With Trump Comes Stark Reality

 

Already this last year of the Presidency of Barack Obama there has been a dozen terrorist attacks which have been verified as such. In one mere twelve hour stretch in September the American people found out it may not be safe to go shopping in a mall in Minnesota, go running a five kilometer not so fun run in New Jersey or walk window-shopping on the streets of New York City without risk of terrorism striking and potentially injuring or taking one’s most precious life. The United States has faced car bombings, remote detonated bombings, suicide bombings and shooting sprees where the attacker was only stopped when shot dead by an armed citizen or law enforcement officer. All of these terrorist styled attacks were first perfected against Israel where initially they received minimal notice by the Western World media as it was just Israel. Often any reporting on such terror attacks in Israel were covered in such a manner that it appeared as if the Israelis had shot the terrorist who then retaliated with his bombing, shooting or whatever attack as the title was often Palestinian shot by Israeli Defense Force or Palestinian Killed by Israeli Police or other misleading phrasing. As such attacks spread to Europe and across other Middle East and North African Arab nations where their Christian, Kurdish, Hindu or Buddhist minorities were often the targets with some attacks were Sunni-Shia violence and these made the reporting even in Israel more accurate. Now that attacks have spread to the United States the reporting has become stark noted by the insistence after each attack initially the authorities deny any possible tie to terrorism and warning against jumping to any conclusions that Muslims were at all involved in the attacks. Eventually the reality brakes through and the terrorist ties were obvious to the most casual of observers from the start and are finally admitted.

 

The lag time between attacks being perpetrated in Israel and their coming to the United States has thus far been measured in years if not decades granting Americans a reprieve from the more recent types of attacks used in Israel. Apparently this lag time has been shortened considerably with the terror attack at Ohio State University. The car ramming and following stabbing spree until shot by law enforcement officer November 28th brought that lag time down to the slimmest of measure as such are only the most recent of attacks even in Israel. This is not good news for Americans as there are no safe spaces from car rammings and stabbing attacks making everyone almost everywhere potentially under threat. The last couple of years in Israel had seen numerous car rammings which were all part of what was informally referred to as the Stabbing Intifada which has tailed off but not really completely come to an end. We all pray here in Israel, as you do in the United States, that this will be the only time you suffer from such an assault on your persons and communal safety; but we all know the unfortunate reality. Once a new form of terror attack is used it will continue until mitigating means are found for defeating such attacks. Here in Israel train stations and bus stops now have thick five centimeter diameter, cement filled posts a embedded deep into the pavement protecting the people from vehicle rammings. Stabbing attacks are only avoided through vigilance and a communal reaction making the attacker into the hunted as through mutual defense we are all safer.

 

Recently, though largely uncovered by Western media, Israel suffered yet another massive terror assault upon the entire nation through forest fires largely set by Arab arsonists. Neighboring nations, including Croatia, Greece, Jordan, Egypt, Italy, Russia and Turkey, responded with firefighting manpower and equipment for which we are grateful. The United States sent its “Supertanker” which is the largest firefighting aircraft in the world. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sent a coalition of eight fire trucks and 40 firefighters which were used largely in Judea and Samaria as nowhere was immune from the horrors. In the single week during the final days before the rains came but whipped by the high winds accompanying seasonal weather changes Israel suffered one-thousand-seven-hundred-seventy-three separate fires which consumed approximately thirty-two-thousand acres with most located in the Haifa region. In some cases fires were set and once the fire-stations responded fires were set at the station houses themselves. Despite over a hundred people suffered injuries there were no fatalities this season. Over five-hundred homes were completely destroyed while tens of thousands were evacuated at some points. As of last counting there have been over thirty arrests of arsonists all of whom have proven to be Arab terrorists. Apart from the horrific damage to the parks and some neighborhoods the next most distressing reality of this past arson season was the repeated lack of coverage in the Western media once again the reality of “it’s only Israel” coming through loud and clear. There were no Israeli lives lost and, just as important if not more so, no terrorist arsonists shot resisting arrest or in the act of setting fires. Had a single arsonist been shot or otherwise injured, the cries of using disproportional and unnecessary force would have echoed from Rome to San Francisco and from Athens to Chicago and all stops inbetween. Instead, with lack of recriminations to be aired against Israel, the wave of arson was met with deafening silence.

 

The recent car ramming and stabbing attack does pose as a warning shot before the bow on the streets of America as it signaled a closing in the delay time between introduction of a newer terror wave in Israel and its application in the United States. We have already witnessed the use of ramming in Europe with the van being driven through a Nantes, France crowded market injuring almost a dozen and killing one victim plus the absolutely horrific Nice, France assault where a van filled with grenades and weapons was driven through a crowded 14th of July Bastille Day celebration killing eighty-four people, which included several children. The short delay from the wide use in Israel of car and vehicle rammings and stabbing attacks to their use across Europe and then to the United States bodes a troubling future for all three. Other places across Europe and Canada suffering ramming terror attacks have been but not limited to Glasgow International Airport attack in Scotland; Dijon, France; plus another attack with the Saint Jean sur Richelieu attack which occurred in Quebec, Canada on October 20, 2014. Now with the Ohio State University attack the United States has suffered its second vehicle ramming, the other being the SUV attack at the University of North Carolina. Then there were the greatest and most horrific rammings of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center Towers, Pentagon and the foiled attack which was brought down by the heroes of that day, the passengers on Flight 93 southeast of Pittsburgh.

 

Nice, France Van Terror Attack Carnage

 

The fear now should be from arson attacks, especially those set upwind a relatively short distance from built-up areas such as apartment complexes, business parks and housing developments. Also vulnerable would be deserted areas within some of America’s cities where a fire could be sparked that would then threaten downtown areas where urban renewal borders deserted areas yet to be rejuvenated. There should be some research performed to determine if previous fires may have been started as a form of terrorist attack as such arson attacks often target not only forest and scrublands but also target close-by developed regions. Israel has faced these firestorm attacks twice yearly, the spring winds and the fall winds which provide the necessary impetus for the use of directional winds to fan flames towards their real target, people. One can only pray that through vigilance and the formal fire-watch systems in place in the United States Park Systems stems any arson and other fires before they can rise and threaten people’s lives and property. Sufficient damage occurs already and needs little boost from intentional arson fires set with damage of people and structures as their actual target. Then there were the recent fires in Tennessee which are still being investigated by authorities.

 

But with the coming of the new administration of President Trump there will be a new attitude towards terrorist attacks and how they are treated by the FBI, Justice Department and other enforcement agencies within the government. No longer will the initial reports be that there is absolutely no indication that what appears to have been a terrorist attack actually is a terror attack. Rather any caution shown will still recognize that terror is always a potential cause and if it looks like terror, feels like terror and sounds like terror, then there will be the recognized likelihood that terror was a possibility. Under President Trump there is not to be the candy-coating of reality and the American people will be trusted with being given truth, often unvarnished truth as they will finally be seen and treated as grown-ups who can handle the truth. There will be no condescending hierarchy who claim that the American people cannot handle the truth and that only they, the elite have the capability to handle the truth and thus they claim they stand on the wall deciding what you deserve to know and what you must be protected against. We will have to wait and see which Americans are capable of handling the unvarnished, unsoftened, straight truth and which Americans will be demanding safe-spaces placed and trigger warnings with their newscasts. With a more open and honest evaluation of reality and the inclusion of the American people in the decision process by having an open debate, the United States will likely return taking their place as a leader of the free world. It will likely make most Americans pleased to be treated as the adults they presumably are, and we pray we have not misjudged our friends across the waves. It will be wonderful to have an ally back.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

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

 

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

 

Hillary Clinton – Vladimir Putin – Donald Trump

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Graph by Age Representing
Voter Registration and
Activity and Apathy

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Campaign Closing Craziness

 

Well, just a couple of days and the vote and much of the crazed daze will end and we may be entering phase two, the challenges. But before we get to that it all must be presented and set in place beforehand and that is where everything from the sublime to the ridiculous comes to the fore. We have long ago heard Donald Trump claiming that the fix was in and how everything was set against him from the media coverage to the Clinton campaign being given the debate questions ahead of the debates to voter fraud and darn near everything but the kitchen sink. Was there potentially or probably any rationale for Trump’s claims? Of course there was but that does not mean that it was going to play well in the media and he was roundly scoffed at. His main problem is he made his move too early according to the political handbook of etiquette. The only surprise there would be the actual existence of such a book and there isn’t such; it is all an intricate part of the game that only those inside the system are privy to knowing. This within the system correct time for such claims is in the final four days which are reserved for setting in place your excuses and legal reasons for discounting the validity of the voting and counting processes. Trump’s challenge is based on voter fraud and systemic biases against him and other skullduggery.

 

But then what has camp Hillary claimed? You are going to love this. Apparently Donald Trump has a fan who will stop at nothing to make him the next President of the United States. This person wants Trump to win as he fears the power and political brilliance which a Hillary Clinton Presidency would bring to bear against their position and how a President Hillary would simply overwhelm and out-play them at every turn. Who is this that so fears the mighty Hillary? Why it is none other than Russian President and often shirtless Putin. Why President Putin is so afraid of a Hillary Clinton victory on Tuesday that he is preparing a cyber hacking to win the election throwing it to the Donald. Exactly how this is being accomplished is so incredibly devious that only a KGB trained master spook (spy) could pull this off. First the Hillary e-mail scandal was all orchestrated by Putin who arranged for all these bogus incriminating e-mails to have been in the computers to begin with and these were amongst the e-mails destroyed as Hillary was only required to turn over actual real State Department e-mails and these obviously fraudulent e-mails could be erased without penalties. Here is where the plot thickens. The other copies of these corresponding e-mails were also placed on the appropriate recipient’s computers to validate their real existence. That is some professional and well planned hacking; but we are talking about a KGB trained master spook with all the computer resources of Mother Russia at his disposal. And the proof is without question impeccable and beyond suspicion. You see, United States Senator Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has discovered just this past week the existence of a document forged to appear as though Carper was writing a letter to Clinton. This forgery appeared to include his office’s personal letterhead and by all first look indicators would be an honest correspondence. Fortunately this perfect fraud which includes the Senator’s own personal letterhead was found on his office computers, and nowhere else to include the computers of the Clinton campaign and was apparently not amongst the e-mails turned over by Secretary of State Clinton nor did it appear on campaign or other computers. The sole copy was apparently only to be found amongst Senator Carper’s office papers and files. Of course this damning evidence of Putin perversity was turned over to the FBI and has been added as exhibit A in their investigation on Russian malfeasances concerning the coming election this Tuesday. Of course there can be no doubting these allegations as how else would Senator Carper come across a fraudulent letter he did not order or dictate written on his own stationary with the appropriate letterhead, how could such a situation ever be staged.

 

Then there is that real fear that Putin and his gang of KGB trained goons will use their skullduggery to gain access to voting machines throughout the United States and register thousands, nay, tens of thousands, dare we predict, hundreds of thousands of fraudulent Trump votes. Such hacking would never create so many ballots such that only a vote for President was registered and the remainder was blank, not just without other votes for other positions and petitions and other issues; but completely devoid of even those selections having exclusively the choice for President. Nobody counting and tabulating the votes would ever expect that something smelled rotten when many thousands of votes more were cast for President than all other ballot issues. Such an obvious discrepancy would never raise alarm bells, would it? And further, one must extrapolate from this unimpeachable evidence that what Hillary claimed from the start has been validated and the entire e-mail scandal was a false issue invented and raised by her opponents who are everywhere from the FBI to the State Department and then there are the Republicans and Donald Trump and don’t forget, Vladimir Putin and the entire Russian machine. All Hillary ever wanted was her name cleared of this manufactured scandal and this evidence is just the hinge necessary to prove her complete innocence and, didn’t you know that FBI Director James Comey is a Republican. There you have it, end of story, she is not a crook and now can you just vote to give her what should so obviously be hers for the taking.

 

But let us not forget that should Hillary lose then Donald only won because of Putin managing massive voter fraud just as Putin is manipulating the polling forcing the numbers to swing towards Trump so the fraud will appear more genuine. You have to hand it to Putin; he is doing one heck of a bang-up job winning the election for Trump. What escapes reason is how does Putin sitting in Moscow or at the Czar’s palace by the Black Sea (you didn’t think the communists tore down that castle to oppression, did you? No, they kept it for the most equal citizens of the Soviet leadership) using his Blackberry and getting on Facebook, Twitter or U Hack Anonymous and simply dial-up directly to the calculating voter system and simply dumping thousands of Trump votes, right? Who cares if the voting computers use closed systems which have no internet or other outside connection. Even the Microsoft games are removed so no playing Minesweeper. So, with a closed, dedicated system detached from any potential outside interference with encrypted data and a double feed for error checking and other built-in safeguards all tested beforehand, what could go wrong and how. Then most states also retain the paper record of each voter’s choices which can be reviewed to correct any detected problems or to respond definitively to any challenge to the machine counts. Add that each state and even each precinct group such as any major metropolis would have their own system which only need be compatible with the state system at the collating server in order to transmit on a dedicated secured line used solely for the election. Voter fraud almost has to be committed at each polling station within every state and even Putin does not have the people in place to perform such tasks. The Russians are not going to affect the elections on Tuesday any more than the French, British, Chinese or Pago Pago (part of East American Samoa).

 

No Minesweeper Allowed
No Games Allowed

 

Then there is the generally alarming information which warns thus far only for al-Qaeda terror attacks for tomorrow while the forecast for Tuesday has no predictions for any steel rain. This is hopefully just an alert as preventive measures such that all which can be buttoned-up gets buttoned-up. This should have been announced that attacks were more probable for the entire week before the voting as that has been the Modus Operandi (MO) of al-Qaeda when attempting to influence the vote by scaring people from taking the risk to vote. Any terror attack would actually favor Hillary Clinton as her supporters are strongly attached and fully believe in her themselves while many Trump supporters are so ambivalent about supporting him that such an attack might be all the excuse they would need to stay home. There will be those who will attempt to make such an attack to favor their opponent in order to replace the panic from terrorism with terror of the wrong candidate in the White House. So there you have it in a nutshell. Putin will steal the election for Trump while poll workers might steal the election for Hillary while al-Qaeda simply desires the Election Day above the fold bold headline to be reporting of attacks potentially against New York, Dallas, Huston and/or Washington D.C. This threat has been given credibility and led to heightened security. Who said this would be a normal election anyways? Definitively not us. Please vote as there is much more than selecting your preference, or at least avoidance from, your candidate of choice for President. Almost all else aside, with Hillary America would have a President almost completely predictable at every turn while with Trump one would be left constantly guessing as he even has mood swings while sleeping. So please vote only once per state at the most. Thank you for your vote and readership.

 

Beyond the Cusp