Republican Distress Self-Inflicted

 

The Republicans appear to be in disarray and acting as if they are completely unaware of the fact that they control both houses of Congress and the White House and are in the catbird seat exactly as the Democrats were the first two years of President Obama’s two terms. They are capable of setting the rules in the Senate such that they would have sufficient votes to ensure cloture by requiring a mere fifty-two votes ending any filibuster. The Democrat use of the so-called nuclear option set the precedent for adjusting cloture to fit your needs when you have the majority in the Senate. Yes, doing so would allow for the Democrats to do similarly when they gain fifty-one seats in the Senate and who does not believe they would do exactly as such anyway. The Republicans instead are fighting with the White House declaring the President’s budget dead on arrival. This is a party in need of better leadership as currently they are wasting their first and possibly only opportunity to prove they are the better option by acting as a whole to enact their vision for the United States.

 

I hear people demanding what we would propose if we think we have the answer. Well, perhaps they could actually get everybody on the same page instead of having a different set of priorities for every twenty or thirty Republicans. They need to have the Senate choose ten Senators and the House of Representatives choose twenty-five or thirty Representatives and have these people meet with the President and each Cabinet member in a series of meetings taking a week out of their schedules. Initially the President on the first day along with his preferred advisors should meet with the delegations and set a general structure for the ensuing week or even two and have the President and everyone else at the meeting express their preferences and ideas and have them discussed in a general sense setting up a framework. Then they should have meetings with cabinet members and the President each morning and then return and meet with the Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate each with their own chosen delegates such that everybody has some input and in the end they reach a consensus which is acceptable to the President and his Cabinet and advisors. Once this framework has been set, then the House of Representatives and the Senate can begin to work on the enactment of these ideas putting them into action. These agreed upon initiatives should be enacted through the House of Representatives and the Senate in quick order and signed by the President getting a basic set of accomplishments enacted and presented to the public as actual accomplishments in the next election cycle. If their ideas actually capture the minds and match the ideas of the population in the majority of the nation, then the Republicans can reap the rewards and press forward with even more action and accomplish what they promised in the first place.

 

President Trump National Security Advisor McMaster
Speaker of the House of Representatives Ryan
President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate Hatch

 

The first thing they need do is revamp healthcare. An idea we would like to suggest is to keep the choice parts of the current system adjusted to make them include competition between the many insurance companies. Much of healthcare need be taken from the employers and returned to the people such that their demand for the most and best options and the insurance companies need meet their hopes at an acceptable price, this will bring healthcare costs back down within reason. Further, the government need remove most of the regulations, reporting requirements and other unnecessary paperwork which has completely destroyed the concept of a single doctor working from their home in the neighborhood where their patients reside as had been the case before the government needlessly intervened and destroyed affordable healthcare. The government should only require that insurance policies cover major medical allowing people to decide to pay for any minor care out of their own pockets. The one idea which the government should make illegal would be controversial but in the long run would produce lower medical costs, and that is to make group policies illegal such that companies, unions, and other groups such as retirement groups or social groups from offering insurance to their workers or members. Make individual policies the sole type of health insurance allowed and only require minimal coverages. We suggest only what used to be considered major medical which would include emergency rooms treatment with a deductible, surgical procedures, any hospital or clinical procedures again with a deductible, and hospital stays with a deductible. The deductibles would depend on the cost of the coverage with the less expensive coverage having a higher deductible while there could be specialty additional coverages which would cover these deductibles but this should be banned from health insurers offering. Such a system would produce insurance affordable at any level such that younger and healthier people could take the risk of higher deductibles and with people paying for most of their own healthcare we would see prices become lower for most standard healthcare needs. The main way to cut healthcare costs would be to put a cap on rewards for malpractice suits and make one vital change, the lawyers losing any malpractice suit would be responsible for both sides’ court costs and lawyers’ fees within set limits. This would lead to fewer malpractice suits as lawyers would be very careful to only take such cases which they felt quite sure of their case and winning the case, period.

 

There are probably many other means for lowering court costs which we have not included which the Congress could enact. Removing regulations and paperwork would be one of the greatest means to relieve the burden on physicians who have had to form groups to defray the clerical costs imposed by both government and insurance companies who often are demanding additional paperwork simply because the government demands they file paperwork. Government is once again the greatest contributor to the costs of a commodity which they also demand everybody purchase. This is simply something the people’s need should have to accommodate and not employers or government as that is the current system which the people declared broken and becoming overly expensive with far too many forms. The government should never have the power to add costs beyond reason to an industry and then require the people purchase said product. As happened with car insurance, whenever the government demands people to purchase a commodity the price of such commodity will naturally skyrocket reaching the limit of what the people are capable to pay, not the actual required cost of the commodity. Simply ask yourself what would you charge for widgets if the government required every person to purchase one widget every month? You would price them set the highest price the market would bear rather than a competitive price because every other widget salesperson would be doing the same. The highest probability is all widget salespersons would agree to set an inflated price where all would become wealthy beyond what any normal competition would prevail had the government not required people to purchase your product. That is simple reality of life and not rocket science, or advanced economics. The proof of this theory has been the cost of health insurance since Obamacare hit the market. This is why competition must be returned to the health insurance markets and as much government involvement must be removed back to bare bones or less. No government involvement would be the most preferred state of healthcare. But first the Republicans need to unify and find some leadership which can work well with President Trump, both by leading when necessary and following when Trump is leading constructively. We can only hope.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Clocks Are Ticking Bibi

 

We understand that for a brief period you might slowly back away from your pushing the Two State Solution and replace it with a final ultimatum to Mahmoud Abbas, negotiate in good faith or all agreements are now null and void. Set a deadline like, oh, say the first of July, or perhaps June. Then, when Mahmoud Abbas instead makes demands at the United Nations General Assembly claiming that Israel refuses to negotiate honestly, remind him that technically the Oslo Accords had an end by date which was passed long ago and any allowance Israel has made by not deporting him and his merry band of cutthroats has been good faith times ten. Then remind him of the deadline and that this is as far as Israel is willing to extend the moribund Oslo Accords. Remind him that once the Oslo Accords are made defunct, that he no longer has any authority and his Security Force of enforcer thugs will be disarmed and disbanded as Israel will be reclaiming her weapons and enforcing all Israeli laws about firearm ownership. Further, point out that abiding by International Law that once the Oslo Accords are considered abrogated, that there is no Palestinian Authority and the PLO returns to being a terrorist organization and Fatah has no standing as it only existed to serve as the terrorist party which ran the Palestinian Authority as a dictatorship. Remind Abbas that his term of office ended years ago and that Israel will be holding new election across the areas of Judea and Samaria for local offices in every town and city. These elections will be monitored by Israel and Fatah will not be on any ballots because he and his merry band of thieves are going to be back in Tunis or wherever they can find someplace which will accept them. You might want to mention that Syria is the default location for his banishment so he had best find someplace a little less terrifying unless Syria suits his ideas for the future. That is what should happen and what many Israelis are hoping will happen.

 

President Obama is gone and United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2334 is an advisory resolution with no enforcement or even advisory status and the nations who are now committing to boycotts are using UNSC Res 2334 as their cover and would use anything they might ever find, even a call from Mahmoud Abbas or any of his henchmen as reason for boycotting Israel. You will notice their boycotts are selective in that they are only boycotting items which they are able to buy elsewhere and not Israeli technology, medical breakthroughs, agricultural developments, communication devices and all other wonders from Israel and aiming for retail items. Perhaps Israel should start a boycott of the nations who are boycotting Israel by refusing to allow them anything Israeli, except that is not how Israel or the Jewish People work as we try to be a better people by not stooping to the low levels others may take against us. Israel refuses to give up on peace despite everything that has worked to make that overly costly and cheated us of the lands we were promised by the world for over fifty years. We gave peace and the Arab Palestinians every opportunity including the Gaza Strip to show their true colors and their idea of what peace should be. They showed they defined peace as dead Jews, an Israel bombed and rocketed back to the Stone Age and in ruins, a desolate ruin with six-million Jews murdered, preferably in their sleep as that makes them unable to fight back. Whenever they attempted to destroy Israel by force they failed because we fought back, period. Every time Israel made a concession, surrendered control of land to the Arabs or anything else to forge peace we were answered with violence and terrorism. No more as we have had enough and we demand our government give our ultimatum and make peace now or end the farce.

 

When we elected your party we did so because we desired an end to the roundabout of demands followed by terror attacks followed by further demands then terrorism over and over endlessly and we were told that this would end. Then came President Obama and a threat over our heads held by the United States President who had nothing but spite and hate for Israel and religious Jews. He favored Iran controlling the Middle East and Israel a secondary power and soon to be a relic talked of fondly as they always do once the Jews have been defeated. After the Shoah we heard the sorrow and apologies and the claims of “We didn’t know.” The lies and the regrets over the dead Jews when the real sorrow was there were live Jews who were now demanding their nation which had been promised already for twenty years and counting. The British did everything they were able to arm the Arabs who were dedicated to murdering the Jewish State at her birth and who rose up with the Mufti of Jerusalem, the Mufti just returned from spending the war in Berlin and attending the Wannsee Conference where he was considered an advisor and expert on how to address the Jewish Problem. There exist reports which give the Mufti credit with suggesting that the Jews be liquidated completely and requested that when the Nazis conquered the Middle East and allowed him to rule it that they assist him with what would be his Jewish Problem. He definitely organized militias and rear attacks by numerous Arab villages during the war of elimination waged against Israel in 1948. The Mufti of Jerusalem commanded a division called the Arab Brigade which was made up of Arabs who had been living alongside the Jews in the lands of the British Mandate west of the Jordan River. These forces already held most of Jerusalem and much of Judean Hills and Samaria as well as parts of the Galilee and Negev as well as what is today called the Arab Triangle in the southeastern Galilee bordering Judea and were well armed allowing the Arab armies from six nations plus volunteers to gain large swaths of what the world had promised Israel including all of Jerusalem. It took the Israelis most of a year to slowly regain land and open a road to Jerusalem and manage to take the western end of Jerusalem but were unable to take the Old City, Temple Mount and much of the historic Jewish Capital City. When that war was ended we heard again how sorry the world was that they had to allow the Arabs to retain lands which were promised Israel. They then armed the Arabs and by 1967 they were ready to try and extinguish Israel once again. The world was quick to stop that war after one week as it became obvious after Israel surrounded the Egyptian Third Army in the Sinai Peninsula, had taken the Golan Heights and were a threat to Damascus and pushed Jordan from the areas of Judea and Samaria and liberated all of Jerusalem. The world was again sorry that they did not allow Israel to force their enemies to surrender but instead allowed them a noble end to the fighting. Then they regretted but started demanding Israel return land, just land and later the land and now all the land. The world is sorry so they demand to set up a rematch this time with Hamas and Hezballah along with Iran and who knows who else. Bibi, the world is always sorry and we always accept their apology. Let us give them a reason to be sorry again except this time because we asserted to take that which is ours.

 

Mufti of Jerusalem During Nazi World War II
Where He Met the Highest Officers
And Attended the Wannsee Conference

 

There is no more threat coming from out of Washington D.C. and we have a friend in the White House. We need act because any friend in the White House will face pressures from the enemies of Israel and her Jews in the American government. They exist in the State Department through and through and they are at the United Nations and a swarm of hundreds of antagonistic NGO’s plus enemies in the Congress and who knows where else. All of these will begin pestering President Donald Trump making his life difficult and being such a bother that eventually he will simply grant them a morsel just for a moment’s peace. That will be a brief respite before the spite returns and demands another morsel. We must act before he is forced to grant that first morsel because once that has happened, we will have lost our golden opportunity. Opportunities for Israel and for Jews are a rare and seldom held jewel. Often when these rare jewels do arrive we find that many amongst us become timid and worry that perhaps we need consider the ramifications of acting too fast. They demand we stop and debate the best course. They want a plan laid out with every step planned and the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed before even taking that first step. Our enemies do not plan; they simply attack and attack never giving a moments rest to those who try to assist us. They cannot help us more than we help ourselves. When we falter, they falter as they are not going to stand someplace we refuse to stand ourselves. We must stand forth now and make our position known and strongly stated. We must make the alternative to Abbas negotiating honestly and immediately with our relegating the Oslo accords to the trash bin of history where it should have been tossed years ago. Time ran out on Oslo long ago during the last century and Oslo II has also passed its use by date and belongs next to Oslo in that trash bin of history. The lands of Judea and Samaria belong to Israel by International Law and we all know this. Time has come to annex them and unite them with the rest of Israel. The first thing after that will be to extend Israeli law to all of Judea and Samaria and allow for the sale of land by its owner to whomever they please for whatever price they are able to get without any threat of death from their government. We must bring the rule of law equally to the Arabs who have been deprived their true freedom to grow and gain wealth. Within the first six months there should be elections in every town, city, community and hamlet and the disbanding of the Palestinian authority. Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of the officers and Security Forces need be fully vetted and if any link to terrorism is found, then they need to be deported. There is an alternative and that is to hold an open and free election in Judea and Samaria and allow the Arabs to choose leadership. All the candidates must be vetted by Israel and be free from any terrorist ties. Regular Israeli laws must be extended to all of Judea and Samaria should Abbas refuse again to negotiate in good faith. Breaking off negotiations or demanding unacceptable conditions will not be tolerated and there should be a deadline for reaching an agreement or Israel annexes everything. No more the Arabs demand, break negotiations and then pick up demanding additional concessions before breaking off negotiations again and repeating this in efforts to gain everything without giving in on anything. This has to end now.

 

The end must come within this first six months as to expect President Trump to tolerate endless fake negotiations is ridiculous. Making the Israelis put up with terrorists governing Judea and Samaria teaching hatreds raising generation after generation of new terrorists is unacceptable. All of this ridiculous allowing endless terrorism with wave after wave must not be tolerated any further. The time has come and the opportunity with it for Israel to demand an end. We, the Israeli people, your people, we have endured intifadas, rocket attacks in the thousands, terrorists tunneling under our towns and coming up near our schools and kindergartens threatening our children. No more terror and safety for our children and ourselves. We demand life and our government should provide us with everything for the safety of our towns, cities, kibbutzim and every last farmhouse. No more terror, no more rockets, no more intifadas and no more incitement which will grant us life because our enemies are correct, we choose life and we value life. The Arabs likely also would choose life providing their lives were made worth living. Under the terrorist government they suffer, their lives are made worthless and their opportunities are stolen before they can be realized. Israel must change that for them because doing this and giving them freedom and opportunity will change their views and many will choose life for themselves and their children. We must choose life and give the Arabs the opportunity to choose life and make life worth choosing. The real thing that is debated and negotiated is and always has been life, our lives and the chance for the Arabs to live free as well. Now is the time that we can make this be a real opportunity for the Arabs and giving them the opportunity to thrive and be really alive, will make a real difference and that opportunity cannot be squandered. Too many times we have squandered real opportunities and we the Israelis demand this one not be lost. If you are unable to commit to progress and life for all within our lands then please resign and hold an election so we can find somebody willing to act and do that which is required to make good on this opportunity we have been presented. We want to choose life and freedom without the fear of terror which had plagued us since Oslo and shortly before committed to push us to the false Oslo promise which was actually a promise of a slow death. We choose life, end this tracking of death and let us choose life.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Things We Need Know for After Inauguration

 

The mainstream media does have some useful information if one can stand reading long enough to glean something useful. What one need remember is the mainstream media is also the playbook, play caller, coach, quarterback, message board, megaphone and the best comical future picture painter imaginable for the extreme left and Democrat Party, though we repeat ourselves. Despite great agony and struggling through as many typos and misspelled words, we would like to think even more than we miss here at BTC; these are a few of the items we found.

 

The most important item which has been made clear in so many ways is that the Presidency of Donald Trump will have been the greatest disaster in American history. Once in office, President Donald Trump will have wasted the talent, what little there may be, of his Cabinet and anybody who is worth a plug nickel will have quit within the first six months, if not weeks or days, because they will find they cannot work with such a megalomaniacal dunce whose brightest ideas will be which club to use when playing miniature golf as he will not even be capable of playing real golf as well a President Barack Obama had. The American people will find that they miss having President Obama in the White House with his steady hand guiding the nation through peril after peril while a President Trump will be have been causing peril after peril. The predictions of disasters continued with the statement that President Trump will have started a war with China, Mexico, most of Europe, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, much of South America, possibly Canada and will be in bed with the Russians serving the demands and at the beck and call of Putin and being led around through Russian hackers feeding him information through Twitter posts. These were some of the highlights but there was far more.

 

The Congress will revolt against President Trump as the legislation he sends them will appear to have been written by one of the beauty queens from his pageant days or one of the fired apprentices. Congress will be forced to be the adult in the government and the Democrats are prepared to prevent President Trump from causing any real or serious damage to the standing of the United States in the world. The Democrats will follow through magnificently in their promise to protect the high standards set by President Obama in his dealing in foreign policy. The Democrats will have found many the Republican allies who also understand the need to protect the United States from President Trump and are prepared to block everything sent to Congress by President Trump (this one almost has a ring of validity even we must admit). There will prove to be many Republican lawmakers who will be adult enough to admit their party sent a man-child to do the grown-up job of president and will work to message this childish egomaniac’s feelings of self-worth by stroking his self-image while rewriting any legislation making it work for the people and help those who require government to assist them in managing their lives rather than giving the rich more wealth taken from the backs of the most needy. The idea that the wealthy can be enriched by taking wealth from the most needy has always baffled us as the most needy do not have sufficient wealth to even make the average American wealthier by any actual measure, let alone the wealthy. Of course we realize they really mean giving largess from the government coffers to the wealthiest rather than giving it to the most needy, though the government does appear to do a great amount of both. This can be seen in the fact that many on welfare have a decent apartment with air-conditioning, at least one television, more often than not at least one computer or game console, a microwave, cable television feed, Internet access and most have at least one vehicle. This is about average for a middle class family back in the 1970’s had with obvious changes due to technological advancements. Let us return to what we found in the media, mostly online versions of print media.

 

By the end of President Trump’s first year even the most stalwart Republicans will have fallen in line with bringing impeachment against the President simply out of abject fear he is on track to force the next world war, had proven dangerously reckless with threats of using nuclear weapons and the Joint Chiefs of Staff will have reportedly had to step into the breach and invalidate Presidential orders to launch nuclear missiles. The similarities of the accusation for President Trump once in office to start wars, infuriate adversaries and allies alike and threaten the future existence of the world through madly wild and careless use of nuclear weapons as a threat and actually attempting to launch nuclear missiles to be similar but even more over the top than the predictions made about Ronald Reagan after he won the election and both before and while he was in office. The madness the mainstream media is predicting can only be found in rare old movie plots where somebody goes off their rocker and orders nuclear weapons use such as in the movies “Failsafe” and “Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” The ever more hyped predictions of doom are only exceeded by the forlorn lamentations over the fact that President Obama is not permitted to continue in office and remold the United States as had the nearly four terms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. These discussions almost universally then diverge into discussions of how had President Obama run against Donald Trump how Barack Obama would have won in the largest and most humiliating landslide even beyond President Reagan. Some even add how had Bernie Sanders won the primaries, then he too would have cleaned Donald Trump’s clock easily gliding to victory. And then we get the Russians stole the election for Donald Trump and from there we find ourselves back in the Donald Trump will simply be the puppet of Vladimir Putin and he will be the Manchurian Candidate preprogrammed by Russian hackers to do Putin’s bidding. Those Russian hackers are good if they can reprogram people wirelessly, or is it Donald Trump is a Russian built android sent to run the United States for their needs? That is about the only stories not found in the mainstream media, yet.

 

Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

 

With all this, there will be wild speculation on how the world and the nation of the United States will be dependent upon Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and just about every proper-thinking American working tirelessly to protect the nation from the inevitable debacles which will be coming from the White House and raining ruin everywhere if not checked. This presumed future is then compared with the glory which was President Obama who for eight long and challenging years arduously and tirelessly worked to prevent the economic collapse of the world (or was it universe) and prevent ever more wars and so gloriously earned that Nobel Peace Prize and was worthy of so many more honors. We are forewarned how we will be shell-shocked by the bald faced incompetence of the incoming President and how his Cabinet will resemble a three ring circus after the initial appointees realize that President Trump is merely using them as window dressing and targets on which to place the blame when President Trump’s harebrained ideas explode on contact with reality. I guess that hope that things would return to normal with the United States playing a steadying role in the world are simply pipe-dreams as the media has explained in gruesome details. The United States presumably is about to crash and burn under President Trump as compared to the glorious years under President Obama’s tutelage.

 

All this pessimism demands we give our idea as to what is coming after January 20, 2017. Unfortunately, the initial actions of a Trump Presidency are dependent upon what outgoing President Obama does in the next days leading up to noon of Inauguration Day. We really do mean up until noon on that day and perhaps past if the ceremony takes place minutes late as is usually the case. Should President Obama take a Paris conference accord proposal for the establishment and invention of an Arab state called Palestine carved from the lands legally belonging to Israel and without Israeli consent and signature on a treaty, then President Trump will have a difficult task facing him immediately after taking office. Should President Obama have his co-conspirators bring a Chapter Seven Resolution declaring Palestine a reality with full Statehood recognized by the UNSC with the Green Line (the 1949 Armistice Line between Jordan and Israel demarking the front lines and the Israeli lands illegally occupied by Jordan) then President Trump will need coordinate with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu a response and course of action to overturn the decision. This will be possible and an eventuality as such a resolution, Chapter Seven or any other manner of resolution, is illegal as it breaks the United Nations Charter Article 80 which recognized all the demarcations and wordings of the Mandate System and all other resolutions in effect from the League of Nations. This makes the Jordan River the eastern border of the Jewish State of Israel. That is the international law recognizing the Israeli eastern border and there is no mention whatsoever of any Arab entity or Nation west of the Jordan River. This was also the reason behind an Egyptian Justice who sat on the International Court of Justice when the UNGA requested a ruling on the Security Barrier Israel had erected to prevent further suicide bombers and other terrorism. The barrier accomplished much of what it was intended to accomplish and the ICJ did not demand it be removed. As noted yesterday, the Honorable Justice El Araby warned the UNGA and others that filing further ran some risks, as he stated,

 

“The international legal status of the Palestinian Territory (paras. 70-71 of the Advisory Opinion), in my view, merits more comprehensive treatment. A historical survey is relevant to the question posed by the General Assembly, for it serves as the background to understanding the legal status of the Palestinian Territory on the one hand and underlines the special and continuing responsibility of the General Assembly on the other. This may appear as academic, without relevance to the present events. The present is however determined by the accumulation of past events and no reasonable and fair concern for the future can possibly disregard a firm grasp of past events. In particular, when on more than one occasion, the rule of law was consistently side-stepped. The point of departure, or one can say in legal jargon, the critical date, is the League of Nations Mandate which was entrusted to Great Britain.”

 

Beyond this, President Trump has already indicated he will work towards repeal of UNSC Resolution 2334 recently passed under Chapter Six due to the United States efforts behind the scenes and their blatant determination to injure Israel punishing her because she refused to roll over and die when demanded to do so by President Obama and his team during the Iran farce of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program and their drive for nuclear weapons parity with the United States or, at the least, Israel as well as only complying with most but not every demand for concessions to the Palestinian Authority (PA) while the PA simply sent more requests for concessions for the President and State Department to draw out of Israel. This was payback for the lack of subservient compliance with edicts from upon high, or at least the second floor of the White House.

 

Then there are the promises made by candidate Trump which a President Trump will need to deliver. The first and biggest is tax reform. Trump made some bold statements for initiatives for tax reform. His plans realize that all taxes are actually paid by the people and that such taxes as sales tax and taxes on businesses and industry are simply folded into the price of products which serves two counterproductive results, first the increased price makes United States products priced from the world market where if the prices were more competitive with the other nations, especially those which subsidize their industries generously making United States products unaffordable by comparison and second the higher price hurts the middle and low income people the most as they are paying the taxes and fees. Removing taxes on industry and businesses will make for lower prices on products and slower rate of inflation as sales beyond the border will increase simply due to this one tax being eliminated thus allowing for increased production to meet the new demand which will provide more jobs and eventually rising wages as employment reaches higher percentages as there will be increasing demands for workers. Second the simplification of the income tax levels making them generally lower across all salary ranges and the reduction of claimable deductions will make taxes more fair as with fewer deductions the wealthy will have fewer shelters from income taxes and thus will be paying tax on greater percentages of their income though the lower rate will make this reality less painful for most. Finally, lowering Capital Gains taxes will result in more fluidity in the investment business which will allow the movement of investments to more promising industries and will subsidize innovations. The resetting of Capital Gains such that it does not penalize investors moving funds from one investment to another facilitates start-up companies as there will be more funds available from which to get seed monies invested. Hopefully the congress will resist any urges for recalcitrance and the Republican majorities can show spine and certitude of their convictions and enact the changes to the tax codes and systems.

 

Repeal of Obamacare will be another big challenge as there are some vested interests and too many of those sit in congress. Obamacare grants power over healthcare and its being provided to the people and despite the refusal of Democrats to admit there are established committees which will decide when a person is no longer a viable contribution to society and thus will receive only the most marginal of healthcare and will not receive any life prolonging treatments which are expensive as such high priced care is out of the question. These health panels are not referred to as death panels but that is one of the functions they provide. Still, there are some provisions of the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act (ACPPA) such as the provision which makes denial of insurance due to preexisting conditions is liked by most as the provision for retaining children under their parents’ insurance through age twenty-six appeals to young adults as well as parent with children in college or graduate school seeking advanced degrees. On the other hand, insurance companies are finding the ACPPA to be a disaster and many are pulling from providing insurance under the law. What need be is return much of the pricing of insurance and the setting of levels of coverage by different plans instead of a one size out of three or four is all you get. The ACPPA also demands certain items be provided coverage and everyone must include such items in their plans. Prenatal care is no more universally necessary as people over sixty have little use for prenatal care just as people who will be having children usually do not need assisted living coverage. Allowing for the tailoring of insurance plans to fit the individual would allow for greater coverage at reasonable prices. All that is actually required for near universal coverage would be a few simple requirements. First and of great importance is all plans covering hospital care past two or three days of being hospitalized with full coverage costing additionally, what used to be called major medical care while leaving routine care payments the responsibility of the patient, prescription drug minimal plan which would cover the price of medications after a minimum is cleared or a set percentage and priced accordingly, and there have to be other such items which would represent minimal coverage or the base plan. Then insurance companies can offer different plans or even a cafeteria style insuring where you choose exactly the parts you desire with price breaks for say every five items granting a percentage in savings. The final item is portability, the ability to take your health insurance across state lines, from one job to the next and other similar challenges. By having employers provide a healthcare bonus if they desire rather than their providing their idea of a great plan for their employees, this too would bring down the general cost of health insurance and could also slow the increases in healthcare costs.

 

This should be sufficient start of ideas to chew upon. Our final item is about how the atmosphere and entire mood of the media has changed since the election. First we have the panicking over the rise in “fake news stories” which have appeared of late. What is most amazing about the “fake news stories” is that many are carried by the mainstream media and not alternative media as much. Another anomaly is that much of the “fake news stories” come from leftist sources and are amplified as they spread across platforms and blogs take these “fake news stories” as being real news and thus making themselves less credible for using what they thought was actual vetted news as they found it in the New York Times, Salon or other such news sources. The uproar over “fake news stories” coming from the media was confusing until we found that there have been a number of nations, the United States and Germany, which have set in place a Department of Information which is designated the ultimate source for real news and for debunking “fake news stories” printed and placed before the public. We gave this deeper coverage in a recent article titled, “The Emergence of Departments of Official Government Truths”. There has also been a resurgence, a rediscovery even, in the fact that there are homeless people and greater care for our mentally challenged citizens who all too many are left out on the streets. Crime rates have become an issue as has any even hint of hate crimes. The greatest fake news and hate crime combination has been the Great Hijab Crime Wave we discussed where a series of Trump supporters attacking, taunting or otherwise belittling and intimidating young college women on university campuses who were wearing a hijab which apparently caused these white males to turn into vicious and demanding monsters. All of the stories proved to be unsubstantiated and were retracted by the very women who brought them forward. Then there are all manner of societal ills which we have not seen coverage of for the past eight years which are creeping back into the new and we can expect the floodgates to fly open on January 20, 2017 in such ferocity that these reports will seem to be as manufactured as the “fake news stories” have struck. Hold on, it is going to be a wild ride going forward, but let us hope we actually do go forward and not flying off into some dark hidden side track which leads to someplace nobody knows for sure.

 

Beyond the Cusp