Election Leaves Need for Safe Spaces

 

This election of Donald Trump to be the next President of the United States has really stressed me out. I am reeling and in dire need of a series of safe spaces in near every place which I visit. I go get coffee at my usual place and there it is in my face, Donald Trump will be President come January 20, 2017. Dinner out, more Trump is pushed in my face. Where are my safe spaces like all those lucky college children have access to while their professors cancel exams and hold weep-ins instead of lectures. Even going to the grocery store and you pass the newsstand where you are reminded about President elect Trump and all that entails and there will always be somebody who just has to discuss the election and if unlucky the checkout person who might just decide to want to speak about the election knowing I blog on politics. There is absolutely no way to run to a safe place when at the checkout counters. One cannot escape waiters, especially those who know you blog politics, from their asking your take on Donald Trump. Where are my safe spaces from these people who insist on knowing what my advice is to survive the coming apocalypse known as the Trump Presidency? Where do I go to escape these hurt feeling leftists who automatically believe because I appear intelligent (and who knows, I might actually be intelligent, but that is not for me to claim) I must be appalled by Trump winning the election. Honestly, we who actually are glad that Trump won need safe places from these leftists who believe that Trump won without anybody actually supporting his candidacy. They even believe that there cannot be anybody in their lives who might support Trump. Then, lastly, why am I being so silly as everybody knows that supporters of Trump are not allowed in safe places. Trump supporters are evil and must be shrieked at in a fashion eerily resembling the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

 

Then there are the ongoing horrors on the faces when these mind-numbed people finally figure out the bored and fed up look on your face is not your traumatized look due to Trump being elected but your growing impatience with people assuming you could never have supported such a person. Funny, that is how I feel about people who voted for Hillary Clinton. These infantile people think that if they continually bombard you with question on how you can explain how each appointee can be explained or even pretend to have any experience which would qualify them for each position. Really? Like how can a retired general who commanded military intelligence could ever be considered qualified to be security advisor since he did not take the right elective courses, attend Columbia, Harvard or Yale, and obviously does not possess the sensitivity to feel the right direction and how to softly apply American presence in such a manner as to not upset any snowflakes who are currently coloring books, playing with play-dough, cuddling puppies and sipping herbal teas hoping to continue at these projects until somebody sensitive is elected to the Presidency.

 

There has to be a way to permit those so taken out-of-sorts by a simple election not agreeing with their perceived correct choice, to opt out of any future election. As their ability to understand any differing opinion than their own is to opt out of any activity within the real world and allow them to continue with their puppy cuddling, coloring-book coloring, tea sipping and joint primal screaming sessions insulated from the real world so it does not hurt them and their influence does not harm the rest of us. There are those who chose Hillary Clinton for actual reasoning and who can actually explain why they did so and also explain why the idea of a President Trump is troubling to them rather than simply repeating the accusations of Trump is a racist, hater, idiot, fascist, not nice, evil, the devil, scary or any of any number of one to three word slogans which can be seen on the vast majority of protest signs. Mind you, the signs with the big red hearts followed by Trumps Hate or Love Trumps Hate are so intelligent except how do they apply to the election of Donald Trump? Are they implying that Love is Trump or that Trump Hates or are they simply using a phrase they saw and thought was like way kewl and just so smart that it had to be the thing. Bad news for these brilliant minds, it is absolutely meaningless as we all wish that Love Trumps Hate and do not see where that implies anything about the President elect except that the word Trumps contains the letters T-R-U-M-P in the sign and thus might imply something about the President elect, but sorry, it doesn’t really mean anything obvious and definitely that Trump Hates as the chant which has accompanied these signs implies. Signs are supposed to be intuitively obvious and not confusing or vague as you are conveying a message and not a trite saying which everybody would love to actually describe an actual truth in life. We all hope that Love (or big heart) Trumps Hate but we do not automatically equate that with Trump Hates as we do not just take the last words from the sign and move the ‘s’ from Trump to hate and feel so smug and smart.

 

Safe Space with Puppy Cuddle

 

Now here is some advice for these people who are all bent and forlorn. Start looking for a candidate who can garner the support of more people than Hillary Clinton was capable of snaring. Hint, Elizabeth Warren might be a better candidate as would Bernie but they are both very extreme in their beliefs and many Americans do not share their beliefs. Many Americans do not agree with everything Trump has said but many believed that the one thing Donald Trump would be capable of doing is choosing solid and qualified people to advise him and be responsible for the different areas and Cabinet posts. Work to find candidates for position less lofty than President and see if during the next elections you can win back the House of Representatives or the Senate and then work with a President Trump to assist in the recovery necessary in both the economy and in the United States international standing. Democrats should be seen as desiring a better America rather than striving for an extremist agenda which does not function, and candidates who believe the United States is a necessary force for good and what is right in the world and forges a greater peace. The exit from the world over the past eight years or so has brought disaster down on many parts of the world including many allies in Europe, Asia, Africa and elsewhere. Work toward a constructive presence and not simply choose to find reasons to tear the nation apart and complain that things are not going just as you desire because you need to take effort and compromise in order to make friends and win elections. Ideologues usually find their way difficult and opposition strong while those willing to listen to others and work together accomplish far more. The last though, let us all work to make a President Trump as successful taking America forward and improving all our lives and making the United States important again as when America acts with means which prove important, the world usually wins. America has been one of the greatest forces for good and it would be horrific if America ever became a force for evil, and Donald Trump does not desire an evil future for America no matter what you may have heard. At least wait and see what he does and judge him on his actions and policies and not on hearsay from people who refuse to even grant the man any chance to prove he is not the bringer of the Apocalypse.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

Media Suddenly Discovers Dastardly Destruction Everywhere

 

With the election victory by Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence the media has discovered numerous pressing situations bordering on the brink of catastrophes. Suddenly Syria has become a conundrum of crushing confrontations waiting for the President elect while the current resident of the White House faced much lesser problems and addressing this would be asking a bit much. Oddly enough they also realized that Iraq is torn with ethnic strife as well as having much of its territory either occupied or threatened by the Islamic State. They also found that the Islamic State is operating as they please in Syria. Yemen is in the midst of a civil war and threatens a vital waterway at the south end of the Red Sea called the Bab-el-Mandeb. Saudi Arabia and Egypt have split with Egypt now aligning with Russia and Bashir al-Assad while Saudi Arabia continues to fight the Yemen Houthi rebels who are backed by Iran. The Saudis are also backing terrorist groups fighting Bashir al-Assad and some suspect they are knowingly funding and arming the Islamic State through alternate avenues. Turkey’s Erdogan appears to have suddenly gone rogue demanding immediate answers for Turkey’s admittance to the European Union (EU) one day and threatening to turn away any offer from the EU and consider joining the joint trading group organized by Russia and China called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). There are warring tribal groups contending with terrorist groups and crime families all vying for control of their slice of what was Libya. The Sudan and South Sudan are still fighting and there is a civil war of sorts in South Sudan adding to the confusion. There are terrorists plaguing Nigeria and even Europe is being overrun. Their prognosis is that the election of Donald Trump has caused the nations of the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) to explode suddenly and fiercely into frenzied destruction and fighting breaking out everywhere. Additionally, Russia is protecting their ports in Syria, namely in Latakia, and thus also protecting Bashir al-Assad who is ever so slowly regaining control of Syria one costly meter at a time. Wait; Russia has use of a port in the Mediterranean Sea, this is big. Oh how simple things would have stayed had only the voters in the United States had chosen wisely and elected Hillary Clinton.

 

The sudden awakening of the mainstream media to the problems throughout MENA states and beyond is almost amusing. Anyone reading news services from these effected regions have known and spoken with furrowed brows and stern hard faces often using terse terms describing ongoing events which continue to spin further and further out of control. Many have laid the problems at the feet of fecklessness in the foreign policies of the United States over the past decade emphasizing the retreat and resentment at being abandoned left to the scoundrels and other threats without any hope of rescue from those they had believed were their ally and eternal friend. As long as the United States did not have even a dog in the fight, and we mean literally not even a dog, let alone manpower or military forces, these traumatic conflagrations were unimportant as far as the media was concerned. The White House ignored these problems while making the one-off mention brushing aside concerns as if they were nothing more than a hiccup on the timeline of history as the White House was making it. The White House and especially President Obama and his Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry along with Samantha Powers and Susan Rice, the pair were Presidential Security Advisor and Ambassador to the United Nations and then switched positions a while after Benghazi, have all painted the Middle East as there being a situation in Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian problem and if only Israel would make nice and completely surrender to the Palestinians then miraculously Syria would become peaceful overnight as would any other disturbance anywhere in the world. It is as if the only actual disturbance in the force is Israel, so does that make Israel Yoda? Seriously, the Obama White House position has been that Israel causes unrest throughout the Middle East and beyond and it is the Jews residing beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines on lands gained in a defensive war started by Egypt and Syria and joined on day two by Jordan despite pleading from Israel for their remaining neutral. This Jordanian attack led to Israel liberating Judea and Samaria from Jordan’s illegal occupation for nineteen years including half of Jerusalem.

 

Had Syria and Egypt attacked any other nation in the world and had Jordan joined on the second day and, for example let us say they attacked Peru; if Peru in that war had gained the lands of Judea and Samaria, they would have been allowed to retain the lands and even push any non-Peruvians off the lands with minimal complaint from the world. The problem is they did not attack Peru but instead they attacked Israel. There is an effort initiated by the British when they saw that allowing the formation of the Jewish State was going to upset the Arabs they decided to do whatever they were able to prevent Israel from ever coming to fruition. They could do this as they controlled the Mandate for the geographic area called Palestine, a name derived from the Roman name for the area of southern Syria, Syria Palaestina.

 

 

The British after World War I continued to import Arabs to reside between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea with ample assistance from the Arab League and surrounding Arab nations from as far as Algeria though largely from the Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and even Turkey. This kept the Jewish population below fifty-percent thus never quite fulfilling the requirement of being capable of ruling a nation. In the aftermath of World War II the British had lost their taste for empire and simply wanted to leave the Middle East and particularly the area which was to become Israel. Ever since the British leaving and Israel being founded there have been numerous studies which have shown how the Arab world has designs to be rid of the Jewish State and how often the European nations are supportive of the Arab efforts as though they would love for Israel to fail, they do not have the will to cause such in any manner other than indirectly. Do not misunderstand as the Europeans gladly enrich their lives with the discoveries and inventions from Israeli sources and even have utilized some such as instant messenger programs to support the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanction Israel) Movement and other injurious acts.

 

Denouncing Israel in the United Nations General Assembly and throughout the various agencies which often act in injurious ways such as when recently UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) ruled that the Temple Mount and surrounding areas have no historical ties to the Jews or Judaism which is a manner of denying the existence of the First and Second Temples and close to two-thousand years of Israelite and Jewish history. And UNESCO comes in a poor second when it comes to denunciations of Israel where the UNHRC (United Nations Human Rights Council) who have denounced Israel in virtually every meeting for the past five years. The General Assemble also has a poor record though there has recently been some small headway with Israel sponsoring resolutions which was passed by a vote of 129-30-8 to set up technical training, global entrepreneurship and sharing of technologic systems through assistance efforts where often Israel and other developed nations share technological advancements in areas such as agriculture and power generation assisting these developing nations making greater and stronger strides toward a bright future.

 

Needless to point out that all these problems, wars, conflagrations and turmoil have existed for much of the past decade and is not a reaction where the world all but exploded because of the election of Donald Trump. We can also predict some of the big news stories and special editions where a story is expounded and enlarged all passed off as news. There will be all sorts of new findings about the rampant homelessness and how people are feeling helpless and cannot seem to find any assistance for their plight. The mentally challenged living on American city streets not receiving their medications and suffering because of the difficulty in receiving proper care will be another feature story, multi-part most likely running for a week or for four straight Sunday night prime time. Unemployment stories will be big initially and the people who are now not considered to be seeking work as their unemployment insurance ran out and they have been unemployed over one year thus are not part of the computations, well, the media will now use a newer and more accurate definition which they will mention softly and in passing once and then count people who have not held a job up to five years, maybe a decade. There will be heartbreaking stories of youths dropping out of school and the United States will have a drug problem once again. There will be heart-wrenching profiles of people being deported for being illegally in the country whether that be overstaying a student visa because you found a good job and who wants to return to the Ukraine about now. There will be stories about how families are on the verge of being broken up as one or any number of the family are here illegally. Many of these stories will be about people who are using the system to press their particular case and many will remain and become legal citizens within a decade, but while they are uncertain their stories play oh so well. Let us leave you with what you may find to be an unbelievably astounding fact; President Obama has deported more people than any previous President.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Barack Obama’s Wild Search for Any Legacy

 

President Barack Obama entered office with even a great number of Europeans having sky high hopes for his future. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize largely due to his soaring rhetoric describing his desires and designs for a world blanketed in peace rather than strife, free of nuclear weapons rather than bristling with them, shared bounty benefitting all replacing areas torn by hunger and want, and his fresh message promising hope replacing despair. There appeared to be other areas of the world which also caught Obamaitis, a feeling of great hope due to dulcet tones of rhythmic rhymes and rhetoric promising the end of deprivation and the opening for all a grand cornucopia providing great giving filling the world with divine satisfactions and serenity, comforts and calm, lullabies and love. The world had to be at the leading edge of the Age of Aquarius.

 

 

This expectation of greatness and having found the leader for the new century who would wipe away all the old and stodgy ideas which presumably underlined the policies and failings of his predecessor, George W. Bush led to the reelection as if the expectations which had begun to fade could be brought to fulfillment if just the people would show their support and promise to stay the course with full support and continued adulation. Americans, as a whole, virtually all hoped that President Obama would be the President that all America could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with and repair the real problems facing the nation. Even, or possibly because of, many who initially feared that Obama would rule as what they perceived as an extreme leftist progressive anti-American still grabbed on to this prayer, this hope. I know as I was one such who had predicted that President Obama would be a President Jimmy Carter on steroids. I was wrong as I missed the part which would rival President Lyndon Baines Johnson with the steamrolling over all opposition; Constitution be damned. So now we sit in the closing months of a wounded Presidency which failed in even its own measuring stick. Gone beyond repair is Cap and Trade, Carbon Credits, the end of coal for energy, fracking continues, livable wage remains a dream, government run healthcare is in a shambles and the final crash is still ahead, universal nuclear disarmament is dead with the promise of proliferation like never before is about to spread these weapons across the most unstable Middle East and into North Africa (MENA) and, worst of all, there are numerous more wars with entire nations in various stages of disintegration as in Libya, Syria, Yemen and the Ukraine and the world seems closer than ever to the Eve of Destruction.

 

 

Musical interludes aside, the world is far more violent with more conflict and more nations in a state of complete anarchy where the governance has either disintegrated or no longer cares or represents the population. The continued anarchy and destruction in Syria and Libya can be indirectly or even directly attributed to actions or lack thereof by the United States under the directions of President Obama and largely the State Department. There have been reports online and in the mainstream media of recommendations made by the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff being ignored and even directly countermanded by the White House. Examples of such advice being completely ignored which led directly to many of today’s problems include pulling almost every American military force after refusing to provide a new set of terms and protections for the troops as President Obama refused to permit the Pentagon to work with the Iraqi government leaving the State Department to negotiate which was postponed until a mere ten weeks before the then existing agreement lapsed. Then there was the shifting, sliding and finally fading to nothing Red Line in the Sand to bring destruction down on Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad if he unleashed chemical weapons. The final example we will give was the entire concept of leading from behind which directly led to the decapitation of Libyan governance without providing even a modicum of force in place providing time to form new governance resulting in tribal internal warfare tearing the nation apart.

 

Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Pentagon

 

To the present we are witnessing a change and President Obama taking the lead very quietly while attempting to force what his passivity failed to accomplish. We have witnessed stronger language targeting Russian President Putin while arming rebels more directly, though which rebels has been kept somewhat vague. Some reports claim they are al-Nusra and others who were once claiming allegiance to al-Qaeda but have since renounced any allegiances. Some unofficial sources not aligned with the State Department or Pentagon has shown alliances with some of these rebels with the Islamic State. Even more troubling has been the unprincipled support using American air power of Turkey President Erdogan bombing the one group which deserved the greatest support, the Kurdish Militias (Peshmerga پێشمەرگە), who have been the most successful against the Islamic State all the way back to their initial ISIS or ISIL stage and the main force rescuing the Yazidi while the world governments sat silent feigning helplessness with one exception which has provided light weapons, anti-tank weapons and special forces to train Kurdish fighters, a nation which must remain unnamed. President Obama has made the known fallacious claim that Turkey is fighting the Islamic State when the reality is they are attempting to wipe out the Kurdish forces and people in a genocidal war and assisting the Islamic State which has recovered Aleppo from Kurdish control. These anti-Kurdish efforts are pushing some Kurds to seek protection with Islamist forces they once fought against. Talk of turning friends into enemies, what a great strategy.

 

President Obama still claims his brilliant nuclear treaty with Iran, which even the French had to be beaten into submission after initially vetoing the agreement, prevents Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. The statement can only be made valid if one adds, “while I am President,” onto the end. Even the White House had admitted that Iran will be fully nuclear capable and free of any restrictions after just over a decade from now. Then we have the most recent evidence of the hard-line being taken in response to a pair of missiles fired from Yemen originating in the area held by Iranian backed Houthis Rebels. The American Naval forces were freed to respond in kind. Further the United States Navy was ordered to cross into the expanded regions now claimed by China after they built a number of new islands placing military assets including artillery and anti-ship missiles in an effort to control an important Asian trade route. This new and unprecedented stance by President Obama has come with minimal if any inclusion of the Pentagon or Joint Chiefs of Staff other than to relay the orders and is being executed in order to shore up support for Democrat candidates in the coming elections. This also permits Hillary Clinton to imply that she may have had a hand in this new direction by the White House to accommodate her stronger stance in foreign policy. It is all a feint to make her appear to separate from the lead from behind strategy when in reality she will not lead at all with one exception which is worthy of discussion before closing this article.

 

A President Hillary Clinton will continue to bow to Iranian hegemonic plans in the MENA region and continue to snub Egypt, Israel, Jordan and other allies unless they curry favor as was the way to play when she was Secretary of State with higher entry fees as she is now the President. Further, she will allow China to extend their hegemonic desires throughout the western Pacific Ocean and into the Indian Ocean. This will revive an ancient animosity between China and India, an India which is likely to surpass China as the most populous nation within a decade or two. Hillary Clinton will further aid the influx of Islamic immigrants all but unvetted into Europe, mostly western Europe, while also increasing the rate for accepting immigrants from across MENA and including the Horn of Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Islamic nations except Iran, they need to remain strong with a large and capable military with secret side deals done without Congressional oversight or knowledge when possible. There is one place where Hillary Clinton will not only stand strong but will seek new venues to pressure, Putin and Russia. For reasons known only to the least sane amongst us, there has been an undertone softly growing demanding that Russian President Putin be brought low and to bend and surrender to the “equality of women” and raise the position of Russian women to their “rightful place” in Russian society. This is partly the demand for a “No Fly Zone” in Syria as this would soon lead to a direct confrontation. Do not doubt that any Russian fighter caught entering such a zone, even after dropping their ordinance and simply transgressing on way back to base, they would be intercepted and very likely fired upon or, even worse, shot from the sky using missiles pressing the Russians to respond. Even if Putin would take such a situation and apologize, explain and request for unarmed aircraft, after dropping ordinance, for Russian pilots to use the “safe zone” for returning to base, the request would be refused bluntly and with no regard for any damage as such would be intentional. What is the end desired? We wish we knew!

 

Beyond the Cusp