A Chance America Riding Off Into the Sunset

 

There has been speculation about what role the United States will play on the world’s stage as threats abound of various severities and natures almost everywhere one looks and still we hear from United States President Obama that he awaits final strategy and complete plans laid out before him from the Pentagon before he can act. This excuse from President Obama for not committing to some plan of action sounds unrealistic, especially as it is well known even personally after having served in the United States Army, the Pentagon has plans, War Scenarios, for near any contingency which might arise. This makes President Obama’s excuse of not having any plans before him sound quite lame. Even had the Pentagon not had an exact battle plan in place when ISIS first reared their ugly heads and started chopping heads, especially since some belonged to the United States, you can bet the Pentagon went to their files and had cobbled together six ways come Sunday for dealing with ISIS which probably had added contingencies for removing Bashir al-Assad from power and potentially addressing the Iranian nuclear issue as well. The one thing is, they were not short of was plans. The only thing necessary would be for the President to choose one and they would be implementing within forty-eight hours. Each set of plans would have in the full layout exactly which units were trained for that exact mission and which of those units was at full strength and had a ready status. They would have decided whether or not to use the ready actions units of which at least two brigades of Army would be on immediate deployment status and I can assume the Marines, Navy and Air Force have similar plans for immediate response to any call up.

 

We can trust the Pentagon has plans and that all the President need do is pick up that phone he claims he could use to call for action if Congress did not pass his legislation in a timely manner and instead call the Pentagon and request their actions and plans be presented. Then he could pick up that pen with which he threatened Congress to use to write Executive Orders and use it to sign off on a plan of action and then write an Executive Memo to the leaders in Congress informing them of the impending actions and the Pentagon would take care of the rest. There is one contingency for which the Pentagon likely has plans but would be unable to implement them until the President ordered them to follow and support somebody else’s initiation of actions. That is President Obama’s famous plan of leading from behind, better known as following which often is the action of those too cowardly to commit to actions and stick their neck out, something which would be risky against ISIS but the President can go ahead and stick his neck out, the military would be out in front and would do or die even knowing that in the end the President would claim the glory, after all he took out Osama bin Laden haven’t you heard. Leading from behind is not an option on this crisis but President Obama is not one to make definitive decisions which might have him owning his actions. President Obama would rather simply follow and take only that action was dictated by somebody else, the United Nations, the European Union, NATO led by another member, actually President Obama would follow anybody, well, anybody but Israel. Were Israel to engage ISIS, it would not be a complete surprise if President Obama gave weapons to ISIS through some obscure middleman leader of another nation who might be supportive of ISIS though doing so would be risky. But until somebody else takes the lead we can expect more excuses over action from the White House.

 

One wonders if President Obama has even requested the Pentagon produce their plans for dealing with ISIS and said plans actually called for the United States to sit this round out. We can figure that the United States is loath to send troops back into Iraq after being pulled out by President Obama in a manner that military planners had informed the President was a premature action which would cause more problems than it could solve. The one problem leaving a residual force would not have addressed was President Obama winning reelection on his promise to bring our boys home come something (keeping it family friendly) or high water. The Pentagon may have been requested to provide plans which would include supporting UN or EU or NATO action taken to facilitate leading from behind at which time the Pentagon action would most likely be exactly what we are seeing, doing nothing waiting for somebody else to take the initiative so they could follow thus leading from behind again allowing President Obama to risk nothing which actually making a choice and lead would mean. But this begs a question; what happens if the United States is about to return to her historic role of isolationism where the United States trades with her friends and with her enemies but on a lesser scale and dares not interfere in worldly matters allowing them to work themselves out without United States interventions. United States entering an isolationist perspective would only allow her deployment of troops to be limited and almost always to support trade more than worrying about such trivialities as world balance and defeating evil, that’s better left to the knights of Europe who have always done this before. Of course this before was before the United States encouraged Europe to stop their militarism and that the United States would spread her umbrella and cover them so they could turn to less harmful pursuits such as taking on debt and squabbling amongst each other, just this time no world wars starting in Europe, that was the deal the United States imposed on Europe. But now it appears the United States may be folding up that umbrella and claiming not to see the storm clouds rising out of the Middle East, a denial which is difficult to swallow.

 

The going theory is that the United States will return to the role of the world’s police and enforce the good behavior between the nations extending force projection where needed. That is not the historic tendency of the United States after any major conflicts; her historic stance has been a laissez-faire attitude of simple sitting back keeping her hands politely to herself, which is the norm from the United States. The average American knows little about world affairs and cares even less. The average American was defined by President Clinton in his initial campaign for the Presidency with his slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” The stupid in this case was George Herbert Walker Bush (the elder and first Pres Bush) and the elections proved it as President Bush did not gain reelection largely due to his having broken his promise of, “Read my lips; no new taxes,” and then was forced to raise taxes by a Democrat Congress in order to get his budget passed with the military spending not slashed by the Congress. The election of President Clinton over reelecting President Bush was all about domestic policies over foreign policies.

 

You start to talk about foreign policy with the average American and their eyes gloss over and they drift into some zombie like state all catatonic and in shock after the first two or three sentences. Talk about immigration, taxes, domestic hot-button issues, government spending of which all is unnecessary except those they are or will receive, and the economy then you will engage in a sometimes heated debate. Talk about money and they will listen, talk about something happening in the Mille East or Asia and they will repeat what the media stated, that is bad, that is good and those people sure have as rough time, but then they will turn it back to how the government needs to take care of things at home first. The average American has all the sympathy you could ever ask for and they will donate more to charities than any other peoples on earth but when it comes to sending their young men off to fight in what they mostly see as somebody else’s war, then they need a ton of convincing and President Obama surfs waves, seldom makes waves when it comes to world politics. The President came from a past as a community organizer, read rabble rouser causing trouble to force government actions usually spending more money of which they get the lion’s share, and knows little outside of Chicago, let alone outside of the United States. He treats foreign policy as if it was a plague and to his outlook, as well as many Americans outlooks, simply does not go past the horizon and possibly not past the water’s edge.

 

We can bet that should the Democrat candidate become the next President, they too will do little as they can in foreign policy. We need remember that the Democrat candidate will not likely be Hillary Clinton but more likely somebody not even announced as of yet. Ms. Clinton’s campaign van has the wheels flying off and the engine is about to quit. The van is driving down the road to oblivion. But what if it is the Republican candidate, you inquire. There we need to find out who will take the lead and which ones do not survive the first three or four actual primary votes. We can make some specific and general observations. Rand Paul is an isolationist libertarian who believes if the United States hurts nobody then nobody would target the United States. Of all the governors and ex-governors running, only Jeb Bush might be a President inclined to use military force and actually have an active foreign policy. Others have claimed that they will repair the United States relations with Israel as well as Egypt and Saudi Arabia largely undoing some of the changes made under President Obama. Still, such actions do not necessarily mean a return into Iraq to defeat ISIS unless it becomes a dire threat to the stability of the Middle East. Only Senator Marco Rubio has direct experience with foreign policies as he in on the Senate Intelligence Committee which gives him access beyond the average Senator under the need to know doctrines. Almost any Republican candidate becoming President would easily take four months to a year to become fully briefed on every hot-spot that the Pentagon had plans and counter plans and different options under each plan and time granted each. Such amounts of information is why the President has a Secretary of Defense whose staff is divided so they can divide their work and attend to each contingencies. Still, the final decisions and person who must form the overall foreign police and who has to call in the troops for action when deemed to be necessary lies with the President and the President alone. That is one of the reason it is said that it is lonely at the top. We still have no real available input that any of the Republican candidates would press for an interventionist approach to foreign policies.

 

Likely the most pressing foreign policy might already have their hands tied should President Obama make any Iran nuclear deal somehow into a treaty without gaining Congressional affirmation. Such a decade long deal would actually prevent the next administration from taking any actions without smoking gun style proof that Iran had broken the agreement but as the agreement includes steps all the way through twelve years with little margin for change in the terms or even the terminology during that time period with the Iranians presumably free to complete their desired goal of deliverable nuclear warheads and the ICBMs on which to place them after ten years according to President Obama’s own admission which would leave them at a minimum two years to produce as many weapons systems as they are able starting with an unknown amount of LEU (low enrichment Uranium) with which to work and all of that Uranium a simple two day’s processing to be made weapons grade HEU (highly enriched Uranium over 90% purity) and then they would be capable of molding the cores and producing actual weapons. All of this is a guess of what the eventual agreement will appear to say and Iranian compliance to the terms and inspection protocols as well as their answering numerous questions about previous work performed largely by the military which Iran insists is an unprecedented and unnecessary invasion of their privileges and privacies. So, when it comes to the Iranian nuclear program the next President may be acting with his hands tied and possibly looking at a negative response from a nuclear armed Iran claiming their dominion over Iraq and dismissing the need for United States interference in their area of control which they will claim includes Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and who knows where else by January 21, 2017 when the next President takes office. After Iran there will be other situations such as Russia and their low-grade war with the Ukraine and its possibilities, China and their expansion Islands being built and potentially taking territorial control semi-legally over the entire South China Sea giving them control over one of the most active shipping lanes in the world. Speaking of choke points for shipping, Iran already has menacing control over the Straits of Hormuz where almost one third of the world’s oil is shipped by tankers and may through their proxies in Yemen, Houthis can also threaten to control the Bab-el-Mandeb which would cut off the southern exit of the Red Sea making the Suez Canal unusable and the Israeli southern port to the orient and Africa blockaded, a casus belli which could lead to a state of declared war by Iran on Israel and Egypt as both would have their shipping access to the world impeded illegally as Iran would have no other excuse other than they could close all shipping. These are just the top three and none of these includes the ISIS threat which may grow to the point where Iran and ISIS meet on equal footing with ISIS having gained an Air Force even if of a limited nature, and tactics which are prone to working, at least working well against the Iraqi army. ISIS has had far less success against the Kurdish Militias such as the Peshmerga (literally “one who confronts death”) and the People’s Protection Units (known as the YPG). These have held the northeast parts of Syria having an astonishing turning point in the city of Kobanê as well as the northern third or so of Iraq where the Kurdish forces saved thousands of Yazidi and whose Yazidi Militias have joined ranks with the Kurdish Militias. We could continue to the other continents and their probabilities for causing distress but that would leave Antarctica as probably the only safe haven if you desired no strife, or at least not yet.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

What the New Republican Majority Congress Must Not Do

I have seen near countless articles and editorials, is there a difference between the news and editorials any more, making every sort of suggestions for what the Republicans must do to make their majority count for something and be successful. What was a constant for virtually every suggestion of what they must do was how almost none of it would get passed the White House Obama veto. As President Obama once warned that he has a pen and a phone could also imply that he could veto legislation passed by the Republican Congress and then phone them to come pick up their worthless pieces of paper. So, with the veto pen and the insulting phone call in mind I thought suggesting what the Republicans should avoid if they desire to be successful in the ensuing Congress over the remaining two years of the Obama Presidency. Where they should pass certain principled legislation initially which defines their principles but not waste months doing so, they should also repeat this procedure in the summer leading up to the 2016 elections to augment a candidate for President that hopefully can excite the Republican voters across their spectrum and can express the core conservative and constitutional principles in a manner similar to President Reagan but also able to use social media to good advantage.

The Republicans must not fall for the media mantra that what voters demanded from the new Congress was for them to reach across the aisle and work with the Democrats and President Obama as a great number of their voters wanted no such thing, something I learned about through personal and close up observation and a listening tour in Oklahoma which ended about one year ago. They should not make attempts to modify the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obama Care, and also should not spend great amounts of time repealing it as having President Obama veto one single protest legislation repealing Obama Care should suffice. The electorate did not send their representatives and Senators to Washington to waste time playing political games; they sent them to relay a message, no further damage to their nation and the future in which their children and grandchildren will live. The one message the Republican voters want delivered is no automatic and immediate amnesty by Presidential edict even if it requires cutting funding for the entirety of the Immigrations and Naturalizations Department. The people want the budget to be carefully crafted and the wasteful spending reduced as much as can be accomplished. This means no omnibus spending bills or full budget bills which leave discretional spending by the administration. If that requires passing tens or hundreds of individual pieces of legislation funding each department and even each program individually even if it takes the vast majority of their efforts in order to prevent monies from being diverted to places and programs they were not intended to finance. The people want the spending trimmed down by any means necessary. Do not worry about what the media accuses you of being as their name calling will not affect your voters if you treat their desires with respect and do their bidding.

The people who sent many of you to Congress do not want any compromise immigration reform, especially if it includes amnesty. They do not want another immigration legislation which grants a path to citizenship in the immediate and a future sealing of the border and completing the double fence as such legislation in the past never did build the fence or seal the border. Immigration reform means sealing the border and building the fence the entire length of the borders, northern and southern as either border can be used by those who desire to harm us just as easily as the other. The Democrats will be doing everything in their power to force the amnesty to come first but that must be resisted. Now that you are controlling both houses you can refuse to permit adding riders and amendments to legislation which are unassociated with the subject of the legislation or simply add little treats for the home districts as the people you presumably serve do not benefit or desire these little favors which have become part of business as usual and waste billions upon billions of dollars every year. Whatever you decide to do, do not pass any legislation which is more than two or three pages unless entirely unavoidable due to the complexity of the subject such as a manned mission to Mars or a moon base. Your constituents will be very unforgiving of any legislation which is hundreds of pages, let alone thousands of pages in length and are, as Nancy Pelosi once stated, that we have to pass it to see what is in it. Know that there are many amongst your supporters who will read every last page and then write notes, articles, comments and convers on social media and across many places on the internet and you will hear their disgust loudly when they replace you at their earliest convenience. Ask those Republicans who lost primaries and thus never got to seek reelection, they understand.

The voters who elected you are sick of deficit spending and expect that you will not spend more than the government takes in from taxes and other various fees, licenses, fines and whatever. Even if this means that there must be some cuts in services or programs, then so be it. They want jobs, economic growth and fewer regulations which strangle economic growth. Many may not understand the mechanics of the interactions between the government actions and economic matters but they do understand unemployment, low growth and the other effects such things have on their lives and that they can detect whenever they balance their checkbook account. They really do not want excuses for why you had to enact certain legislation in order to make compromises with the Democrats and get other items passed with Democratic help. They remember how the Democrats acted completely unilaterally and passed Obama Care without a single Republican vote and see no reason for compromise now that the Republicans control Congress. Do not repeal the nuclear option that Harry Reid put in place so that any Presidential appointment could be ratified by simply majority in order to freeze out any Republican dissent, turnabout is fair play. You were not sent to Washington to be invited to all the Georgetown parties and other social functions, nor were you sent to get along with the other side, you were sent to Washington to ruin President Obama’s last two years and ending his reign of terror over the United States as well as its people and allies. You were sent to Washington to send a message and prove that the Republicans have finally learned from their past mistakes and are prepared to return to their roots and basics and are able to resist any influences and pressures from the Democrats, the media or the lobbyists and NGOs who are paid to persuade you to forfeit the trust of your constituents and instead serve their moneyed interests. Feel free to also not do any of these things and ignore all the warnings if you choose and enjoy your one term for as long as it lasts. The new face of the most active elements of the Republican Party are done with business as usual or go along to get along politicking and will continue to seek new faces until they get the representation they desire. The choices are yours to make for now but eventually the final decision over whether you are returned to Washington is that of your constituents and the one disadvantage you have is as a Republican you must win the minds more so than the hearts of your constituency and that constituency are high information voters, a phrase used by talk radio personalities to describe their listeners and these are also your voters. If your get nothing more from this article than those who sent you to Washington are awake, politically savvy and watching your every vote and will hold you to account for every vote should you betray their trust and cross their red lines, and they will use the nuclear option on your candidacy should you cross their red lines as they are not like the President, they mean what they say and vote what they believe. You have been warned and if you are aware, then it should be easy for you to understand the situation and act accordingly or else it has been nice knowing you and hope you enjoy your next day job.

Beyond the Cusp

Hopes and Ponderings Concerning Aftermath of American Elections

Let us start with Congress with the presumption that the Republicans will control the Senate as well as the House of Representatives. The Republican leadership, in particular the establishment mainstream Republicans, will very likely misread the opportunity and expectations of them by the American public and especially their base voters and spend all their energies and debates in attempts to bring down President Obama whether through directly attempting to impeach him and failing or by endless hearings against President Obama himself and other members past and present of his administration. There is a definite probability that they would attempt to bring former Attorney General Eric Holder, assuming he ever is replaced which nobody appears to be in any great hurry to find a replacement. Between Fast and Furious and the rest of the litany of assumed misdeeds the Republicans could spend most of the last two years of President Obama’s terms simply holding hearings on Holder and Benghazi, their two favorite subjects for attacking the President. Such a scenario would be the greatest waste of time and missing of opportunity in the history of politics.

 

The Republicans, should they control both houses but not have sufficient numbers to override Presidential vetoes, they should still pass the bills which the American people would see as taking responsible approaches to actually get the government out of the way of the economic engine allowing it to adjust to the situation as it exists and slowly rev up and begin to produce jobs and economic activities which have been moribund for the past six years plus back to the last year and a half of the George W. Bush Presidency. They should not bother trying to repeal or modify the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) as such would be a waste of their efforts and not actually showcase their agenda should they ever gain the kind of situation which President Obama enjoyed and squandered; the complete control over the entirety of government with the White House and majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives plus their Senate majority was filibuster proof as they held over sixty seats. The Republicans should have debates to display their agenda for two to three weeks on each grand piece of legislation which would make the core of a government where they were allowed to freely pass their agenda. By having open hearings and discussions they might also be able to get the media to cover these legislative deliberations, even should they attempt to portray them in a negative light, thus placing them before the American public. Granted such a plan depends on the ability and desire of the American public to care about the workings of the Congress and actually see through any slant in the media. Unfortunately, we are more likely to witness the Republicans waste their opportunity and as a result the Democrats might be able to win back the Senate and maybe even the House of Representatives as well as retaining the White House as a result of the 2016 elections, but more on this later.

 

President Obama after the election will have even less reason to remain even slightly limited by the Constitution. The President has already shown complete contempt for the Republican controlled House of Representatives and even to ignore the will of the Democratic controlled Senate. This disregard for any convention or limitation will permit President Obama to work on completing the rest of his promises to fundamentally change the United States of America. His intent to mold the United States in his image is just another reflection of his narcissism which knows no boundaries and once the final election which might have any effect upon his ability to rule and rule absolutely, President Obama will finally be cut loose to enact the edicts by Presidential use of a pen and the phone to those minions who he can rely upon to take to the streets if necessary and cause sufficient disturbance to allow him to continue writing executive order after order as he intends. The areas where President Obama would have the greatest influence should he choose is in the makeup of the General staffs of the military since he can request the resignation of any General at his pleasure. He could then replace them with people from within the military who would be more accepting to his desires to limit the use of the military outside of the United States and with no regard to consequences or treaty start redeploying all the military personnel either back home or someplace where their capabilities are least necessary such as the deployment to West Africa to presumably assist with the fight against Ebola. Exactly how combat troops are supposed to engage and fight microscopic targets is beyond my meager ability to figure, but I am sure the President gave them orders which would address such difficulties. But the military is the least of the areas where President Obama could enforce his will.

 

There is the possibility that should the Democrats lose their majority in the Senate that during the current Senate’s lame duck session that Senate Majority Leader Reid could call them back to Washington for an emergency session because a number of Supreme Court Justices had retired such as Justice Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg who is of advanced age and suffers from cancer. Then President Obama could send candidates for ratification and as Senator Harry Reid used the nuclear option which now allows for confirmation of Presidential appointees to only require a majority decision for cloture, thus ending any chance for filibuster, which forces an immediate confirmation vote. President Obama and such a session of the Senate could very easily place as many new and young very leftist Justices onto the Supreme Court as Justices retired allowing such appointments. President Obama could really let loose the Environmental Protection Agency and other Cabinet posts and departments to enact regulations using even the flimsiest of authorizations from actual laws. We might even become aware of other surprises ensconced within the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act mega-legislative effort. Remember former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comment that we had to pass the bill to find out what was in the bill. What else might be hidden in the language of the over two thousand pages of the legislation now law that would allow for more malfeasance.

 

The real problem that arises is, with a compliant Attorney General willing to simply cover up for anything the President or members of his Cabinet or other appointees placed throughout government as well as those willing to act in accordance with the instructions of those who will be tasked with carrying out any edicts or regulatory enactments which originate with the White House and relayed down a pipeline of favorable and willing and dependable government employees, all of whom will have sufficient time in service, this allows all to be completely safe from consequences while performing and enacting new regulations. This is an area where President Obama and his appointees making up his administration including the various Secretaries in the Cabinet as well as the numerous Czars which were not reviewed nor approved by Senate confirmation remaining un-vetted yet holding great power and sway with some even having more influence than the Cabinet Secretaries who presumably held the sole supervisory over their departments thus allowing the President to rewrite regulations almost at will. Exactly how far President Obama is willing and planning to go in remaking the United States is an unknown that will be revealed over the remaining two years of his Presidency with the first hints coming early next year and possibly a little earlier, all depending on election results and how willing the President might be and how far he would risk going. Whatever the coming events, it will prove to be interesting and the only actual unknown is how exciting and challenging these coming events will prove. As the ancient Chinese curse goes, “May you live in interesting times,” and we certainly do live in such times.

 

While we are predicting the future let’s peek into my crystal ball and see who might end up as the Democrat candidate for President in the 2016 election cycle. I might try to also include the Republican candidate but with so many unannounced and almost ready to runs, that prediction is going to have to wait until the field has been decided though I can predict which politicians will not be the republican candidate. A quick rundown of the Republicans who will not appear on the 2016 final ballot are Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie and Speaker of the House John Boehner for starters. Now on to the Democrat candidates and the somewhat controversial prediction. Almost everybody has placed their chips on Hillary Clinton and with her latest appearance and her apparent new improved look, they have good reason to choose her. The problem is the voice and the speeches are still Hillary Clinton who was initially tainted by some claiming she only married Bill to ride his coattails to prominence and this was only reinforced by her run for Senate in New York, a state where she had barely taken up residence. Then Hillary Clinton has also been tainted by her inept performance at Secretary of State and especially the Benghazi slaughter of four Americans including Ambassador Stevens and his aid as well as two security personnel and former seals who put up a heroic fight while waiting for the cavalry to come over the hilltop in the nick of time. That cavalry never was permitted to even mount up let alone ride to the rescue. The echo of, “What did you do during the Benghazi nightmare and why was there not more security since you knew there were potential problems and a definitive threat of an attack?” Because of the obvious candidacy of Hillary Clinton and the reputation of the Clintons for not appreciating those who choose to oppose them, just ask the Obamas, there will be few Democrats rushing to compete with Hillary Clinton. There is one exception and she is a candidate whose history depicts a woman who is not easily cowed and is bold enough to have made obviously fictitious claims in order to gain scholarship and more and now sits as United States Senator for Massachusetts. As you have likely guessed or know, the person I believe will win the Democrat nomination for President is Elizabeth Warren, Native American deriving her family having Cherokee and Delaware Indian heritage, listed herself as a minority in professional directories. Yet she questionably denied that she ever tried to gain a professional advantage through her lineage. Still, Elizabeth Warren has the near perfect liberal progressive credentials and presents herself well and has a similar experience to President Obama when he first sought the White House against Hillary Clinton as well. Further, the United States low information voters and some easily swayed voters who simply desire to be a part of the majority and will follow a sweeping trend just to be considered in with their peer groups will vote for a good story line repeated in the media and popular culture spots such as social media and comedy news reports. This may prove to be a part of the Presidential election cycle should either party, particularly if it is the Democrats, should place a woman at the top of their ticket, then they may tap into the desire of the American public to crash and break down all of the remaining barriers they perceive to remain in their societal history. Despite the seeming problems which have accompanied President Obama, there will be those more than willing to place a woman in the White House; and not only a woman, but a Native American woman making Elizabeth Warren potentially the first self-proclaimed Native American President and the first woman President. How can that combination possibly lose? My only request is please do not kill the messenger if this message proves incorrect; I tried and took the chance and now wait for the dice to stop spinning.

 

Beyond the Cusp