S. has the lowest mortality rate due to COVID-19.  At least a few Republicans are tired of all the BS that Trump is putting out there. 

One day after the Trump administration told the country's hospitals to report COVID-19 data to the HHS instead of the CDC, some data are not available already.  The missing data so far are hospital and ICU occupancy from the virus, healthcare worker staffing and PPE status.

When the announcement came out about the change of reporting, I thought to myself that it looks suspicious.  Since the HHS is under the control of the administration, can they falsify the data to make things look better?  I would think that they can't possibly get away with that. could they?  Well, the three types of data missing would all be alarming.  Occupancy in ICUs are rising, healthcare workers in many states are stretched thin, and PPE problems were never addressed adequately.  So all these would be embarrassing to Trump.  But by not reporting these, it just highlights the problems.

Given that the press already noticed this, I am sure these three data will be reported soon.   But will something more sinister like under reporting of cases and deaths be next? 

So now ICE is saying that foreign students taking classes at colleges which will be online instead of in person, will be deported.  That is a grossly unfair rule.  The students have no control over a school's decision to shut down physical classes.  The students are already paying way more tuition than Americans and they will not be getting the full education they envisioned when they came to America.  Now they will not even be allowed to stay.  Some of them have already paid deposits for housing already.  

This whole thing is another way for Trump to appeal to his base of xenophobic Americans.  It is not only unfair but is detrimental to the country.  As mentioned the foreign students paying a much higher tuition.  Add to the housing, food and other expenses, they are a big contributor to the U.S. economy.  

The argument that the students are learning and taking technology from the U.S. and bringing it back home is absurd.  There are benefits to the students and their countries but many of them stay and make a big difference in America.  In fact, most STEM graduate programs in the U.S. will not function well without foreign students.  Silicon Valley would be in trouble without foreigners who stayed here.  There is a history of immigrants helping America.  We may not have been the first the get the atomic bomb without immigrants.

So as usual, Trump is blaming immigrants and foreigners for the country's ills.  He is not the first and will not be last.  But he has blame Mexicans for murders and drug problems in this country.  He is blaming China for his incompetence in his handling of the pandemic.

Of course, Trump doesn't just blame foreigners.   He also blames Dr. Fauci for the handling of the pandemic.  Really?  This from the guy who calls this thing a hoax and would suddenly disappear.  The same guy who thinks that he can detergents to get rid of the virus.  It is beyond crazy.