Zandar's 2017 Predictions

Here we go again with another time capsule that we'll revisit a year from now on December 31, 2017, and we'll see how I did. 

1) President Trump's average approval rating as of the end of 2016 according to Real Clear Politics's average is 44% favorable, 48% unfavorable, and 43% favorable-48% unfavorable according to Huffpost Pollster average.  My prediction is that he's at or below 44% favorable by this date next year.

2) At least one of Trump's cabinet selections will be rejected by the Senate.  My money's on Rex Tillerson, but the Senate will not confirm all of Trump's picks.  It will be a move by Republicans to let off the growing pressure on them to rein Trump in, but in the end somebody just as bad as Tillerson will be confirmed.  I'd love for Democrats to make this a nasty mess however.

3) Republicans are already fleeing from repealing Obamacare. I'll go out on a limb and predict that no repeal bill will pass in 2017.  Republicans are just too far apart on a solution. I'll take the split here if a repeal bill passes but the actual repeal part doesn't happen until after the 2018 election. I'll take full credit though if that repeal date should be after the 2020 election, which is definitely possible.

4) Harry Reid left the Dems the option to Bork a Trump Supreme Court pick.  I expect that will happen at least once (remember Harriet Miers?) I'll take the split if a second pick is confirmed before the end of the year, but Trump won't get his first pick.

5) All this shouting about the United Nations won't change anything: the US will continue to fund the UN as normal.  I could see a symbolic cut, but nothing about ending funding to the UN, it's simply too important.

6) Likewise, all of Trump's bankster choices for his cabinet and advisors means the debt ceiling will be raised on time.  That will happen quickly.

I expect plenty of new GOP legislation out before the end of the year:

7) A national 20-week ban on abortions will make it through the House.

8) National Voter ID will make it through the House at least.

9) Medicare and Social Security "reform" will also make it through the House.  I expect all of these to die in the Senate.

10) And as always, ZVTS will make it too.  It wasn't a gimme as it has been in the past, I've considered hanging it up, but decided that Trump was just too much of a threat to stop this place.

We'll see how things turn out.

Russian To Judgement, Con't

No, that Friday night Washington Post headline about RUSSIA HACKED OUR POWER OMG is misleading.  Russia did not "penetrate" the US power grid in Vermont, that's not what actually happened.  What actually happened is that malware often used by Russian hacker groups was found on one laptop used by a Vermont power utility, and no damage was caused. Rich Lawler at Engadget explains:

Just a few days ago, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security released a report detailing their assessment that Russian hackers were behind a series of attacks on US agencies and citizens. While the Obama administration issued sanctions, code linked to those hackers has been shared with other agencies, and on Friday, the Burlington Electric Department found malware with a matching signature on one of its laptops. The discovery raises more questions than it answers, but with recent reports of Russian hackers attacking the power grid in Ukraine, it obviously has raised alerts all over.

The Washington Post first reported the finding, suggesting that Russian hackers had gained access to the electrical grid via the Vermont utility, however the company's statement says there's no indication that happened. In a statement, it said the laptop in question was not connected to grid systems. Vermont Public Service Commissioner Christopher Recchia told the Burlington Free Press that the grid was not in danger.

Because it's not clear exactly what matched, there's a possibility that it could be the result of a false positive, or shared code. Also, it's not clear when or how the malware got on the laptop. Based on those reasons, a number of security professionals on Twitter suggested waiting for more details before crediting this finding to Grizzly Steppe (a name attributed to the Russian attacks in Wednesday's report).

So no, this really is nothing more than bad, bad reporting from WaPo.  Surprise, right?  In the midst of a real crisis of confidence in our media, it's important to note that much of the damage is self-inflicted by journalism itself. Yeah, manufactured fake news is definitely a problem, but it only was able to be used so effectively by others against the US because American journalism is by and large awful, stupid garbage on a daily basis.

Keep that in mind as we head into the Trump regime era.

Zandar's 2016 Scorecard

Time to go over my 2016 predictions and see where I ended up for the year as we usually do on December 31.  Let's see how I did...

1) No beating around the...well...Bush.  Hillary Clinton will be elected President of the United States in 2016.  I'll take the half-point if it's Bernie somehow, but if a Republican wins?  We all lose.


WRONG: And history books will be written for decades as to why.

2) 2016 in economics?  Unemployment under 5.5%, oil under $50, and the Dow Jones will close above 16k.  Yes, 2015 was the first negative year in the markets since 2008 and the Fed raised rates, but we were due, and I think the country will stay on track.






RIGHT: Oil is $53 today, but unemployment is under 5% and the Dow is close to 20K.  I'll take the 2 for 3 here.

3) Movies, I see a good year for both Marvel with Captain America: Civil War and DC with Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice.  Both will break $200 million domestically.  How will Deadpool, Suicide Squad, Doctor Strange and X-Men Apocalypse do?  Less sure about those, but they'll all do $100 million a piece.  I'll take the split if I get at least 3 right.



RIGHT: All six superhero films beat those numbers. Civil War beat $400 mil, Deadpool, BvS and Suicide Squad all topped $300 mil, Doc Strange came in at $225 mil, and even X-Men Apocalypse came in at $155 million.

4) Half-a-dozen massive Supreme Court cases in 2016 could change everything.  I'll call it 5-4 that SCOTUS will side with the Obama administration on Texas's abortion laws being too strict...




RIGHT: 5-3 with the passing of Scalia.

5) ...but you can kiss Affirmative Action goodbye.  Kennedy has repeatedly sided against it, as have the court's other four conservatives.


WRONG: Scalia's death and Kennedy's change of heart saved Fisher. As it was, upheld 4-3.

6) As with 2014's Sochi Winter Games, I predict the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics will be an absolute disaster.  There is no way Brazil is going to be ready for this, and I expect the games will be a nasty, disjointed affair with barely functional venues.


RIGHT: "Barely functional venues" was the generous term as the Olympic Village was unfinished and pool water was algae green. And President Dilma Rouseff was impeached and removed from office not long after.


7) I think it's a safe bet that turnout in the 2016 election will be under 50%.  The last time that happened was in 1996 (49%) when Bill Clinton was re-elected and 8 million angry Americans turned to Ross Perot, ironically proving a major third-party candidate reduces turnout.


SPLIT:  There are still several questions about 2016's election that have to be answered, needless to say.  Turnout was supposedly two points higher than in 1996.

8) The Oculus Rift and other virtual reality headset systems will bomb.  We're talking "Google Glass" level of bomb here.  Ironically, the rebranded, industrial/commercial version of Google Glass will return in 2016 and probably do better.



RIGHT: Both predictions were correct.  VR is there, but only 6 million or so have sold. Oculus itself sold well under 500K units.  If it wasn't for Sony's PlayStation VR and Samsung's Gear VR, it would have been a complete waste.

9) The 2016 GOP nominee will not be Trump.  Somehow, the voters will nominate either Cruz or Rubio instead, I don't know how but...hey, we shouldn't have gone down this far anyway. I'll hedge my bet and say that I hope he is.


WRONG: And for the same reasons as #1.

10) ZVTS will still be here going into 2017.  Here's hoping we make it through.


RIGHT: Still here, and now, I think needed more than ever as we head into the new year.


So 7.5 out of ten, not bad at all, but the two biggest predictions were devastating.  We'll be cleaning up for decades after this election.

The Obamacare Repeal Reveal, Con't

Congress will be back in session within a matter of weeks and the GOP's number one priority is still repealing Obamacare. Only...they're still not sure how to actually go about doing it without collapsing the entire health care system.

The first major act of the unified Republican government in 2017 will be a vote in Congress to begin tearing down Obamacare.

But the euphoria of finally acting on a long-sought goal will quickly give way to the reality that Republicans -- and President-elect Donald Trump -- have no agreement thus far on how to replace coverage for about 20 million people who gained insurance under the health-care law.

“They haven’t come to a consensus in the House and the Senate about the possible replacement plans,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a conservative economist and former adviser to Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “They don’t know Point B.”

Republicans are debating how long to delay implementing the repeal. Aides involved in the deliberations said some parts of the law may be ended quickly, such as its regulations affecting insurer health plans and businesses. Other pieces may be maintained for up to three or four years, such as insurance subsidies and the Medicaid expansion. Some parts of the law may never be repealed, such as the provision letting people under age 26 remain on a parent’s plan.

House conservatives want a two-year fuse for the repeal. Republican leaders prefer at least three years, and there has been discussion of putting it off until after the 2020 elections, staffers said.

Such courage!  Obamacare is so awful that it must be repealed immediately but actually it won't go away for 2 years, 4 years or even longer.  And then we're keeping the good parts that people like.  Oh yeah, and then there's the little problem of tens of millions of Americans losing their health care coverage.

Translating slogans and white-papers into legislation will create problems. Undoing Obamacare would increase the number of non-seniors who are uninsured by 24 million over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Republican aides privately acknowledge that would give Democrats a potent political weapon to fight their efforts, but say their focus will be on lowering costs and expanding choice.

And then there's the issue that several GOP governors don't want to end their careers having to take health care away from their constituents.

Whether or not Democrats will be able to convince anyone that blowing up Obamacare won't be Obama's fault, well, who knows?

Last Call For Obama Makes His Move

The conventional wisdom of the intelligentsia on the right is that Obama (like all pathetic, weak Democrats) constantly brings plastic knives to fights settled by who has the most .50 caliber ammo when it comes to dealing with spycraft. 

This dismal view of the outgoing president is particularly popular among right-wing former intel and military analyst types, folks like John Schindler, Tom Nichols, and Larry Johnson, all of whom think President Obama is either patently evil or incredibly stupid (or in the case of Johnson, both).

Either way, the general idea is that Putin is just too smart and too crafty for Obama to handle, and our president was never in the same league as ol' KGB Vlad, let alone the same international playing field.

But gosh, every now and again Obama goes and proves that even crafty Russian spies are very, very predictable when they get cocky, and that level of predictability can result in some truly masterful manipulation.

President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and sanctioned Russian intelligence officials who Washington believes were involved in hacking U.S. political groups in the 2016 presidential election.

The measures, taken during the last days of Obama's presidency, mark a new low in U.S.-Russian relations which have deteriorated over serious differences on Ukraine and Syria.

"These actions follow repeated private and public warnings that we have issued to the Russian government, and are a necessary and appropriate response to efforts to harm U.S. interests in violation of established international norms of behavior," Obama said in a statement from vacation in Hawaii.

It was not immediately clear whether President-elect Donald Trump, who has repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and nominated people seen as friendly toward Moscow to senior administration posts, would seek to roll back the measures once he takes office on Jan. 20.

Obama is seeking to deter Russia and other foreign governments from leveraging cyber attacks in the future to meddle in U.S. politics, former officials and cyber security experts said.

Obama has been under growing pressure from within his own administration and lawmakers of both political parties to respond more forcefully to the cyber attacks, which included leaked emails of Democratic Party operatives that became part of the media coverage in the campaign for the Nov. 8 presidential election.

The Russian foreign ministry said on Thursday the sanctions were counter-productive and would harm the restoration of bilateral ties. Moscow denies the hacking allegation.

Obama sanctioned two Russian intelligence agencies, the GRU and the FSB, four GRU officers and three companies "that provided material support to the GRU’s cyber operations.

We know who your players are Vlad.  And Obama just openly burned dozens of Russian counter-intelligence agents as an impressive warning.  Rather than keep an eye on these known agents in case misdirection came in handy, the president chose to clean house, giving them until January 1 to get out of the country for good.  That's a strong move and one ol' Vlad was clearly not counting on.

Putin may have been playing games with Obama, but Obama just flipped the game board over and scattered the pieces.  And the warning is clear: now the Russians have to ask themselves if the rest of their counter-intelligence assets in the US...or in other countries allied with the US...are similarly in danger of being burned.  Does Vlad want to take the chance that somehow these are the only spies we know about?

But it's not just Putin who has to make some choices now, but Trump as well.  Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan are calling this move "overdue" and hey, kicking Russian spies out of the country is something that actually gets bipartisan support even these days.  Forget the fact that Ryan could have cared less about sacntions before today, but even Ryan's willing to sell out Trump over this.  Does Trump really want to start sucking up to Vlad now as Obama lays down the hammer?  Not even Trump is dumb enough to invite spies into the country.  Or...is he?

Your move, Vlad, and happy new year.

Israeli Having A Hard Time With This, Con't

In a highly anticipated and very candid speech, outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry made it clear that yet another American administration's hopes for Middle East peace were dashed upon the rocks of Benjamin Netanyahu's ego, as Kerry let Israel know exactly what he thinks about settlements wrecking any shot at a two-state solution.

“The status quo is leading toward one state, or perpetual occupation,” Mr. Kerry said, his voice animated. He argued that Israel, with a growing Arab population, could not survive as both a Jewish state and a democratic state unless it embraced the two-state approach that a succession of American presidents have advocated.

The speech came at a moment of tension between the United States and Israel, on a scale rarely seen since President Harry S. Truman recognized the fragile Israeli state in May 1948. In a direct response to Mr. Netanyahu’s barb over the weekend that “friends don’t take friends to the Security Council,” a reference to the Obama administration’s decision to abstain from a resolution condemning the building of new settlements in disputed territory, Mr. Kerry said the United States acted out of a deeper understanding of the alliance.

“Some seem to believe that the U.S. friendship means the U.S. must accept any policy, regardless of our own interests, our own positions, our own words, our own principles — even after urging again and again that the policy must change,” he said. “Friends need to tell each other the hard truths, and friendships require mutual respect.”

Mr. Kerry usually speaks in the careful words of diplomacy, being careful not to publicly name names, or put choices in the harshest terms. He dropped most of those niceties on Wednesday, especially about Mr. Netanyahu’s government.

“The Israeli prime minister publicly supports a two-state solution, but his current coalition is the most right wing in Israeli history, with an agenda driven by its most extreme elements,” he said. “The result is that policies of this government — which the prime minister himself just described as ‘more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history’ — are leading in the opposite direction, towards one state.”

Needless to say, both Israel and the GOP are furious, screaming that until the Palestinians get a new government, there's no hope of even coming to the table.

The negative reaction to the speech was unanimous among Republican lawmakers, with some calling it "disastrous." Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said it could generously be described as "a pointless tirade."

"Secretary Kerry's speech today was at best a pointless tirade in the waning days of an outgoing administration. At worst, it was another dangerous outburst that will further Israel's diplomatic isolation and embolden its enemies," McCain said.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said he favors a two-state solution, much like Kerry, but doesn't believe the American government has the right to dictate that solution to the Israelis.

Instead, the fixes to the problems in the Middle East must come from the ground up, he said.

"Public lectures against Israel and UN resolutions attacking Israel do not aid the cause of peace," McCain said. "They only provide those seeking Israel's destruction a convenient excuse to blame Israel for their own intransigence."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called Kerry's proposals for peace in the Middle East "fanciful," if not "delusional."

He said the Palestinians can't agree among themselves how to run the areas of where they have some autonomy and can't function as a state right now. The only way stability can take hold in the Holy Land is if Israel is strongly supported by he United States, he said.

"I wish Secretary Kerry and President Obama would stop pushing Israel to negotiate against themselves," Graham said. "The only way the peace process can be restarted is for the Palestinians to hold elections and be governed by a single entity that rejects terrorism. That is not the current situation and until that day arrives, pushing Israel to restart the peace process is folly."

Kerry speech is frankly decades too late.  We should have said this to Israel years and years ago about settlements, but we allowed them to continue unabated.  At this point, with the Trump administration incoming, there's no reason to believe that anything will improve in the West Bank.

Even Worse At Democracy Than NC

Remember when I said that GOP gerrymandering made election districts so ridiculously unfair that North Carolina no longer qualified as a democracy? 

In the just released EIP report, North Carolina’s overall electoral integrity score of 58/100 for the 2016 election places us alongside authoritarian states and pseudo-democracies like Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone. If it were a nation state, North Carolina would rank right in the middle of the global league table – a deeply flawed, partly free democracy that is only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world. 

Indeed, North Carolina does so poorly on the measures of legal framework and voter registration, that on those indicators we rank alongside Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to the integrity of the voting district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the 7/100 North Carolina received. North Carolina is not only the worst state in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project.

Well, it turns out plenty of other Republican-controlled states are just as dismal as NC in the voting district boundaries department, and actually worse overall in election integrity as a Pennsylvania newspaper points out.

Pennsylvania cannot be considered a fully functioning democracy, according to a new report.

It's among at least a dozen states that, if they were nations, would rank as "a deeply flawed, partly free democracy," according to Andrew Reynolds, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina and an adviser to the Electoral Integrity Project, or EIP, a joint effort of Harvard University and the University of Sydney.

Strictly speaking, Reynolds made the comment about his home state of North Carolina, which scored 58/100 on the EIP's metrics, ranking 38th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

However, Pennsylvania scored worse than North Carolina: 56/100, for a rank of No. 45.

The states as bad or worse than NC overall include Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (the Badger State under Scott Walker would be dead last except for Arizona.)  Wisconsin rated 8/100 on voting district boundaries, and Ohio a dismal 10.  Please note that these are all states that have passed GOP "voter ID laws" and were gerrymandered by Republican legislatures after 2010.  They are also all states that Trump won.

The fact of the matter is that this is what cost Clinton the election: states that are no longer free democracies and instead weighted heavily towards the GOP.  More so than Trump's cult of personality, more so than race, more so than Russian interference, this is why Clinton lost.

We're no longer a collection of democratic states.

Last Call For Crashing The Confederate Cotillion

Trump supporters are fighting it out over their little neo-Nazi victory party in Washington DC next month and I just don't have enough popcorn.

The “alt-right” erupted in a civil war Monday after one of the movement’s leaders banned another from appearing at the pro-Donald Trump “DepolaBall” for his history of flirting with Nazism.

The argument seems to have begun when NY Magazine writer Jesse Singal pointed out that one of the headliners for the D.C. event with the Twitter handle Baked Alaska had a history of anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi tweets about the “Jewish question.” Shortly afterwards, Singal watched in real time as Baked Alaska’s name was removed from the Google Doc listing attendees.

Fellow alt-right leader Mike Cernovich announced the cancellation shortly afterwards, and that Baked Alaska would be replaced with Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos.

But Baked Alaska soon hit back, accusing Cernovich of betraying the movement and sharing messages from Cernovich asking him to stop throwing Nazi salutes.

From there, Baked Alaska took aim at Yiannopoulos, calling him a fraud and a sellout and retweeing tweets calling him a “kike” and Cernovich a “cuck.” One alt-right supporter even burned Cernovich’s book.

Cernovich responded by accusing Baked Alaska of being a drug addict in a now-deleted tweet and Periscope.

The night culminated in dueling Periscope streams, where the two continued to trash each other. Baked Alaska also retaliated by taking control of the official Twitter account behind the Deploraball and saying that Cernovich was the one being banned.

Again, grown men arguing like children not because they are both black-hating, Jew-hating, Mexican-hating white supremacist assholes (both freely admit this) but because one of them doesn't want to other to do full-on Nazi saluting in public at the victory party event they've set up for Trump's inaugural celebration.

These are Trump's core supporters, folks.  These are the people that got him elected.  Maybe not everyone who voted for Trump believes what Cernovich and his racist clowns do, but precisely zero Trump voters thought their open support of Trump and Trump's acceptance of this support disqualified Trump from the presidency.

This is America now.  This is who and what we are.  Take it in.

Then let's start the hard work on fixing it.

That Economic Anxiety In Elkhart Again

I've talked about Elkhart, Indiana and its unemployment issues several times on the blog over the years as President Obama made one of his first visits as President to the city's hard-hit RV manufacturing industry in order to assure the American people that he was going to help the country. 

The city went from the prime example of what the Bush economic crash did to middle America with its over 22% unemployment to Tea Party hotbed as Indiana transformed into a blood red state to one of the best economic success stories during the Obama years as unemployment this year dropped to under 4%.

But as we checked in with in back in April we found President Barack Obama was public enemy #1 in Elkhart, and not only were the people of Elkhart not grateful in the least to the Obama administration but that they openly despised him and were rooting for Trump.

The Atlantic's Alana Samuels returned to Elkhart post-election and found that the people here not only think Obama took credit for something he had nothing to do with, but that Donald Trump will absolutely do what Obama didn't.

This city exemplifies the economic recovery the country has experienced since the Great Recession ended. Elkhart’s unemployment rate, which had reached a high of 22 percent in March of 2009, is now at 3.9 percent. Hiring signs dot the doors of the Wal-Mart, the McDonald’s, and the Long John Silver’s. The RV industry makes 65 percent of its vehicles in Elkhart, and the industry is producing a record number of vehicles, which is creating a lot of jobs in this frosty town in northern Indiana.

“America’s economy is not just better than it was eight years ago--it is the strongest, most durable economy in the world,” President Obama said during a visit to Elkhart in June, in which he touted the economic recovery. (Elkhart was also the first place outside Washington he visited as president, in 2009.) “Elkhart would not have come this far--if we hadn’t made a series of smart decisions, my administration, a cooperative Congress--decisions we made together early on.”

But despite the decisions that the Obama administration made that might have helped Elkhart, many people here have a strong dislike of Obama, who presided over an economic recovery in which the unemployment rate fell nationally to 4.6 percent from a high of 10 percent in October 2009. They say it’s not Obama who is responsible for the city or the country’s economic progress, and furthermore, that the economy won’t truly start to improve until President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

“He didn’t help us here, but he took credit for what happened,” Chris Corbin, 47, who works for a dispatch company in Elkhart, told me. Corbin thinks it will be Trump who improves the economy. “It’s going to take two terms, but he’ll fix things,” he said.

To recap: the RV industry is doing better than it ever has.  It's doing better than it did under Bush.  Unemployment has gone from 22% to under 4%.  And that doesn't matter because Obama is black and these racist assholes hate him for it and will never, ever give a black man credit for helping them.

Brandon Stanley owns a bar in Elkhart. He says he’s optimistic that the economy is improving now that Republicans have regained power, but emphasizes that there are still a host of economic problems that haven’t been solved in Elkhart. As for the shrinking unemployment rate in Elkhart, “they changed how they report unemployment numbers,” he told me, so they’re not believable.

The idea that the government falsified unemployment numbers was a popular narrative among Republicans during the Obama administration, and was most notoriously trumpeted by former General Electric CEO Jack Welch on Twitter. Outlets such as Fox News published multiple stories questioning whether the Obama administration has doctored the unemployment rate. “People tend to engage in effortful resistance when information is inconsistent with their prior beliefs,” Nyhan told me.

When people hear, for example, that the unemployment rate has fallen, but they don’t want to believe that because they don’t like who is in office, they may seek out information that challenges or resists these facts. They can often find other, alternative, information on the news sites that most closely fit their political beliefs.

Andi Ermes, 39, offered a number of reasons for disliking Obama. She said Obama didn’t attend the Army-Navy football game, even though other presidents had. Obama has actually attended more Army-Navy games than George H.W. Bush. She said that he had taken too many vacations. He has taken fewer vacation days that George W. Bush. She also said that he refused to wear a flag pin on his lapel. While it is true that Obama did not wear a flag on his lapel at points during the 2007 campaign, it was back on his suit by 2008. Ermes told me the news sources she consumes most are Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and a local conservative radio show hosted by Casey Hendrickson.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ermes sees the biggest signs for hope in the economy in Carrier deal struck by Donald Trump, which will keep 1,000 jobs in the U.S. “He’s not even president yet and already he’s helping the economy,” she said.

These assholes will tell themselves anything to believe that their town wasn't saved by the ni-CLANG! and when Trump wrecks the economy once again, they'll blame Obama for it and re-elect Trump just so they can be right.

But remember, Democrats have to win these guys back.  We have to look the other way on racism or we'll never win in places like Indiana or Ohio or Kentucky again. Democrats have to compromise and change, not them.

Let me know how that works out.  I'm not doing it.

The Pyongyang Problem

A North Korean defector is warning that, with chaos in South Korea over the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye and with US President Obama exiting the picture, the regime in North Korea is going to make the move to join the nuclear club next year as quickly as possible.

The North Korean government is pushing to develop nuclear weapons "at all costs by the end of 2017," according to a high-ranking North Korean diplomat who recently defected to South Korea.

"Due to domestic political procedures, North Korea calculates that South Korea and the US will not be able to take physical or military actions to deter North Korea's nuclear development," Thae Yong-ho, the former second highest North Korean diplomat at the embassy in London, told Yonhap News Agency, as reported by CNN.

During his first media appearance since he and his family defected in July, Thae said that North Korea is "racing ahead with nuclear development after setting up a plan to develop [nuclear weapons] at all costs by the end of 2017."

He added that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will not be open to dismantle the nuclear program for any amount of money.

The former North Korean diplomat noted that Kim's geopolitical strategy toward the U.S. and South Korea is designed to encourage stability-focused policies toward the country. 

"North Korea believes that relentless provocations must shift new [South Korean and U.S.] governments' policy lines into more stability-focused ones," Thae said according to the report.

It makes sense. Both Seoul and Washington are rather busy right now, but perhaps Beijing will be able to step in and knock some sense into Mini Mao here in the near-term.  While the analysis that Trump will have far bigger issues on his plate to deal with next year than North Korea is almost certainly correct, and that South Korea is likely to be in political aparalysis for some time to come, I foresee China being more than ready to act to placate the North Koreans if only to get them off the radar long enough.

We'll see what happens as China is, for now, helping to put the brakes on Kim Jong Un's ambitions.  But he's already ordered two nuclear tests in 2016, and it looks like more will be coming.

And as far as what Trump will actually end up doing about it?  Well, who the hell knows?

Trump has often suggested China crack down on its smaller neighbor. But while Beijing has no love for the instability North Korea creates, it is also in its interests to have a buffer zone against U.S. forces in the south of the peninsula.

The last thing Beijing wants is a collapsed North Korea, which could result in American troops right on its border in a reunited Korea. So for China, the status quo may be the least-bad option.

But if the new president concludes that a nuclear-armed North is inevitable, it may be forced to propose new arms control and nuclear talks that include Israel, Pakistan, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia and other states that may want the weapons. That is unlikely, although as a candidate Trump criticized the current international nuclear status quo that prevented allies like Japan from developing nuclear arsenals for their own protection.

"At some point we have to say, you know what we're better off if Japan protects itself against this maniac in North Korea," candidate Trump said when asked whether he would abandon longstanding U.S. policy of a non-nuclear Japan.

A nuclear Japan would infinitely complicate things in the Asia-Pacific region.  Neither China nor North Korea is likely to stand for it, to say the least.  But that's where things appear to be headed.

Things looked a lot better on this front in the past.  For now, adding the Nuclear Stupidity tag.  I feel like we're going to get a lot of use out of it here.

Last Call For Climate Of Fear

Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker is doing his part to fight climate change by eliminating what he believes to be the main source of the problem:  the words "climate change" on Wisconsin state websites.

Throughout his time as governor of Wisconsin, Walker has taken a series of actions to “reduce the role of science in environmental policymaking and to silence discussion of controversial subjects, including climate change, by state employees,” according to the Scientific American.

Political writer James Rowen reported on Monday that the Walker administration had advanced their war on science by scrubbing information about climate change from a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources website that was dedicated to explaining how the agency would deal with a warming planet.

The DNR page titled “climatechange.html” originally acknowledged that “[h]uman activities that increase heat–trapping (‘green house’) gases are the main cause [of global warming.] Earth´s average temperature has increased 1.4 °F since 1850 and the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 1998.”

In all, 13 mentions of “climate” where stripped from the page along with all references to global warming. The word “climate” now appears only in the title of a footnote link at the bottom of the page.

“In short, the guts of this page are now gone, or sanitized,” Rowan observed. “This is Orwellian and propagandistic.”

If we just pretend that climate change was never a problem, it will go away, right?

Alexa, Can I Get A Witness?

This holiday was a huge success for Amazon, especially for its in-home audio assistant device, the Amazon Echo.

Amazon.com Inc. said it had its best holiday season yet, having shipped more than 1 billion items through its Prime and Fulfillment services, and receiving a record number of orders for its own Alexa devices.

Sales for Echo speakers based on Alexa’s voice-recognition software were nine times more than the 2015 holiday season, Amazon said in a statement Tuesday. The Seattle-based company had trouble keeping them in stock despite “ramped-up production,” said Jeff Wilke, chief executive officer worldwide consumer.

Gauging demand for a product is difficult. Retailers risk losing money by overstocking or missing sales and disappointing shoppers by not having enough items available. Amazon actually sold out of its Echo speakers in mid-December. The Echo shortage shows voice-activated assistants are resonating with shoppers. Consumers can use voice commands on the gadget to order pizza, check homework, play music, among other tasks.

“Echo and Echo Dot were the best-selling products across Amazon this year, and we’re thrilled that millions of new customers will be introduced to Alexa as a result,” Wilke said.

But here's the dark side of Alexa: putting a device in your home whose job it is to listen to you speak and then recognize and use that data means you should have zero expectations of privacy around it.

This was bound to happen eventually, the question now becomes what privacy standards will be imposed as law tries desperately to catch up to technology. Police in Arkansas want to know what an Amazon Echo device may have overheard in a murder case, and suddenly that hot new Christmas gift you got this year is looking rather Orwellian.

Amazon's Echo devices and its virtual assistant are meant to help find answers by listening for your voice commands. However, police in Arkansas want to know if one of the gadgets overheard something that can help with a murder case. According to The Information, authorities in Bentonville issued a warrant for Amazon to hand over any audio or records from an Echo belonging to James Andrew Bates. Bates is set to go to trial for first-degree murder for the death of Victor Collins next year.

Amazon declined to give police any of the information that the Echo logged on its servers, but it did hand over Bates' account details and purchases. Police say they were able to pull data off of the speaker, but it's unclear what info they were able to access. Due to the so-called always on nature of the connected device, the authorities are after any audio the speaker may have picked up that night. Sure, the Echo is activated by certain words, but it's not uncommon for the IoT gadget to be alerted to listen by accident.

Police say Bates had several other smart home devices, including a water meter. That piece of tech shows that 140 gallons of water were used between 1AM and 3AM the night Collins was found dead in Bates' hot tub. Investigators allege the water was used to wash away evidence of what happened off of the patio. The examination of the water meter and the request for stored Echo information raises a bigger question about privacy. At a time when we have any number of devices tracking and automating our habits at home, should that information be used against us in criminal cases?

Bates' attorney argues that it shouldn't. "You have an expectation of privacy in your home, and I have a big problem that law enforcement can use the technology that advances our quality of life against us," defense attorney Kimberly Weber said. Of course, there's also the question of how reliable information is from smart home devices. Accuracy can be an issue for any number of IoT gadgets. However, an audio recording would seemingly be a solid piece of evidence, if released.

Smart devices used in criminal investigations are just further data points to be gathered by investigators, law enforcement argues.  The larger question is if the data you generate in your home through internet-connected devices your data at all.  To whom does it ultimately belong to?  Corporate America? Your employer? The state?

What I do know is that the answer to that question is increasingly "not you", the consumer. And more and more the data generated by these devices is going to be used against you by people whose interests may not match your own.

Israeli Having A Hard Time With This, Con't

If you're wondering why Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is in such a bad mood lately and lashing out at the rest of the world, maybe it's because he's about to get hit with a massive scandal investigation for bribery and fraud.

A months-long inquiry into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s affairs took a new twist on Monday, with police reportedly convinced that they will be able to open a full-blown criminal investigation against him in the next few days.

Police recently received new documents as part of a secret inquiry that began almost nine months ago, Channel 2 reported. Based on thpse files police have already turned to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit requesting that he allow them to open a full criminal investigation. The report stated that among the suspected offenses are bribe-taking and aggravated fraud.

A spokesperson for the prime minister said that “it’s all nonsense,” Haaretz reported. “Since Netanyahu’s victory in the last elections and even before, hostile elements have used heroic efforts to attempt to bring about [Netanyahu’s] downfall, with false accusations against him and his family. This [latest attempt] is absolutely false. There was nothing and there will be nothing.”

In June, it was reported that Israel Police Chief Roni Alsheich gave his go-ahead on the secret investigation by special police unit Lahav 433, but that he had demanded full cooperation on secrecy and that no details be leaked to the media.

Mandelblit also reportedly instructed employees in the state prosecutor’s office to look into allegations that Netanyahu accepted 1 million euros (about $1.1 million) from accused French fraudster Arnaud Mimran in 2009.

In May, Israel’s state comptroller issued a critical report on Netanyahu’s foreign trips, some of which were taken with his wife and children, from 2003 to 2005, when he was finance minister.

Earlier this month, in an apparently unrelated case, there were calls for the prime minister to be investigated for his role in a Defense Ministry deal to purchase submarines from a German company partly owned by the Iranian government.

Well now, this certainly explains why Netanyahu is trying to rally the Israeli people to his side by acting like last week's UN Security Council resolution was an act of war by Obama.  Not only is he trying to get the support of Israelis but the support of the Jewish diaspora as well because he knows what's coming, and he knows just how much trouble he's in.

Of course, I'm thinking Obama knew as well.

This is going to get good.

Israeli Having A Hard Time With This

Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't take rejection well, it seems.  That whole Obama parting gift of a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements has done nothing but piss the Israeli PM off, and he's apparently vowing revenge on everyone he can find...except Trump, of course.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been unrelenting in his criticism of the Obama administration over what he condemned as its "shameful" decision not to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a halt to Israeli settlement-building.

But with the clock ticking down on Barack Obama's presidency, a possibly more amenable Republican Donald Trump due to succeed him on Jan. 20 and a $38 billion U.S. military aid package to Israel a done deal, it's all a calculated risk for the four-term, right-wing Israeli prime minister.

Netanyahu, after what critics are calling a stinging defeat on the international stage, is already maneuvering to mine deep-seated feelings among many Israelis that their country and its policies toward the Palestinians are overly criticized in a world where deadlier conflicts rage.

He has tried to rally Israelis around him by portraying the anti-settlement resolution as a challenge to Israel's claimed sovereignty over all of Jerusalem.

That was hammered home with an unscheduled Hanukkah holiday visit to the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest sites, which is located in Jerusalem's Old City in the eastern sector captured along with the West Bank in a 1967 war.

That all of Jerusalem is their country's capital is a consensus view among Israelis, including those who otherwise have doubts about the wisdom of Netanyahu's support for settlements on the West Bank.

Palestinians claim eastern Jerusalem as their capital, and Washington has in the past accepted an international view that the city's status must be determined at future peace talks. Trump has promised to reverse decades of U.S. policy by moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

Neanyahu went on to say that Israel will "re-evaluate diplomatic relations" with all 14 countries who voted yes, including permanent Security Council members Russia, the UK, China and France.

Republicans too are making all kinds of threats, not only to the UN, but to those 14 countries that voted for the Security Council resolution as well.

Sen. Lindsey Graham will propose a measure to pull US funding for the United Nations unless the UN Security Council repeals the resolution it passed condemning Israeli settlements. 

"It's that important to me," he told CNN. "This is a road we haven't gone down before. If you can't show the American people that international organizations can be more responsible, there is going to be a break. And I am going to lead that break." 

"I will do everything in my power, working with the new administration and Congress, to leave no doubt about where America stands when it comes to the peace process and where we stand with the only true democracy in the Middle East, Israel," Graham added. He later told CNN's Dana Bash that US funding accounts for 22% of the UN's budget.

Ted Cruz not only piped up to say that he supported Graham's proposed legislation, but that it would include measures to be taken against "countries that do not join our opposition".

So we'll see where things are.  Cruz doesn't tend to follow through on things for long.

Water We Waiting For, Con't

The Trump regime wants to "Make America Great Again" and envisions "millions" of new jobs created by long overdue infrastructure investments that Republicans blocked year after year because we "can't afford it" despite the fact that interest rates have been at record lows.  The real reason is that America had to be punished for daring to elect a black President, and Republicans were more than happy to do so.

But there's a new circus in town, and Republicans suddenly want to invest hundreds of billions in crumbling roads, leaky and toxic water mains, structurally failing bridges, and badly-needed sanitation projects.  If you're wondering what the catch is (besides obvious racism) just ask the folks who stand to rake in trillions over the years from profiting off of your water, electric, and toll road bills: Wall Street venture capital firms who want to become our new utility companies.

Nicole Adamczyk’s drinking water used to slosh through a snarl of pipes dating from the Coolidge administration — a rusty, rickety symbol of the nation’s failing infrastructure.

So, in 2012, this blue-collar port city cut a deal with a Wall Street investment firm to manage its municipal waterworks.

Four years later, many of those crusty brown pipes have been replaced by shiny cobalt-blue ones, reflecting a broader infrastructure overhaul in Bayonne. But Ms. Adamczyk’s water and sewer bill has jumped so much that she is thinking about moving out of town.

“My reaction was, ‘Oh, so I guess I’m screwed now?’” said Ms. Adamczyk, an accountant and mother of two who received a quarterly bill for almost $500 this year. She’s not alone: Another resident’s bill jumped 5 percent, despite the household’s having used 11 percent less water.

Even as Wall Street deals like the one with Bayonne help financially desperate municipalities to make much-needed repairs, they can come with a hefty price tag — not just to pay for new pipes, but also to help the investors earn a nice return, a New York Times analysis has found. Often, these contracts guarantee a specific amount of revenue, The Times found, which can send water bills soaring. 

No matter what happens in these public-private infrastructure partnerships, Wall Street will always get paid, and taxpayers will always get the shaft.  And if you don't pay up?  Wall Street gets to repossess your home.

Water rates in Bayonne have risen nearly 28 percent since Kohlberg Kravis Roberts — one of Wall Street’s most storied private equity firms — teamed up with another company to manage the city’s water system, the Times analysis shows. City officials also promised residents a four-year rate freeze that never materialized.

In one measure of residents’ distress, people are falling so far behind on their bills that the city is placing more liens against their homes, which can eventually lead to foreclosures.

In the typical private equity water deal, higher rates help the firms earn returns of anywhere from 8 to 18 percent, more than what a regular for-profit water company may expect. And to accelerate their returns, two of the firms have applied a common strategy from the private equity playbook: quickly flipping their investment to another firm. This includes K.K.R., which is said to be shopping its 90 percent stake in the Bayonne venture, a partnership with the water company Suez.

In other words, Wall Street wants to do to public works what they did to the real estate market 8 years ago.  And the Trump regime is raring to go to see Bayonne replicated in every city in America.

The New Deal is ending.  The GOP government no longer will provide any basic services for Americans.  Everything, from roads to schools to water to power to retirement to elder care, will be subject to profit margins.

And those who can't pay will be dealt with under the power of the state.