Trump Paranoia Trumps Trump Facts

 

There were three articles this past week by two of my favorite reads and that struck me as a tad bit obsessive, so I decided I would be a little obsessive myself and write about Trump again and all too soon. The first item I wish to present are the recent polls showing Hillary Clinton defeating The Donald 50% to 39% with 7% going to the Libertarian Party candidate and the rest to the Green Party. The fact that these two were included in the poll and the Constitution Party was not was indicative of seeking every presumably mainstream viable candidates despite us all knowing that Donald Duck had as good if not better chance than the Libertarian and Green Party candidates of winning the elections, especially this year where more will be pressed to write in a Disney or Peanuts character. Still, it seems somewhat difficult to believe that Hillary Clinton gained nearly 8% points while Donald Trump lost around 3% in a single week, but then again this is an election like few others. The last time anything remotely similar came down the pike the United States elected James K. Polk as their President and that may have had more to do with the opponent’s campaign theme stating, “Who the hell is James K. Polk.” Perhaps there is something to be said for getting your name out before the public even if it is your opponent ridiculing your obscurity. Perhaps if Henry Clay had ran advertisements with his name instead of his opponent’s he would have won the election and nobody would ever have heard of James K. Polk, but he didn’t and so we now know that Polk was the eleventh President of the United States. But enough about then, this is now and we have a completely different problem as both the candidates are well known, maybe a little too well known.

 

James K, Polk and Henry Clay

 

Just a quick aside to those who feel I write too often about Trump and appear to be ignoring Ms. Clinton. Hillary Clinton’s shortfalls and misdeeds are more than well-known and her record stands as it is for better or for worse. Thus far she has not been indicted, but not for lack of trying. Some would claim that much of the effort has been spent finding reasons and ways not to charge her with crimes; many might say far too much effort. The one item which might be of interest is that there are no laws which preclude being President and giving all your State of the Union addresses from the Prison library. Imprisonment does not disqualify one from being elected President and would only prevent them from serving past a few weeks if the Congress brought charges of impeachment and a guilty finding removing her from office. Without an impeachment conviction from Congress there is no reason a President could not serve two terms as President while serving a long term in even Federal Prison, though such would be unlikely.

 

The most echoed complaint about Donald Trump has been his sophomoric attitudes and overindulgence of self-adoration. Then there is the further claim that he tends to go off on tangents and wild exclamations in response to what should be serious answers to serious questions. He takes criticism as if it was an attack on his being and returns as he perceives he has received. All of these are packaged in different orders of severity and then summarily referred to as disqualifying him to hold the office of President. Character faults, ignorance, self-adoration and aloofness are also not disqualifications to the office of President. Actually, there are very few actual qualifications to be President and none of them have much to do with intelligence, education, good character or even literacy. So, no matter how disqualified many of us believe one or the other, if not both, candidates put up by the two major parties may appear to be, let us assure you that both are technically as qualified as one need be to be elected President. So the next time you read a column claiming either candidate is unqualified to be President be assured that you are reading an editorial opinion and not a fact.

 

One of the other favorite reasons which make Trump a poor choice to be President, we have read, is that he will have his finger on the button, or more accurately direct access to a list of launch codes for different scenarios, which in and of themselves would likely take a week of briefings for any normal human being to master, and that would pose too dangerous a position to allow such a shallow and unserious person who seems more drawn to the adulation of the office than the actual performance of the duties to be permitted to access. Luckily, Donald Trump is likely not the buffoon he has been playing thus far on the campaign trail and likely is aware, as are many pundits though they are want to admit, the real campaign as far as some 80% of the voting public are concerned does not begin until the second or third week of April and everything before that is grist for the political mill, and Donald is giving the mill all it can handle. He will not even start spending in earnest as those paying attention now have already decided and picked their preferred poison. This is definitely going to be an election decided in the final two weeks and everything before is trimming hanging in the hall. If Trump is going to become serious as promised, do not expect this new Donald until the end of September as he will give the media a week or two of introductions before refining it for the final push when the election truly will be decided. Trump is not the fool he appears to be playing as you do not even hold on to a fortune as a fool and if half his claims are valid he has done rather well in his investments despite the media concentrating on those that went bust. Ask any true investor and one of their likely favorite quotes comes from Edison who claimed his success came from not allowing failures to deter him but only to show him another thing which would not work.

 

Donald Trump having the access codes for nuclear weapons is not giving a baby dynamite and matches and leaving them in the quarry to play. He is no more prone to starting a nuclear exchange on his Presidential whim than most of us, though there are some who might have doubts about that. Further, after two or three days in office Donald Trump will be disabused of any thoughts that he was just elected to the cushiest job on the planet. Those days will be spent receiving the most serious reality check conceivable as he is briefed by the CIA, Military Intelligence, FBI, NSA and a number of agencies neither he nor we have ever heard of and what he will learn would turn the hair on a peach white. I am fairly sure such reports and truths about the realities in the deepest recesses within our world, which most of us are not privileged to know, unequivocally and in the starkest terms would serve to alter even Donald Trump shaking all he believed he knew about the world in which we reside. Even things deduced by the fiercest news addict would take the wind from Trumps antics and bring him crashing back to be grounded in what is real and presented before him. Add to this the fact that he will have appointed people who are well known for expertise in the workings and situations around the world, people whose worlds most of us would never care to share if we were informed as many of these experts reside in day in and day out. The only two Presidents in since even before World War I who were likely not even the slightest surprised when they received their initial briefings would have been President Dwight David Eisenhower, as he had just finished commanding the allied efforts in Europe and pretty much knew many of the troublesome areas as he was living them, and President George H. W. Bush (the elder), as he had been head of the CIA formerly and Vice-President and probably trusted and included in many of the Presidential briefings thus knew most of what any briefing upon taking office was going to contain. There are very good reasons why the Presidency tends to age the men holding the office so visibly, and these are reasons which most of us would just as well not be made privileged to as it would remove any doubt about the shape of the world and threats held within.

 

There is also the truth that Donald Trump has presented defining core beliefs which are placed on his campaign website though for detractors it is far easier to challenge the Trump buffoonery he has shown the media, especially those in the media seeking to discredit him. Baiting the mainstream media has been one of the games that Donald Trump has played largely for his own amusement as he is just as aware as are we that there would be no pleasing the leftist media pundits and if he were to treat their questions seriously they would likely ask him when he planned to stop beating his wife and if he answered it the headline would read, ‘Trump Beats his Wife,’ or ‘Trump Refuses to Stop Beating Wife.’ That would be the reality of much of the reporting as we have already witnessed; so with these tricksters and gamers out there laying traps for him to fall into, and he has fallen for more than his supporters wish he had forcing them to defend the undefendable, why even treat their ‘interrogatories with any degree of respect and seriousness when all they exist for are for Trump to take them on seriously and then they report the choicest morsels strung together out of context and in an order often expressing the opposite or things never uttered by Donald Trump. We will not even deign to give any examples as doing so would also serve to send our readers into the darker corners of the liberal, leftist media and all its machinations. Suffice it to say, Donald Trump is giving a show for the pure entertainment factor as he realizes the media is trying to game him, so why not play along and game the gamers. Trump has his positions defined, as we linked to above, but that is not what the media wishes to cover or expose to the light of day. Informing the American public that Trump has serious positions, which anybody can go and read for themselves, is not what their coverage is about, theirs is to destroy all veracity and support behind Donald Trump such that their darling, Hillary Clinton, wins the election by hook or by crook come November. This is also why we will witness more and more polls showing Hillary Clinton pulling away eventually predicting a landslide win for Hillary Clinton all in an effort to suppress Trump voters from even going to the polls on election day.

 

Presidential Rivals Not So Different
on Far Too Many Positions

 

It should not surprise anybody with an ounce of integrity who has experienced even the slightest glimpse into how the media operates and the extents the state with all of its power even to include court challenges which even if fought and won would take those proceedings past election day thus accomplishing the goal of hiding true democratic choices openly to the public. The reality is the fix is in that there are but two parties and that the United States has a two party system. Check your Constitution and you will not find anywhere a limit to the number of parties permitted in American political theater. There have been elections thrown to Congress to sort things out as none of the candidates, sometimes more than even just three, reached the required number of electoral votes to become President and the delegates remained locked. Four candidates, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay, had originally campaigned for the presidency in 1823-24 and each man had the unyielding support base generally reflected the geographic region from which each came. Further confusing the election of 1823-4 was the fact that all four candidates claimed to represent the same party, the Democratic-Republican Party. Who said there had to be more than one party for controversy and more than a single candidate for the office of the President? Numerous Presidential elections have included more than two parties and others have had one party nominate and run two candidates in order to win differing states with neither candidate strong enough overall. This seldom made any difference as fielding two candidates proved to almost always throw the election to the other party. This in and of itself as well as the destructive antics of people such a Teddy Roosevelt running with his own Bull Moose Party simply because he did not win his party’s nomination which simply weakened his former party’s position splitting their vote and throwing the election to their mutual opposition. Often such splits worked to divide but not conquer as that divide was most apparent on the side of the third party candidate taking votes from their former and natural party leaving their mutual opponent the electoral victory.

 

The finality is this claim that the only fact which supports a Trump receiving anybody’s vote is due to their distaste for Hillary Clinton. This is an insult to the true supporters of Donald Trump though these pundits would also claim that the average Trump supporter is too ignorant or lacking in intelligence to understand that they had been insulted; simply piling on now, aren’t we. What makes the claims against Donald Trump appear to be greater than their support base is directly due to elitist and Republican hierarchy who detest Donald Trump and are ashamed of his candidacy representing their party, a party they believe deserves better than Donald Trump. If these people are pushed, the reality surfaces and we find that these are the very elitists and establishment Republicans who gave the electorate John McCain and Mitt Romney, both wonderful men with lots of talent and capable of being an outstanding President except they are centrist candidates more popular with the party leadership than its people. This is where Trump can claim his right to the nomination as he defeated all the centrist elites’ candidates and the other conservative darlings even once it became evident that the race was finally between two men, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, neither very popular with the Republican upper crust leadership who were left wondering where they went wrong. That has an easy answer, they were fully behind repeating every mistake of the last two elections and the people decided otherwise. One needs look no further than the campaign funding of the candidates. Initially all money was bet on Jeb Bush. He crashed and burned early. Then the money went to Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Ben Carson and others except for Trump. Donald Trump was the red haired, freckled step child nobody wanted left to grow up in a political orphanage but Trump took to the mean streets, like the ones in New York where he was raised. He then proceeded to battle the entire power structure of the Republican Party, the party he was attempting to garner the support for his candidacy for President. Somehow this proved the best path to tread as this was the year of the outsider. Yep, the year of the outsider and the primaries gave us the two main candidates having over 50% negatives for both in polling and two as connected monetarily deeply in the establishment of either party. That was the one truth evident in the 1823-4 elections, when carefully examined there is still only one party which could be called the Democratic-Republican Party even today. The main difference is that the Clintons have always been in the midst of the political mainstream and elites on the left while Donald Trump can actually be viewed as an outsider despite his campaign contributions, which he made often equally to each party, which were pay to play contributions so Donald could always claim he had supported either candidate dependent on his access to whatever approvals his next project will be required. That is the reality of how business need operate in order to not become subservient to either party and especially to their politics.

 

So, what can we say about Donald Trump and the fears he exudes to so many pundits and other commentary of these elections? Much of the fear is simply the media attempting to play on other people’s fears which can be largely traced back to early losses by favorite candidates such a Jeb Bush, likely the candidate with the moneyed support and who was considered, according to the media, to be the established leader which should have read the establishment’s candidate whose sole fear is that they have nothing truly behind them but the moneyed leadership whose sum total is greater in dollars compared to numbers of supporters. Such proved too deep a hole to get oneself extricated no matter what the monetary reserves contained. This was proven time after time where some even threw their hat in the ring supporting others who remained to fight a better fight but each failed until Trump and not-Trump remained the two standing candidates. Candidates other than Donald Trump were no longer gaining supporters as much as they were gaining people desperate to prevent Trump from winning the Republican nomination making him their candidate for President. Even now after the convention and every last ditch efforts having failed are seeking to find some way of placing a favorite son in every state to deny Trump winning in every state where this may become an accomplished reality. What these panicked elitists of the party are missing in their calculations is that if they prevent Trump winning some state all they have accomplished is electing Hillary Clinton as she will win such states handily. So, those opposed to having Hillary Clinton for their President had best find some reason they can latch upon in order to place Donald Trump into the White House. The one advantage this year had brought is both of the party candidates will desire looking truly knowledgeable in most areas desperately seeking any bump they can garner. It still remains to be seen exactly where the youths’ votes will fall at the end of the day. Another crucial area which bears watching, as it will be a vital and necessary component if Donald Trump hopes to be competitive, is the trending of the voting for married women, a demographic to both be voting on Election Day and supporting Trump in sufficient percentages. This one vital demographic is and has been the biggest question mark in the Trump equation, married women, especially those with a college education, and whether they will vote in sufficiently high percentages as well as vote Trump overwhelmingly. Without this demographic a Trump victory appears shaky and in jeopardy. Of course that is if polling is to be believed. Possibly the most manufactured and profoundly wrong segment of the entire election might turn out to be how little polling can be an accurate gauge of public opinions in this new digital world. One poll may prove to be the most accurate of them all are those based on social media, Twitter in particular. We will have to wait and see while keeping in the back of our minds that the pundits have sold Donald Trump nearly every step of the way. They have raised questions on his origins, intelligence, seriousness, knowledgeability, competence, skill set and any other quality which could be used to berate, belittle and otherwise oppose his candidacy and Trump has proven them wrong at every turn. The question now is whether he can do this one more time in November.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

President Obamas Last State of the Union Address Finally

Part I

As the President takes to the podium to deliver his State of the Union Address, his final by all estimations, takes place with the pall of Ten American Sailors being held by Iran and the President announced ahead of his speech that he would not, repeat, not be mentioning the sailors as the Commander in Chief which explains why we prefer to call him the Ditherer in Chief. We have been told to expect to speak on broad terms and demand that the American people and Congress are responsible for making a President ‘all that he can be,’ to use that well-worn to death phrase may, we beg your forgiveness. He opened with praise for the Republicans in Congress caving on a budget likely to push the debt ceiling necessarily over twenty-trillion dollars and mentioning that there is a serious prescription drug abuse problem. The nerve of the man who made fighting drug abuse, specifically prescription drug abuse and heroin use a central theme of his as far back as 2010 and likely farther and now he claims the nation needs to tackle this problem as if he had not already promised that by 2015 drug use would be down by a measurable percent and instead it has drastically increased. It is almost as if the White House battle against drugs worked as well as his running of guns into Mexico in order to find the drug cartels when he could have simply asked the DEA except that plan was more to set-up a straw man to target funds and use as a central theme in a anti-Second Amendment campaign, and it might have gained traction except when an United States Border Agent was murdered with one of the guns provided by the White House Department of Justice gun scheme which began by providing thousands of firearms to the drug cartels right across the border in their blinded by hate of guns which Americans, according to President Obama himself “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” as previously stated. If things continue like this we will be very glad he promised a short speech.

 

Laundry list time, and that right after he claimed he wanted “to go easy on the traditional list of proposals for the year ahead” started off “I’ve got many such as helping students write computer code to personalizing medical treatment and I will keep pushing for the things I believe need to be done.” Oh joy, here we go! Ready to rock-n-roll with the targets ladies and gents, let’s start with “fixing the broken immigration system, protecting our kids from gun violence, equal pay for equal work, paid leave, raising the minimum wage, all these things still matter to hard working families.” He wants to focus on the next five years. Five years, a five year plan, where have I heard that idea before, a five year plan, Oh! I remember, uncle Joe Stalin was big on Five Year Plans as was that jolly rotund individual, no, not Santa and while on that, take down those Christmas lights already, the other fat man, Mao Tse Tung, they both loved five year plans to death and that was exactly what they were, five year plans that starved millions to death. Oh even better, Ten year plan and beyond, then you will know you have entered the Twilight Zone. (queue music) He’s noticed change; wonder if it is the same change the rest of us see. Change that is reshaping the way we live, way we work, the planet, our place in the world. Umm, yea, and it don’t look like change we want or should want but I bet we are about to hear how wonderfully he has worked to bring us these changes. What a wonderful list of things we just heard and then for the clincher President Obama claims we have “everything we need for security and prosperity for generations to come,” and we’ll settle for finishing this generation handing a better world to our next generation and he probably thinks a world on the edge is better because at least the United States stayed out of things. Little hint, that is the problem, but we don’t expect you to see that because as you said, it is in that spirit we have made progress since President Obama’s rise to power, that is how you see it, right? You rose to power as the Caesars did in ancient Rome and that is why you had those Grecian pillars behind you for that acceptance speech in Denver, or your coronation and accepting the crown of might and the orb of power and the scepter of wisdom, I have those things correct, right? “That is how we recovered from the worst financial crisis in our history,” President Obama stated and I immediately thought that he had to be referring to the Great Depression of the 1930s because we still have yet to recover from the one you expanded upon in a manner even George W. Bush would have been amazed had he failed so spectacularly, but the President was referring to his handling of the financial crisis which has placed the largest percentage of the working force either working part time at as many as three jobs to earn the income one would have provided before Obamacare, where the largest percentage of the workforce has completely surrendered and have ceased even pretending to seek employment, and where graduates from the nations universities, even the finest of schools, are so desperately under employed or given wages that similar graduates fifteen years ago would have scoffed upon. But no, the President continued to spectacularly amaze us with further claims of greatness by listing his greatest failures domestically telling us, and a paraphrase as I really cannot continue rewind and suffer through his complete and willful blindness to the misery and hardships he has caused at home in the United States and throughout the world and the full ramifications will not be finished rippling back and forth through the world for at least another decade or more. The President continued his hall of shame bragging about his, as he put it, “we” as he had the Democrats who forced some of these monstrosities that plague the nations going forward as he listed the great reform of the healthcare system which when first released refused to permit people to remain logged into the site long enough to find out their doctor was not on the list, their healthcare was inadequate and thus cancelled and their premiums would necessarily skyrocket, if not immediately, within the next five years as that is the first five year plan. Then he claimed the reinventing of the energy sector. Does he mean by fracking which his administration did all it could to kill, the Keystone pipeline which the administration did kill, Solyndra which received half a billion dollars and failed, and the following list of only administration failed energy companies which received millions as hundreds of thousands just do not make the grade there is so many larger fish; Amonix, $20 million; Bright Source, $1.6 billion; Beacon Power, $43 million; Ecotality, $115 million; A 123 Solar, $279 million; Evergreen Solar, $527 million; Ener1, $118 million, and the equal number of eco-companies who lost hundreds of millions but still the greatest fail was in trust as money was thrown down known black holes simply to reward people who formed these companies and received gargantuan salaries and then declared bankruptcy and nobody batted an eye and they walked away fat, happy and wealthy with a wink and a nod. The final special notice was the Fisker Karma (pictured below) plug-in hybrid with an A123 battery system of lithium-ion batteries for electric cars failed during a test by Consumer Reports magazine and is reported to have been a fire hazard on wheels. The repair to make the vehicle useable will run around $67 million which contributed to A123 filing for bankruptcy. Fisker Automotive had designed a very attractive vehicle but the battery problem will necessarily set that project back and might even cause Fisker Automotive financial difficulties due to this unforeseen problem which was not of their doing. BMW hybrid 3-Series and 5-Series cars and GM’s all-electric Chevy Spark also were presumed to be run on A123 battery systems and also will need new sources.

 

 

Fisker Automotive Karma Failed Testing as
A123 Lithium-ion Batteries System Failed and
Presented a Fire Hazard as Pictured on Right

 

 

Continuing onward; President Obama continued with a claim of providing more benefits and better care to our returning troops and veterans; and secured the freedom, wait for it, in every state, wait a little more for emphasis and this is huge and serious, to marry the person we love; (lick lips so as to look as we are using great effort) and such progress is not inevitable, which was the argument for same-gender-marriage, and it is the result of the choices we make. Now comes the ‘shame on you’ part of the speech where the American people are told of their shortcomings. How will they face the future and the challenges he wants to know. Will they have fear, turn inward and against each other or display confidence (something he knows so much about when talking of himself and all he has accomplished but what he refused to represent America as having as he approached the world leading from behind and cowering from every threat except one, the one threat he faced as it needed to be corrected and cut down just as America needed to be taught a lesson, and that nation was Israel, carrying on.

 

Now come the four questions Americans have to answer, big questions, and yes, I kid you not, four questions, next he will be reading from the Haggadah. 1) How to get all involved with opportunity and security in this new economy: return to the old economy which worked well until you and the Democrats further exploded the debt and removed opportunities. 2) How do we get technology to work for us in like repairing climate change: well, applying standard to China and India might help as the United States had met climate change challenges better than Europe or any other nation on any continent with only Antarctica producing less pollutants and climate change gasses per square mile than the United States and Israel. 3) How do we lead the world and keep it safe without becoming its police: not by leading from behind and pulling out of every dangerous situation and allowing the likes of the Islamic state, you remember them, they’re the Junior Varsity. Mr. President, you have given us seven years examples of how not to accomplish that and only Hillary Clinton is even less prepared than you were but at least she might get upset one morning and take some brash move out of anger as she was a tad bit peeved when she awoke and some idiot got her anger riled and she just told the Joint Chief of Staff to handle it and make sure she never hears from them again, and then she would have been far more adroit at getting the world to sit-up and pay attention as they never die for you. 4) How do we make our politics reflect what is best in us and not what is worst: reverse every last one of your foreign policy decisions and attempt to get the United States and the Western World out of the hole you helped dig that the third world would bury all of us given another eight years like yours.

 

President Obama just claimed that the United States has the strongest, most durable economy in the world. This is not supposed to be comedy hour at the local pub, is it? Now he says that the United States is in the longest private sector job increase in history. OK. Job creations, whatever and then the whopper, unemployment cut in half: yes sir, after you cut the work force by anywhere from five percent to fifteen percent and these numbers do not include those graduates from college who had to return to their parents’ house and reclaim their bed room from grandma’s sewing room and they are now taking care of grandma with their BA degree in renaissance literature and library science. Industry surge that created nine hundred thousand new jobs in the past six years, which is one hundred fifty thousand a year, and he is touting that as an accomplishment as otherwise he would have used a percentage increase per year which was likely near two percent, not exactly write home to mom in Indonesia, is it. Did he just say, While cutting our deficit by three quarters? Yes, he did, PULEEEZE!! I’m afraid I will explode listening to too much more of lies, deceptions, misrepresentations and we are not even one third the way through. Can I please stop now? Oh, I’m suffering so you do not have to except by reading this laboriously strange article.

 

Ah, the problem is ATMs replacing bank clerks and automation replacing workers because the cost of workers skyrocketed with Obamacare and next he wants to force the entire fast-food industry to automate as many $15.00/hr. jobs as they can with a living minimum wage when minimum wage jobs are where you prove to your first employer he did not make a mistake hiring you, not a support your family job and they never should be. Too many workers and insufficient jobs and many of the work seekers are not unemployed because they have not been able to find one of those one hundred and fifty thousand jobs created in manufacturing each year and too many of them are out of work bank clerks. And worldwide competition is only true because America’s employers are unable to afford American workers as the price due to government demands, regulations, stipulations and healthcare requirements amongst the highest corporate taxes in the world. It is no wonder they are fleeing to even Europe such as Spain where they have workers who are capable and a situation where the employer has all the advantages as Spain is indeed working to get employers, especially employers who need many busy little hands doing repetitive jobs which are not yet automated and cannot afford the price of business in the United States. The one area where the United States does have one of the finest pool of workers is in high skill work such as electronics but that is automating and price of production is making pass/fail without repair of failures a viable option. As far as the rest of the jobs, as Ray Kurzweil divined and he will tell you the humanoid robotic worker is only fifteen years away and then none of you will have jobs unless you are a futurist or a politician and for many of the same reasons except futurists are at least entertaining.

 

Almost every dramatic pause even some despite rousing applause, President Barack Hussein Obama bites his lower lip as if this is so important and he is concentrating so unbelievably hard reading the words somebody else wrote and he has been studying and even making changes so it would be easier for him to read, remember the tonal intonations which is sitting on either side (and possibly straight before him projected on the podium) and likely in a screen centered in front all hidden from view. He has already slipped once or twice and halfway made the eyes slightly squinted and chin stuck forward and his head tilted back making for the near perfect Mussolini pose which he would take as a side stance often when before purely Democrat crowds who apparently loved it. We appear to be entering the special dimensional-shifting, trans-dimentional,  intra-perceptibility, rose-colored-lensed-interferometer, and reality-free-video-generating-display where up is forward and backwards is left and he is she and who is he and we are all in Ulpan and that means that if not for what the President managed through Herculean efforts to manage the economy and if instead those others who have impeded his every move had been in charge things would have been so much worse and if only the Democrats would have kept all the power then the entire economy would be more fantastic that what President Obama managed to salvage. Now that we have cleared up who is to blame for the difficulties. We need to look at where all Americans agree, oh, I just can’t wait for this part. All Americans agree we should provide pre-K for all just in time for my second childhood, every student hands-on computer and math classes to make them job ready, recruit more and great teachers, affordable college for all, no student should start in the red, not probably green, blue and eggshell are fine; and we, there goes that plural reference to himself, and the rate of payment has been put at ten percent of nothing, because that is what too many college graduates are making, nothing. Moving along, provide free two years in community college, onward and upward as the United States college age child deserves benefits and protections that provides a basic measure of security that is where Obamacare comes in and saves the day but there are needs such as wage insurance and advanced training, plus food stamps didn’t cause the crisis, Wall Street did.

 

The President claimed there are outdated regulations which need to be changed, not eliminated, just adjusted to reflect how government can grab more of industrial might through costly regulations which agrees with his appointment of Cass Sunstein as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs whose job it was to go through the entirety of Congressional Legislation and find what laws could be utilized to write additional regulation so as to be as onerous upon the American economy as possible. Now he is going to complain about record corporate profits because as any good little socialist redistributionist, corporations are not in business to make money for the owners and the shareholders as they are the wealthy, and that includes all of you with 401K retirement plans which are reaping those record profits for your retirement. You and they did not make those profits, government did and thus government should be permitted to spend those profits as they please.

 

The problem is not immigration, too much of it illegal with the blessing of the Obama White House and nearly every White House going back to Dwight David Eisenhower, and Yes, I am old enough to remember. It is corporate board rooms putting immediate profits ahead of long term principles, otherwise known as redistribution of profits which is what corporate taxes, highest in the world, EPA regulations, codes, fines, and a whole hearted and cold hearted attempt to put coal powered electricity out of business through compensatory regulations which make any planned coal fired plant a sinkhole that swallows investor monies and makes currently operating coal fired plants on the brink of insolvency and soon bankrupt and out of business despite the fact that three quarters of the power generated in the United States is from coal. They are also working on doing away with as many dams, even with electrical generators hydro-powered inside, on the destruction list for the fishies. Workers and small businesses and, well, let’s say it, the businesses government decides to protect and favor are to be granted freedom and liberty to make money as long as they remain small and under government influence otherwise they will become another big company just making profits and enslaving the world so those, including any we helped get this far last year, big companies, and we all know who they are apparently, must be brought down until they answer to government control and don’t you dare call me a fascist. And we can have a brighter future if I, President Obama, can direct where corporate profits are spent, not necessarily with shareholder, though I realize they must get a few dribbling drabs, but most must benefit the country and be spread throughout which can only happen if we steal, I mean tax, these profits at insane levels and then government taketh away and government giveth, just like in my bible. We must be fair, or is it fare for those making money, those evil capitalists.

 

President Obama just referred to NASA in the 1960s beating the Russians to the Moon; this from a man who constantly had people refer to the almost $2.5 billion that NASA receives, suggesting cutting the fat from the NASA budget would be our savior ignoring the percentage; and these are actual percentages they never tell you, that should the entire, E-N-T-I-R-E, entire NASA budget be completely destroyed and NASA disbanded entirely it would not cut the budget by even one percent. We would lose almost all our discovery programs, no longer have the NASA Big Gun experiments and that wonderfully photogenic man with his almost childlike amazement at how wonderful his job is playing in a high tech sandbox and testing what-ifs through shooting pellets and making explosions he studies. FYI, I really like that man as he exudes the love for discovery that is infectious and I am hoping it spreads. The truth is the NASA budget is three-quarters of one percent of the budget, or less than the average amount of pork placed into any omnibus budget bill like the one just passed by probably Wyoming. I am not sure I can take this; he is comparing the immigration from the mid-nineteenth century through the first half or so of the twentieth century with modern immigration of which two-thirds are illegals from Mexico and the Americas south of Mexico. Sorry Mr. President, but that bird not only does not fly, it is known as the Kiwi and is only found today on shoe-polish lids.

 

President Obama just appointed Uncle Joe; get your gaffs here, Biden as the person in charge of curing cancer. I like Joe, he is overly abundant in amusement and a smile a minute, but in charge of curing cancer, cancer will never have had a better ally than Joe in charge. The Israelis are researching a way of making using nanobots which carry a miniscule flake of gold and they find cancer cells and burrow deep into the cell and even into the nucleus such that a simply radio-frequency signal transmitted days after they were released into the body to seek out only cancer cells and bore into them such that the RF wave causes them to explode and take the cancer, and only the cancer cells with them and leave the surrounding healthy cells almost entirely untouched and the dead cancer cells the body will know how to take out the garbage and the Israelis are seeking more efficient nanobots to make them more affordable and end cancer and genetic diseases and so much more health risks of the past.

 

Well, this will have to do until tomorrow as we are close to half way through. Stay tuned to tomorrow broadcast of how the blogger’s stomach churns with more summaries, snide remarks, guffaws, critiques, reminders of reality and Joe Biden worthy gaffs. Until then my loyal readers who brace the inanities for that rare but priceless kernel of truth, and then there is our commentary giving rare credit where any credit can be found. Until tomorrow.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Sad Truths About American Election 2016

 

The one constant around the world is that everywhere one hears discussions about the upcoming 2016 American elections and the talk immediately turns to the potential Presidential results and how they will either improve or ruin the plans of our leaders, nations, areas, threats, trade or economies. The truth is that trying to divine the thoughts of the American public and how they will vote for in the Presidential elections is complete folly, especially if one is using the relations between in foreign affairs as their criteria. While across the globe the United States foreign policy or lack thereof is of vital importance and in many instances potentially critical and even deadly, the American public usually cannot see any further than their wallet. Yes, there are numerous Americans who understand and even use a fair degree of foreign policy knowledge and positions of Presidential candidates, I must sadly report that when we left the United States that number decreased and even with our presence in the voting booths the people voting their wallets probably outnumbered foreign policy wonks by a thousand to one if not a hundred-thousand to one. This is why the Presidential debates only have one which presumably is advertised as pertaining to foreign policy. The truth is that most of the questions end up actually being turned inside-out, upside-down and twisted all around until it actually sets the candidates attentions to foreign situations as it pertains to the effects it might have on the budget or social programs at home. Still, the choice of who will be the next President of the United States will have a determining effect on every part of the globe; it will just be whether it will be for better or worse. So, what should we seek as far as the most preferentially positive effect generally around the globe?

 

The usual rule of thumb is that a Republican President will be more involved in foreign policy than a Democrat President. This does not necessarily mean this is preferential as it also depends on whether the Republican President has advisors and other assets which drive a thoughtful and thoroughly researched foreign policy or if they have a more seat of the pants reactionary policy. An example of the former would be President Dwight David Eisenhower who though often derogatorily called a do nothing President actually was responsible for the reconstruction of Europe and the Far East policy after the fall of Japan and much of the American ascendance after World War II all while the United States enjoyed some of its best economic growth years in its history. Another President who also did well largely due to advisors was John Fitzgerald Kennedy whose advisors were very knowledgeable and who when tested by Russian President Khrushchev over the Cuban Missile Crisis set a strong and potentially dangerous posture of no nonsense strong response that eventually led to the Soviet Union to retreat from Cuba removing their missiles. Kennedy also answered the Soviet initial success and leads in the start of the space race to set the goal as the Moon and challenged the American space industries and NASA with, “We choose to go to the Moon! … We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” On the other hand, the United States has had Presidents from both parties who were unmitigated disasters when it came to foreign policy though I will not shame any by naming them and instead allow each to choose their own examples. From the juncture where many currently observe the two Administrations under President Obama, these could easily be defined by numerous presumably traditional friends of the United States, who would, if choosing to be totally candid, would describe these as total disasters with potentially the worst yet to come. Then there are some of the worst mischief makers and oppressors or would be conquerors who likely would heap praise on President Obama’s choice to not challenge anything which might prove challenging or potentially difficult and demanding taking a principled stand.

 

So, first off, let me assure those who might be misled into believing that the Americans generally have begun to awaken and see what a disaster President Obama has been for the world as a whole, if it were somehow made possible for President Obama to run for a third term, the American public would likely reelect him and even the Jewish voters who might claim that Israel is one of their top concerns would still vote for President Obama by an easy majority likely near to sixty-five percent against thirty-five percent voting Republican. Actually, there would be a sizeable percentage of the Jewish voting public who would refuse to vote Republican and simply stay at home which is the same as voting for whichever candidate proves victorious. With this established, this fact does not bode well for the Republican Party if the American public, which is made predominantly of ‘low-information voters’ who vote pretty much as they are advised by such criteria as, my family have always voted Democrat/Republican/Whig (OK, most families who had voted for the Whig Party have moved on since then), what’s his name on Comedy Central/Saturday Night Live/the Late Show/Family Guy/South Park character, Media such as ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX/CNN/PBS/MSNBC, print media, favorite personality/close friend/boss at work/union boss or whatever ridiculous source even to include Tarot Card reader’s advice, are the mainstay of the voting public which as time has passed has become more the norm. This is partly why the politicians fight over voting rules such as removing people from voter rolls through validation techniques to remove those who have moved, died or not voted in decades or the need for picture identifications, motor voter laws, and even register to vote outside the polling place and then enter and vote or permitting prisoners to vote even from death row as there is no area not pursued as a voting base that the party who thinks something is to their advantage will not use to the utmost of their ability. So, we have established that the American voting public is not necessarily the pure cerebral and reasoned public which Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, or James Madison envisioned, though probably Benjamin Franklin may have had the right attitude and worldly experience to realize how far the electorate would eventually slip. So, now what?

 

The next is choosing who will most likely be the candidate for each of the two major parties. Let us start with the Republican Party and the myriad of candidates there seeking to be the candidate chosen to represent the party in the elections in November 2016. The one thing we are assured is that the Republican candidates will mostly be breaking what President Ronald Reagan called the Eleventh Commandment, do not speak ill of thy fellow Republicans. The Republican candidates will refuse to bow out until it becomes mathematically impossible for them to win the nominations and some even then will continue just in case they can make a surge from out of the blue once the delegates are freed to vote however they choose, usually around the fifth ballot or later. With all the candidates, and a fair number of top ties candidates, it is quite likely that the Republican Party may reach its convention without any one candidate with sufficient numbers of delegates to win on the first or second ballot and there may be five candidates who are all actually closely matched in candidate count with none even remotely close to a majority or even a resounding plurality. This might lead to a lengthy and harshly fought convention which will go into the fourth day or beyond without reaching some resolution or producing a candidate. There appears now that Jeb Bush will have a loyal set of establishment delegates and the ‘movers and shakers and moneyed establishment supporting him while the Tea Party and Christian Right will be divided amongst a core of select candidates including but not limited to Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Dr. Ben Carson and Scott Walker; with the likes of Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Bobby Jindal will all have a base of support which may be sufficient to retain their hopes and finally there is Carly Fiorina who as the sole woman, might receive additional support as she is the only candidate against whom Hilary Clinton would not have the advantage of gender running to be the first American female President. The end result is whoever eventually survives the scathing attacks and fevered battle with the nomination may find themselves limping into the actual Presidential election race as damaged goods sorely injured by their own party. Oddly enough the one person who might mostly escape such infighting and scorn from their fellow Republicans might be Carly Fiorina simply because should she avoid falling prey to the gotcha media assaults most Republicans face, she could be the one without any damaged armor and slide between the barbs and arrows and prove the strongest candidate of them all and take the nomination with minimal damage and able to rally the Republican base and establishment as she belongs to neither but can make overtures to both.

 

That brings us to the Democrat Convention and the presumed coronation of Hillary Clinton as the ‘deserved one,’ the ‘chosen one.’ From the very beginning I have not believed that Hilary Clinton would survive to become the Democrat Party Presidential candidate in 2016 or ever as if she is cast aside this time it will be for good. Hillary Clinton’s most formidable and undefeatable opponent is Hillary Clinton of campaigns and offices past which will eventually make her untenable as a candidate. Her time as Secretary of State will tie her inexorably to President Obama’s disastrous foreign policy and much of the blame for President Obama’s failures will be heaped upon Hillary and she will be unable to escape this baggage. Additionally there will be the baggage from the entire Benghazi debacle, and even worse, her hearings before the Congress where the immortal words were uttered never to stop echoing in many ears where Hillary, referring to four dead Americans including two men whose heroic efforts became known making the inaction simply unacceptable and un-American and now forever tied to her stating, “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?” The absolute cynicism of her caustic remarks and the bald faced attempt to brush off any responsibility and to make any questions in this area as improper as that the reason for the hearings was not about those who gave their lives presumably in service of their country and for a mission which originated within the State Department, but to allow Hillary Clinton to be cleansed of any wrong-doing and to be vindicated and be lauded for striving to assure that such a situation never again presented such a deadly situation. The line of questions seeking to pinpoint blame was, in Hillary’s mind, completely out of bounds. Between Benghazi, the e-mail scandals, the missing records, scrubbed and sanitized memos and communications, Clinton Foundation contributions and influence peddling from her position as Secretary of State, foreign monies which likely were derived as payments for favors, the rise of Blumenthal communications concerning Libya where he had business interests while advising Hillary Clinton during her time as Secretary of State as well as numerous other scandals yet to surface, and Hillary Clinton is damaged even beyond the capability for the Democrat Party to attempt to repair her to make her presentable to the public. All the baggage which has been in the mainstream news about Hillary Clinton was originally being exposed now early in the process and before she announced her intentions to run for President such that it could be labelled old news already beaten to death if brought up during the campaign by the Republican side. The problem is that there seemingly is no end to the scandals as they just keep jumping out from everywhere. As the media and Democrat operatives keep attempting to put these scandals to rest and tie up all the loose ends they run into another problem and then a scandal which follows as night follows day and there is no putting this to bed as more and more loose ends keep appearing and the Hillary apologists are beginning to become somewhat short tempered as their patience dies. In the end Hillary Clinton and former President William Jefferson Clinton will be required to hang up their hopes of returning to the White House until Chelsey is old enough which will be fairly soon, so they should get her elected to some office, governor of the state of their choosing, Maryland sounds easy as does Massachusetts.

 

So, with no Hillary as their candidate, who can the Democrats turn to as their best bet? There are a number of people which have been mentioned as potential replacements should Hillary self-destruct. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley though his having also been Mayor of Baltimore might be a slight drawback, Vice President Biden who has a history of foot-in-mouth disease but actually would be solid in foreign policy as even if a threat he made in a speech by his going off-script the adversary would never know for sure whether or not Old Joe might actually follow through. Bernie Sanders has also declared his interest and though we agree on very little I admire his forthrightness and honesty which are very admirable qualities and he can be counted on to do what he says and say what he means. Then we have Andrew Cuomo and Howard Dean who both are known for mouths beyond their control, Al Franken also has given a definite maybe which is quite comical as well as noncommittal though he and Biden debating would make for great comedy, and finally Ms. Elizabeth Warren whose credentials, or lack thereof, are equal to those of President Obama when he took up the mantle of Democrat candidate for President with a few critical differences making her worthy of a deeper look.

 

Though Senator Elizabeth Warren has claimed she is not running, this may not be left as her choice as she has a sizable supportive following without ever overtly seeking such. She is a far superior believer in the true Progressive way of which President Obama campaigned upon in his initial 2008 campaign. She is well spoken and needs little prompting from any crutches such as a teleprompter. Senator Elizabeth Warren is quick on her feet, knows what she believes and is very comfortable in stating her views unequivocally and with great passion. She is a strong supporter for individual rights though she does appear to place too much emphasis and burden upon government for protecting individuals from failure by providing a broad and sweeping system of safety nets and she does not appear to be adverse to a guaranteed minimal wage for everybody whether they be employed or not. She favors Obamacare with some modifications making it more workable, not less dependent on government as her adjustments would bring Obamacare closer to a single payer health plan than as it currently sits. Senator Elizabeth Warren is a believer in Keynesian economics where the government is the principle engine behind the economy. She also is opposed to free trade much of the time claiming instead to stand for fair trade which she has not fully explained. She is a through and through socialist progressive and like Bernie Sanders says what she means and means what she says and always sticking to that exact path. At least she would not produce any big surprises as the Democrat candidate or a President if successfully elected. Her largest area which is unfortunately untested and unknown is foreign policy. Here she would be untested and undefined and until such could be filled in she should not be taken as a serious candidate. But as I explained, foreign policy is the last and least of things on the average American’s mind so it is quite likely that with her populist political talking points and her appeal to those dependent upon government Senator Elizabeth Warren would likely gain a large popular appeal and could breeze to the Democrat nomination once Hillary Clinton realizes she had already failed and failed miserably, but it remains to be seen if she will even be willing to be dragged thus appearing to have the nomination and run in the primaries thrust upon her rather than actively sought. Though I have little in common with Senator Elizabeth Warren’s viewpoints and fear her lack of foreign policy experience or even exposure, I find that she would have little problem being elected as the next United States President, her biggest obstacle would be attaining the Democrat nomination and that is something remaining to be seen. The final note is that the next President of the United States will be the one who emerges as the victor in the Democrat nomination and only give the Republican candidate a one in three chance at winning the general election. But there is still a race to be run and we have to have the race just to prove every prognosticator to be so wrong it is embarrassing.

 

Beyond the Cusp