Islamic Hierarchy Should be the Target as Well as ISIS

 

Is Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL or al-Qaeda offshoot) honestly that horrific a threat and challenge that it should be treated as an individual threat needing a solution before any further assessment can be conducted? If you were to make this an inquiry of the United States State Department, they would answer in the affirmative and probably make Islamic State the sole terror threat requiring attention. Pose this same question to the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their answer would place Islamic State as the immediate threat but would follow that up with a litany of other threats hiding in the background, in the darkest of recesses. So, which assessment is the most accurate and which should be utilized to address future actions. Obviously the Pentagon assessment is more in depth while the State Department takes a mere cursory glance seeking the least invasive path and the least need for involvement having a minimal footprint. This demands further explanation more as to why the Pentagon explains a path which is far deeper and requiring greater invasive solutions and the State Department leaves most of the problem unaddressed and untouched. The reasons are simple and would be obvious to any observers. The Pentagon is funded by the width, depth and breadth of a threat and gains funding and importance through greater involvement. The State Department gains funds by having obscured threats which it can assign staff to investigate and report threats in such a manner as to allow them to linger, requiring greater inspections over the longest time frame. Thus any military assessment should be judged knowing their report will make the threat the greatest potential possible while State Department assessment should be realized to define the situation calling for minimal involvement in order to preserve the situational threat generating further investigations. The best path would more often than not be somewhere between the two assessments.

 

So, what do these realities have to do with Islamic State? A fair analogy would be somebody waking one morning feeling poorly and upon looking in the mirror they notice there are red blotches all over their face and further checking they find more such red blotches all over their bodies. Reacting to these skin lesions they make an appointment with a physician. The question becomes what type of physician they should call. The initial assessment is the patient has a skin condition so they might make an appointment to visit a Dermatologist and treat the skin ailment while ignoring the underlying disease. The result is the patient will remain ill and would need visit the dermatologist repeatedly while if they had visited an Internal Medicine Doctor they quite possibly would have been admitted to a hospital and undergo a more rigorous cure than they would receive from a Dermatologist but would also be cured. Simply put, if you have the measles you do not visit a dermatologist, you visit a doctor of Internal Medicine. The State Department is the Dermatologist and the Internal Medicine Physician would represent the Military. So, the military will present a harder path with the greatest potential challenges you will be presented with and some painful choices need to be made. The State Department provides for a simple and immediate repair of a situation while leaving the underlying problems churning away and no difficult choices would be necessitated. So, the path you choose will likely be somewhere between the two, which one you follow more closely will dictate the level of curative actions and their lasting effects.

 

Making war on Islamic State is a requirement of immediate urgency, President elect Donald Trump will need answer the riddle of how far does he wish to peel back the onion. A fully committed military campaign to destroy Islamic State presence in Syria and Iraq could be executed taking no longer than three or four months. The time it would take would depend on how ruthless and how close to barbarism the military forces will be permitted by their Rules of Engagement (ROE). The obvious problem with such tactic is that such a solution does little to permanently change the situation. When choosing civility while fighting barbarians, one makes leaders and financiers unaffected, they will just wait for the opportunity and start right up anew. The sponsors must be made to pay a price, even to threats on their lives, before anything will change. This was proven in all theaters of World War II where German leaders needed to be hunted down even to the last bunkers in Berlin and the Emperor of Japan had to be convinced the allies could utterly destroy his nation without losing any of their military forces. This has also been proven in the current “War on Terror” where we are treating the rash and ignoring the disease.

 

By now most Westerners realize the problems caused by terrorism and the threat posed by Islamic State. Where many fall down is in linking the two problems and realizing that these two problems though often unrelated directly, both have a root cause and any logistics, funding, know-how or other support for both are derived from the same pool of sponsors. The source for both terrorism and Islamic State come from the various wealthy and powerful governing entities throughout the nations of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) and the infrastructure put in place utilizing the tribal make-up of the society often pitting one tribe against another tribe in order to procure additional power and a broader area from which to operate. Should one trace the cash flowing into the coffers of Islamic State one would see a trend that the same monies also fund the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, al-Qaeda and other Sunni terror masters and their operations. Much of the funding originates in or by those close to the Saudi Royal family as well as graft skimming funds from government funding by Egyptians and other Sunni ruled nations supporting the Sunni, Muslim Brotherhood, forces worldwide. There also exists an extensive Shiite terror networks which is not quite as expansive but still a very real threat. These groups are financed, organized and run by the Iranian government and the Grand Ayatollah (Arabic:آية ‌الله العظمی) and Supreme Leader of Iran. The leadership of these terror forces controlled by Iran starts with the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) who incorporate the leadership of Hezballah and oft time Hamas as well. The reach by Iran is not as diffused as are the disparate Sunni terror forces. Much of the reason behind this is simply numbers. The Sunni make-up slightly over four-fifths of Muslims worldwide while the Shiites find themselves around a mere 17% of Muslims worldwide thus Shiite power structure by necessity must be more centralized and rigid while the Sunni can easily create anywhere from three to five separate groups.

 

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps IRGC

 

What people in the United States need know is that the current fighting between Islamic derived forces and the Western forces, particularly in and around the Mediterranean Sea is just the latest stage in the war with the Barbary Pirates. Truth be told, the European interests back to around 632 onto the current age have felt constant rumblings of discontent filled by dreams and desires to return to their ages of conquest and swallow Europe as they have tried before only to meet a standoff or complete defeat as was Andalusia, as was Spain. Much of the march of Islam colonizing the entirety of MENA has been accomplished by Sunni though there have been Shia heroes through the ages. Still, this fight to choose the ultimate ruler, the single Caliph who talks the talk but all are curious if one can be found who additionally walks the walk. Despite gaining a sizeable following and demanding he be recognized as Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi will not become the Caliph restoring the Caliphate as the requirement is a vast stretch of lands which are individually owned and most have real air power which would decimate any ground assault not possessing sufficient air cover, something which likely plagues al-Baghdadi day and night and he likely dreams of having sufficient fighters and the people to launch adequate air support. The Arab and Islamic worlds are far too tribal and fragmented each refusing to particularly perform feats of great valor and have somebody outside your team ending up with all of the glory. The tribal overriding thought power need be abandoned should Islam ever desire to become great again and have yet a second sense of glory and accomplishment. Such an accomplishment will take a true Caliph, one such as the last Imam, the one who leads the final conquests leading to an Islamic World running under Sharia, the Islamic Code of Laws as preached by Mohammad and the original force.

 

Expansion of Islam Across MENA and into Europe before Ottoman Rule

 

There are realities which must be faced and faced immediately. Before there can be progress the new President already has a large pair of conflagrations he need work out a solution which will probably require a fair number of military service personnel. A President Trump must use all the forces at his disposal in order to remove Islamic State from the picture. After this has been accomplished the next task will be forming a governance or set of governances such that Libya becomes a normative entity capable of trade with the world which will bring wealth to these governing bodies and the people as well. Once Libya has been resolved and returned to viability it will become time to deal with Russia and do similar for Syria. Russia will press for the entire area be returned to Bashir al-Assad while the remaining “rebel” forces will protest loudly and just as vehemently as they have all along. Meanwhile, a refuge for the Kurdish population will necessarily be needed while Turkey and her President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, are edging towards conquest and taking lands formerly belonging to both Syria, a lifelong enemy, and Iraq, whose Saddam Hussein had stashed thousands of barrels of nerve agent and other chemical and nuclear weaponry in an attempt to evade justice. Erdoğan’s hopes and dreams of reestablishing the Ottoman Empire will be muted. Once again all these solutions do little to nothing about remedies for the tribal alliances and primitive culture which keeps the nations of MENA suffering while other nations quite distant as in the Horn of Africa and as far east as Pakistan and Afghanistan are all experiencing national traumas from forces at the tribal area. These problems were exasperated by the imposition of the Sikes-Picot Agreement of 1916 which set arbitrary borders, making self-rule all but impossible. Sikes-Picot ignored tribal alliances and clan structures splitting these entities between three nations in some cases and two at others which simply added wood to the fire. Sikes-Picot also redrew the maps of Eastern Europe breaking up the Austria-Hungarian Empire. All of this eventually led to World War II and has set in motion the potential for a third shooting war, World War III. The problem is amplified with the knowledge that Eastern Europe is also facing economic distress along with threats from Russia to incorporate them back under soviet style land and they wish to remain free.

 

These areas are powder kegs just waiting for the fire from a mistakenly tossed match or misread of any situation to have the entirety of these places to sheepishly huddle under Russian wings. The United States lack of influence throughout the MENA area as well as the entirety of the globe for the last eight years has left foreign policy in such turmoil as to provide room for threats from all sides and levels. The world, and the United States and allies in particular, are facing an invigorated Russia, a China willing to manufacture Islands in order to further their goal of taking certain Islands which they claim as have other nations. These threats are backed by a new and proficient fleet China is building, a worthy blue-water fleet. Add to this the dual threat of a nuclear armed North Korea who has already developed and tested a number of nuclear warheads and appears to be attempting to manufacture an EMP device to knock out the power grid in North America thus neutering the United States military and causing widespread death. Along with North Korea we also will be facing a nuclear armed Iran who has the missiles with advanced guidance and range capabilities with which to deliver them. Once Iran is confirmed to have nuclear weapons one can safely assume that Saudi Arabia will call in their markers for their financing of the Pakistani bomb thus instantly becoming a nuclear armed nation as well. After this the proliferation across all of MENA will likely occur with blinding speed. From that point the rest of the world will be rapidly acquiring nuclear weapons and from there to annihilation of the human race is a short trip and it all might take place in a blink of an eye. It is truly sobering realizing how so very close we are from slipping beyond the cusp into a reality even Hollywood was unable to imitate believably.

 

The race now is to educate and bring the third world somewhere even with the advanced world. By this we mean to teach them from our mistakes such that the world benefits. These newly acquired nuclear capabilities must be impressed not to use them for the sake of humanity. At the same time the world need share its many secrets and the desire to go into space beyond just the solar system but to other star systems even beyond our cluster setting out to truly become a space-born people. That need be our goal if we plan on being a long lived species. I guess we will soon know if the Earth will become the origin of a truly enlightened space based society or will the Earth need await the next great catastrophe to rid it of a stagnant humanity so another intelligence reaches senescence and go off into space and be the long lived Earth born species.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

Iran Warns Trump to Obey Nuclear Deal While Breaking Deal Themselves

 

Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, fired the initial salvo at Trump insisting, “We are not much concerned about the statements made by Trump’s advisers. The US president-elect Donald Trump cannot neglect the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and it has to abide by.” This has been further backed by senior officials in Tehran who have dismissed the recent election of Donald Trump and warned his incoming administration against taking a firmer stance against the Islamic Republic’s continued military buildup. All of this bluster was thrown to cloud the air and muddy the waters in an attempt to draw the President Elect into a battle of words while they make deals with the Russians and seek deals with China in breach of the agreement themselves. Of course Iran has countered that all of their weapons systems purchases have been for a defensive force. In the meantime Iran is seeking to purchase T-90 series tanks, computer guided artillery systems and the most advanced modern fighter aircraft from Moscow and are looking to Moscow and Beijing to keep Iran armed with the most advanced weapons systems for the foreseeable future. The immediate talks with Russia are for an arms deal costing in the neighborhood of ten billion, with a ‘B’, dollars. This all comes on the heels of acknowledgement by Obama Administration sources of payment of additional tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars which the media was assured were not to be used for terror operations or weapons purchases. Apparently these purchases must be being paid for with billions of dollars other than the billions just admitted to having been sent and from the billions of dollars which accompanied the main nuclear deal or the billions of dollars from the cancelled arms deal from the Carter Administration where President Obama condoned and approved the payment of those funds from the Shah’s times plus all the interest and penalties decided as mitigation by some third party, we believe it must have been the United Nations. There have been so many separate and disparate payments to Iran in the past year that it is difficult keeping up a running tally but we figure the amount has to be approaching if not passing one trillion dollars. All that matters is that the United States is fully funding the arming of Iran making them the big bad bully of the Middle East and potentially beyond.

 

Security Council Resolution 2231 restricts Iran to purchasing solely defensive weapons; specifically it bans the sale of “battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, and warships amongst other weapons of a similar nature. These purchases being negotiated with Russia might easily be seen as contradicting the restrictions of the United Nations Resolution but then any deal need be voted upon for approval by the Security Council where the United States could potentially use their veto power to theoretically block any such sale. Is it that we are just so untrusting and jaded by all things Iran that should such a deal pass before the Security Council in the final months of the Obama Presidency that Ambassador Powers will be instructed to simply abstain. One would hope that there would be a stoppage of such a sale to Iran but as long as the deal seeks approval before the coming Inauguration Day this January, it will probably be permitted to pass by unopposed and such will not likely draw any rebuke or even reporting by most if not all of the media. All one need do for proof is look at all the front page top of the fold coverage these arms negotiation are receiving from the paper of record, the New York Times, or any of their surrogates found in almost every major city. If you are thinking you must have missed that day, fear not, so did our intrepid reporters for these exalted journals of record. The story if being covered has thus far been buried well inside if reported upon at all. We would not have known, though we have long suspected, unless we had received a report in our e-mails from one of our sources. Of course the reality is that whether or not the Security Council approves such a sale of whether or not the United States uses their veto power, nothing is going to be heeded which comes between Russia and the cash for their bare treasury or the Iranians and their desired military equipment. We cannot even expect the delay such as was the result of opposition to the sale of the S-300 Series Anti-Aircraft Batteries replete with a stock of missiles beyond those needed to arm the system so Iran has a reserve and fully capable deployment of radar vehicles which lie at the heart of the system. The current deal claims a four year wait for delivery but one can assume the armor and artillery will be transported as soon as a deliverable number has been reached and the deal will easily span the four years with the systems initially arriving with a trickle which after two years would have become a torrent.

 

T-90 Series Main Battle Tank

 

Even should the deal be reached after Inauguration Day, as noted above, there will be no means of preventing these deliveries and purchases being consummated as Iran and Russia share a border as well as the Caspian Sea such that there are various means for delivery. Even President elect Trump would not risk a war with the Russians just to prevent the early delivery of arms which is questionable under Security Council Resolution thus Iran will receive the arms as they become available and Russia will pocket ten billion dollars. The particular fighter jet the Russians are offering is the Sukhoi Su-30SM multi-role fighter jets. According to the Russian TASS news services, Viktor Ozerov, head of the defense and security committee in the Russian upper house of parliament, stated, “These negotiations are being carried out, the road has been paved. The order book, discussed today, [meets] the needs of Tehran and amounts to some ten billion dollars.” He further intimated that these deals would not be a one-time delivery, but a series of transfers over a number of years and these arms deals would respect a U.N. moratorium on Iran obtaining offensive weapons which is in place until October 2020, thus Moscow would need to seek and obtain approval from the U.N. Security Council.

 

Su-30MK Multirole Fighter Aircraft

 

This information about arms deals and the intention by Russia to maintain a level of modern warfare equipment within the Iranian military is unsurprising considering their close cooperation in keeping Bashir al-Assad not only alive but as a definite threat to regain control of much if not all of Syria as it was before the Arab Spring turned into an Arab Winter and Syria was turned into a multi-front killing fields where the major brunt of the fighting has impacted the civilians. This has led to a refugee flood into Europe and the rest of the Western World wherever these refugees could gain entry. These people fleeing the violence in Syria ended up representing at best half of the refugees with the remainder arriving from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey, Nigeria, Kenya, the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Eritrea ,,,) and other impoverished and undeveloped nations within MENA (Middle East and North Africa) nations. Many of the refugees are men of fighting ages between fourteen and forty-plus fleeing the fighting in order to avoid being drafted and impressed into serving in any one of the terror armies. There have been reports that amongst the refugees is a secreted army from the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, Hezballah, IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) and other terror entities for the purpose of organizing terror cells, training them and unleashing Jihad throughout the Western World. These infiltrators are intended to set up theaters of operations and work together and plan simultaneous strikes such that anti-terror forces will be stretched thin and thus more easily out gunned and facing threats beyond their training levels and abilities will allow their providing adequate protection for the public. Their next step will be to step up such attacks that liberties and freedoms will need to be curtailed, or at least this is what the governing bodies will tell the people. Once this starts there is no stopping these nations becoming police states run by strong leaders who will suspend normal government functions with martial law proclaimed and fascist governance arriving throughout the West. This is a large part of the call by President elect Donald Trump to stop Muslim immigration until a proper vetting process can be implemented and put in place. Despite the hysterical reporting by the mainstream media, Trump is not xenophobic nor is he anti-Muslim; he simply desires for the refugees who desire to stream into the United States are who they claim and not terrorist pawns, organizers, trainers and experts at varied skills such as bomb making. The backing of the Assad regime by Iran was problematic but with Russia opposing the terrorists supported thus far by the States there is a need for dialog and compromises to be reached and implemented. Add in Turkey and the desires of Erdogan to decimate the Kurdish people and claiming the northern half of Syria and much of Iraq including Aleppo and Mosul and Turkish troops having already entered and infiltrated both Syrian and Iraqi territories and you have the perfect storm for a Russia-NATO war as Turkey is a NATO member state and the United States is already supporting a side which is fighting against the Assad regime and its remnants of the Syrian military, Iraq, Hezballah and, most of all, Russia. This makes for a potentially dicey situation with multiple fronts which could drag the West against Russia reigniting the tensions of the Cold War.

 

The final interest which need play its hand carefully but still with finesse and some brazen boldness is Israel. The news as far as Israel is concerned has its beneficial components and its components which are to her detriment. So as to end on an upbeat theme, let’s simply get the bad news out of the way. The biggest problem is the fact that Iran has transgressed the nuclear agreement at every turn and is now prepared to buy themselves a completely modern offensive styled military force. The planned aircraft are to include Ilyushin Il-78 four-engine aerial refueling tanker from Russia along with the longer ranged Su-30SM, which already could have flown the roundtrip necessary to launch an attack on Israel and have fifteen minutes loitering time all without refueling. With refueling capability, the range of these multi-use jet fighters has become anywhere on the globe. Add the assistance in their nuclear research received from North Korea in exchange for missile technology, China in order to counterbalance the power of the United States by adding a new threat on the horizon and by Russia for similar reasons as China plus the cash-flow so needed now by the Russian economy and government and there will be no preventing the full rearming of Iran and its hegemonic designs. Israel ends up with a heavily armed foe who is currently engaged in a brutal war right on the border with Israel’s Golan Heights which overlook southwestern Syria including Damascus. Additionally, Iran arms and trains Hezballah and has in the past provided arms for Hamas in Gaza including longer ranged rockets which can reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The rockets and missiles provided Hezballah are an even greater threat as there are estimated some one-hundred to hundred-fifty thousand rockets and missiles of varying ranges and payloads. The largest of these carry two thousand pound warheads and are capable of carrying a nuclear payload and can reach any point in Israel including the southern port of Eilat all from well within Lebanon. The next war initiated by Hezballah will not be a limited engagement as the past wars were fought. Because of this additional firepower capable of crippling Israel both financially and in lost souls with the second being the greater blow, Israel will be forced to counter-attack with virtually everything she has in order to prevent a second barrage from correcting for any misses thus all but guaranteeing Israel pay dearly for not mitigating this known situation. What is amazing is that there are more missiles and rockets pointed at Israel than any other nation and the count is not even close. If one were to add to the Hezballah numbers the rockets stashed in Hamas and the numbers which are hidden in the areas ruled by the Palestinian Authority plus Iran and it might be reaching a total near or higher than two hundred thousands. Being the first most targeted nation on earth is not exactly the number one rating Israel strives for, nor is it at all desirous; she is just the result of belligerence and hatreds of the nations in her neighborhood. Add modern Russian equipment for the Iranian military as well as their special IRGC troops whose responsibility is to export the Iranian revolution throughout the world, we will see increased terrorism and even revolutions in Northern Africa. Israel even gets special targeting from the IRGC which includes a special force called the “al-Quds Force” which trains exclusively to attack and take Jerusalem and hold especially the Temple Mount and Kotel denying Jews access to their holy sites in their capital city of Jerusalem. Hezballah, al-Quds Force, IRGC, Syrian open war zone, Hamas, Islamic State, Iran and now being backed, trained and armed by Russia and China all paid for by the United States with a few extra tens and hundreds of millions of dollars and the Obama Presidency still having a little over two months to go, who knows what mischief they can get into and how much of such will be placing Israel in a tighter and tighter spot which will only increase the possibility for war. History has proven that when a nation arms up and modernizes their military and triples their credible force projection, these new guns and jets and missiles and everything else possibly including as many as twenty deliverable nuclear devices and Iran just sitting on all that hardware just does not fill me with confidence in the status-quo. There have been rumors of an Israeli defensive system which will make most of rocketry and missile technology obsolete and also scores excellent kill ratios on even the finest of the latest eccentric missile trajectory technology. Let us pray that they never be required to be used and may the words of Isaiah come true in our day and in a near time and the world reach the point which truly calls the Messiah to Jerusalem where they will set things as Hashem has decided.

 

And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Finally It is Your Turn to Speak, So Speak Loud and Clear

 

After over a year of he said, she said, they said, the time is here for the only opinion that matters. It is the time that you the voters will say and then it should be settled and the world will hear your answer; or will they? There are those Liberals who in their holier than thou selective memories claim that Donald Trump is the only candidate to claim that the election system can be gamed. Apparently the cries of “Selected, not elected,” over the 2000 election of George W. Bush and the Florida hanging chads recounts where there were so many challenges and recounts that all the holes ended up pushed through on some ballots making them void. The same cries were heard four years later over Ohio and Barack Obama claimed before Election Day that should he not win it could only be through voter fraud, so that should be all for claiming that Donald Trump is entering new areas of calling into question the validity of the system. Hillary Clinton has claimed that the Russians are going to steal the election for Trump because Putin is convinced that Trump would be the easier pushover and more willing to work with Russia than Hillary would be. Actually the only commentary attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin which has any shred of validity was his fears that Hillary Clinton being elected threatened starting next world war. It matters little tomorrow on this important but relatively ignored subject as the first order of business is to get past the initial casting of ballots and their initial counting.

 

Hillary Clinton – Vladimir Putin – Donald Trump

 

That reported initial registration of election results may actually decide the victor and do so completely overwhelmingly that there would be no viable means of challenging the results. Either way, this would be a result which would best serve the American people and ultimately the world. A smooth, court free, uncontested election will always bring the smoothest of transitions. That would be the most preferable means to transfer power especially in this election whose process and integrity has proven so acrimonious and has produced challenges to the system even before the Election Day voting has begun. There has been complaints of an uneven playing field in the media from both camps while there have been claims of Russian interference favoring one side, the election of Trump; while raising claims the entire Wikileaks e-mail stories have been a Russian ruse and those claimed e-mails were never sent nor crossed that server nor had Ms. Clinton broken any law or committed any questionable actions which might have compromised the national security. This claim has gone well beyond the claim that Hillary Clinton was cleared from suspicions to the entire e-mail investigation was chasing after a Russian fabricated ploy to assist electing their pawn, their Manchurian Candidate who would do Putin’s bidding, Donald Trump. One can only wonder what comes next.

 

Then there are the polling numbers. This election has witnessed swings in the polling which often appeared to precede certain critical events and news stories throughout the campaign. The most recent came the last week of the election where the Clinton lead all but disappeared bringing Trump within striking distance and this slide arrived a full four days before FBI Director Comey reporting his reopening the e-mail investigation as New York investigators looking into child sexual misconduct revealed the existence of thousands of backed-up copies for the communications coming in and out of the office of close Clinton aide and confidant (if anyone can be considered to be that close and intimate with Hillary) Huma Abedin. These records were found on Huma Abedin’s estranged (and downright strange) husband, disgraced former Representative Anthony Weiner’s laptop computer which was seized as part of the New York police investigation of his sexting an underage girl. This will get very messy.

 

Here are some rumors which have surfaced as a result of this investigation and how it will affect the e-mail scandal investigation. These back-ups will definitively prove that Hillary Clinton, along with top aide Huma Abedin, acted loose and careless with Top Secret and other highly classified and sensitive information, e-mails, documents, files and reports. There will be overwhelming evidence that such compromised information had been shared or allowed access by people without the proper clearances, Anthony Weiner for one and Clinton Philippine housekeeper Marina Santos for another who was indicated to have printed out such intelligence and information while working at Clinton’s house in Washington, D.C. Then there appear to be references to actions and fetishes in which others outside the Clinton camp, though they may not be spared once the onion has been completely unraveled, who may have committed and continue such acts which would warrant ethics investigations at the very least and criminal investigations in the worst case scenarios. The full extent will not be known nor revealed for quite some time though some people may fall well before the investigation reaches its final conclusion. Some of this information has been verified by trusted people.

 

The one item in all of this we would love to see brought into the light is the uranium deal where it resulted in Russia gaining the mineral rights to one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. One of the crucial signings of approval came from the State Department which was under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at that time. Russia gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013 and each step of the way there did result in a flow of cash to the Clinton Foundation. Further, a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin paid former President Bill Clinton $500,000 for a speech in Moscow. This was the bank which was promoting Uranium One stock and stood to make sizeable profits in the process. It was Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining financier, who orchestrated his first big uranium deal which initiated these transactions and which was completed with Mr. Clinton at his side. The two men had traveled to the meeting in Almaty, Kazakhstan in Mr. Giustra’s private jet. This deal was a major victory for UrAsia, Mr. Giustra’s then company which soon saw its future brighten significantly when it merged with Uranium One, a South African company with assets in Africa and Australia. Uranium One was controlled by UrAsia investors which included Ian Telfer, a Canadian who later became chairman and Mr. Giustra, whose personal stake in the deal was estimated at about $45 million. Mr. Giustra donated $31.3 million to the Clinton Foundation in or around the months following the Kazakhstan mining deal. It also turns out that Ian Telfer made a $2.35 million contribution to the Clinton Foundation. More detailed information can be read showing deep involvement of both Bill and Hillary Clinton in the entire train of events and includes State Department approvals and one could say accommodations all in a New York Times article. A full disclosure of how twenty percent of United States mined uranium is sold to Russia by a Canadian friend of the Clintons receiving every necessary accommodation and authorization while Hillary was Secretary of State and known to be able to pressure other Cabinet Secretaries to follow her lead in providing permissions and licenses all while the involved Canadians are contributing millions upon millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. Something here just does not figure and we would bet there are even higher and bigger fish to catch in this little pond, really big fish.

 

Meanwhile, tomorrow the American people will speak. We can expect, if this is at all even close, for the losing campaign to kick off the challenges followed soon behind by the winning party just to assure they are not excluded from the efforts to gain electoral votes. There may even be a challenge to the integrity and manner in which the Electoral College is arranged such that it can oppose the winner of the popular vote. We could hear that tired complaint about how Wyoming voters are way over-represented when compared to California or New York thus making those residing in such populous states being denied equal representation. This complaint has been answered ad-nausea pointing out that this was the actual design and is functioning such that, at least for the Presidency the smaller states get privileged representation as a barrier against pure democracy mob rule. This is a result of the equality the states enjoy in the Senate, so live with it. Of course if the losing side did not carry lonely and most sparsely populated Wyoming, then this argument makes perfect sense to those on that end of the Electoral College. Further claims will be filed in every state where the margin of the loss was under 5%, even 10% with both contesting as many as possible in order to topple the initially announced winner or to retain said position. Who knows what court challenges and other lawsuits will be filed but the process for validation will likely take the United States well into Thursday before the candidate at the wrong end of the vote starts to run out of options, but they have lawyers to address this until the Supreme Court ends the misery, which with a four-four split with one open position left by the passing of Justice Anthony Scalia this past February, the court may not be of much assistance.

 

We will see what the American people desire and the level of their interest by the percentage of eligible voters who actually vote. This is something we have always been troubled about. The President who should represent all the people is often only receiving one-third of the potential votes which could have voted and less when including potential to be registered voters. The math is sickeningly easy to do but a touch more difficult to explain. First we need to start with the adult population over eighteen which numbers at approximately 236,000,000 out of the approximately 309,000,000; or around two-thirds. This is the entirety of Americans legally eligible to vote give or take a million. Of these only 70% on average are registered to vote and a mere 60% actually vote. These results in only 42% of eligible voters actually vote in an election. We can safely claim that no more than 45% of voters actually do vote and it is considered that taking 55% of the vote represents winning in a landslide thus a big winner receives a mere 24¾% of the total number of people who meet the requirements for voting (representative graph by age group below). It is true, candidates need only persuade one-fourth of people eligible to vote in order to win, providing it is the right one-fourth.

 

Graph by Age Representing
Voter Registration and
Activity and Apathy

 

Beyond the Cusp