The future of Israel

Kerry points out that a one-state Israel cannot be both Jewish and Democratic. The word he is not saying is "apartheid". The alternative conventional term, "occupation", implies a future two state solution, and every additional permanent settlement means Israel is moving away from "occupation" and toward "apartheid".

But there is a fourth possibility that Kerry's implied logic ignores. In a world that is moving away from high principle and towards self interest and nationalism, an isolated Israel could very well make good on the old zealous threat to push the Arabs into the sea (really Egypt) and the desert (Jordan and Syria). The only thing really stopping it from doing so is the loss of American support.

Ignore the man behind the curtain

Tillerson as Trump's proposed Secretary of State presents an interesting narrative to the 2016 campaign. He built his career at the world's largest oil company by enlisting Putin's help in exploiting Russia's massive reserves. He has been frustrated by sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. Until now it has been a mystery why Trump has been so cozy with Putin, why Trump publicly asked the Russians to hack Hillary's emails, and why they complied.

At first I considered an oil CEO as Secretary of State to be an awkward but theoretical conflict of interest. But the more I learn, the more dangerous it seems.

As a reminder, Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton, made up to $40B as a result of the Iraq war, which he orchestrated using faked intelligence. The man behind the curtain can be very dangerous indeed.

Replacing Obamacare

Republicans agree that Obamacare should be repealed and replaced, but there is little consensus on what should replace it. One thing everyone seems to be tiptoeing around is the individual mandate. It's quite unpopular. But if you get rid of it, and you don't penalize preexisting conditions, then people can sign up when they get sick. That's not how insurance works. (It's worth noting that employers have worked around this problem with open enrollment periods)

What's interesting to me is that Republicans are against Obamacare at all. It coerces money from taxpayers and individual enrollees and delivers it to corporations. Republicans' corporate constituents should be thrilled. But it has Obama's name, so Republicans have a lot invested against it. It will be a major test of their manipulative skills to see if they can convince their gullible minions that they should accept keeping the individual mandate.

Net neutrality for mobile?

On Thursday the FCC sent a letter to AT&T complaining about zero rating. Basically AT&T wants to let its wireless customers stream its DirecTV video service over its wireless network without counting that data against their monthly data caps. The FCC claims this violates net neutrality. I'm a big supporter of net neutrality for ISPs to homes, but apply it to mobile seems like an overreach. After all, it is easy to switch wireless providers if yours charges too much. The mobile industry is very competitive. The AT&T plan seems like the type of innovation that should be encouraged.

On the other hand, there is often little or no competition for the data connection to your house. You can't ask a homeowner to move if the ISP charges too much.

The problem is, AT&T serves both homes and mobile phones. And the content provider, in this case DirecTV, is owned by AT&T. And content providers don't care how the consumer views the content. Their bits go into the same network.

The only solution I can see is that net neutrality should apply to a network if it connects to homes. But that means AT&T would probably have to restructure.

Then again, the question is moot. In June Trump gets to nominate a Republican to fill a vacancy on the FCC, and net neutrality will die.