Trump Clinton, the Aftermath

 

Well, it actually is all over except the shouting, and there sure seems to be a whole lot of shouting. If you do not believe us, go visit Facebook and if your page is not filled with screaming heebie jeebies, well, then your friends either do not speak English or other major languages or your friends have never heard of this place called the United States of America. Just for your edification, right now they do not appear all that united. The winner of the election rightfully depends on how you figure the winner. By the rules set forth in the United States Constitution, Donald Trump won receiving the majority of the Electoral College Delegates and it was not even close. If, on the other hand, you play by whatever rules best support your argument, in this case the popular vote, then Hillary Clinton should be the President. But if you really want to be picky, then the Democrat candidate should have been the disenfranchised Bernie Sanders and everybody knows that he would have won, just ask his supporters, they’ll tell you all about how he was cheated and how he would have creamed Trump in the General election. Just in case you have not caught on, it’s complicated. To make matters even more bizarre, Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for President, did not win a single Electoral College Delegate but still demanded recounts in the three states which Hillary Clinton was closest to beating Donald Trump and would have, any two of the three, given Hillary Clinton the victory making her President. Just for clarity, Jill Stein had nothing to gain in any recount even if done by a blind supporter of her candidacy. For reasons that escaped those on the left, that includes most Hillary Clinton supporters and all of Jill Stein supporters, the courts refused the recount efforts and decreed that the recount request by Jill Stein was ridiculous because it could never have gained her any advantage. They were very polite not to dress her down for acting for Hillary Clinton and at the Clinton Campaign’s request that she be her agent so that Hillary could remain above the dirty down under shenanigans. So, the end result is Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, which is like saying she received over 60% of California and New York plus, for the record, over 90% of Washington D.C., which way outnumbered anything Texas could produce as it was almost close in Texas, 55% Trump, but Donald Trump received the most Electoral College Delegates, that is more states which were close such as Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and you get the idea, thus winning the Presidential race. For those having difficulty, if one were to be running for school president and each of the twelve levels of classes received one delegate and candidate A won three of the classes by fifty votes each but Candidate B won the remaining nine classes by three votes on average then Candidate B wins the election nine to three but loses the vote count by one-hundred-twenty-three votes.

 

Now let us give you the particulars. You will hear the claim that each person’s vote in Wyoming, the least populous state, was equal to a thousand votes in California, the most populous state, which explains why Hillary Clinton killing Donald Trump in California but losing Wyoming was important, that actually is how it is supposed to work. If the vote were straight popular vote would anybody ever campaign in Wyoming or Alaska or anywhere other than California, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and Texas? Winning California, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida would easily win you the popular vote but what about the remaining forty-three states, what are they, chopped liver? That was exactly what the Founding Fathers wished to avoid except in their day it was Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. The Electoral College is made up of five-hundred-thirty-five delegates. Each state receives two delegates to equal their number of Senators and then they get a delegate for each member of the House of Representatives. Every state is guaranteed a minimum of one Representative thus in the Electoral College Wyoming gets three delegates and California gets fifty-five delegates. The population of California is many times greater than the population of Wyoming, sufficient that seventy-five delegates might be a closer representation of the difference, but that is not the rule and the rules for the election were clear, crystal clear, at the beginning of the campaign. Despite knowing that she would win in California and New York, Hillary Clinton still campaigned in both states as if they were in question and crucial to her winning yet she spent little if any time in Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Michigan believing they too were guaranteed. They were not. Still, the screaming will continue as if a great miscarriage of justice has been committed because Hillary Clinton was owed the Presidency and Donald Trump is a poser.

 

So, what is the truth behind this election? Well, first off is Donald Trump is not worthy of the office of President, but then again neither was Hillary Clinton. Probably there might have been a third party or independent candidate worthy but the actual reality is the only ones with any hope of winning were the two major party candidates. So, what are the American people to do when both parties put up such candidates? They chose, it is that simple. Truth of the matter is that there are likely a fair number of people who voted for Donald Trump who now wish they had not but had Hillary Clinton won there would have likely been a near equal number of people upset with having voted for her. When the vast majority of the people are voting against one candidate rather than supporting the candidate receiving their vote, there can be no validated winner. That aside, the fact is Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by three-hundred-six delegates to two-hundred-thirty-two delegates. That is an electoral landslide despite losing the popular vote. That leaves a vast number of disgruntled Americans facing a President who feels he has an electoral mandate. The media will do what it is able to deprive Donald Trump of any feelings of great victory be constantly questioning his victory and claiming he stole the Presidential election. Even the more conservative and Republican friendly media will not be all that favorable to Donald Trump thus he is unlikely to have many friends anywhere along the political landscape. But there are those who claim, us included, that if you are making everybody angry then you are probably being extremely fair as nobody likes a fair decision, they want their side to obviously win.

 

Still, the question is what choice was there when both candidates were so obviously flawed? The honest truth was the election was more about which candidate was going to lose, not who would win. Hillary lost the election far more than Trump won the election. Each candidate received more of their votes from people scared to death of the other candidate in the White House. As it turned out, more voters in more states were terrified of the Clinton Foundation and the pay to play politics than they were of a complete clown and poser playing at President for the next four years. More people over a wider geographic area felt that Trump could and would do less damage to the nation than Clinton. There were no great expectations or value voters but had there been such, they voted Trump over Clinton. The reality was once Hillary Clinton campaigned in a single speech that she would be President Obama’s third term she lost. Her repeating that mantra cost her the election as the states between the great mountain ranges, the Appalachians and the Rockies, voted all but unanimously for Trump. Hillary won the megalopolises and Trump the smaller cities, towns and countryside. This election was very much similar to the Truman defeat of Dewey by taking rural America over the cities. That election was initially called for Dewey famously by the Chicago Daily Tribune leading to the famous picture of Truman holding up that paper with the headline of “Dewey Defeats Truman” at his victory party. There was one news magazine which had reported a Clinton victory in the election thus history repeated itself except we had to fake the picture. This election will be exciting demonstrations and questions about what will be and might have been. No matter which side of the argument you sit, you cannot win on Facebook. To be honest, Facebook has gotten borderline toxic no matter who you supported as the extremes are ruling the posting wars. If you can survive more than fifteen minutes either you are ignoring the vast majority of posts or you have apolitical friends. All we can request is please bring back the kitten and puppy pictures and funny videos, please.

 

Dewey Defeats Truman and
Clinton Defeats Trump
Headlines Then and Now

 

The future will debate on into infinity what would have been and what was. There will be predictions of how different things would be and debates over if Trump or Clinton really is the anti-Christ. Trump is the President and the best thing we all can do is pray that he makes at least mostly good choices. We also need remember that many of the things Trump will do, that can be reversed in the future just as things President Obama did are now being altered or nixed all together. That is how the American system functions, or malfunctions, all depending on whether your side is in power or not. After four years the American people will be given the opportunity to decide if Donald Trump was a worthy President or not. First the Republicans will get to decide whether to run Trump again or not and then the people will get a chance if the Republicans have not replaced him. Then there is the chance that Trump will decide four years of the bearing the responsibilities is a bit much for him and not run for reelection. It is possible as it has probably happened before like when Lyndon Baines Johnson decided not to run for another term seeing he would definitely have lost and did not want that on his resume. Whatever the case will be, in two years the entire House of Representatives is up for election and one third of the Senate, which leaves a large amount of potential change if people decide that the nation is going in the wrong direction still. This election was somewhat about the direction of the nation with Hillary Clinton claiming to retain the status quo and Donald Trump being the agent for change, radical change. What was interesting is that radical change won as that is uncharacteristic of the American voters and has seldom been the case. The last time such was chosen was Ronald Reagan, not to draw even the slightest of comparisons though if Donald Trump does half as much good he will have been a success. That will likely get some reactions claiming we are insane if we believe Reagan was a good President and that it was Carter’s policies of freedom that broke the Soviet empire down. That is the belief in some circles; fortunately we travel largely in equilateral triangles so as not to get dizzy. All that can be said in honesty now is may Donald Trump be guided by the better angels and produce good for the largest numbers of peoples as he is able with the limited amount of power he legally wields and may he only wield those defined powers.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

Reasons for NOT Moving the Embassy to Jerusalem

 

This has been the most and greatest coverage we have seen since the Inauguration of President Trump when covering his promises and the possibility that he might falter. Every article has mentioned different choices predicting which promises the President Trump would renege upon. Many claimed he would never build the wall along the Mexican border. Some kind of cheated by claiming that he would merely use a fence or even cameras with computer monitoring for motion detection and alerting the Border Police instead of building a wall along the entire border. Some would claim that the terrain would prevent it being a wall along the entire border but these arguments were disingenuous as the wording of a “wall along the Mexico border” simply meant closing the border through the use of combined deterrents, walls, fences or monitoring through advances of technology in the most difficult terrain or least used crossing locations and simply closing the border using all means necessary and required. Others claimed he would be unable to deport all the illegal immigrants as promised. First off, that was not the promise. He promised to deport illegal immigrants with felony convictions and to work at finding an equitable solution in which deportation may be an integral part of the equation.

 

The one item which made virtually every article’s list was the promise to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Almost, well, honestly every article we read claimed that President Trump would not be capable of moving the embassy as the threats, dangers, political pressures or even that Trump would use moving the embassy to force the Israelis to make the next concession of dividing Jerusalem and returning to the 1949 Armistice Lines with very minor land swaps making a final peace deal. What the problem with the claim is that the Congress passage and the signing into law of the Jerusalem Act “recognized Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty.” That makes an undivided Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty United States law and thus holds any President to standing either actively for the undivided capital of Israel as being all of Jerusalem or remaining silent, no matter how President Obama attempted to divide Jerusalem as he disregarded numerous laws including the United States Constitution. Even some Israeli media has come up with lists for why President Trump will not, or should not (Haaretz), move the embassy to Jerusalem claiming things so extreme as stated by Haaretz, “Relocating its embassy to Jerusalem would mean the U.S. taking a partisan stance on a central and sensitive issue, a source of controversy between Israel and the Palestinians, and between Israel and the international community.” That is a falsehood unless moving the embassy to western Jerusalem would be taking a position that western Jerusalem would remain part of Israel. Is Haaretz indicating that Israel should leave western Jerusalem and if that is the meaning, then what else should Israel surrender or does Haaretz stand with the most extreme position such as that expressed by Helen Thomas who stated on May 27, 2010, when asked whether she had any comments on Israel? “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,” she replied. “Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land. It’s not Germany, it’s not Poland.” When further asked where they should go, she answered, “They should go home.” When asked where’s home, Thomas replied: “Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else.”

 

 

The American Embassy could easily be moved to even the most western edge of Jerusalem and be as far as possible from any lands under dispute and still there would be whole hosts of people screaming that the United States is persecuting the Palestinian Arabs and determining to cheat them out of their homeland. This might at first glance appear as a ridiculous position to take as it could be so easily repudiated except that the Palestinian Arab claims include all of Jerusalem. The reality is the United States has already made a statement that is determined to cheat the Palestinian Arabs out of their homeland by leaving their embassy in Tel Aviv as the Arab claim is to all of Israel just as the students chant in campuses across the United States, Europe and beyond, “From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free.” The Palestinian Arabs are actually the entire Arab world’s crowbar and will be their implement by which they continue to wage their war to destroy all of Israel. The truth is the existence of a United States Embassy is an affront to the Palestinian Arab claims to their “rightful” country which would be built on the ruins of the Jewish State as anything less would be an aberrance to their stated demands and eventual goals. This is part of why Mahmoud Abbas, and Yasser Arafat before him, refused even offers which granted them with over 90% of Judea and Samaria along with all of Gaza and east Jerusalem as their capital when offered in 1999, 2000 and in 2008.

 

So, why should President Trump move the United States Embassy to Jerusalem according to us here at Beyond the Cusp? Well, we could use our favorite reason when trying to win an argument as kids with our parents when life got between us and a promise to go somewhere fun, “But you promised,” but we know that does not wash when things are on this level. First, it would send a message that there really has been a change in Washington D.C. and that the change will very likely be permanent for all intents and purposes. The world’s train is racing towards oblivion and nobody is manning the breaks. The old steam engine is racing with its speed balls spinning full out threatening to blow off their spinners. Everything about the old globe is screaming, whistles blowing and rivets near popping and the boiler exploding and the Deadman’s switch rig disabled and there is nobody in the cabin. Well, there was nobody in the cabin. This was the picture of the world not long ago and hopefully things will be saved before we hit a sharp curve and it all goes off the tracks. Brexit was step one and President Trump is step two but nobody knows how many steps it will require for sanity to rescue the world. Will the needful steps be taken or will the next cataclysm strike before the world regains sanity. What are the necessary steps that will bring the world back within the bounds, who can tell? The world has been slowly gaining reckless speed slowly slipping out of control and towards untold violence. There are those forces which would welcome the untold violence. They loudly proclaim their love for violence and the death it brings. They claim to worship death and that this allows them power over all who worship life. Their claim is that death conquers life. Those who love life claim that death is the rest one receives after a full, long and hopefully well spent life. These are opposing views which cannot be reconciliated, one must prevail. The good news is that President Trump is aware of the challenge though he has spoken only about it through allegory and indirect references. Moving the United States Embassy would be a strong message when it is announced as a definitive and executable policy decision. Perhaps that is the future for the moving of the United States Embassy, a declaration that the United States and life will declare over death and those who believe it is primacy. Yes, perhaps the moving of the Embassy will be a greater declaration than what the debaters believe it will be. Perhaps there is a grander plan than we are aware, perhaps the plan is greater than men and from beyond our understanding. This may be a greater issue than a mere embassy and the city in which it sits. Jerusalem had been more than a city and perhaps this is more than a simple embassy. Lastly, if the reason not to move the embassy to Jerusalem is because it reportedly will inflame Muslim passions moving them to further animosity and in turn greater acts of violence, then there is no reason not to move the embassy as from all observations of the Middle East, especially Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Libya and both Sudan and South Sudan as well as the levels of terrorism in Europe, more so Western Europe and also in the United States, though there it has been reported as anything but terror, especially Islamic driven terror, the levels could not conceivably be any higher. Violence, thy name is Islam, has become a truism of our times and thus simply move the embassy as there is no possible additional levels other than war, and that will happen whether the embassy is moved or not. If we had our way and the United States had not already purchased the land, then we would call for the embassy not only to be moved to Jerusalem but to the Jewish sector of the Old City as well. After all, did not Trump promise that his Presidency would be a brave and bold rebeginning for America and her relations with her friends? Well then, let’s get it off on the right foot.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Freedom of the Media was and is an Illusion

 

Freedom of the Media, the Press, was intended to mean that the media was allowed to take position opposing those in power. With President-elect Trump we have a complete rebirth of freedom in Media as the leftist media has been permitted total freedom in denouncing, condemning, delegitimizing and casting overt dispersion in such rapidity that the Maxim machine gun is jealous of their repetition rate against all items Trump. The only threat the American, and its twin of the European media and much of the western and developed world’s media, is facing is that largely, with few notable exception, is pure leftist progressive slant where anything which is not in line with their politically correct, censored, straight-jacket narrow view of the world is denounced as demonic, evil, Nazi-esque and potentially leading to censorship closing down all opposing views of the right wing. The media and their vociferous echo chamber of NGO’s, political advocates, full array of supportive leftist and progressive alternative media, and various leftist lobbyists all standing together making as much racket as the world might stand. That is one of the precious secrets of the Progressive leftists, they are all for one and one for all even more so than the Three Musketeers. This becomes evident in the one area where the left progressives have mastered something that the other end of the political spectrum has yet to even consider, let alone adopt.

 

Watch any demonstration for any leftist Progressive cause and you will soon understand how they get hundreds or more at every demonstration, universal representation. Go to an ecology rally against perhaps coal powered electricity plant in your city and there will be all sorts of ecology demonstrators including anti-nuclear power, pro-wind power, save the whales, clean our rivers, save the oceans, clean air and any other ecology cause imaginable. But that is not all. There will likely be others there who support other causes and are not particularly worked up about the ecology of the Earth and more concerned with the pro-choice, anti-death penalty, anti-racism, and even pro-Palestinian or BDS or other anti-Zionist, anti-Israel movements all there for one reason, the leftist you scratch my cause I’ll scratch your cause. Often at a demonstration for some cause there will be protest signs for other causes within the demonstration because if you protest one leftist Progressive cause, you are there representing all leftist progressive causes. And the mainstream will give favorable coverage with inflated numbers of protesters and enthusiasm and will take their pictures selectively attempting to only get the right standards despite others also on prominent display. Many will accuse me and ask how it is I know this. Well, once upon a time many years ago I was one of those liberals back when being a liberal meant keep the government out of my life, respect for all people, equality for all, live and let live, and, believe it or not, gun rights was not an automatic exclusion from the club. To be honest, the one cause which had tepid support was gun rights, but at least in those days it was not a cause which caused one to be disassociate and shunned.

 

Back then one went to every protest just as is the means today. There were people who would pay people to attend protests which were considered vital. These were often the protests against particular politicians or counter rallies to out shadow any right wing causes by having greater numbers at the counter rally thus making the coverage all about the liberal progressive cause which opposed the scheduled protest. Often the counter protest did not have any license or permit and actually be technically illegal but they were seldom forced to disperse and were given much freedom. The exception were the anti-war demonstrations which the government took a dim view and would use violent force to break up such demonstrations. This was back in the late 1960s and into the 1970s and with the times the position of the establishment changed as the left took command during the Administration and Presidency of Jimmy Carter. That was a turning point as from that point on the left progressive tours de force began a simple tactic, the just ignore everything between progressive majorities and just pick up right where the last front left off. This made for a force which became all but an inevitability which could never be opposed by anything the conservatives could establish.

 

This became evident when President Jimmy Carter simply picked up where President Lyndon Baines Johnson left off with the Great Society, affirmative action, wealth redistribution, ecology restrictions on industry through emissions and every other leftist progressive cause. Then there was a break for a dozen years of the Reagan and George H. W. Bush Presidencies. Then came President William Jefferson Clinton who continued expanding the progressive cause and then came another Republican, President George W. Bush, who was not so much a counter to the progressive causes than a slightly different approach in establishing big government programs which the “No Child Left Behind” program. This brought on the yet another rendition of ‘new math,’ ‘full word recognition’ and stressing minority contributions from the past replacing history with little mention of any contributions from white males and especially Judeo-Christian ethics and instead an anti-ethical education which removed any standard history of the United States and other Western histories which when mentioned it received condemnations of how it was exclusive not as meaning something exemplary but rather as racist, prejudiced and intolerant. Any traditional history was belittled and condemned by using modern day morality and equal rights viewpoints making everything from the past appear hateful and vengeful being racist, prejudiced and xenophobic. Making normative history where Christian, white male formed history such as the Founding Fathers were cast as hateful slave owners and thus not ethical or acceptable because such was unacceptable in these modern times and the European greats such as Da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Isaac Newton, Galileo and others were also intolerant, supremacist, racist, sexist and likely homophobic or full of other forms of hateful white supremacist views which would be condemned in today’s world. This version of history left much of traditional history untaught or presented as something to be rejected and spurned as horrible examples of a hateful past.

 

 

Some of such views are being presented in the media where past events are presented under a modern viewpoint and leftist microscope where anything which was acceptable back in history becomes unacceptable and regrettable as it fails to measure up to the modern ethos and leftist yardstick which was unheard of and did not exist when the history occurred. This method was designed and makes children ashamed of their past history and thus leaves them unattached to their past and because of their being separated and unanchored their views can be molded in such a manner as to overturn their ethics and allows them to be made to accept anything as one who has no past can be given any defined future. This is an actual method for disconnecting children from their parents, their history, their religious affiliations and anything which might define them as a continuation of their actual society and are instead given an entire redefined ethos which has nothing connected to their history and disconnecting them from parents and everything which would allow for a continuation of history and a continuation of the historic societal models. This is reinforced by the mainstream media which works using the identical redefined ethical framework leaving a youth which when they take the reins of power, they will start a society completely detached from past realities and all of history. The casting of all former history as evil and ruinous and without any worth was beautifully exemplified by President Obama when he returned the bust of Sir Winston Churchill as he refused to retain the visage of a colonialist, racist, evil, hateful individual and not the man who saved the world from Nazi Germany’s world conquest. This is indicative of the new morality that the mainstream media and education which are both completely under the thumb of the progressive, leftist rewriters of all history and religious anchors in order to create a brave new world where for all intents and purposes they could teach children that 2 + 2 = 5 as truth and the children would have no anchoring to know it was a lie. Thus is the prospect for the future in Europe, the United States and the remainder of western society, culture and the developed world should it remain under the sway of the progressive leftists whose remaking of society has actually been in progress under even the ‘conservative’ politicians since Theodore Roosevelt and shifted into high gear by Woodrow Wilson and accelerated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (yes, a relative of Theodore) and moved along even faster by Lyndon Banes Johnson and the line held by Jimmy Carter and slight advancement by William Jefferson Clinton and George W. Bush and then taken airborne and breaking virtually every barrier by Barack Hussein Obama with the future remaining to be seen. The main reason for the apoplectic fits and near convulsive contortions by progressive leftists over the election of Donald Trump is they fear those who hold their religion as holy, their ethics as cemented in a tradition worth preservation, their history as ethical and who desire moderation in progress where changes are evaluated over time, instead of great leaps being taken blindly without looking back and burning all the bridges and even the castles and fields behind them assuring there is no chance of retrieving any morsel from our collective past as they are ashamed of their Judeo-Christian history despite it having been the basis for many positive developments.

 

They refuse to credit the Judeo-Christian ethics with the end of slavery instead blaming it for slavery, bringing about the Renaissance instead dwelling instead on earlier Church anti-science standings ignoring the truth that things changed and the fact that many of those precious progressive ideas they hold as sacred have their roots in the Judeo-Christian ethos that people are all equal in the eyes of Hashem and instead teach that religion was all about exalting white, male Christian superiority and all the evils which can be appropriated to such a viewpoint. The fact that history has been a progression of events and evolutions caused often by the very past which originally opposed change but with time softened and became champions of the progressive changes in society. The reason for the new view demonizing the past of the youths’ parents and ancestors and pressing that all their views which are actually the logical result of the Judeo-Christian ethics, they want to disposes the past and make the youth divorce their history and thus be pliable and moldable into whatever the latest untested theories for society the progressives can invent. Where this will lead is to an entire unanchored generation which will fall before any anchored group which has a strong history and religious anchoring who are willing to fight for their beliefs. These types will rule the day simply because, as the old adage goes by G.K. Chesterton (we realize that anything old, especially adages, is unacceptable and makes any argument unacceptable but tough), “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.” This probably states why the progressives work so hard to disconnect the youth from their past.

 

Beyond the Cusp