Wednesday, May 29, 2019

India 2050: Amitabh Kant











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Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Brexit, Aexit, And Trump

Brexit is easier to look at for Americans because the distance the pond offers gives you perspective. The trade war is Donald Trump attempting Brexit for America. Is it possible for the British economy to disengage from the larger European economy? It is the largest market in the world. Is it possible for the American economy to disengage from the Chinese economy? Just like Brexit seemed to have bipartisan support in London, looks like Trump's moves enjoy bipartisan support in Washington DC.

I think the short answer is the attempted disengagement is not possible. You can try and create a lot of political drama. But the disengagement will not happen. The supply chains of the world have become so enormously complex. Country A exports item M to Country B, which uses item M to produce item N which it exports to Country A, and that back and forth goes five times, six times, 10 times. How do you disengage?

50 years ago the Chinese read the Chinese newspapers, the Americans read the American newspapers. Today Donald Trump's facial expressions are transmitted in real time to all world as he makes small talk with Abe or Xi. And they get archived for anyone else to see on their own time. In this information-rich environment, you can bluff but you will get seen.

I don't believe Trump cares for the cause of democracy. His relentless verbal attacks on media in the US is a hint. He has openly asked for violence in the streets.

I believe he is a demagogue who misleads his people. He taps into the anger from the lost manufacturing base and channels blame on the Mexican and the Chinese. He does not have a solution. The trade war is just a bigger version of the border wall theatrics. He promised he will get those manufacturing jobs back and he wants to be seen trying. Look, I did try to build the wall. Look, I did put the pressure on the Chinese.

The smart thing to do would be to face the facts of the massive transition that is underway. Evidence-based decision making will lead to a realization this transition need not be painful and it can be good news.

The smart thing to do is to face the facts of climate change and inequality. Both are existential.



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African Economic Union



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Understanding China (2)





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Trump's Prospects In 2020



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Monday, May 27, 2019

Understanding China



“Huawei simply makes world class 5G equipment for the world’s telcos and it looks as though this will remain the case for the foreseeable future,” said Kevin Curran, a professor of cybersecurity at Ulster University in Northern Ireland. “Competitors such as Ericsson cannot compete on price.”


EU ignores US calls for blanket ban on Huawei in Europe as Chinese company’s 5G expertise helps its cause The new technology will be essential to ushering in a new era of ultra-fast, high capacity, mobile networks that can power commercial internet of things applications and AI-enabled infrastructure, such as smart manufacturing and autonomous driving. No country will want to have a disadvantage in a key area of the new internet economy........... German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week that Europe’s biggest economy “could not simply exclude one actor” from its 5G auction, which began last Tuesday, because they have requirements that need to be met by vendors planning to supply competitive 5G systems.......... Michele Geraci, undersecretary at Italy’s Ministry for Economic Development, said he does not see an issue with Huawei and that it will be one of 25 manufacturers bidding for 5G-related contracts in the country......... Shenzhen-based Huawei is “at least 12 to 18 months ahead of its peers” in 5G after over a decade of research, registering more than 2,570 essential patents, signing over 30 commercial contracts and deploying 40,000 5G base stations, “making it the No. 1 5G vendor in the world”........ “Huawei spends an incredible amount of money on research and development. Just a few months ago, they declared that they were increasing their research and development budget to between US$15 to US$20 billion,” said Curran. “That is an astonishing amount. No other telecoms provider comes close.” ....... “Beyond performance, we’ve focused a lot of our R&D efforts on making 5G equipment lighter, smaller, and more durable,” said Huawei in response to a request for comment by the Post. “So instead of multiple antennas the size of a door, you only have to ship and install something as small as a backpack. This saves on logistics and installation costs.” ........ Huawei confirmed that as of early March it has signed 30 5G contracts – 18 in Europe, 9 in the Middle East, and 3 in Asia-Pacific. Ericsson has publicly announced 16 5G contracts, according to its official website, 5 of them within Europe. Nokia has signed over 70 agreements across the globe ....... Aside from Europe, countries such as India and the United Arab Emirates have also shied away from a complete ban on Huawei in relation to 5G development. These moves are beginning to upset the US game plan of gradually shutting Huawei out of global 5G markets. ........ “It is looking dicey. We are running out of runway,” former Republican congressman Mike Rogers, who led the House Intelligence Committee and who has long been a fierce critic of Huawei, was quoted as saying

A victory for Huawei as EU ignores US calls to ban it in 5G security blueprint, despite ‘worry’ about Chinese security law Huawei is the world’s biggest maker of telecoms infrastructure equipment such as radio base stations and network switches. Telecoms providers like its equipment because it’s good quality and cheaper than Scandinavian rivals Nokia and Ericsson.



Angela Merkel resists US pressure to ban Huawei as Germany launches 5G auction “There are two things I don’t believe in,” Merkel said in an onstage discussion on Tuesday at the Global Solutions summit in Berlin. “First, to discuss these very sensitive security questions publicly, and second, to exclude a company simply because it’s from a certain country.’’ ....... European carriers, however, have warned governments that sidelining Huawei would delay fifth-generation networks by years. ...... Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday lashed out at what he called “abnormal, immoral” attacks on the Chinese firm. ..... Washington could review intelligence cooperation unless Berlin agreed to a Huawei ban. ...... Nato forces would cut communications if Berlin were to work with Huawei. ....... “particularly with 5G, the bandwidth capability and ability to pull data is incredible”

As with Huawei, China thinks it can split the US and EU. It’s wrong Italy and France are far from alone in wanting a closer economic relationship with China.

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Political Fallout For Xi

With or without the trade war, many economists have predicted the US might see a recession by 2020. Because it is cyclical. The economic expansion has gone long enough. A recession is overdue. Full-fledged trade war not only accelerates that possibility, but it also makes the recession deeper and perhaps longer.

The way US politics works is, if you are a president and the economy is in recession during an election year, you are going to lose. You can see that happening going back decades.

Granted there can be seen bipartisan support for the trade war on Capitol Hill, the voter blames the US president when there is a recession.

Trump could lose his bid for re-election. A mishandled trade war works against him.

But what about Xi? What are the political fallouts for him?

The Chinese economy has not only not seen a recession in decades, but it also grew at double-digit rates for decades. Now it is "down" to something like 6.5%. If the trade war makes that go down to something like 5% Xi might still be okay. Up to 2% knockoff that might last a few years might not throw major political challenges for Xi.

But if things go haywire, and China ends up actually dipping below zero, an extremely unlikely scenario, then there might be mass unrests. But that would take a lot of irrationality in the trade talks to get there. I have a feeling the two parties might not go that far.

If China's growth rate dips below zero, that is pretty much a global recession or worse. That might also be a scenario of the US economy contracting.



There is word Modi intends to invite Trump and Xi to his swearing-in ceremony. At any other juncture, that might have been just a ceremony. But now that invite has enormous geopolitical implications. The two should take it and figure out a way to pull back on their respective stances, allowing room for face-saving on both parts.

Xi Jinping seeks global cooperation on technology after Huawei’s US ban Countries should cooperate in developing the Internet, big data and artificial intelligence, China President Xi Jinping said.....Shares of semiconductor and chip suppliers have plunged over the past month amid trade-war tensions. Raymond James analyst Chris Caso said in a note to clients this week that he expects “many, if not most,” chip companies may have to cut estimates.
China is indicating it’ll never give in to US demands to change its state-run economy “At the negotiating table, the U.S. government has made many arrogant requests, including restricting the development of state-owned enterprises.....Obviously, this is beyond the field and scope of trade negotiations, (and) touches upon China’s fundamental economic system.”
"High-Level" Meeting, Engagements Planned For PM Modi-Xi Jinping This Year: Envoy "Both sides (India and China) are very keen to engage...and so much can be done between the two countries"...... The Chinese President vowed to work with PM Modi to take the bilateral ties to a new height. He also expressed satisfaction at the strong momentum of development in India-China relations in recent years with the joint efforts of both the sides...... In the letter, President Xi noted the great importance he attached to the development of India-China relations.
China would benefit from a positive response to US trade complaints Thanks in large part to American investments and technology, China moved from its cheap smokestack manufacturing base of the 1980s to an engineering powerhouse, with cutting-edge industries ranging from infrastructure to transportation, telecommunications, computing, military hardware, space exploration and global retailing. ....... even in good years American spendthrifts save barely 6% of their after-tax income, while the penny-pinching Chinese squirrel away half of what they earn....... Trump apparently still hopes that he can cut the Gordian knot with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the G-20 meeting in Japan next month. That perhaps explains his puzzling one-liners bubbling with optimism regarding trade talks with China. ....... Washington, for its part, should step back from meddling in China’s legislative process and economic policies, while reserving the right to vigorously respond to cases of intellectual property violations, forced technology transfers, illegal industry subsidies and restricted market access to U.S. businesses operating in China....... markets should not exaggerate the importance of U.S.-China trade tensions for a fully employed American economy driven by low credit costs, real disposable household incomes growing at annual rates of 3% and strong corporate earnings.
Rare earths are Xi’s ace card in ‘Long March’ of trade war
The effects of Modi thwarting a Dalai-Xi meet
India likely to invite Trump, Putin, Xi Jinping for Narendra Modi's swearing-in; reports say Pakistan unlikely to be invited
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Made In China 2025

Beijing tries to play down ‘Made in China 2025’ as Donald Trump escalates trade hostilities
From Made in China to Created in China: how nation turned itself from world’s sweatshop to global innovator in just one decade Young women handled toxic materials without protec­tion, bent over sewing machines for more than 14 hours a day with no over­time pay. They lived in filthy dormitories provided by the company – and paid highly for the privilege. The factory floor was dirty and cold; employees wore thick jackets and complained of pain in their fingers...... bright red waste water was discharged directly into a small river that ran alongside the concrete building. “If you pay officials a nice hongbao [a red envelope containing money], they will look the other way,” a manager bragged, believing I was a potential customer. “Having European environmental standards in place would make our products much more expensive. And, after all, consumers just care about price.” ....... authorities proudly showed off the polluting chemical industries, labour-intensive jeans factories and outdated steel mills that were its economic engine...... The minimum wage in most provinces has increased to about 2,000 yuan per month, reliance on exports has fallen and domestic consumption now drives 60 per cent of the country’s growth....... According to Canadian think tank McKenzie Institute, the productivity of Chinese workers is just 15 per cent to 30 per cent of the average found in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.
China must face its weakness in semiconductors squarely, says head of state-backed fund China makes more than 90 per cent of the world’s smartphones, 65 per cent of personal computers and 67 per cent of smart televisions .... Annual chip imports by China have risen to more than US$200 billion since 2013 and reached US$260 billion last year.
Huawei launches advanced 7-nanometre smartphone chip ahead of Apple, Samsung the Kirin 980, designed to move the Chinese company ahead of Apple and Samsung Electronics in launching an integrated circuit made under the most advanced fabrication and with double the processing power for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. ....... The 7nm process allowed the Kirin 980 to pack 6.9 billion transistors, about 1.6 times more than those built in the Kirin 970 chip launched last year, as well as deliver 20 per cent improved performance and 40 per cent greater power efficiency for “next-generation productivity and entertainment applications”...... Semiconductors are at the centre of a technology gap that China wants to close.
Drones, facial recognition and a social credit system: 10 ways China watches its citizens China has around 200 million surveillance cameras ..... China is developing a facial recognition system that can match faces to a database of 1.3 billion ID photos in seconds, with a target of achieving 90 per cent accuracy. ...... Facial recognition technology also was reportedly used to catch three wanted fugitives at separate concerts in China. In one case, a man was identified among a crowd of about 50,000........ Special glasses with facial-recognition software also have been invented for police use. During the Lunar New Year holiday travel rush, police used these glasses to search for wanted criminals at the Zhengzhou East high-speed rail station. ..... at least seven fugitives related to hit-and-run and human trafficking cases were identified, and 26 cases of identity fraud broken...... In June, the government released a list of 169 people who had committed misdeeds that included provocations on flights, attempting to take a lighter through airport security, smoking on a high-speed train, tax evasion and failing to pay fines. Those on the list ended up banned from buying train and plane tickets for a year........ In 2017, the Beijing City National Security Bureau offered 10,000 to 500,000 yuan (US$1,600 to US$79,700) for information on spies.
How tensions with the West are putting the future of China’s Skynet mass surveillance system at stake The Skynet is falling......The world’s biggest video surveillance system, under construction in China, relies on critical components from the West and supplies are drying up as the United States and other nations tighten trade restrictions ..... Skynet, as China’s national security network is known, had 170 million cameras last year and Beijing plans to have another 400 million units installed across the country by 2020...... The system uses artificial intelligence, including one technology under development that could eventually allow the government to identify any one of its 1.3 billion citizens anytime, anywhere....... “The West is forming a united front [against China]”....... there is also pressure internationally for action in response to reports that up to 1 million Uygur Muslims are being held in detention centres in Xinjiang in the country’s far west...... China has not denied the existence of the facilities...... Hikvision, the world’s largest video surveillance company, based in Hangzhou, China’s eastern Zhejiang province, has seen its stock price nearly halve from its peak in March to August...... China is expected to buy US$20 billion worth of CCTV cameras and related equipment this year, nearly half the size of the global market....... “To China, this is the kind of job that must be done no matter what happens” ....... “The best weapon against sanctions is innovation.”



Made in China 2025





Why ‘Made in China 2025’ triggered the wrath of President Trump



How China aims to dominate the world of robotics



‘Made in China 2025’: How Beijing is boosting its semiconductor industry



China plans to be a world leader in Artificial Intelligence by 2030



Betting big on biotech 80 per cent of adult diseases have a genetic basis influenced by environmental factors, and there are thousands of genes related to the development of diseases. In fact, the research of genes and proteins (genomics and proteomics), genetic engineering and its applications have allowed the development of new tools that are revolutionising the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure of diseases.



The stones in the road for China’s 2025 plan on electric vehicles



Can ‘Made in China 2025’ help turn the nation’s domestic aerospace industry into a world leader?



5G offers world’s biggest mobile market a gateway to the industrial internet take advantage of artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies ....... The fifth generation of mobile technology means more than just faster data speeds and greater network capacity. It also provides a foundation for connecting an unlimited number of machines to one another for day-to-day communication. A 5G network will support: a million connected devices per square kilometre; transmit a package of data with a delay of just 1 millisecond and provide peak data download speeds of up to 20 gigabits per second...... The delay on a 4G network is about 50ms, which is unsuitable for the quick response times needed by driverless cars. ..... The countries that adopt 5G are expected to experience disproportionate economic gains compared to those that lag behind...... the US, Japan, and South Korea have all made significant strides toward 5G readiness, but none on the same scale as China. ...... China, which has the world’s largest smartphone market and internet population, has projected 5G mobile network investments to reach about US$405 billion from 2020 to 2030.

Why the world’s flight paths are such a mess
Chinese airlines are consistently late for this one surprising reason “On trade, Donald Trump is an encyclopedia of error”......Trump, the cartoonish face of decadent capitalism: rich, big-mouthed, paranoid and … that hair.
China should think hard before using rare earths as a ‘weapon’ in trade tit-for-tat with US over Huawei The US attack on Huawei has progressed from a sense of unfairness about the stealing of intellectual property, to national snooping of secrets, to an active campaign to permanently hobble the company. The process has now gone so far that it is in danger of rebounding on the Americans. ....... A sharp fall in the share prices of tech stocks on Wall Street showed that beggaring Huawei would transfer significant pain to American suppliers and retaliation could hit those with long production chains in China like Apple....... Cheap manufacturing is already withering under intense competition. Trump’s trade tariff tantrums could well force China to raise the value of its economy to the levels seen in the leading-edge manufacturing that takes place within the “Silicon Bay” area around Shenzhen...... Economies are now so interdependent that every tit-for-tat action produces unforeseen and often unpleasant reactions. They burnish egos but can rebound against the initiator. Nevertheless, they are an instrument of change that will lead to a future economic equilibrium....... a new equilibrium of fair trade and balanced competition can only result from painful economic change



Tech cold war: how Trump’s assault on Huawei is forcing the world to contemplate a digital iron curtain “The hyper-globalisation of the last twenty years is unsustainable given the real geopolitical constraints. We are entering a new phase” ........ there is a growing feeling in China that it has now entered an ineluctable superpower struggle, with similarities to the fight between US and Japan in the 1980s........ That ended with Japan agreeing to the 1985 Plaza Accord that saw the yen appreciate rapidly against the US dollar, hitting exporters, resulting in the Japanese authorities over-compensating with rate cuts, which in turn kicked off a historic boom-and-bust cycle – one which China does not want to emulate.......... The globalisation of the 1990s – something which Trump has railed against as a destroyer of blue-collar US jobs – transformed the world economy with interconnected supply chains aimed at maximising efficiency. China and the US enjoyed a honeymoon period though, as cooperation provided cheaper ‘Made-in-China’ products to US consumers and opened the huge Chinese market to US firms. ....... “If the trade negotiations continue to stall and are not restarted, it is more likely that China will take further measures to limit US tech company operations in China, and then we will be in a race to the bottom in terms of decoupling” ...... Over the last four years, Huawei’s chip arm HiSilicon has been manufacturing its own Kirin chips to boost self-sufficiency in semiconductors, but even these efforts appear to have been thwarted by the US ban.......Most of HiSilicon’s chip designs are licensed from ARM but the UK chip designer this month said it would stop licensing its technology to Huawei as its products contain “US origin technology”....... Even the software that is required for chip design is currently monopolised by US companies....... Should the world move towards a true decoupling of the tech supply chain, it will be a lose-lose situation for both countries given that technology supply chains are so closely intertwined ..... scepticism that a true digital iron curtain can be achieved........ “It is impossible for either China or the US to own all the core technologies in the world ...... What China really wants to achieve is to exchange agate with pearl. It’s just at the moment, China’s home-grown tech is not good enough to be called pearl.”

‘Someone will press a trigger’: Duterte says China’s claim to disputed islands’ airspace ‘is wrong’ and could be ‘flashpoint’ for conflict

China’s electric car market is growing twice as fast as the US. Here’s why Since most electric cars sold in China are produced by domestic firms they have been able to keep their costs low and are able to price it competitively compared to petrol driven cars.

UK chides Huawei for equipment security flaws, but rules out Chinese state interference Huawei Technologies poses a major risk to the UK’s telecommunications networks because of the company’s failure to fix security flaws found in its equipment and software, according to a report on Thursday by a government-led watchdog, which ruled out Chinese state interference as the cause of those defects........ “about basic engineering competence and cybersecurity hygiene that give rise to vulnerabilities that are capable of being exploited by a range of actors”....... In February, the NCSC determined that it is possible to “limit the risks from using Huawei” in 5G networks

EU ignores US calls for blanket ban on Huawei in Europe as Chinese company’s 5G expertise helps its cause Huawei competes against the likes of Cisco, Ericsson and Nokia from the West for billions of dollars worth of potential next-generation network contracts. The world’s largest network gear maker currently gets almost half of its more than US$100 billion in annual revenue from overseas markets and has an estimated 30 per cent share of Europe. ....... Huawei said in a statement it welcomed the commission’s “objective and proportionate” recommendations...... banning their 5G network gear at this point could risk future economic prospects.

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Trade War: The Spiral Down Scenario

Both Xi and Trump are talking tough. Right now they are sounding like they are in no hurry, and they don't expect to even talk in Japan when they meet at the G20 summit.

First, you raise tariffs, one on the other, first a little, on a little, then a lot, on a lot, until you have everything at 25%. That raises prices. Somebody did the math on that and said it will be like an $800 tax on every American consumer. The unhappiness of the Iowa farmers, it seems, is contagious. It is going to engulf the nation.

But now that whole thing looks like a sideshow. The US started by saying we don't want to buy 5G equipment from Huawei, equipment that Huawei claims is much better and much cheaper than the competition. That was that. But I guess that was not enough. Trump would like to kill Huawei off entirely. He has decided US companies that sell chips to Huawei may not do so. A three-month reprieve has been provided.

China's response has been, well, 90% of the rare earth minerals on which the US high tech industries depend comes from China. We could choke that.

Tariffs were warm-up. This is war. This really is trade war.

Is decoupling possible? People have started to talk in terms of a tech iron curtain. Some are saying this might last 20 years. I am not so sure. If all this is allowed to play out for just one year, that would accelerate the US economy into a recession. A recession would kick Donald Trump out of office.

If Apple were to lose 500 billion dollars in market value, what do you think that will do to the US consumer sentiment? Trump is as unprepared for the China trade war as he was for his talks with the North Korean leader. He does not believe in doing homework. He has not thought this through. There is no grand strategy.

Has Britain been able to decouple from Europe? The Chinese and US economies are even more interconnected.

This is not going to be painless for China either. The middle class in China is already plenty anxious about the implications of where this is going.

It makes sense for the Chinese to engage in some opening up. That is much better than a full-fledged trade war.

Both the US and China might actively seek to export and import more from other countries. But these two happen to be the two largest economies. There is no avoiding that. If Germany and France were engaged in a trade war, they might readily find substitutes. But the US and China are too big to have that option. There are no substitute economies for them.

I don't believe this is about democracy. Trump does not much care for democracy in America. Forget China. I believe this is about the lost manufacturing base in the US. The diagnosis is highly inaccurate. Most manufacturing jobs have been lost to automation.

Trump's trade war is as stupid as the border wall he wants to build. It will only lead to a recession.

If the trade war continues into 2020, it surely will be the central issue in the presidential election. It will be much talked about.


as 2020 draws near and the world is on the cusp of ultra-fast 5G networks, the US has found itself without a telecommunications hardware champion that can compete with major 5G players such as China’s Huawei Technologies, Finland’s Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson.
5G offers world’s biggest mobile market a gateway to the industrial internet
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Saturday, May 25, 2019

Three Crises: China, Iran, DC

The US faces a trade war with China, an almost war with Iran, and it faces a constitutional crisis in Washington DC. Of the three the last might be the biggest.

The White House's stonewalling on demands from the US Congress have reached uncharted territory.






I have read up much more on the trade war than the other two. It is an unfolding scenario. I don't see a well thought out strategy. I do note that there seems to be bipartisan support on the Hill. What is the endgame scenario?



Does this sound like a guy fighting for democracy?


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Friday, May 24, 2019

Two Out Of Three: Kamala, Andrew, Pete

Right now I am thinking two of these three might end up on the Democratic ticket next year. I don't know who. I don't know in what order. And, of course, I could be proven wrong. I think Andrew Yang is the most underestimated candidate right now for the only candidate with the real solution to the biggest problem at hand: the loss of jobs to automation. I think the winning candidate, whoever that is, will be the great synthesizer. Not the one who came up with the ideas, but the one who best synthesized them all. Who might that be? Kamala Harris' idea to fine companies that pay women less for the same work is on par with Andrew Yang's idea of the Universal Basic Income. I think it is about time. And, of course, the symbolism of an LGBTQ candidate is immense.

Medicare for All. Wealth tax. Wiping out student loans. Universal Basic Income. Fining companies for not paying women equally. These ideas might come from different candidates, but they can all be part of one platform.

President: Kamala Harris
Vice President: Andrew Yang
Secretary Of Urban Affairs: Pete Buttigieg





Buttigieg likens Trump to a 'crazy uncle' The South Bend mayor also accused of him of using a 'fake' injury to avoid Vietnam. ....... South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg on Thursday likened his approach to taking on President Donald Trump to dealing with a “crazy uncle.”..... “Like, he’s there. You’re not going to disrespect his humanity. But he thinks what he thinks. There’s not much you can do about it.” ...... “It’s actually getting harder and harder to find a policy of this administration that most Americans don’t disagree with,” he continued. “Which is exactly, of course, why they need it not to be about policy.” ...... he accused the president of racist behavior ...... said he thinks Trump is a racist...... he does and says racist things and gives cover to other racists ...... the president has also likened Buttigieg to Alfred E. Neuman, the gap-toothed, big-eared character on the cover of the humor magazine Mad.

Trump’s Walkout Hits a Wall Maybe Trump had success bullying real estate moguls and other businessmen and thinks the tactic will work in Washington, even after two years of experience show that it doesn’t. Maybe he flies off the handle and plays the tough guy because he likes it, thinking the White House stage as a version of The Apprentice. Trump has been strategically consistent in using anger to connect with his supporters during his presidency. ....... The sight of Trump baring his teeth like a wild macaque doesn’t seem to faze Pelosi and Schumer. Decades in Congress have inured them to this kind of political gnarling..... Tantrums don’t work very well in government as opposed to business, because there are so many more moving parts—separation of powers, political parties, scores of agencies, 50 states and 245 million eligible voters—than in Manhattan real estate....... Like his Niagara of lies, Trump’s hysterics are just another way of forcing people to live in his factually stunted, theatrical universe. As Pelosi and Schumer have shown, the spell is easily broken.

A week of Trump-fueled dysfunction leaves Congress gasping Pelosi, who earlier in the day said that the president had committed “impeachable offenses” and was in need of “an intervention” by family and friends....... Marc Short, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, was on TV Thursday morning to demand funding because “we think it is a crisis” at the border. ...... The Appropriations chief then put out a press statement just a few minutes later congratulating Trump for “breaking the gridlock.” Democrats find that sentiment puzzling: They blame Trump for the impasse to begin with

IRS could be forced to release Trump’s taxes in the heat of 2020 The administration is betting that it can drag out the coming case beyond next year’s elections. That could prove a bad strategy.



The 10 Democrats most likely to be the 2020 nominee, ranked

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