Joe Biden’s hesitancy to give up and pass the reins to Kamala Harris reminds one that FDR never thought much of Vice President Harry Truman either. Leaving the execution of World War II to his neophyte Vice President was never considered just like Biden never thought of Kamala as anything other than window dressing to attract female and black voters. Joe’s sense that if he loses to Trump in November as he described in his recent interview with George Stephanopoulos would leave him proud to have given it his all. It is self pride that is beneath his long history in public office and one that ruins his legacy.
Harry Truman had no clue about the atomic bomb nor anything else of import when FDR died because he was never considered capable. Yet he quickly grew into the position and is now listed as one of our greatest Presidents. Today, Biden has it within his power to cap a half century political career with greatness just by letting himself be declared by his doctors as suffering from the early stages of dementia and under the 25th Amendment incapacitated and thereby allow Kamala Harris to immediately take the reins and possibly defeat Donald Trump.
It would be as historic a walk away from power as Washington’s decision to limit himself to two terms and prove that Biden making Kamala Harris his running mate was more than just window dressing. Given the prospect of a second term of a more emboldened Trump as President, I’m up for giving her the benefit of doubt. Given my Libertarian Republican perspective I’m not expecting greatness, just the salvation of our Constitution.
ET
This spring, “AI caught the market by storm,” says Douglas Simmons, portfolio manager of the $1.2 billion Fidelity Select Utilities mutual fund. “It became recognized more broadly among generalist investors that utilities have become a play on AI.” In the past few months, though, utilities have left the rest of the market in the dust. These dullest of all stocks have suddenly become a bet on the single flashiest area of the market: artificial intelligence. AI requires a lot of computing power, and computers use a lot of electricity. And the expansion of data centers, “driven by the insatiable appetite of AI,” is the fastest-growing source of industrial demand.
AI is a great trend that requires a more prompt solution than what utilities in high demand urban zones can provide. Presently wind mills in distant underpopulated areas are having difficulty in connecting to the highly populated zones because of licensing and wiring capacity constraints. So why not locate high demand data centers near those distant wind mills instead of next to Dulles airport that taxes the tight electrical grid around Washington D.C.?
Another advantage of using underpopulated zones as big data centers is that they could build mini nuclear power plants with little local objection to supplement the wind mill power.
I asked Bard a few questions regarding the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to disqualify Donald Trump from that states’ ballot. One on how many states empower its Secretary of State to decide on a candidate's eligibility. It turns out to be only three; Colorado, Maine and New Mexico. It's likely that the Supreme Court of the United States will narrowly rule that only these three can approve or deny Donald Trump because they have in state law the statute allowing it and thereby upholding State’s Rights. Another issue is standing. I’m not a lawyer but if a state has no law requiring an official to make a determination of eligibility then it's difficult to see how SCOTUS could compel these other states to disqualify Donald Trump from the ballot.
On the other hand:
By Chris Strohm and Erik Larson Feb 6, 2024 at 10:03 AM EST
In a strongly-worded 57-page opinion, the panel said Trump’s alleged effort to illegally remain in power, if proven, would represent an “unprecedented assault on the structure of our government” that cannot be immunized.
“We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a president has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power — the recognition and implementation of election results,” the panel wrote. “Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count.”
The Constitution makes no mention of political parties so it is apparent that the Speaker of The House is elected by a majority of individuals, regardless of party affiliation. After the chaos of party politics at the cusp of the Civil War, Democrats and Republicans consolidated with strict party rules to vote solely for their own members. But Republicans in the House are so fractured that it is time for a few members who believe in the “Rule of Law” to walk across the aisle and caucus with Democrats to make Hakeem Jeffries the Speaker of the House.
Consider the political calculus defectors from Steve Bannon’s House of Anarchy make. Either stay with chaos and their Congressional seat in a contested district or walk and possibly get primaried or not or survive given the depths the anarchists reach against their own. If nominated a “Rule of Law” Republican then can campaign as capable of working with Conservative Democrats. It’s not a tough choice but requires a spine.
November 9th update
Mike Johnson was elected unanimously by Republicans to be Speaker of The House and showed no G.O.P. Congressman made the smart political calculation of walking across the aisle and caucusing with Democrats to save themselves for the possibility to get re-elected next November with the aid of Conservative Democrats. No, they stayed with the Clown Show and last Tuesday’s election gave some indications that it was a bad bet.
Mike Johnson, who reminds one of naive Dave the Kevin Klein impersonator of the President, is incapable of averting a government shutdown and putting the Steve Bannon anarchist to wreck solutions and so that it may be a protracted one.
The Middle East is plagued by Islam’s Sunni-Shia schism dating back to the 7th century as a local source of tribal conflict but when The United States determined that oil from the Middle East was a matter of national security this internecine quarrel was made global. The shale revolution recently made the U.S. energy independent and even a competing source of oil and gas to the region so that we can now untangle ourselves from the region’s murderous nihilism by taking out our military bases and stop giving political cover to either side of the schism. We should practice a policy of benign neglect and let the region sort out its differences. And let China suffer the consequences of an insecure oil supply.
China was proud to have brokered the opening of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, its two major oil suppliers, this past March which makes John Kirby’s, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, statement: “The United States will not allow foreign or regional powers to jeopardize freedom of navigation in the Middle East waterways, including the Strait of Hormuz,” an out of date policy for placing our Navy in harm’s way. Now that relations have opened between the two antagonists in Islam’s divide let the word of the foreign minister of The Islamic Republic of Iran who “considers the continued presence of foreign military forces in the waters of the Persian Gulf as a threat to the security of navigation in this strategic waterway and believes that the countries of the region have the ability to protect the peace and security of navigation in it without the presence of foreigners” stand and let China negotiate the risks of a disruption in Middle East oil deliveries.
Iran’s revolution formed by Shia fundamentalist clerics declared the U.S. to be its demonic enemy which made us the de facto friend of Sunni Saudi Arabia. Ironically our national security was most thoroughly violated by the Saudi Sunni extremist Osama Bin Laden, who was so outraged that the infidel U.S. military was in his beloved homeland, despite that it was there to push back against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, that he formed al-Qaeda whose first act was to bomb the U.S. military base in Dhahran Saudi Arabia in 1996, then the U.S. Embassy in Kenya in 1998, the USS Cole bombing in Yemen in 2000 and finally the 9/11 2001 attack on New York and Washington. Nevertheless the U.S. always sides with Sunni Saudi Arabia and paints Shia Iran as the enemy when in reality it is difficult to distinguish the crimes the two regimes committ against their people and others in the region.
Unfortunately U.S. arms in the region have the characteristic of coming back to haunt our values and interests again because of the Sunni Shia quarrel. The use of F-15 fighter bombers by Saudi Arabia to bomb civilians in Yemen to shape the tribal Shia Houthi versus Sunni Haidi conflict is a willful and embarrassing breach of our trust that these weapons would be put to use in their defense, not to influence a tribal dispute in another country. And yet we still agreed to put our Navy in harm's way once again in Yemen in support of the Saudi blockade of Iranian weapons coming by sea to the Houthis.
The Hamas terrorist invasion of Israel is so horrifying that it is hard to take in but given the months of preparation by the terrorists one can logically conclude it was meant to wreck the Abrahams Accord negotiated by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a bid for economic progress by gravitating toward a historic alliance with Israel. But it is a Sunni elite’s vision. It is not one shared by the Arab masses sympathetic to Palestine and Shia Iran took advantage of this division to wreck the accord by arming Hamas with military gear to re-ignite the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
President Biden’s firm backing of Israel because of Hamas’ hideous assault on innocents is laudable but it will get tested by what looks like a “Ten Babies for a Baby” assault on Gaza with no endgame. But the placing of U.S. carrier task forces off the shores of Lebanon provides a flashpoint to a global conflict. To repeat, let's stop having our military used to settle ancient differences that never get settled. Yes, grieve from afar for all those who are lost but recognize our military presence makes possible having a local atrocity put us into a forced march toward a global cataclysm.
The construction of the TSMC Arizona plant is a major step forward for the US semiconductor industry demanding STEM educated engineering talent that lifts our economy. But it also requires a Singapore that organized Southeast Asia to build and assemble ancillary tech products to sell their chips to.
Costa Rica has the potential to become the "Singapore of Central America". Singapore is a small country that has transformed itself into a major global hub for business and technology. Costa Rica could follow a similar path, by leveraging its advantages to attract investment from the tech industry.
If Costa Rica is able to become a major hub for the tech industry then it would create jobs, boost economic growth, and attract foreign investment to itself and neighboring countries that would raise the standard of living in the region and be a solution to the migrant crisis.
