Republican Distress Self-Inflicted

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Jewish Divide Over Trump Very Telling

 

Here’s a news flash that the media thus far has refused to mention, there are many Jews who support President Donald Trump. The media has been quite vocal of those Jews who are vehemently protesting the Trump Presidency. Probably the most telling example has been the Senate hearings to approve his Ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman. We will gladly grant the media that President Trump’s choice for Ambassador to Israel of David M. Friedman is a novel appointment when compared to previous appointments made by all the previous Presidents throughout Israeli history. There have been Ambassadors, Middle East Special Councils, Palestinian Israeli Peace Ambassadors and all sorts of other appointments made concerning Israel and her Arab neighbors plus the fact that American Ambassadors to the United Nations often have to interdict in matters concerning Israel, especially in United Nations sanctions against Israel often brought by Arab and European nations at the behest of the PLO or Palestinian Authority (PA) which have more often than not been vetoed by the United States Ambassador.

 

All of these past officials have more often than not been career Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) with the remainder have been political appointees. There have been more than a few of the most recent Israeli Ambassadors and Special Appointees who have been Jewish and thus touted as being most obviously as pro-Israeli. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. Some in particular, Thomas R. Pickering, Martin Indyk and Denis Ross have been some of the most antagonistic to the Israeli cause. Both Martin Indyk and Denis Ross were said to be very much favorable to Israel because of their being Jewish which is like claiming that someone had to be favorable to illegal immigration across the southern border because they were Hispanic, an insult and very likely false. Indyk and Ross attempted to force Israel to make concessions in exchange for empty promises which had been given by the PA before and never acted upon or immediately broken often with an in-your-face attitude. David M. Friedman is a different Jew, he is also a Zionist. This is a first for an Ambassador to Israel and many Israelis are expecting great things if only our leaders can be bold, even brash for a change. Some here in Israel have placed David M. Friedman as being to the right and more Zionist than Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu or most of the other Ministers of the Knesset. Additionally, Israelis have begun to believe that President Trump will be good for Israel providing Israel acts good for Israel.

 

Additionally, Orthodox Jews mostly voted for President Trump over Hillary Clinton while Democrat Jews voted almost universally for Hillary Clinton and are extremely upset by her loss and screaming mad over President Trump. During the hearings for Ambassador David M. Friedman there were Jews disrupting the hearings blowing Shofars. Traditionally the sounding of the Shofar other than as part of religious observance has been used as a warning sign often used as an alarm that enemies were advancing or other calamity. Sounding the Shofar at the hearings for the new Israeli Ambassador they were meaning that a calamity was occurring threatening Jewish lives. Their actions were over the top as no lives were being endangered and no emergency was coming for Jews and if anything this appointment was going to be good for Israel, a new page in appointments of advisors to Israel.

 

This brings us to what for us is one of the saddest things we will ever discuss, Israel and the American Jewish left. Often at demonstrations denouncing Israel some of the most virulent demonstrators will come from leftist, liberal Jews. These Jews are more attached to their leftist principles than they are to Torah and Israel. These are Jews who will never consider making Aliyah and were the members of our Synagogue who when we made Aliyah asked us why in the world we would want to go live in Israel of all places. They were stunned that somebody they knew would do something which was such an anathema to them. These were the same members of the Synagogue who had to get past the horror that we might actually be Republicans as we had admitted. Many initially thought we were joking and trying to be funny and some when they realized we actually were Republicans never spoke with us again. Israel has actually become a divisive issue in the American Jewish community.

 

For Jewish Democrats it is a serious problem. There are still a goodly number of friends to Israel remaining in the Democrat Party but their numbers are diminishing and some have actually needed to go underground in their support. Pro-Israel Jews in Reform Synagogues have to act like the Marranos during the Inquisition where they practice their Judaism silently and with little visible evidence at home and were good Catholics in public even to going to church daily and every action including rosaries and confession to avoid the Inquisition and the tortures and death sentences which would be their punishment if their being a Jew was ever rooted out. These new Marranos support Israel but must do so while in conversations in Synagogue or at Temple functions, as most Reform Synagogues refer to themselves as Temples; something less Jewish in its identity, these Jews either remain silent on issues Israel or denounce those sensitive issues such as Bibi Netanyahu, the greatest force of evil in the Middle East.

 

 

For far too many American Liberal Leftist Jews, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has been the reason why President Obama was unable to make peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis and had Netanyahu simply followed the instruction, the orders from on high at the Oval Office, then Israel would have peace. There are no arguments which they would ever accept and they honestly believe that the Arabs would be happy if only Israel would surrender everything to the Green Line and half of Jerusalem and all the terrorism and demands would end. Never mind that Mahmoud Abbas refuses to even say, let alone guarantee, that the terror and violence would end with such an agreement, he has instead stated that any agreement would be but the initial step to the removal of the Zionist entity and that all resistance, that would be terrorism, would continue until the Zionist entity has been eradicated and the Jews defeated completely. Never mind that in Gaza there is Hamas which has promised to murder every Jew on Earth which includes these American Leftist Jews who happily claim that Hamas can be reasoned with. One would think with the history of the Jewish People, especially their recent history, specifically since the last century, that when some group of extremists claim they have designs for the complete annihilation of the Jewish People they would take things like that very seriously.

 

That Israel, and even additionally President Trump to the point of violence and lost friendships, have become the two most divisive issues in the Jewish community is the saddest commentary one could imagine. Israel, the hope and the prayers of Jews for thousands of years now a matter for derision and splitting the community is beyond sadness. Israel and Jerusalem, the final desire of every Seder is, “Next year in Jerusalem” and Psalms 137, Song of Babylon, which demands that as a member of the Jewish People, Jerusalem must be our first love and, allow me to quote, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill (strength). (And) May my tongue cling to my palate, if I do not remember you, if I do not bring up Jerusalem at the beginning of my (chief and most important) joy.” Yet somehow Israel, and even the surrender of the Old City of Jerusalem and the surrendering of the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives Cemetery, has become a sticking point, an issue for debate and for too many simply something too trivial to be bothered with when supporting those for whom Israel is a bother is the real issue. How can Jews unfriend other Jews or shun them in the Synagogue because they support Israel. They demand, ‘how can one support Israel’ which is simply just for those other Jews, those religious Jews, those Jews who are just too Jewish and the ones the anti-Semites hate. They believe that because they support the right causes and they rub elbows with the right people that should the anti-Semites ever get their dream again and Jews are hunted down that they will be granted exceptions because they are those good Jews. They do not realize that to an anti-Semite the only good Jew is a dead Jew. But these Jews would gladly sacrifice those Zionist crazies if it would advance their standing at the club, or even sadly their Synagogue. We hold some truths to be very troubling and beyond our ability to accept. How can there be an ingathering when so many Jews refuse to even accept the concept of a Jewish State, a Jewish People or of Hashem and instead view their Synagogue as just another social club. This makes one remember that a minority of slaves left Egypt with Moses and a similarly percentage returned after they were liberated from Babylonia by Cyrus the Great and the majority either remained in Babylon or migrated to the major cities of Persia.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Conservatives Need be More Understanding, Really?

 

Bear with us as we cover a delicate subject of the feelings of rage from our leftist adversaries, or shall we be kind and refer to them as our friendly rivals on the political battlefield. (If liberal-leftist-speak, as Orwell might have referred to it, bothers you then please take advice and skip until after a familiar picture below.) Liberals, those conservatives attempt to malign by calling them leftists or liberal extremists, are simply more in touch with their feelings than are those stuffy and self-critical conservative cold-hearted elitists. These conservatives stand aloof in their steel and glass towers demanding that police go forth and do what they are too afraid to do, stand before liberals and defend their man, the clown in the White House. They know their chosen leader is nothing but a loud mouthed, brash, ignorant, uneducated lout and a bully whose chosen weapon is obscene tweets. All they are capable of doing is claiming they were just as upset four years ago but were too busy making money and suppressing their emotions to be capable of any noticeable reactions. They admit all they were capable of was calling for their tools, the Republicans in Congress, to obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. Now they are crying in their cold potato soup, Vichyssoise they call it. Then they follow this up with salted and spiced snails, Escargot they call it, and finally the entrée of raw ground beef with a nice raw egg dropped in the middle, Steak Tartare they call it, and their belief and trust in the man they bought into the White House is just as fake as their names for what most would call inedible foods. They claim they cannot understand the people demonstrating the fact they stole an election using the tricks of bending the rules in their favor while they know that factually Hillary won the popular vote and in any real democracy, not this farm ridden excuse where they use rubes to elect their excuse for a man, she would be sitting properly in the White House and the United States would not be the laughing stock of the world across Europe. Perhaps we need to spell out the reasons behind what they are witnessing and the why’s and wherefores’ of what is being called the Resistance and what they are labeling the hyper-political rejectionism being committed by Democrats in Congress.

 

First let’s talk about the political reaction in Congress, which is no different than the refusals of the Republicans to cooperate with President Obama for eight years. Despite what they point to of the Republicans working to assist with the budget proposals which kept the government operating, they cannot deny that many of the most innovative and important pieces of legislation passed without either a single Republican vote or a mere smattering of Republicans willing to do the people’s work. They invented obstructionism during the Obama Presidency where they never did accept that a minority person of color was in the White House. If they thought there was even a glimmer of a chance, they would have brought impeachment charges against President Obama their hatred was so obviously visceral. They seethed with disgust. They thought they were sophisticated and it did not show, but we could see it on plain display in their every word dripping with bile. Their ridicules in private, we heard as some could not hide their feelings and shared the poisons spoken by their friends in their smoke-filled rooms where the money passes hands to make the decisions against the will of the people. The same way the money passed hands and the fix was put in to deny Hillary her prize, her due of the Presidency because they simply hate.

 

Now we are protesting using legal demonstrations and they are hyperventilating over these displays of popularist emotions. We are in the streets giving display to the feelings of the majority of Americans that there is an unfit lunatic now representing our once proud nation. For the past eight years Americans could hold their heads high as we were represented by grace, charm and intelligence and now we cringe at every display of raw idiocy and hate pouring from the centers of power in the White House. His Twitter posts are an embarrassment which apparently nobody on his staff is capable of reeling Trump in and getting Trump under any control whatsoever. Even typing his name is difficult but we are liberals and thus we are the polite and wonderful people who are really trying to be accepting, but you make it so difficult. We understand when you ask how could we nominate Hillary, but what is your excuse, Trump? I mean like really? And conservatives ask why the left is out protesting. Can you actually have any doubt as to why with Trump in the White House? Then there are the claims of violence when obviously the violence is being orchestrated from those shady backroom deals with the cigar smoke and the bourbon whiskey glasses ringing as you toast the brilliance of sending ninjas to discredit the throngs of peaceful protesters. Our protesters would never partake of such violence and have you noticed that the stores they attack are all owned by our supporters such as Starbucks etc. Why would these thugs have been attacking our friends? These are obviously hateful extreme right wing agitators using rioting in order to discredit lawful and righteous demonstrations against this thug and illegitimate usurper sitting in Hillary’s Oval Office.

 

But let us set your minds at ease. We are not interested in a revolution or any other improper forceful reaction as we are law-abiding citizens who love our nation. What we desire is for our rightful government to be returned to the rightful majority of citizens who elected the true President of the United States, Hillary Clinton, the only correct President who was chosen by the majority of all the people. You know the Electoral College is an archaic invention of white slave owners simply to protect their white privilege and position of wealthy land owners and the elitists of society. They invented the Electoral College as a tool for the propagation of their rule while giving the people a feeling of voting rights and power. It was invented to give a visage of fairness while preserving the rule of the White wealthy class and their proper place ruling over the lesser peoples. We understand that you have fudged the system because it failed to prevent the election of a President who was not of the White privileged class and you have worked the system to assure that no minority ever makes it into the White House again. That is why the majority of Americans have been dispossessed by your Electoral College and you have usurped power placing a buffoon into power as he is really under your control while giving the image of an uncontrollable child on a temper tantrum. We are not fooled and we will prevent your oppressive white privileged power play to forever change the America we love and the America we have worked so hard and long to bring into the world of nations and to give all the people the right to power. And this has been the tone of all too many leftist news and internet locations and outlet since Election Day.

 

President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu

This was the Meeting of the Minds from Yesterday
May it Appeared for all Intents and Purposes to have been a
Mind Melding with both Leaders on the Same Page
For Fulfilling all the Promises from San Remo Forward

 

Now for a more centered look and our regular readers can breathe easier, we have not gone over to the dark side of the farce. The left believed the media predictions after the resounding reelection of President Obama and did not notice their losses in virtually every other level of governance from the local dog catcher to governors to Congress and virtually everywhere with the once glaring exception, the major cities. There, where these leftists live among the more normal liberals who are just as much victims to the leftist hijacking of their Democrat Party as the nation is to their destructive members of “The Revolution” being waged across the cities and university campuses. Do not be fooled, they mean revolution and are fully intending to do whatever it may take to install their idea of a perfect governance, fascist leftist government where conservatives are kept subordinate and their leadership sent off to the reeducation camps. While the rest of the United States have been struggling with a lethargic economy and elevated unemployment while the level of workforce participation became more a measurement of workfarce participation with ever more people, largely millennials, finding there no entry level positions and the job market all but closed to them despite having college degrees in the social sciences which they had been assured were highly valued. There are those surprised that their major of Late Fourteenth Century German Love Sonnets does not actually qualify them for any position outside teaching Late Fourteenth Century German Love Sonnets, of which there are almost three dozen positions in the world. Now they are angry and when they were sold that Hillary Clinton would remedy this situation and when she lost they lost it. Some were caught up in the movement which has offered them a new solution, taking the power they lack.

 

There is a problem which the conservatives have foolishly believed will work itself out as these demonstrators get tired and lose interest and return to whatever occupied their time previously. Were these regular people with regular jobs, the demonstrations and the riots would have already dwindled out as have previous such demonstrations. Perhaps we can remind people of the former renditions of what we are seeing. There had been the Occupy Wall Street and the Other 99% otherwise called the Anti 1 Percenters and then all the way over in Israel, the Cottage Cheese Demonstrations which were thankfully ended by that demand to return to classes when the university classes resumed. All of these demonstrations started and continued through mid and late summers as there were large numbers of unemployed and bored college students and an equal number of easily amused high school students who would come and protest during the day and return to their suburban homes red-eyed each night. The attraction of free drink and drugs proved irresistible to these kids and their parents seemed oblivious to their activities or possible a calm supportive feeling that this was simply a phase. Well, now there are groups with paid full-time organizers and often seed moneys to be spread to those who are capable of bringing with them additional bodies to swell the ranks. These riots and the demonstrations within which they are being couched are not about to die down and their anger is palpable. They mean revolution or at least their leaders and the moneyed interests fueling these actions believe. The police being told to stand off and allow the rioters as well as the demonstrators free ranging freedoms is intended to simply allow the demonstrations to grow and for larger and larger groups to cross over from the demonstrations to the rioting and joining the black clad ninja warriors of the left.

 

This is the beginning of a revolution and there is only one meaningful means of bringing it to an end. This is where the good news arises and President Donald Trump may just be the antidote. The one thing which will rob these demonstrations and thus the rioting of numbers would be a thriving economy which is why we will witness these demonstrations attempt to do whatever is required to prevent a return to prosperity, at least in and around the major cities. There will be efforts to destroy any growth of the economy in the cities with the intention of causing economic collapse of the cities and soon thereafter the suburbs as well hoping to collapse the job market and building the discontent. This is being orchestrated in order to well the ranks of those who are unemployed, underemployed and dispossessed in the society and thus the disenchanted willing to join “The Revolution” allowing for a potential real revolution. When the point is finally reached that the cities are starting to be burned by the rioters and the White House has to act and send in National Guard to quell the violence we will hear the screams of fascism. What is so ridiculously pathetic is that those who want a revolution are intent on installing an actual fascist governance which suspends elections with them never to return in the lifetimes of the cheering throngs thinking they have won not realizing what they have borne. Trump will not only not be remaining in office one second longer than elected, he may desire getting out of the hot seat after a single term and who could blame him. Even if he is not as wealthy as he claims, he still earns more than the Presidential salary he would be receiving if he were not giving it to charity. Trump has no desire to be king despite the accusations coming from the left. He simply may be a victim of his campaign’s success and counting the days until he is a free man again or he might be bathing in the believed admirations he thinks he is receiving, either way he will leave once his time is done. With any luck he will be able to jumpstart the American economic engine which has been fuel starved for the past decade and to release the horses that charge the money flow from their strangling regulations allowing them to run free and spread wealth in their wake. The American economy is likely just waiting to be permitted to jump at the opportunities if only permitted unfettered access to the drivers of economic freedom. This is job one just as Trump claimed during the campaign and the faster the regulational drawback and the release of the investment cycle through tax rate adjustments permitting for the easy movement of monies from investment to investment and across different means of entrepreneurial enterprises, the faster the jobs will multiply and the sooner there will be more jobs than people to fill them. This will allow for a healthy new immigration system streamlined benefiting the needs of the nation to bring in the people required to even further enhance the capital investment cycles and increased profit margins, the best means of a healthy economy. These increases will result in greater funds and possibly ending the yearly debt cycle which has strangled the United States and doubled the debt over the last decade. The future is full of hope providing that President Trump’s team are prudent and allow for an untethered economic environment and a return to American exceptionalism which will serve not only the United States but hopefully serve as an example which the rest of the industrialized world will follow, though Europe may be mired in their own sorry history and bad choices of late.

 

Beyond the Cusp