2016 October 1

Clinton gives her take on Sanders supporters in leaked fundraising recording

Anybody who is swayed by these words of Hillary regarding her perception of Sanders supports should recuse themselves from voting because these would be people that do not look at the policy positions of politicians but rather place a higher value on what people say in private conversation and do not understand the degree to which normal human conversations are altered to better connect with their audiences.  People need to decide their vote based on the stated policy positions of the candidate.

2016 October 2

Ivanka Trump targets working moms in her first campaign ad appearance

One of the proposed goals for Trump would be the introduction of tax credits for childcare. Such credits would just complicate the tax code further. The better way to make life better to families with young children (and everybody else at the same time) is to simplify the tax code by eliminating virtually all tax credits, deductions, exemptions, etc., so that people need to spend far less time trying to figure out what their ultimate tax costs are.

2016 October 3

Trump supporters defend the GOP nominee as a ‘genius’ with taxes

Another reason for why the tax code needs to be simplified. Too many loopholes allow too many tricks to be used by the wealthy who have the means to hire the researcher (tax advisers) to find them. Meanwhile, the poor keep getting ‘cheated’ by not being able to spend the resources (time and money) to research the tax-saving options available to them.

2016 October 4

In new blow to campaign, Trump’s foundation ordered to halt fundraising

To resolve this complication and to make funding political campaigns much simpler, only government funding should be allowed for all political campaigns.

2016 October 5

An angry Joe Biden calls Donald Trump ‘completely uninformed’ following PTSD comments

To think that the great progress that has been made over the decades regarding treating these soldier-specific illnesses and tearing down the stigmatization that has for so long prevented so many people from coming forward and admitting that they have these ills, can be so easily diminished by simple statements coming from, unbelievably, someone who wants to become the President of the United States, is so truly astonishing.

Beyond creating an international military organization, another way to better reduce these number of affected soldiers would be to create the occupation of soldiering which is more like a professional career with soldiers in it for a minimum of about 10 years.

2016 October 6

The heartbreaking story behind one Syrian girl’s death

These cluster bombs should be banned due to their intolerably high collateral damage, especially after a war’s end.

2016 October 7

Obama commutes record total 774 sentences

No person should have the power to commute sentences. The courts need to work better to ensure that only the right people are punished, and that their punishments are just. Any deviation from these principles should be fixed system-wide, not on a case-by-case basis. However, one way to increase the likelihood that cases which impose unjust punishments are corrected sooner may be to penalize the people who erroneously convicted such people to progressively higher and higher punishments depending on the amount of time it took to correct the wrong conviction of another person.

2016 October 8

U.S. Publicly Blames Russian Government for Hacking

Because of the difficulty of gaining enough convincing evidence to pin on the perpetrators of this hacking crime, we may never be able to prove that these attacks came from Russia. This is another reason why we need to have an internet system that is able to track every packet of information so that we could know from where attacks originate. But concurrent with such an infrastructure, we need to have sufficiently reliable methods of ensuring that the security people with access to such information are trustworthy. In other words, we need to impose extremely severe penalties for anyone who misuses such information for unauthorized purposes with death or torture. It may be better to not have such a security system unless we have these draconian punishments for misuse in place.

2016 October 9

InterVarsity Asks Staff to Choose a Stance on Sexuality

As a private ministry organization, InterVarsity is allowed to choose who its membership includes. Social pressures will naturally continue to mold this organization. Homosexuality should be understood to be equivalent to a genetic defect which has no relevant bearing on an individual’s academic or physical abilities.

2016 October 10

Columbus Day changed to Indigenous People’s Day in Vermont and city of Phoenix

While Columbus did discover America, obviously native inhabitants were already here. The Easter and Western Hemispheres did not practically know that each other existed before Columbus’ discovery. Yes, he did not know immediately that this land was something other than the Far East, but he found out soon enough. The natives did not know that the Eastern Hemisphere existed. So it is reasonable to attribute the claim of discovery to the first person who crossed, from either direction, and made that claim widely known. Columbus was the first.

2016 October 11

Haiti Recovering from “Apocalyptic Destruction” After Hurricane Matthew + Death Toll from Hurricane Matthew in U.S. Rises to 30

Haiti needs lots of help to make it better weather natural disasters, but perhaps the best long-term help it could get is a change in its international terms of trade.

2016 October 12

ISIS used an armed drone to kill two Kurdish fighters and wound French troops, report says

This is another escalation in the tools and techniques used on the battlefield. Warfare will continue to evolve in ways that continually stay a step ahead of any defensive measures. It is imperative that we design and implement an international military organization that has the ability to adequately manage international conflicts so that the threat of another global war can be dramatically lessened.

2016 October 13

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio officially charged with criminal contempt

The charge that he was illegally enforcing civil immigration laws is laughable because the federal government who is supposed to enforce these laws is clearly not enforcing them. Instead, the lower levels of government that are enforcing these laws should be thanked, and then compensated. Meanwhile, thousands of illegal immigrants are entering each year. How long can it be that one level of government (whose responsibility it is to enforce these laws) ignore these laws while preventing the other, lower levels of government to enforce them and expect everyone to be satisfied? It is these lower levels of government that are left with the task of managing the effects of processing and dealing with the illegal immigrants. They need to be either compensated, or the task officially switched over (or shared) to these other government agencies.

2016 October 14

Lou Dobbs apologizes for sharing Trump accuser’s address, number

This violation of Jessica’s privacy should required a fine for every estimated reading of that information. Anybody who reposts that information should be prosecuted as a separate case.

2016 October 15

Obama lifts restrictions on Cuban rum, cigars

Embargoes should only be in place as short-term tools to effect change in another country. Long-term embargoes only hurt everyone but the ruling class as they become accustomed to manipulating their economies around such obstacles.

2016 October 16

Warnings of conspiracy stoke anger among Trump faithful

If it turns out that Russian or foreign interventions illegally manipulated this election to a significant degree, everybody who covered it up should be tried for treason. The fundamental elements of democracy must be kept pure in order for the all-important trust of our political system to remain intact.

The types of messages that were written on several attendees shirts, the fact that “others had buckets of popcorn, ready for the show” is so depressing. How can people even think, and be serious, that electing our president is equivalent to an entertainment event. This is real life!

All these proposals would help make elections fairer.

2016 October 17

Kansas milita members arrested for plot to blow-up Somali apartment

These people should be charged with attempted murder, or possibly charged with an equivalent to manslaughter because of their intent. Either way, they should probably spend the rest of their lives in prison. The amount of restitution they should pay is questionable because their actions were aborted before they were actually able to accomplish them. However, they should probably be charged with at least with the lower practical estimate of the damage that they would have caused (persons and property) if their intent had been fulfilled. These funds should then go to supporting anti-terrorism activities and law enforcement in general.

2016 October 18

John McCain: ‘I don’t know’ if Trump will be better for Supreme Court than Clinton

For McCain to say that he and the Republicans “would be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton…would put up” indicates a level of partisan politics that is repulsive. Not allowing a Supreme Court nominee to get a hearing during the last 8 months or so indicated a level of disconnect with basic principles of governance that is astonishing, and threatening to the basic stability of the government.

Here are some suggestions for a little more stability on matters regarding the Supreme Court.

2016 October 19

Obama, Holder to lead post-Trump redistricting campaign

Redistricting should be guided by the use of a mathematical formula that creates the most compact perimeters based on population density and natural barriers within the population (like rivers, mountains, freeways, etc.)

2016 October 20

Jury Clears Knicks’ Derrick Rose of Liability in Rape Suit

2016 October 21

Duterte Says ‘Goodbye’ America Before Meeting Xi in Beijing

America should feel bad, on one level about this ‘Goodbye’ because individual countries should not play out-sized roles anywhere around the world. An international military organization should be responsible for all military things, and the rest of the dealings between nations should be their own affairs.

2016 October 22

South Africa to withdraw from war crimes court

Countries should not be allowed to leave international justice organization. There needs to be a higher power that is the authority for international affairs. Of course the problem is the guarantee of fairness within such organizations. But relying on one country (or no country at all) to enforce order is not a better way. Even if the international organization is not near optimal, it would still be much better than the randomly effective status quo. The place to begin would be to create an international military organization. Then, an international criminal court would not be too far down the list.

2016 October 23

Russian hackers infiltrated Podesta’s email, security firm says

The people responsible for this hack should be caught and held for virtually the rest of their lives and forced to use their talents to help further secure the internet world.

2016 October 24

AT&T to pay $85 billion for Time Warner, create telecom-media giant

The combined company would earn about $180 billion per year in total revenues. According to this income tax schedule, the income taxes should be about 50% of these revenues per year. This high tax rate would, no doubt, change the calculus within the company regarding its size. This type of tax structure is designed to naturally limit (without fiat government intervention) the size of companies so that they do not overwhelm the markets themselves and are also meant to encourage diversity by allowing smaller, less efficient participants to enter and survive.

2016 October 25

Cyber-Attack Harnesses “Internet of Things” to Shut Down Websites

All internet capable devices should be required to force the users to set their own passwords. At the very least, it should be illegal for devices to come with preset default generic passwords.

2016 October 26

US uses Tunisia as drone base for Libya operations – report

The US has too many bases in too many locations. This is irritating the world all over, and it would benefit us more by having fewer bases and thus less resentment. A lot of the military maneuvers around the world have been exacerbated by our very presence. Sure, we may have less intelligence if we pull out from more places, but we would also have less responsibilities, and we would have more friends, or at least less people intensely upset at us. We need to focus more on having the correct economic and other relational policies with other countries rather than on military force. We must respect others’ territorial space both following the legal letter of the law as well as the spirit of the law.

2016 October 27

Green Party candidate disrupts US Senate debate in Maryland

There definitely needs to be more diversity of opinion visible to the voters. Here are several suggestions to improve the election system.

2016 October 28

Calais ‘Jungle’: Unregistered children left in limbo

All this pain and suffering highlights that fact that bad upstream decision can have very severe effects. Invading Iraq in 2003, irritating various countries by the subsequent spying, close military monitoring, torturing of captured people, arms sales, etc., have all combined to create some terrible situation all around the world, including among refugees within developed countries, like this instance in France.

Better policy-making is a must. Here are some way to improve.

2016 October 29

Editorial: Did Russia meddle in our presidential election?

We should bet the Russians that if it turns out that elements within the Russian sphere have not interfered with the election, they will get $1 billion, but if it turns out that we can provide proof that they did interfere, then they should pay us $10 billion.

2016 October 30

UN votes to start negotiating treaty to ban nuclear weapons

All nations should enthusiastically embrace these talks. Of course, in order for this to work, an international military organization should reserve the right to retain such weapons in case some country develops them without authorization. To blindly give up these weapons would, of course, be foolish.

2016 October 31