Month: September 2020

Well we have now gotten past our first debate.

Who won ?

From my perspective, Joe Biden won! Well actually Joe Biden won parts of this debate. Namely, Joe Biden won the name-calling sweepstakes . . . . “racist!”; “Clown”; “come-on, man!”; “shut-up, man!”

Joe Biden also won the “refusing to answer the question” part of the debate. Mr. Biden, would go along with ending the Senate filibuster? . . . . . . Silence, followed by more silence,

Mr. Biden, would you go along with packing the Supreme Court? . . . . . Silence, followed by more silence.

Mr. Biden, are they any law enforcement organizations that are backing your candidacy? . . . . Silence, followed by more silence.

Mr. Biden, did you and Bernie Sanders agree to a manifesto? . . . . Silence, followed by more silence.

However, one facet that Joe Biden clearly won was the “looking into the camera sweepstakes.” This must have been something that the Biden advisers emphasized to Joe over and over. He must have been listening, as he clearly won this part of the debate. When he was in a situation where he did either did not want to answer or did not know the answer to a question, he looked directly into the camera and then did some heart-to-heart soft talking to the camera.

Who learned the most from this debate? The runaway winner here . . . Joe Biden! I think Joe learned that it was a mistake, a big mistake to try to attack  Donald Trump’s family. I would guess that he won’t try that again.

9/30/20

Right from the git-go I need to ask your indulgence as I do not speak “teacher-talk.” Hopefully, I will be able to convey my point clearly enough without actually knowing the finer points of “teacher-talk.”

At the beginning of each school year the students get tested, and the they are again tested at the end of the year. This is done basically to measure the progress that has been made over the course of the school year. These results can be applied to each individual student and they can be used to access the progress of a certain class of students, e.g. Ms. Collins’s  third grade at the  Juan school. Did this particular third grade class learn as much as the third grade class of Mr. Juan at the Collins school? Also how much did this year’s third grade learn compared to the third grade of the previous year either in the same school, or even statewide.

For those schools that have been in session (mostly online), the results are in for the tests that are given at the beginning of each school year. Granted I cannot pretend to know these results for the entire state, but I do know the results from a middle class neighborhood school in a major California city. You can look at these results in one of a number of ways, depending on whether you are an optimist, a pessimist, a teacher, or “an all-knowing official.”

To cut to the chase – the evaluation of students across the board in grades 1-6 shows that in comparison to past years at the same school, the students are starting off the present school year substantially behind where they have been in past years, undoubtedly due to finishing the last three months of school last year on Zoom instead of back in the classroom.

-For the optimist, this means that there is a high ceiling. Because the students are way behind where they should be, the amount of progress that can be achieved over the upcoming school year is close to unlimited.

-For the pessimist, this means that because the students are starting off from a big deficit, it is likely that they will not catch up . . . ever!

-For the teacher, this means that unless something changes very soon, these students not only will not catch up over the course of the year, but in fact will fall progressively behind. Why? “Elementary(excuse the pun), my dear Watson.” With distance learning even the good teachers are able to cover significantly less than can be achieved in person. With teachers who are less than average, the upcoming year’s learning deficit will only increase in their classes. Keep in mind that I am referring here to the results in a typical middle-class neighborhood school. Most everybody realizes, for a variety of different reasons, that the worse the neighborhood, the larger this deficit will become.

-For the “all-knowing officials”, they say, “trust in us, as we know what is best for everyone,” as they cover their eyes, their ears, and their mouth in succession with both hands, because they are promulgating something they know is morally wrong. However, behind their poker faces, they know that the present policy of distance learning will only make things progressively and dramatically worse for inner city kids. 

Are they thinking . . . “too bad for you, inner city kids; que sera, sera!”

Here are the latest CDC Covid mortality stats:

In case you missed the Fri. nite (9/25/20) news dump from CDC, here are latest survival rates for people who test positive (a tiny fraction to begin with):

age 0-19: 99.997%.

age 20-49: 99.98%.

age 50-69: 99.5%

age 70+: 94.6%.

WTF? After looking at these stats I am confused. The government has basically mandated keeping schools closed, and if a school opens, and heaven forbid one of the students or one of the teachers happens to test positive, all hell breaks loose. The commonest scenario . . . the school is closed to in-person learning. But one should ask, “Why?” If kids less than 19 have a risk of dying that is 0.003%, why in the name of  xxxx (pick your own personal god) are we still keeping kids either at home or learning on line, as opposed to learning in person? The mortality stats for children are worse with influenza, but I do not recall reading about the closing of schools because of the flu! In polite society this would be called “total nonsense.”

Next let’s look at teachers. In 2011-2012 in the US the average age of teachers is 42.4 years(the median age [half above, and half below] is 42 years.) The percent of teachers in the 20-50 years old age group in the US is over 69%, which translates to a mortality risk of 0.02% for over 2/3 of teachers. This also means that on 31% of teachers in the US  are more than 50 years old, and in the age group 50-70, the risk of dying is only 0.5%. I will grant that some teachers are living with elderly parents, some of whom have predisposing risk factors. Only to this group, and those teachers > 50 with risk factors, can I understand a reticence to teach in a live classroom . . .otherwise this whole keep schools closed is “horse-pucky !” 

Speaking of total B.S, today I drove by my local park, and the playgrounds still have the yellow crime scene tape so that young kids cannot use either the swings or the slides(again to appreciate the absurdity of this, look at the risk stats for young children). This is made-up hocus-pocus by someone who is supposed to know best! Nonsense! One of my young granddaughters goes to daycare where their are about ten little children in a relatively small room. How is it that these young children can be inside without masks, but cannot play outside in a playground. Poppy-cock.

I have run out of ways to describe any of this lunacy in nice terms, so I invite you all to call out these idiots using any terms you choose.

“I got started out of an HBCU, Delaware State. Now, I don’t want to hear anything negative about Delaware State. They’re my folks.”

This was spoken by Joe Biden in Nov., 2019, while speaking to group at a black high school in South Carolina. For those not aware, HBCU refers to “Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” In other words Mr. Biden is telling this black audience that DSU is “my folks.” Only one problem, Joe Biden was never a student at DSU.

Hmmm! 

Could it be that Mr. Biden slipped DSU into his speech that day because his campaign was circling the drain, and he needed something to energize the crowd. If he did not win South Carolina, his run at the Democratic nomination was over.

From my perspective there are only two possibilities here:

Either Joe Biden deliberately lied about attending DSU, or he was confused about where he attended college . . . DSU or University of Delaware (not a HBCU). How does one forget where one attended college?

The more compelling problem here is that he is running for President. 

If he resorts to lying because it is convenient … not good for a President! On the other hand, if Mr. Biden cannot remember where he went to college … not good for a President!

The other problem here is that this is far from the first time that Sleepy Joe has “misspoke”. . . in other words this is not the first time that he has either lied or forgotten . . . either of which is not good for a President!

On 9/20/20 there was a long article in our local paper concerning Covid and local college students going back to college. The article was pretty well written but like most local articles contains a lot of the “emotional code words” meant to elicit fear and concern from the typical reader.( e.g. the title read, “Can UCSD Avoid Crisis Like That Seen at SDSU?) As best I can tell there isn’t a crisis at SDSU. SDSU has hundreds, approaching a thousand of positive Covid tests, mostly in minimally symptomatic or symptomatic students. To me a ‘crisis’ would be: “millions of people lose their jobs because of lockdowns” or “Covid is killing 10% of people infected” . . . Now that’s a crisis. Hundreds of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic students at SDSU is not a crisis.

As stated in the article: “Across the USA, as reported by the NYT, more than 88,000 college students and faculty have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began, with at least 60 deaths. (For us non-math individuals that is a morality of 0.072% . . . which by any standard is drastically low.)

What is the actual student and faculty risk from Covid? 

[The following is from a N.Y. Post article written by Dr. Scott Atlas:

“Science tells us that young adults are at extremely low risk for serious illness or death from COVID-19. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that only 0.2 percent of deaths have been in those under age 25.

That’s fewer than 400 deaths in a country of 330 million. That’s also fewer than the 407 from influenza, 4,685 from accidents, 6,759 from suicides and 5,540 from homicides reported in the latest National Vital Statistics report from the CDC.”

(A Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis recently summed up what the entire world’s data consistently demonstrate: The risk for children and young adults dying from the novel coronavirus is “almost zero.”)

Again from Dr.Atlas:

“We are already seeing the negative effects of students not attending school. Almost three-fourths of those aged 18 to 24 reported at least one mental-health symptom by the end of June. A quarter of that age group contemplated suicide in the previous 30 days.”

He continues, “Even most university faculty aren’t at significant risk; two-thirds of them are under 55; only 13 percent are over 65.”]

Back to the recent SDUT article:

“UCSD will have approximately 11,000 graduate and undergraduate students who will live in campus housing.” There is going to be an aggressive campaign of testing and quarantining students as needed on the UCSD campus. That sort of aggressive approach will work . . . for a while, but most are well aware that you can only keep the genie in the bottle for so long. In the fall and winter when students have had enough of being locked down, what do you suppose is going to happen. Certainly students will escape the confines of the campus, and they will figure out how to have parties outside of the purview of the watchful “student ambassadors.”

My question is what is going to be the plan then? What is the endgame here? If the present plan works, in a few months, there will still be many thousands of students on campus . . . the vast majority without immunity. When these students finally make their way out into the surrounding community, what happens then? If one is not in a nursing home or is not a health care professional, there will not be an available vaccine until well into 2021. Sticking a finger in the dike now may well work now, but when things get worse, what is the endgame plan?

Interestingly, I did not see this addressed in this long article. My suspicion is that there is no realistic endgame plan . . . Hmmm!

I think that it is logical to assume that one of the purposes of schools is to teach logical thinking. Many of the subjects taught in school depend on logic. Obviously math is all about logic, but so is spelling . . . e.g. if the letter B has a certain sound, then the word, “bib” must be spelled thusly. Likewise, when the bell rings, it means that the class period is over . . . “the bell has just rung, therefore this class has ended.”

Because one of the purposes of school is to teach logical thinking, one would think that teachers should think logically, and by extension that school principals, and school superintendents should also be adept at logical thinking. (So far, this seems logical to me.)

Now let’s examine if this expectation of assumed logical thinking by educators is, in fact, the case. For the most part I think that this is the case, and so when there is an apparent glaring exception, it stands out. 

The case in point occurred in Louisiana where during distance learning on Zoom, a fourth grader was “going to school on Zoom in his bedroom. He moved a B-B gun on the floor away from the hands of a younger sibling who had wandered into his room. (To me this sounds like the logical thing to do.) However in the process of moving this B-B gun to safety, it was now on the Zoom screen. . . . “Horrors!” (Again to me the logical thing to do in this situation would be to tell Ka Mouri Harrison, the 4th grader, to please move the B-B gun to a safer place. “We will pause for a minute while you do that. You don’t have to worry that you are going to miss anything.”)

Apparently, the teacher, let’s call her Karen, was offended by the sight of the B-B gun and reported this to the principal, let’s call him Ken, who then reported this egregious offense to the school superintendent. The result of all of this “a lot to do about nothing” . . . Ka Mouri was suspended and threatened with expulsion! 

To me this is an example of those who are supposed to be teaching logical thinking in schools going off the deep end. Certainly no one would condone bringing a real gun or even a B-B gun to a real school, but Zoom is not a real school, and Ka Mouri was physically in his own home. If Karen was offended and thus reported this “transgression” to Ken. . . . “come on Ken, we expect at least a modicum of logical thinking from a school principal. Use your head, and prove that you were promoted to your position because of some logical reason!”

Finally, now Louisiana’s Attorney General is launching an investigation into the school district’s handling of the matter. He said he was alarmed by what he called multiple violations of the state and federal constitutions but also “blatant government overreach by the school system.”

“For anyone to conclude that a student’s home is now school property because of connectivity through video conferencing is absurd. It is ludicrous for this All-American kid to be punished for taking responsible actions just as it is for his parents to be accused of neglect.”

Hopefully “logic” will win out in Louisiana.

The present Democratic proposal for the Supreme Court sounds suspiciously like what I proposed many years ago. When I wrote this, there was no political animus or political strategy involved, whereas now the Dems are proposing this “new idea” because, and only because, now and in the foreseeable future, their back is against the wall. Is their present proposal, just plagiarism?

I wrote and posted the following over two years ago:

The Supreme Court; Should It Be Like Roulette? 

As it stands now the makeup of the Supreme Court is pure luck, just like roulette. At present, the past three presidents, Barack Obama, George W.Bush, and Bill Clinton, have each nominated two and President Trump is on the verge of nominating his second Justice. This recent equality as far as presidential Supreme Court nominees, however is pure happenstance. 

Here we are in the middle of another mudslinging, downright disgusting process of the approval of a Supreme Court Justice. Why is this process so nasty? Why do some senators go out of their way to insult and belittle the nominee? Why do some even go so far as to insult the religious faith of the nominee? Is this just politics as usual? Of course the thinly veiled attacks on the nominee’s reputation do play well with the senator’s base, but is that all that is behind it? No, obviously not, as the nomination and the subsequent vote to accept the nominee has dramatic effects for decades to come because the appointment to Supreme Court is a lifetime appointment. Other than judges are there any other lifetime positions? If there are please let me know. Other than retiring like Justice Kennedy recently did, the Supreme Court is a lifetime position, and so the political stakes are exceptionally high . . . perhaps too high! 

Why does this have to be a lifetime appointment? The answer is that’s what’s in the Constitution. That’s what the designers figured would keep the justices free from political pressures for if they didn’t have to worry about their future, they would more likely be fair and just in their decisions. But that was then and this is now! There is one major difference between the 1770s and 2018. Life expectancy! In the latter part of the 18th century, the average life expectancy was 36 years, and in the early 1800s it rose to 37 years. That is far cry from today’s life expectancy. In 2007, the average life expectancy at birth for persons born in the United States was 77.9 years, an increase of 1.1 years from 2000 and an increase of 0.2 years from 2006, and by 2050 the average life expectancy is predicted to increase to 80 for men, and 83-85 for women.

In 1790 the average age of a Supreme Court Justice at retirement was about 62 years, whereas in 2010 it was about 77 years. Call me crazy, but I doubt that this is what the framers of the Constitution envisioned. 

Personally, I think that Kennedy’s decision to retire was the right decision. After all he was 81 years old! Since there is no mandatory retirement age, there have been 

justices that did not retire till 90! Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is now 85 years old – four yearsthan older Kennedy, and five years past the average retirement age.

Personally, if I have a case going before the highest court in the land, I do not want a bunch of octogenarians deciding it, and that is why I am recommending the following “rotating mandatory retirement” for Supreme Court justices. I propose that one year and three years after each presidential election, the justice that has been on the Court the longest would be forced to retire.Since there are nine Supreme Court justices, each would serve as a Supreme Court Justice for an average of 18 years, and I think that is plenty long.

Let’s use Justice Ginsberg as an example. She took her seat on the Supreme Court in August 1993 after a nomination from Bill Clinton, and her present the tenure is three years shorter than the average tenure. With my plan, she would have retired in 2011, and Justice Kennedy who was appointed in 1987 would have retired in 2005. 

There are two caveats to this plan. No single president could appoint more than three justices. If a president was elected for two terms (8 years in office), he would appoint only three justices – one at the end of the first and third year of his first term, and one at the end of his third year of his second term. Likewise if a justice died, the president would then have to nominate a new justice, even though it was not on the usual two year-four year cycle, but again each president could only nominate a total of three justices maximum. The bickering about Justice Scalia’s replacement would have been avoided since according to this plan, then President Obama would have already nominated his three justices, and so he would have maxed out.This plan would also avoid picking Supreme Court nominees based on age, as all would serve 18 years.  Before his decision, President Trump’s three leading potential nominees were all around 50, and so they could realistically serve for approximately 30 years as a Supreme Court Justice. That’s too long!

7/10/18

With the Dems now in serious long term trouble, of course they are going to want to change the rules. Even though I am chuckling on the inside because of the apparent desperation of the Democrats, I still think my 2018 innovative idea for the Court has some merit. In view of the present day scenario, perhaps it could only be implemented in 2050!

9/26/20

Is it the coronavirus or something else that causes people in authority to make up rules for the good of society because “they know best?” 

The diktats concerning face  masks are a prime example of what can happen when certain people feel that they are absolutely in charge . . . you will do what I say, because I am in charge.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide mask mandate requiring pretty much everyone to wear a face covering when outside your home and near other people.

The CDPH Order requires people in California wear cloth face coverings in “high-risk situations,” which include: indoor public spaces, outdoor public spaces (when maintaining social distancing is not feasible), obtaining healthcare, using public transportation (including taxis and ride—share services), and engaging in work with members of the public. The Order exempts children under two years of age, persons who cannot wear a face covering due to a health issue.

Now, although I am not a pro-face mask person, I do understand that the wearing of face masks does provide comfort to those who are deathly afraid of catching the coronavirus. I am very doubtful that this type of mandate is constitutional, and I noticed that Joe Biden has quickly walked back his tough talk about commanding everyone to wear a mask, if he were to be elected.

I think that I have interpreted this mask mandate in a common sense way. Basically I wear a mask when I am in a situation where social distancing is not possible. I do not wear a mask in my car or in my house, or when taking out the garbage. If I am outside walking alone, I do not feel that a mask is called for, e.g. walking on the beach. (FYI: Yes, I have one ready, just in case a Karen comes walking by.)

If I were to be sitting in the stands at a football game, I would try to wear one – not so much because I think that masks do anything in outdoor settings, but “when in Rome.” If I was sitting with my family outdoors at a football game with no one within twenty feet in the stands, I would probably bite my tongue and put the stupid thing on . . . again “when in Rome”… but not because I thought it was doing any good.

If I were sitting in these same stands with no one near me, and I had asthma, I would not.

Now I freely admit that I am not familiar with the legality of mask diktats at middle school football games in Ohio. I am a very pro-Police individual, but was shocked when I viewed a video of a huge policeman, let’s arbitrarily call him, Ken Smith, harassing, then attempting to handcuff a 120 pound mother, and finally tasering the woman in the stands. . . all because she refused to wear a mask at an outdoor sporting event. Yes, I did say that she was tasered and subsequently arrested. This occurred in Logan, Ohio, and the video is posted on You tube. Supposedly she was arrested and tasered because she was “resisting arrest,” but clearly the whole incident was about her not wearing the face mask. 

Yes, she was resisting arrest, and in principle I do not agree with, or in any way encourage “resisting arrest.” Perhaps she could have been given a ticket for refusing to wear a mask at an outdoor football game. However, after watching the video, she did not attempt to pull a weapon on the burly police officer. As best I could tell she did not try to bite or spit on the officer. She did not attempt to hurt or injure the mammoth officer. Although there is no way of knowing 100%, it did not appear that she was high on either PCP or Fentanyl, as she was quietly sitting in the stands with probable family, possibly her mother and probably her children. As this time I do not believe that she was wanted on any felony charges. . . . yet she was tasered!

FYI: the arrested and tasered woman reportedly has asthma!

President Trump has said that is going to nominate a woman to be the next Supreme Court Justice. At this point there appears to be two front runners and two in the second tier. The two front runners are Amy Coney Barrett and Barbara Lagos.

In the second tier there is Joan Larsen and Allison Rushing.

From the WSJ:

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, 48 years old, was nominated by Mr. Trump to the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May 2017 and confirmed by the Senate that October in a 55-43 vote. A graduate of Notre Dame Law School, Judge Barrett clerked from 1998 to 1999 for Justice Antonin Scalia, then practiced law at a Washington, D.C., law firm before returning in 2002 to Notre Dame as a professor of constitutional law.

A Trump appointee, Judge Barbara Lagoa, 52 years old, has served on the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since December, after being confirmed by the Senate in a mostly bipartisan 80-15 vote. A Cuban-American and Miami native, Judge Lagoa served briefly on the Florida Supreme Court as the first Hispanic woman on the state’s high court. She also spent more than a dozen years as an intermediate appellate judge in Florida before being elevated by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. From 2003 to 2006, she worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in Miami.

From my perspective President Trump certainly likes all of these picks, but in the month before the election which of the top two picks could possibly enhance his prospects in November? The Dems are really po-ed that President Trump will undoubtedly replace their beloved liberal RBG with a conservative Justice. Based on the expected nasty confrontation that will occur during these confirmation hearings, my question is “who potentially will the Dems piss-off more?”

Let me ‘splain:

The nasty behavior of many Democratic senators during the Kavanaugh hearing more than likely influenced the 2018 midterm Senate elections. Now rationally one can also expect that the behavior of the Dems during the upcoming confirmation hearings will also be outlandish, so my question is, “which group will the Dems potentially offend more.”

Amy Coney Barrett is a fervent Catholic, and I think that it is reasonable to expect that her religious faith will be attacked. Likewise Barbara Lagos is Hispanic, more precisely Cuban American. Although I am not exactly sure how, the Dem senators will undoubtedly attack her also.

So from the perspective of the American voter, given that both of the front runners will be insulted, the insults to which candidate would be more advantageous for the President’s re-election? In other words would it be better for him if the Dems attack a Catholic or a Hispanic? Both of these groups constitute significant voter blocs – the Catholics nationally and the Hispanics, both nationally, and especially in the battleground state of Florida.

Yes! Yes! This SCOTUS pick should be best female candidate . . . however if the two top tier candidates are neck-and-neck, will the President allow the upcoming Dem insults influence his choice? (Might it be possible that the Dems will try to foil this strategy, and will insult neither? . . . “No!”)

The other day a friend of mine commented that he thought that Joe Biden has some early symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease. No he is not a neurologist, but has practiced medicine for more than forty-five years, and during that time has seen tens of thousands of patients. “How so?” I asked him. He responded, “Facial expression; confusion; and he walks a little funny.” I do not pretend to be up to date on the early symptoms of Parkinsonism, and from now on, especially during the debates, I will be keeping a close eye on Biden for possible clues as to his health status.

Many others are also concerned because of Biden’s unusual behavior, and his apparent lack of stamina.

“At no time in recent memory has a presidential nominee’s physical and mental health been more important than with Joe Biden,” Cornell Law School professor and media critic William A. Jacobson told Fox News.

“He often appears disoriented, and there is no pretense that he has the physical vigor to run for a second term should he be elected,” Jacobson said. “In a normal election, with the candidate on the campaign trail, the public could judge for itself but that is not possible because Biden is running a basement campaign. More than ever, the press needs to do its job and not act as protector of the Democrat nominee.”

Indeed the MSM do not appear to see or report on the obvious. Wassup with that?

As everyone is now aware, RBG died the other day after a long illness. I would have thought that Biden would have had his guns loaded, and would have been on the offensive. However the following day, he barely came out of his basement, and again on 9/22/20, he was done with his comments by 10 a.m. Wassup with that? This is supposed to be a presidential election, and Mr. Biden is spending more time in his basement than anywhere else. While at the same time, Trump is out on the campaign trail almost daily.

To me Joe Biden appears to be depressed. Why does someone have very little affect, and basically hide in his basement on most days, if he is not depressed? Why is someone running for President not out there campaigning? 

From my perspective there are only six basic possibilities:

1. He figures that he has the election in the bag, or at least that’s what his advisers tell him, and so keeping Joe hidden is merely a way of protecting his lead.
2. There is something physically wrong with him, and as a consequence he has no stamina and tires very easily. Correct me if I am wrong, but I have not seen the results of any comprehensive examination on Joe Biden for years. Wassup with that?  (After all, if he gets elected and then very soon after, his illness is “discovered” . . . well there is no proviso for a redo. If the American people got snookered – oh well, too bad.)
3. He is physically okay . . . old, but physically okay for his age, but his mental status is shaky. We are all aware that he is gaffe-prone, and the less opportunity he has to misspeak the better.
4. He is merely a Trojan horse for the ultra-liberals, who knew that an ultra-liberal like Sanders or Warren could not win in a general election.
5. Take a breath before you read this one . . . He is purposely trying to lose the election! Before you laugh and call me crazy,look at the evidence. Objectively he is not a strong candidate. He is an old, a very old candidate, and he is a “gaffe-machine.” Why would anybody choose a candidate like him? He chooses a running mate that is not likable, and who was so unpopular in the Democratic primaries that she had to drop out. She is only pseudo-African American, and cannot even help Mr. Biden win her home state, as California would go Democrat with Alfred E. Newman running as V.P. Why would the Dems choose such a loser as their VP candidate? I have no idea?
6. He is actually sharp as a tack, and is merely trying to make Trump underestimate him, so that he can shine in the debates. (No, I do not think that this is true, but I only included it for completeness.  Personally, I cannot wait for the debates.)

There are just too many things here that just do not make any sense. 

So again I say, “Wassup with that ?”