Allen's Weblog

If Trump can use the separation of children as a lever to get good immigration, so be it! If Trump can get free trade by leveraging threats of tariffs against virtually every country, so be it.

Negotiation is tricky business. Always. It doesn’t always work to threaten, and if threatening doesn’t work you are often left with nowhere to go.

Backing down from a threat is something Trump would not do lightly in the presidential office. It’s too public. Trump would never take a public defeat.

So, where does that leave us? It leaves us with the compromises of some sort, and Trump wants to compromise on his term

I personally think Greg Gutfeld has the right solution: Line up buses at the border, fill them up and take them back. That would deny true Refugees a right to seek Asylum, but every Swinging Richard in Central and South America knows the proper words to seek Refugee Status whether they deserve it or not. There is no way to investigate the claims of 50,000 requests a month.

We have 20 million refugees already. Enough is enough!

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Golf is a dying sport. That is not news.

What is news is that it frees up a lot of golf course property for development in urban areas. At about 150 acres each, a golf course could theoretically provide housing for thousands of people, and in expensive cities, that could ease a housing shortage.

San Diego is one such City. Zillow lists 14 areas nearing “crises” levels, and of the 14 areas, six are in California. San Diego is fifth on the list. The daily newspapers and TV news shows have highlighted the problem, and it is generally accepted that it is regulations and environmental lawsuit delays that increase the cost and reduce the density.

At one point, San Diego County boasted of 65 golf courses. At 150 acres each, that is a lot of ill used land. I live on a recently remodeled golf course, and the number of rounds of golf are obviously down substantially. Nationally, the number of golfers has dropped from 30 million to 20 million, and that is obvious on our golf course.

Golf courses are closing all over San Diego County and each one is the subject of housing plans, surrounding resident’s lawsuits, and costly delays. The real estate of golf courses, costly to begin with, becomes even costlier during delays, and in California it takes three or four times the regulation delays encountered in other states.

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It is an unbreakable rule, developed over decades of being a computer professional, that I would never, under any circumstance, buy anything that was Version 1.0.

Unfortunately, my wife’s Alzheimer’s decline could not wait for the OcculusGo (standalone Virtual Reality) to get to Version 2.0. That means giving up a lot of software, that still needs to be developed for this, the very first real consumer-oriented Virtual Reality.

First, the entire VR world appears to be mostly aimed at juveniles, not unexpectedly since we adults don’t buy a lot of devices until they, and their software are mature. This will be a long climb, so adults who are not enamored with roller coaster rides, or cartoons will not need to jump into this pool.

The good news is that no cell phone is needed except for the setup. The visual unit is truly independent, but it is somewhat limited by the interior rechargeable battery. I am certain that the length of battery is a trade off with weight. One doesn’t need a heavy headset, and this one is delightfully light.

Three recommendations: All content that must be downloaded should have a counter, so that long downloads could be dumped. The second recommendation is that the length of every content should be noted in the beginning. Third, more mature content such as more travelogues should be developed for mature audiences.

But it’s a good start.

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Tariffs are such a tangled mess of jumbles, unequal equities and unreasonable reasonable situations…

The United States has tariffs, on peanuts, sugar (since 1793), paper clips, canned tuna, and…

Our paper clip tariff against China is a hefty 127%.

Now it is perfectly obvious that China’s 25% tariff against the US cars hurts us a lot more than the 127% tariff against CHinese paper clips hurts China, and it is reasonable to look at tariffs and see if they are in need a sunset clauses. Of course Trump thinks we have given away the store in the North Korean nuclear negotiations (true), and the same people negotiating for tariff may not have been any better.

Singapore has 0.00, average tariff. Hong Kong the same and still the same with Switzerland. Canada itself, overall, at 0.85, but Dairy Products are 270%, our president assures us.

I can see in my mind, because I have heard enough comments from liberals over the years say similar things, that our negotiators believed in helping others at our expense, because there was a huge disparity in economic and military power. Indeed, FOX news posted the relative economic power of the nation’s at the G-7 conference — the US exceeds all other conferees together.

If it is true as the president says that other countries are taking advantage of us, it was done purposely. We have been reluctant to use our economic power, and our military power. Yes, we invaded Afghanistan, and stayed too long, the same with Iraq. But we permitted the North Koreans to get nukes, Iran to get too close, and China to successfully challenge the freedom of the seas.

Our new economic and military stance is indeed more muscular. I hope we don’t overdo it, but we have certainly underdone it in the past, so we need a rest. Trump,, to his credit, understands that we have been Uncle Sucker long enough.

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There is unlikely to be a political bombshell more important than the Department of Justice Inspector General Report, to be announced on Thursday June 14.

There are leaks about what is in the report, but we don’t know, won’t know until the detailed, several hundred page report is released. The subject of the report is the Hillary presidential run and the FBI investigation, and former FBI Head James Comey is expected to be roundly criticized.

The question is the manner and direction of the findings. I would hope that Hillary is on Somme way actually indicted for her handling of the classified matter during her tenure a SecState…it was criminal by any rational standards.

Perhaps it is too much to hope for in a Washington whose penchant for forgiving past sins is criminal in itself.

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One wonders what the Republican California gubernatorial platform will be, but this is a target rich environment.

Unbeknownst to most people, the state has a new law, (admittedly not going into effect for some years) that limits the water use in households to first 55 gallons a person and then 50 gallons. In effect, one could not shower and do laundry the same day. Repealing that Law would be a good place to start, except it is not threatening in the current sense.

Still, repealing the new and onerous gas tax, which is on the same ballot and can be hung around Newsom’s neck like a collar, and, of course the state-wide Sanctuary Law. We did manage to send a message in this last election by thoroughly defeating, in fact recalling, the idiot whose vote cinched the gas tax.

The platform COULD overcome Cox’s fumbling ways. He is Chicago transplant and doesn’t understand California deeply, the way Newsom does. Newsom is relatively young, energetic and as a former Mayor of San Francisco, knows all the liberal talking points without spending a minute in preparation. He will tear Cox a new one in debates, and Cox doesn’t have “fire in the belly” which is needed in modern politics.

People are fleeing California in droves, I loose my flooring guy to Washington State this month, but others arrive…mostly the homeless. No sense being homeless in Buffalo when you can be homeless in California. The last I heard we had 12% of the population and 34% of the welfare cases.

Sigh!

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On the California situation: Travis Allen was actually the better candidate for Governor, but Trump’s endorsement was enough to propel Cox into the race for Governor.

Cox would not normally stand a chance against Democrat Gavin Newsom, except California is rumbling in volcanic fever, fueled by a massive gas tax, the Sanctuary State Law, and a rapid exodus of the Middle Class to other states. California is the richest state, fifth in the world with a GCP greater than Britain but it is also the poorest with more poor people than any other state.

A recent US tax code change has threatened to make it far more expensive for the rich to remain in this high tax state, likely fueling an exodus of some of our very rich.

So, does the Republican candidate, Cox, stand a chance? Not really, but the gas tax recall is on the ballot, and that may bring enough voters to do the recall and defeat Newsom, who does support the gas tax.

Lightening could strike.

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