The name Redskins Stella and her class learn about shapes
===
Could it all come down to one man and his name is not Trump? Can he be bought?
Time will tell. Stay tuned. (See 1 below.)
===
Has mankind outsmarted itself ? Eventually, will mankind permanently put "man" out of work? If so, what then?
Of late, I have begun to pick up on and write about the role of "Robots and AI." Why? Because it is coming. What the implications will be is beyond my ability but they could be extremely dislocating, and, thus, potentially dangerous.
Time will tell. Stay tuned. (See 2 below.)
===
Though I pretty much called the market rally off the lows, the strength of the upturn has been more than I thought it would be. Obviously investors are comforted by the fact that The Fed is going to hold off raising interest rates until they see continued evidence the economy is recovering and inflation is picking up momentum.
Traders are obviously being forced into the market for technical reasons and the shorts are getting squeezed and covering.
Enjoy the ride. I never experienced a rally I did not like. However, I still would not chase. (See 3 below.)
One of the best investment ideas I can think of, should Trump or Cruz become president, is buy stock in a company that makes parachutes.
Since we no longer teach our youth to reason it is little wonder, when they become adults, why they fall for great ideas that are impractical, unrealistic and very costly. This is also why liberal and progressive ideas have been ruining our nation for decades. This is why subsidizing births has wrecked the family structure, why subsidizing unemployed and not demanding they retrain has increased our inability to compete, this is why running ruinous deficits will come to bite us in the rear and why the dollar has lost a good bit of its buying power and this is why we are in the pickle we find ourselves and with no sensible program to get us out of this mess.
Finally, this is why, driven by emotion, we fall for stupid ideas espoused by even dumber people which fall on totally ignorant ears. (See 3a below.)
====
Skidaway Island Republican Club
Presents:
True Perspectives
Chatham County Police Protection
(rescheduled – 150 reservations last time – reserve early)
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Plantation Club
Cocktails/Cash bar : 4:30 PM
Presentation : 5:00 PM
Sustaining members – Free
Regular members - $5
Non-Members - $10
All Welcome
===
Always knew there was something fishy about Donald:
|
Donald Trump was asked if he could quote any Bible verses.He answered: Trump 20:16, "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Deport him and you won't have to feed him again."
This from a very dear friend and fellow memo reader explaining what a Trump Presidency might be like.
Remember, we thought, when HST became president, the war would be lost and he was one of our best because he was possessed of common sense.
No doubt Trump is not a Conservative in the true sense of the word or even in the vein of Cruz, but then neither is The Establishment. They mouth the talk but do not walk the walk and thus they lack credibility when they attack Trump.
They have every right to fear the loss of the presidency should Trump become the nominee and they could lose the Senate besides. Once again, they have themselves to blame because their leadership has been pitiful.
If The Establishment want to seal their fate, for sure they should proceed to deny Trump supporters their vote.
So far, the more they spend on trying to defeat him the more likely he will be shoved down their throats because of the rising anger directed at The Establishment. They just do not comprehend the contempt so many in their party feel towards them and how they allowed Obama to do to our nation what he has even though they may not have been able to stop him. They could have tried harder, taken more risks, stuck to their principles and let the chips fall where they would have but they caved and now are at risk of paying an even higher price for not standing their ground, ie. the possible election of Hillarious.
The radicals among us, supported by Soros, are seeking to prevent Trump supporters from attending his rally's. They began in Chicago and now have moved their goon like approach to Arizona, blocking highways etc. We've seen these thugs show up at voting precincts, we have witnessed them stealing elections so there is nothing new about their tactics. They are fascists to their very core and chaos is their goal. Their ultimate goal is to overthrow the Constitution and end our Republic because freedom of expression that goes against their ideology threatens them.
Anyone who believes they care about illegal immigration is fooling themselves. Their rush to defend those being verbally attacked by Trump is a limp excuse to create chaos, plain and simple. (See 4 below.)
===Dennis Prager’s blistering reality check brings CUFI crowd to their feet
===
Just received an e mail from Kim Strassel and we might be able to hook up this coming week while she is vacationing nearby with Stella,Peter and Frankie, her three wonderful kids.
Her book is due to be published in June and should be a winner.
===
Dick
1) James Comey. Ring a bell?
He is the head of the FBI. We read on the FBI's site:
On September 4, 2013, James B. Comey was sworn in as the seventh Director of the FBI.
A Yonkers, New York native, James Comey graduated from the College of William & Mary and the University of Chicago Law School. Following law school, Comey served as an assistant United States attorney for both the Southern District of New York and the Eastern District of Virginia. Comey returned to New York to become the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. In 2003, he became the deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice (DOJ).Comey left DOJ in 2005 to serve as general counsel and senior vice president at defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Five years later, he joined Bridgewater Associates, a Connecticut-based investment fund, as its general counsel.
He knows how the Department of Justice works.
If he decides that Hillary Clinton committed acts that endangered the security of the United States, he can submit this evidence to the Attorney General.
This places a very hot potato in Loretta Lynch's lap. She will drop it into President Obama's lap within 24 hours.
If Obama does nothing, Comey waits 30 days. Then he calls a press conference.
Goodbye, Hillary. Hello . . .
This depends on when he does this.
If he does it before the Democrats' convention, Sanders will win the nomination. If he does it after the convention, the Republican will win the election. That probably means Trump.
Comey knows how the political game is played. He knows that, as of today, he holds all the cards. He is not holding aces over eights. He is holding four aces.
All he needs to do is say nothing for 30 days after he hands the file to Lynch -- no threats. Just silence.
If she swears him to secrecy, he can assure her that he will stay silent. Then he breaks his word. After all, it's government.
I assume that he will play ball with Lynch. He sounds like an establishment man to me. Wikipedia reports: "Comey is a registered Republican who donated to U.S. Senator John McCain's campaign in the 2008 presidential election and to Governor Mitt Romney's campaign in 2012 presidential election." He does not sound like a Trump supporter. But what if he thinks she is guilty? What if he faces a cover-up of silence? He is a lawyer. If he thinks Obama is stiffing the FBI for political reasons, he may decide to do what bureaucrats do: defend his agency's turf.
What if he waits until December, after she is elected, but before she takes the oath of office? That would create the greatest foul-up in American political history.
She would have zero legitimacy from that time forward. She would reject all calls for her to testify. She would claim executive privilege.
Does the word "Watergate" ring a bell?
He has leverage on a scale that no bureaucrat ever has. Hoover had leverage, but not on this scale. The issue is public: the security of her emails. Comey risks nothing if he goes public after about a 30-day delay.
After the press conference, if Obama fires him, Hillary is toast. So is Obama's legacy.
If Obama tells Lynch to stall until January 20, Clinton II's presidency is toast. Obama probably escapes intact.
If Comey deep-sixes the findings, the political dance goes on.
Will he deep-six it? I don't know. It depends on his sense of justice.
===================================================================================
2)
Machines That Will Think and Feel
Artificial intelligence is still in its infancy—and that should scare us
field last week by easily defeating the world’s best player of the Asian board game Go in
a five-game match. Go resembles chess in the deep, complex problems it poses but is
even harder to play and has resisted AI researchers longer. It requires mastery of strategy
and tactics while you conceal your own plans and try to read your opponent’s.
Mastering Go fits well into the ambitious goals of AI research. It shows us how much has
been accomplished and forces us to confront, as never before, AI’s future plans. So what
will artificial intelligence accomplish and when?
AI prophets envision humanlike intelligence within a few decades: not expertise at a single, specified task only but the flexible, wide-ranging intelligence that Alan Turing foresaw in
a 1950 paper proposing the test for machine intelligence that still bears his name. Once we have
a 1950 paper proposing the test for machine intelligence that still bears his name. Once we have
figured out how to build artificial minds with the average human IQ of 100, before long
we will build machines with IQs of 500 and 5,000. The potential good and bad
consequences are staggering. Humanity’s future is at stake.
Suppose you had a fleet of AI software apps with IQs of 150 (and eventually 500 or 5,000)
to help you manage life. You download them like other apps, and they spread out into
your phones and computers—and walls, clothes, office, car, luggage—traveling within the
dense computer network of the near future that is laid in by the yard, like thin cloth,
everywhere.
Suppose you had a fleet of AI software apps with IQs of 150 (and eventually 500 or 5,000)
to help you manage life. You download them like other apps, and they spread out into
your phones and computers—and walls, clothes, office, car, luggage—traveling within the
dense computer network of the near future that is laid in by the yard, like thin cloth,
everywhere.
AI apps will read your email and write responses, awaiting your nod to send them. They
will escort your tax return to the IRS, monitor what is done and report back. They will
murmur (from your collar, maybe) that the sidewalk is icier than it looks, a friend is
approaching across the street, your gait is slightly odd—have you hurt your back? They
will log on for you to 19 different systems using 19 different ridiculous passwords,
rescuing you from today’s infuriating security protocols. They will answer your phone and
tactfully pass on messages, adding any reminders that might help.Suppose you had a fleet
of AI software apps with IQs of 150 (and eventually 500 or 5,000) to help you manage
life. You download them like other apps, and they spread out into your phones and
computers—and walls, clothes, office, car, luggage—traveling within the dense computer
network of the near future that is laid in by the yard, like thin cloth, everywhere.
In a million small ways, next-generation AI apps will lessen the
friction of modern life. Living without them will seem, in retrospect,
like driving with no springs or shocks.
But we don’t have the vaguest idea what an IQ of 5,000 would mean. And in time, we
will build such machines—which will be unlikely to see much difference between
humans and houseplants. The software Go master is a potent reminder of how far we’ve
already come down this road. How would we fare in a world of superhuman robots?
Consider a best case. Human beings like butterflies, encourage their presence, don’t push
them around. Still, we can’t tell one butterfly of any given species from another. They are
so unlike us that their individual characteristics are beyond our discernment.
Some children still collect butterflies. It’s a hobby to encourage (particularly as an
alternative to videogames and social network blather); you get outside and learn about
nature. If supersmart robots treat us like butterflies, we will be lucky—but don’t count on
it. We can’t support ourselves by browsing flowers, decoratively.
Why, then, are we building machines whose intelligence could swamp and overwhelm
Why, then, are we building machines whose intelligence could swamp and overwhelm
ours? Machines whose behavior and attitude to mere humans are impossible to foresee?
Because it is human nature to learn as much as we can and to build the best machines we
can. Of course, that doesn’t make it smart in any particular case. Robots with superhuman intelligence are as dangerous, potentially, as nuclear bombs. Yet they are the natural
outcome of robots with “ordinary” intelligence—which are (in turn) the goal of AI
researchers working hard, right now, all over the world.
Thoughtful people everywhere ought to resolve that it would be unspeakably stupid to allow technologists to fool around with humanlike and superhuman machines—except with the whole world’s intense scrutiny. Technologists are in business to build the most potent machines they can, not to worry about consequences.
So where do we stand? How long before we arrive at these hugely dangerous computers?
For now, we are not even headed in the right direction. AI today is nowhere near understanding the human mind. It’s trying to get to California (so to speak) without ever leaving I-95.
But a breakthrough won’t be hard. We only need to look at things from a slightly different angle—which might happen in a hundred years or this afternoon. Once it does, we had
better start following developments as carefully as we would monitor lab technicians
playing with plague bacteria.
The issues are surprisingly simple. Most scientists and philosophers identify human
thought with rationality, reasoning, logic. Even if they see emotion as important, they
rarely see it as central—and even if they do that, they seldom grasp the remarkably simple
way that it relates to rational thought and the mind at large.
Filling in this gap in our knowledge is dangerous: It moves us a step closer to superhuman
robots. But learning is our fate. It’s impossible to stop. Our best bet is to discover all that
we can and to move forward with our eyes wide open.
Filling in this gap in our knowledge is dangerous: It moves us a step closer to superhuman
robots. But learning is our fate. It’s impossible to stop. Our best bet is to discover all that
we can and to move forward with our eyes wide open.
The human mind is no static, rational machine. Nor is it sometimes rational and sometimes emotional, depending on mood or whim or chance. The mind moves down a continuous
spectrum every day, from moments of pure thinking about things to moments of pure
being, experience or feeling.Filling in this gap in our knowledge is dangerous: It moves us
a step closer to superhuman robots. But learning is our fate. It’s impossible to stop. Our
best bet is to discover all that we can and to move forward with our eyes wide open.
At the start of the day, we tend to be mentally energetic; we tend to start near the
spectrum’s top. At the day’s end, we’re at the other end of the spectrum. When we grow
sleepy, we are down-spectrum, moving steadily lower. Asleep and dreaming, we are near
the bottom.
During the day, we generally go through two main oscillations—drifting downward
toward a temporary low point (often in middle or late afternoon), then drifting higher for
a few hours, and finally downward again straight into sleep. Everyone has his own
pattern, but our general course over a day is from up-spectrum to down.
Software could imitate this spectrum—and will have to, if it is ever to achieve human
like thought.
The spectrum’s top edge is what we might call thinking-about—pondering the morning
news, or the daffodils outside or the future of American colleges. At the opposite end,
you reach a state of pure being or feeling—sensation or emotion—that is about nothing.
Chill or warmth, seeing violet or smelling cut grass, uneasiness or thirst, happiness or
euphoria—each must have a cause, but they are not about anything. The pleasant coolness
of your forearm is not about the spring breeze.
Over the day, the mind moves from one kind of mental state to a very different kind, from
mental apples to mental oranges.
We can only reproduce this spectrum in software if we can reproduce the endpoints.
We can only reproduce this spectrum in software if we can reproduce the endpoints.
Thinking-about can be simulated on a computer. But no computer will ever feel anything.
Feeling is uncomputable. Feeling and consciousness can only happen (so far as we know)
to organic, Earth-type animals—and can’t ever be produced, no matter what, by mere
software on a computer.
But that doesn’t necessarily limit artificial intelligence. Software can simulate feeling. A
robot can tell you that it’s depressed and act depressed, although it feels nothing. AI could,
in principle, build a simulated mind that reproduced all the nuances of human thought
and dealt with the world in a thoroughly human way, despite being unconscious. After all,
your best friend might be a zombie. (Would it matter? Of course! But only to him.)
Still: No artificial mind will ever be humanlike unless it imitates not just feeling but the
whole spectrum. Consider how your mind changes as you slide down-spectrum—gradually mixing together feeling and logical analysis, like a painter mixing ultramarine blue into
cool red, producing reds, red-violets, purples, purple-blues. The human mind is this whole
range of shades, not just rationality, nor rationality plus a side-order of emotion, nor the
definitive list of five or six kinds of mental state some textbooks give. The range is infinite, but the formula for creating this infinity is simple.
At the spectrum’s top, we concentrate readily, focus on external reality, solve problems.
Memory is docile. It supplies facts, figures and methods without distracting us with
fascinating recollections. Emotion lies low. Early mornings are rarely the time for
dramatic arguments or histrionic scenes.
As we move down-spectrum, we lose concentration and reasoning power and come
gradually to rely more on remembering than on reasoning—on the “wisdom of
experience”—to solve problems. Lower still, the mind starts to wander. We daydream:
Our memories, fantasies, ideas are growing vivid and distracting as the mind’s focus
moves from outside the self to inside.
Finally, we grow sleepy and find ourselves free-associating—memory now controls the
mental agenda—and we pass through the strange state of “sleep onset thought” on the
way to sleep and dreaming. (Sleep onset thought is usually a series of vivid, static,
memories, some or all of them hallucinations—like dreams themselves.)
Emotions grow more powerful as we move downward. Daydreams and fantasies often
move us emotionally. Dry, emotionless daydreams are rare. Dreams sometimes have a
vaguely unpleasant emotional tone, but they can also make us elated or terrified: The
strongest emotions we know happen in dreams.
move us emotionally. Dry, emotionless daydreams are rare. Dreams sometimes have a
vaguely unpleasant emotional tone, but they can also make us elated or terrified: The
strongest emotions we know happen in dreams.
Up-spectrum, thought uses memory like a faithful, colorless assistant. Down-spectrum,
memory increasingly goes off on its own. The flow of information from memory gradually supplants the flow from outside as we sink into ourselves like a flame sinking into a candle.
memory increasingly goes off on its own. The flow of information from memory gradually supplants the flow from outside as we sink into ourselves like a flame sinking into a candle.
The spectrum shows that dreaming is no strange intrusion into ordinary thought. It is the
normal outcome of descending the spectrum, like rolling down the runway once the
airplane has landed. We experience our dreams but don’t think about them much as they
unfold; we allow all sorts of improbabilities and absurdities to happen without minding.
This means less self-awareness and less memory, which is one reason why down-spectrum thinking has been so hard to grasp, from Joseph’s work in Genesis to Freud’s in Vienna.
We need to understand all of this if we are to understand the mind. But does AI need to
reproduce it all to achieve humanlike intelligence?
normal outcome of descending the spectrum, like rolling down the runway once the
airplane has landed. We experience our dreams but don’t think about them much as they
unfold; we allow all sorts of improbabilities and absurdities to happen without minding.
This means less self-awareness and less memory, which is one reason why down-spectrum thinking has been so hard to grasp, from Joseph’s work in Genesis to Freud’s in Vienna.
We need to understand all of this if we are to understand the mind. But does AI need to
reproduce it all to achieve humanlike intelligence?
Every bit of it. One important down-spectrum activity is creativity. Reporters of personal experience tend to suggest that creativity happens when they are not thinking hard about a problem, when mental focus is diffuse—in other words, when they are down-spectrum.
Creativity often centers on inventing new analogies, which allow us to see an old problem
in the light of a new comparison.
Every bit of it. One important down-spectrum activity is creativity. Reporters of personal experience tend to suggest that creativity happens when they are not thinking hard about
a problem, when mental focus is diffuse—in other words, when they are down-spectrum. Creativity often centers on inventing new analogies, which allow us to see an old problem
in the light of a new comparison.
Creativity often centers on inventing new analogies, which allow us to see an old problem
in the light of a new comparison.
Every bit of it. One important down-spectrum activity is creativity. Reporters of personal experience tend to suggest that creativity happens when they are not thinking hard about
a problem, when mental focus is diffuse—in other words, when they are down-spectrum. Creativity often centers on inventing new analogies, which allow us to see an old problem
in the light of a new comparison.
But where does the new analogy come from? The poet Rilke compares the flight of a
small bird across the evening sky to a crack in a smooth porcelain cup. How did he come
up with that? Possibly by using the fact that these very different things made him feel the
same way.
small bird across the evening sky to a crack in a smooth porcelain cup. How did he come
up with that? Possibly by using the fact that these very different things made him feel the
same way.
Emotion is a hugely powerful and personal encoding-and-summarizing function. It can comprehend a whole complex scene in one subtle feeling. Using that feeling as an index
value, we can search out—among huge collections of candidates—the odd memory with
a deep resemblance to the thing we have in mind.
value, we can search out—among huge collections of candidates—the odd memory with
a deep resemblance to the thing we have in mind.
Once AI has decided to notice and accept this spectrum—this basic fact about the mind
—we will be able to reproduce it in software. The path from the spectrum to the
superhuman robot is no short hop; it’s more like a flight to the moon.
—we will be able to reproduce it in software. The path from the spectrum to the
superhuman robot is no short hop; it’s more like a flight to the moon.
But once we had rocket engines, radios, computers and a bunch of other technologies in hand, the moon flight was inevitable (though it also took genius, daring and endless work). The spectrum is just one among the technologies that are necessary to make AI work. But it’s one that has been missing.
Humanlike and superhuman machines follow inevitably from the spectrum and other basic facts about the mind. That makes these fundamental ideas just as dangerous as the vision I started with: the building of super-intelligent computers. They are all natural outcomes of the human need to build and understand. We can’t shut that down and don’t want to.
The more we learn, the more carefully, critically and intelligently we can observe the dangerous doings of AI. Let normal people beware of AI researchers: “All who heard
should see them there/ And all shout cry, Beware! Beware!/ Their flashing eyes, their
floating hair!/ Weave a circle round them thrice/ And close your eyes with holy dread,/
For they on honeydew hath fed,/ And drunk the milk of Paradise.”
should see them there/ And all shout cry, Beware! Beware!/ Their flashing eyes, their
floating hair!/ Weave a circle round them thrice/ And close your eyes with holy dread,/
For they on honeydew hath fed,/ And drunk the milk of Paradise.”
Is it strange to conclude a piece on artificial intelligence with Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”?
But AI research is strange.
But AI research is strange.
Mr. Gelernter is a professor of computer science at Yale and the author of “Tides of Mind: Uncovering the Spectrum of Consciousness,” recently published by W.W. Norton
===================================================
3)Jeremy Siegel: Trump Can't Defeat Hillary for Presidency
Stock-market guru Jeremy Siegel, professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania,
predicts Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee but wasn’t likely to be elected president.
“If it is Trump versus Clinton, I don’t see how Trump can win,” the Wharton finance
3)Jeremy Siegel: Trump Can't Defeat Hillary for Presidency
Stock-market guru Jeremy Siegel, professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania,
predicts Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee but wasn’t likely to be elected president.
“If it is Trump versus Clinton, I don’t see how Trump can win,” the Wharton finance
professor and economist told the Times of San Diego.
He told customers of the UBS San Diego County Complex that a Clinton victory
He told customers of the UBS San Diego County Complex that a Clinton victory
combined with continued Republican control of Congress would be good for investors.
“If we look at history, the greatest bull market in the 250-year history of the stock market
“If we look at history, the greatest bull market in the 250-year history of the stock market
occurred when a Clinton was president and the Republicans controlled the Congress,” he
said, referring to Bill Clinton’s two terms in the 1990s.
The New York billionaire scored big wins in Florida, Illinois and North Carolina on
The New York billionaire scored big wins in Florida, Illinois and North Carolina on
Tuesday which brought him closer to the 1,237 delegates he needs to win the nomination.
Republican Party leaders are appalled at the real estate developer and reality TV
Republican Party leaders are appalled at the real estate developer and reality TV
personality's incendiary rhetoric and believe his policy positions are out of step with core Republican sentiment, such as his vow to deport 11 million illegal immigrants,
temporarily ban Muslims from the United States and build a wall along the border with
Mexico.
Foreign diplomats have expressed alarm to U.S. government officials about what they say
Foreign diplomats have expressed alarm to U.S. government officials about what they say
are inflammatory and insulting public statements by Trump, senior U.S. officials have told Reuters.
Officials from Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia have complained in
Officials from Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia have complained in
recent private conversations, mostly about the xenophobic nature of Trump's statements,
said three U.S. officials, who all declined to be identified. "As the (Trump) rhetoric has
continued, and in some cases amped up, so, too, have concerns by certain leaders around
the world," one of the officials told Reuters.
Meanwhile, Siegel addressed a variety of topics:
Meanwhile, Siegel addressed a variety of topics:
- Siegel said all of the extreme economic policies proposed by hopefuls during the
- campaign won’t be possible. “One has to remember that everything must go through
- Congress,” he said. “Very little can really be done on executive order.”
- Siegel said it was unlikely that the Federal Reserve Board will raise rates beyond 1 percent. “We’re going to have low interest rates for many, many years to come,” he said.
- Siegel said stocks are a better investment now than in a long time, despite widespread
- worries about another market crash.
- Investors can’t rely on fixed-income instruments like bonds and certificates of deposit, he
- said, but will have to come back to the stock market despite its volatility.
Related Stories:
and
2016 Newsmax Finance. All rights reserved.
3a) The Costs of Mass Deportation
Taxpayers should get ready to pay for Cruz and Trump plans.
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz say they’d deport all of the 11.3 million or so undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. They don’t say how they would pull off this forced human
exodus. But new research shows that executing on this promise would require at least
$400 billion in new federal spending and reduce U.S. GDP by about $1 trillion.
A study released this month by the American Action Forum, a free-market think tank led
by economist Doug Holtz-Eakin, walks through the process of evicting 11 million people
over two years, a time frame Mr. Trump has floated. The report assumes that about 20%
of those here illegally would leave voluntarily once the roundups begin. But that still
leaves about nine million to find and deport.
This can’t be done with the snap of one’s fingers. In practice and under the law it requires
four steps: finding and apprehending individuals, detaining them while they await due
process, moving them through the courts, and then transporting them to their home
countries.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can now remove at most 400,000
undocumented immigrants a year, most of whom are turned over to the feds by local
police after, say, a traffic stop. Ramping up that goal to millions would require 90,000
federal agents, up from today’s 4,000, the study finds. That number would be even higher
if the feds conduct most of the raids instead of relying on local law enforcement that lacks
the resources for mass sweeps.
After the roundups, where would the arrested millions await their hearings? The feds
currently operate about 250 detention facilities with 34,000 beds, and a mere 58
immigration courts. The average detention time is 28.7 days. To keep that same detention
time, the report says a two-year deportation plan would require some 348,831 beds, as
well as more than 1,300 courts and about 30,000 more federal attorneys. The effort would
be a full-employment act for lawyers, and no doubt the House Freedom Caucus would be overjoyed to pay for all of those new federal employees.
Then there’s the task of sending migrants back to their native countries. Only about half
of the 11.3 million hail from nearby Mexico, so the U.S. would have to fly millions to
Central America, Asia and elsewhere. The report found that the effort would demand
the departure, on average, of 84 buses and 47 chartered flights every day for two years. Is
the Trump 757 available?
The most important cost, however, would be the blow to the economy from disrupting
such a huge chunk of the American workforce. About eight million undocumented
immigrants are employed in some way, and the report estimates that deporting them all in
two years would shrink the U.S. labor force by 6.4%. That’s a lot of suddenly unfilled
jobs. The report estimates that GDP would shrink by 5.7%, not far from the 6.3% decline
from the 2008 recession. The new Administration would certainly be off to a rip-roaring
start.
Defenders of deportation say state and local governments would save tens of millions on
social services for illegals, but that would pale next to the economic and human costs. All
of this suggests that deportation would be one more campaign promise that fails once it
hits the, er, wall of reality.
================================================================
4)The count-down to the Cleveland GOP convention continues.
Donald Trump exhibited the ultimate in savvy by vowing not to appear at the 13th (yup, 13)
Republican debate. John Kasich quickly acquiesced, but Ted Cruz apparently wanted to be alone with Megyn Kelly.
As we consider the likelihood that Trump will succeed in cornering the Republican nomination, we
should consider what he would be like as President.
Friends of mine have worked for or with The Donald. He is described as brilliant, intolerant of failure,
impatient with delay, loyal to his employees and having a rare ability to find and hire brilliant
lieutenants.
Sounds to me like a pretty apt description of a good United States President.
He is faulted for his brash, abrasive style and basically saying whatever crosses his mind. Could this
perhaps be a strategy? As of the SC Primary he had spent $8 million and his opponent, Jeb Bush had
spent $80 million and had to bow out. Brash speech begets free TV time,
He is faulted for dealing with the Mafia. In his East coast properties, he has no choice. They control construction unions and trash haulers in the area. Interestingly, as President, he will be forced to deal
with gangsters such as Vladimir Putin, so perhaps the experience is meaningful.
The key to me is his ability to find and motivate brilliant lieutenants. He has been absent from his
business, shaking hands and kissing babies for months. I haven’t heard of a single recent Trump
bankruptcy.
Any President can’t know everything. Experience in government is greatly over-rated. Our goal today
must be to shrink government, not manage its’ growth.
Trump has available to him his recent competitors, now well-known across the nation, with great
specific abilities.
John Kasich, for example, should be Vice-President. Mr. Kasich knows well his way among the mazes
within the beltway and has shown the ability to bring parties together to balance a budget.
Dr. Ben Carson would be a brilliant selection as Surgeon General or HHS Secretary. No question that
John Bolton should be Secretary of State.
Carly Fiorina could be assigned the mission of dissolving the Department of Education and
eliminating all but the beneficial parts of the EPA.
Chris Christie would make an ideal Secretary of the Treasury or Attorney General. Under Mr. Christie,
the mismanagement of our illegal immigrant problem would be eliminated.
A Trump Presidency may be a welcome surprise, and is certainly preferable to the alternate
possibilities!
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