INITIAL THOUGHTS. U.S. Hits Iran’s Suspected Nuclear Arms Sites.

Response to Facebook Chats: “The U.S. is at war!” 

THE truth is, the U.S. is never being "at war." Proxy wars, actual participation, invasion, and stuff. The Afghanistan war was U.S. vs the Taliban. The Ukraine war from Feb 2022 is U.S. war vs. Russia. U.S. arms have been used for Israel's war with everybody in the Middle East since 1948. And remember, in Trump I, he dropped MOABs in Afghanistan and Syria (2017) then he took out Islamic State's Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (2019) and Qasem Soleimani (2020).

The media didn't declare those as "the U.S. joined the war." Difference with Trump with other POTUSes is he tries to balance Washington's traditional or historical hawkish foreign policy with his trade talks and obvious thumbs-down of NATO and he's not so hot with military aid unlike the other prez’es. 

       But the cold fact remains: No U.S. president ever ignored the hawks of Washington who stay as the strongest power in America. Then they were pretty much Republicans; these days, many Democrats joined them to uphold America's military brinkmanship. The closest POTUS that we'd say is anti-war or pro-peace (besides Trump) is Jimmy Carter. But Jimmy armed the muhajideen and started the long Afghanistan war, which Barack Obama heightened with more military aid and the installation of a U.S.-educated prez (Ashraf Ghani). Mr Obama also upgraded U.S. military aid to Israel in 2016. BTW, Mr Carter also upped the anti-war rage in Iran in the 1970s by coddling the fallen dictator Shah Pahlavi. Of course both Jimmy and Barack got the Nobel Prize for Peace. 

       Anyways, I hope that this Israel/Iran war ends per U.S. strikes at the latter's alleged nuke weaponry plants. (Hey, 9 countries--including the US and Israel--have their own warheads or nuclear weapons. But those can't be touched?) If this is 2016, things would have been different per Iran. 

       Iran is now a member of BRICS, had normalized relations with Saudi Arabia, and Tehran's top trade partner is now China. Iran's friend Syria has also rejoined the Arab League. Also, expect the hardliners of Iran to pump up Hamas, Houthis and Hezbollah. Hoping though, with China's intercession, this war will not escalate. Or Trump totally loses his leverage with his trade talks with China as he wastes his other economic deals with Saudi Arabia et al as well as his trade projects in the new post-Assad Syria. Bibi? He is nothing but the bogeyman and he just put his people in more danger. ☮️☮️☮️

The Undocumented as a Taxpayer?

Responses to Facebook chats.

TRUE, the "undocumented" paying taxes is a fact but that requires a longer discussion than a meme. (Memes simplify, trivialize, or distort facts, mostly.) 

       The migrants: <>Those who cross the border and go straight to a farm or factory, a set-up that is mostly arranged by business owners and coyotes. These migrants (many are kids) are maybe paid $2 to $4 a week but fed via rations and housed in trailer homes (12 in a trailer for 4). 

       <>Those who get here sans cartel/human smuggling facilitation or those who escaped from them--to join kin here who are legal or were taken in by nonprofits or churches which provide them shelter and paralegal aid somehow are entered into the system, declared to DOJ or ICE but with lawyers. Most are not arrested because their relatives or church foster or accept them. 

       The latter “pay” taxes if they stay and work while awaiting legal status or some kind of paper. Yet there are those who are maintained and "kept" by human smugglers and drug cartels somewhere and used for the obvious. 🗽🏃‍♀️🏃

THE real discussion here are federal benefits. The undocumented don't really get any regardless although via intricate procedures, they pay taxes, including from buying stuff at Walmart. Yet, for example, when calamities hit, they are mostly not counted, they are ghosts or too scared to show up. 

       Discussion of the undocumented isn't this simple though. There are also millions of "visa overstays" who are more active in other workplaces, pay taxes (mostly via "fake" Green Card or SS number) but don't get benefits or paid the deserved pay. 

       And they couldn't visit home or country of origin because they can't. Many have been here for decades. This truth or fact of “visa overstays” has been going on in the U.S. for many, many years. 🗽🏃‍♀️🏃

IT is sad that the (new) Left is talking about these migrant deportations now as President Trump sends back thousands that Joe Biden let in in record numbers, from 2021 to 2024. The asylum program has been bankrupt for years.   

       Mr Biden erased the Merida Initiative in 2021 which cut funding in law enforcement in Central America. The D of course is set to break Barack Obama's 4-year record of the most deportations. Of course! 

       Meanwhile, Europe is also facing a similar migrant problem since the creation of the Schengen Area in the 1990s. Laxity in their borders paved the way for a migrant crisis that they haven't solved yet as human smugglers continually took advantage big time. Etc etcetera. 🗽🏃‍♀️🏃

FEMA and President Trump. And Stuff. Or the subject of The D allegedly “canceling” relief aid funding.

Responses to Facebook chats.

LAST year FEMA experienced a significant backlog in processing disaster declarations. The total amount of backlog was $9 billion or more. Also in 2024, the U.S. allocated $66.9 billion to Ukraine (figure out how much was military aid, and add those from Feb 2022). To Israel's war, between 2023 and 2024: $17.9 billion. This: The cost of each F16 fighter jet sent to wars in Joe Biden's time? $25 million to $70 million. 

       Three days ago, after shuffling money from elsewhere, Mr Trump approved the release of FEMA funds to 8 states. Repeat: Budget deficit last year was $9 billion. A report says he "canceled" FEMA funding in some communities. Nope. 

       Reorganizing, reviewing, and redirecting funding or even delaying them is NOT “canceling” as Left-wing media narrates it. Meanwhile, there is still huge-ass money allotted for Ukraine and Israel signed by Congress that can't just be erased, especially the $38 billion 10-year upgraded arms aid to Israel that Barack Obama signed in 2016. When we say Israel, we talk of the powerful Israel Lobby or AIPAC in Washington. Etc etcetera. 

       We were hardly hit by Hurricane Helene here in Asheville but WNC isn't as poor as calamity hit Mississippi or Oklahoma, which had to be prioritized--as Mr Trump continues to work on ending wars and striking trade deals. 

       How's Asheville? How am I supposed to compare post-typhoon Philippines (or Mississippi, the U.S. poorest) with post-hurricane Asheville, which is upper middle class? Downtown bars are again filled with beer bitches. 🏛🗽🏛

Dictatorship in America? Nope! Not Even Close.

Responses to Facebook chats. 

MOST of the people who migrate to America are not really running from oppression but poverty. Or they seek better financial opportunities yet they have a fairly livable life back home. Meanwhile, those who moved to America due to dictatorship back home define the word "dictatorship" or oppression in a totally different way than how those who hate Donald Trump define it. 

       I survived a dictatorship myself. 20 years. The years of my most active life as journalist and editor and Left-wing activist and community organizer. Oppression? President Trump as dictator? Not even close. 

       I am hardly a Right-winger. Yet I get offended when I am told that these days are “oppressed days” or dictatorship days by virtue of Mr Trump's leadership mojo. In fact, I feel people are trivializing what we migrants actually lived through where we came from. 

       

THE only time or years that I felt some economic hardship in the U.S. was in 2008 when I moved to California (from Asheville) to seek help from my family and get (again) a real job as an editor of an Asian newspaper in L.A. (Then I returned to Asheville in 2009 fall.) Yet what I covered in those two years of "recession" in the West Coast wasn't what economic pain was in Asia in the 1990s when the currency crisis hit (caused by an American billionaire). One reason why I flew to New York City from Manila. 

       These days in America? Oppression? I will tell anyone what is real police brutality to EJK, wholesale government corruption, rape by public officials, people living in dumpsites, activists’ dead bodies dumped in a murky river etc etcetera. 

       Oppression under The D because of what? People lost a job due to a change of leadership? Has the cost of Folger's has doubled? Oh well. When I think of hardship, I imagine those people in countries where Washington hands weapons to or military aid so wars continue instead of a POTUS working ways to influence ceasefires and end of war. 

       Those people are oppressed as in hell. But the New Left doesn't see those agony. They see themselves in front of the mirror on a Netflix break and realize they couldn't buy a new, more awesome mirror today or flat screen TV because cost has doubled? Blame Trump then and define that as oppression? 🏛🗽🏛

I AM Asian. Most of us don't whine about the little struggles. We actually laugh at our tragedies. Yet we are the most educated racial grouping in the U.S. and highest earners per household. Why? Figure it out. 🏛🗽🏛

Gandhi. MLK. And Stuff.

Previously posted on my Facebook page. Or written years ago, unedited/not updated.

SOMETHING tells me or asks me, what if Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King or any of the venerated human beings that we love to anchor goodness and greatness--are alive today and then running for political office? Would people be praising them? Or do we also diss and ridicule them in social media just like politicians and personalities these days? In my time, saying bad things about superiors, leaders or plain neighbors was subject to reprimand. 

       Many times, I was a witness to many gatherings in a cafe or community hall where some people acted a little too intensely and started cussing at whoever is on the mic, so they are kicked out automatically and later banned from entering the premises again. 

       Yet in social media people openly and blatantly say whatever they wanna say and make fun of those they apparently don't like and even post incorrect info that malign individuals and groups, ideologies, religion and cultures. And when some are suspended etc they howl in protest. "A basic human right has been violated!" Back then, it wasn't easy to get published. Even a "mere" letter to the editor or 2-minute spot on live radio had to be screened/edited and/or prearranged. 

       These days we are blessed by a wonderful privilege to speak our mind out about stuff and things short or long. We can also freely share new birthday photos of our dog and cat and whatever we had for dinner, side by side with our opinion about a city Mayor's program or a new blockbuster movie--without going through tedious processes. One click, done. Yet we abuse it. We are such spoiled brats. ☮️🗽☮️

Trump Walks The Talk.

Responses to Facebook chats.

I DON’T listen to Donald Trump talk (or only twice during Covid). Or I must say, I don't watch news on TV anymore. But I read the news more than I did in the past. Maybe three times more, due to internet accessibility though I still read the old-school “paper.” 

       Clear areas in President Trump’s playbook that differ with Joe's policies: <>The D doesn't goad China to a war in South China Sea or intrigue Taiwan to anger the CCP; Don deals tariff cards as trade negotiating moves, on the table. Chess moves. <>Donald works hard to end the war in Ukraine as the EU/NATO stays supporting Kyiv via military aid (regardless of the fact that Europe is still hobbling economically at below 1 percent pace). Meanwhile, Joe led in arming Ukraine. <>Israel? Israel is tough. While Bibi Netanyahu stays annihilating Gaza, Mr Trump turns his attention at drawing the Arab League to more trade deals over military response to Tel Aviv. Syria is contained via a handshake. (Saudi Arabia and Qatar paid Syria's debts.) 

       Others. <>The U.S. and Iran's new moderate leadership has found a way to stop another Tehran sanction. They are talking but I am sure, Iran's top oil buyer China is in the background (Iran is a factor in US/China trade talks). Iran is the only power that could stop the Houthis from messing in the Red Sea. <>The India/Pakistan tempest subsided as the US and Middle East powers worked to help broker a ceasefire. 

       My Bottomline: I am old. I don't pay attention to "coolness or uncoolness" in personalities or characters anymore. I just put more attention to the walk over the talk. And I am anti war, whoever POTUS sits. Also, my family or dad and mom and brothers worked in Saudi Arabia and many relatives in the ME. A nephew and niece and their families currently live in Qatar and UAE etc. Great life, they said. They are devout Catholics. So I somehow know how day to day life is out there, beyond the news. Anti women or human rights violations? Let us instead look at ourselves in the mirror, while that brinkmanship mirror is elsewhere in the world and then count how many bombs fell and trillions$ in taxpayer money wasted. 🏛🗽🏛

Donald Trump: The Convenient Excuse for America’s Guilt.

Responses to Facebook chats.

I AM endlessly baffled how America (or this side of the eerie divide) has turned Donald Trump into a convenient excuse for anything bad or flawed about this country. He knew he can't really rewrite the traditional hawkish Washington foreign policy playbook or cut Israel Lobby's influence per arms aid to Israel since its birth in 1948 (Barack Obama even spiked the $3 billion annual military aid with the 10-year $38 billion add in 2016). But he is trying mighty hard. 

       Meanwhile, Mr Trump isn't a dumb entrepreneur not to know that he can't battle China per manufacturing or trade after Bill Clinton struck a deal with China in 2000 that paved the way for Beijing to enter the WTO and in a few years, and gained massive leverage globally. Add AIIB and the 5 state owned banks that waylaid the IMF, the BRICS hookup vs G7, and the more recent RCEP trade bloc. But he has to please his voters and so he shows some MAGA moves to bring US factories back. Not gonna happen due to the obvious. These companies may even expand to India and Indonesia, BRICS partners. 

       Sure, he will attract some FDIs, why not. Early takers: Hyundai, TSMC and SoftBank. U.S. titans Ford or GM can build more factories here, sure--but without closing their plants in China (or Mexico). Trump can sweeten the deal with incentives etc etcetera. At least he isn't daring the CCP to a silly military quarrel in the South China Sea via Taiwan that Joe Biden/Antony Blinken failed to provoke (as they did with Vlad, yet tell me who won in Ukraine). 🏛🗽🏛

I DON”T know how'd the US and Europe (or America's trade pact with Canada and Mexico) be able to stop China's expansionism or BRICS's challenge of G7. Sure, the war in the Middle East helps them contain the region as China sank massive FDIs in MENA. (Nope, they ignore the warnings of the Arab Spring.) Take note: As Biden employed Washington's military brinkmanship, Egypt, UAE and Iran joined BRICS and of course just 2 weeks after Nov 2020, China gathered 14 economies in Asia Pacific to form RCEP. Biden tried to drag Taiwan vs China but these two Chinas are now top trade partners. Refer to Foxconn and TSMC's supply of silicon. 

       Meanwhile, in Europe, they haven't yet really recovered from the debt crisis when Covid hit. And then as EU's chief Angela Merkel ended her leadership of the region, her successor Scholz wasted no time in heeding Biden's call to aid Ukraine in its war with Russia. Not thinking that the EU's economy is super dependent on Russia's oil and natural gas. 

       The region's economy is still at negative 1 percent. Angela Merkel played her cards well with China and Russia although the rest of the biggies such as UK and France stayed wrestling internally. British leadership was an eerie succession of failures since Theresa May; France is hobbling. The current leadership has a shaky partnership with Emmanuel Macron and no matter how they isolate Marine Le Pen, her populist Right minions are still loud. Yet the West insists on wars or hawkishness. And continues to demonize Trump; Trump hasn't even flexed his anti-NATO swagger yet. 🏛🗽🏛