Editorial Cartoon courtesy of Facebook

Buyers Remorse: Has Brexit and Trump propped up the Center against the Populist Right?

Potentially interesting insights below from Fareed Zakaria in his column below and on GPS this morning. It seems citizens around the world, after seeing the narrow British vote for Brexit and the electoral college victory of Donald Trump and his initial performance, are having buyers remorse towards right-wing populism. Elections in Austria, Bulgaria and the Netherlands saw the right wing populists put down. Polls in France and Germany see the mainstream centrist parties rising in the polls. Hopefully, the fever has truly broken, and this right-wing populist fad, fueled by xenophobia and possible Russian financial assistance, will fade away. It can not happen fast enough in the United States.


http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/27/us/center-can-still-win-in-europe-zakaria/index.html

Not quite the Terminator but the future does include more Robots.

A cyborg that looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, in all likelihood, is not going to be seen walking down the streets of Los Angeles stalking Sarah Connor. Robots or devices that do not require direct human handling, however,  as evidenced by the article links below, are going to be making increased appearances in the months and years ahead. This is not a new trend. This has been happening in manufacturing assembly lines for the last several decades. More jobs have been lost to this than illegal aliens.

What our government needs to do is come up with a progressive forward strategy that steers our populace to adapt to the new realities and to new careers and vocations. There was an interesting interview on the Fareed Zakaria GPS show this morning with General Motors Chairperson Jeffrey Immelt who used Germany as an example of a country that had a high participation rate of robotics in its industries yet had programs to help train and employ its people.

As earlier posts on this blog have stated, the country needs to steer towards current and new industries like alternative energies (where despite Trump's executive orders seem to be on autopilot), healthcare, telecommunications, education, oceanography, and outer space. Anything is possible if we put our minds and vision to it.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-29/domino-s-will-begin-using-robots-to-deliver-pizzas-in-europe?cmpid=socialflow-facebook-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-robots-jobs-20170330-story.html

The American People wanted Garland, not Gorsuch.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is quite the spin artist. This morning on Meet the Press, he accused the Democrats of being the people who started the slippery slope of doing away with the filibuster on judges with the so-called "Reid Rule" in 2013 that did away with the measure on lower court judges and cabinet positions. This is true but what McConnell does not say (and Chuck Todd did vaguely point out) is that McConnell, while Minority Leader, was largely responsible for the unprecedented filibuster activity towards Obama judicial and federal nominees that forced Reid's hand. He also lied (and Todd, like most journalists, lately have not been calling Republican and Trump supporters on this) saying the American People decided in the last election. WRONG. The plurality and majority of the American People voted for Hillary Clinton and third party candidates. That should be the line of Democrats when filibustering Judge Gorsuch. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANTED GARLAND, NOT GORSUCH.

Editorial Cartoon courtesy of Jimmy Marguiles

Editorial Cartoon Courtesy of CJ Kalish

Editorial Cartoon courtesy of Steve Benson