How the United States Got These Candidates

 

With all the brouhaha over how negatively both major party candidates are received with Democrat Party Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton somewhere over 55% negative rating and Republican Party Presidential Candidate Donald Trump often reaching beyond 65% negative rating, it would appear an impossible situation; yet here we all are. One of the two it is obvious why they were chosen, they were promised as their 2008 consolation prize the next open candidacy for President after President Obama, thus the Democrats were to be stuck with Hillary Clinton. What is absolutely stunning, and is one reason she easily could lose, she had to resort to dirty political tricks and slanting the playing field in order to beat out a non-Democrat card carrying socialist who started his campaign on a shoestring of financing and at 3% in polling. By the time we reached an almost photo-finish, Bernie Sanders had nearly closed the gap and passed Hillary Clinton sending the inevitable one home with no crown. Imagine this, a former First Lady and Senator of New York lost to a relative newcomer with one strong speech nationally in 2008 and all but lost to what can only be described as that crazy uncle who lives the life of a hermit and is the quintessential loner who nobody has ever taken seriously in 2016. This is the candidate the Democrat Party elites plus the Democrat candidate support including her campaign teams and the mainstream media, but I am all but actually repeating myself, are claiming is the greatest Presidential candidate since the invention of the wheel? I want some of what they’ve been smoking. The Democrats could not have intentionally have designed and built from the plans a weaker and less appealing candidate, which makes it a good thing they already had one. Hillary Clinton could not have beaten almost any Republican no matter how unknown at the start. So why is Hillary Clinton up in every poll?

 

The reason is the Republican Party appears to have been set from the start to give the American people a worse and even less attractive candidate to run against Hillary Clinton cinching her getting the golden ring and all the honors she can steal and leaving the United States to look forward to four years of some of the most memorably intolerable speeches possible. We have had some question our professing that the powers that be controlling the Republican Party were seeking a candidate who would lose and lose big to Hillary Clinton. Hear us out and after that we will go one step further on the conspiracy train. Going into the first Republican debate, who was the knighted candidate in shining armor gilded and his accounts loaded with the stuff campaigns survive upon, cash? Thinking back the big story was we were about to witness Clinton-Bush, the rematch. The race for the White House was going to be Jeb Bush slugging and scratching and eye-gouging with Hillary Clinton. This was going to be the faceoff of the two biggest families in modern American politics. The seats for the debates with these two anointed ones promised to be high value and cherished items. Jeb ran into some traction problems and the Republican rank and file was not hungering for anything more from the Bush family. So old Jeb struck out and left the game rather early on.

 

Blame Game Starring
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump

 

This is where the fifth estate took center stage. The Republican elite were in a quandary as to who would now be their candidate. They basically splintered and flittered from one candidate to another never congealing in one place. This left the playing field kind of open and the media knew immediately that there were only two candidates who could give Hillary Clinton a strong run for losing the election. That’s right, we said fight to lose, not win, the election. These were Texas Senator Ted Cruz and New York loud-mouth Donald Trump. The media took to Donald Trump hard and fast over Ted Cruz simply because they knew he would produce the largest and voluminous gaffs and misspeaks over anybody. So the media became the Donald Trump for Republican candidate for President campaign central. The news cycle on television, radio, print, online, on Twitter, Facebook with any and everywhere one looked it was all Trump all the time. Donald Trump was allowed to trample over the debates being granted nearly 50%, possibly over, of the air time while the rest scratched over the remaining morsels. The media chose Donald Trump with Ted Cruz coming in a poor second sort of the reserve option, the relief pitcher should Donald Trump manage to be thrown from the game or some other means of becoming ineligible. They gave Donald Trump, as some estimates have stated, up to if not more than a billion dollars of campaign coverage. Sure everybody was patting Donald Trump on the back for his masterly use of the media in support of his campaign. It was all smoke and mirrors concealing the media’s gross miscarriage of practice by completely discarding their supposed equal time rules and replacing them with Donald Trump 24/7. About the only thing they did not do was adopt the Trump campaign slogan, “Make America great again,” as their sign on and off phrase of the moment. They may as well have as it really would not have made their fawning over Donald Trump any less or more obvious.

 

The media got their man in Donald Trump who they could find a path for Hillary Clinton to be ensconced in the Oval Office the end of January. Here is where the near perfect certainty of the plan, the plot thickens, so to speak. The media believes that they built Donald Trump up into being the Republican Party candidate for President so they should easily be capable of tearing him down. Trump has bigger negatives than Hillary but there is a problem here. Hillary has high negatives even with many presumed and so-called supporters while Trump’s negatives lie largely with people who would never have voted for him anyways. This makes whatever base is supporting Trump solid and unwavering while large sectors of Hillary’s base is somewhat soft and squishy leaving her to shore these voters up instead of cultivating new votes from the undecideds as Trump is attempting to do. Even the most feeble of attempts is superior to no attempt at all. This is part of the plan with the barrage of disheartening polls where every hour Trump is being cast as an ever bigger loser to Hillary. This is aimed at Trump’s base attempting to have them feel it is useless, so why bother voting if they can pal around with their friends, especially if their friends are Trump supporters and engaging in such activities breaks the back, the will of Trump support.

 

The media has brought forward some ordinarily devastating quotes, leaks, accusations, improprieties and other disparaging trash against Trump. Any normal Republican politician would have walked away in shame begging the world’s forgiveness as they checked into a psychiatric home to receive therapy for all their shortcomings. The Republican Party itself would strike their name from every roll and committee and that candidate would be ruined. Not Donald Trump as he takes hit after hit right in the chops and bellows, “Is that all you’ve got,” in that native New York in your face, never back down wisecracker. Trump is not a shrinking violet who would allow a few paltry accusations of what was at the edge of indiscretion thirty or forty years ago be applied and judged by the prissy modern politically correct judgmentalism which demands that if you are a white, male, Christian then you had best know your place and get down on your knees and confess, it is good for your soul. Of course, since Trump has refused to do so the media is exclaiming that they knew it, Donald Trump has no soul. Trump is a soulless zombie that preys on women and weaker souls who are ill prepared to face such a monster, a beast who sends the delicate and wonderful ones shrieking in horror running for their safe zone. Donald Trump written in chalk on a college campus or so has proven the evil that is Donald Trump. Thusfar the media is failing to destroy Trump and his support and this frightens them all the way to their boardrooms. A horrible creature they believed they created now refuses to heel and obey. Next you know they will come for Trump in the night with pitchforks, tar, oil and torches and burn everything down as this creation must be stopped before it is too late. November 8 is their deadline, after that either they will sigh relieved Hillary Clinton prevailed and won or many media and Hollywood thespians will need be placed on suicide watch.

 

We will need such no matter which one wins, or if the only thing worse, proof of malfeasance or trickery performed on the voter rolls or votes or counting thereof is proven beyond any doubt. Any dishonest, underhanded or low-down misappropriations of votes which renders the process to be unreliable and broken in order to present false counts or even change who won fairly, the United States falling to such mischief is all but unthinkable. If in America the vote is not sacrosanct, then where can an honest election be found. Such disappointment would cause every democratic, parliamentary and republican form of government and even the laws themselves would all fall into doubt. That, above all else, is why this coming American Presidential Election is so vital to the Western World and all held precious. If we cannot trust the vote, we do not have fair and trustworthy governance, period.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Restore Honesty to the Mainstream Media and Internet

 

There are constant howls from all sides of the political spectrum about the slanted media. Conservatives rail against the New York Times and MSNBC while the Progressives rant over FOX and the Wall Street Journal. Both sides protest their not getting fair coverage with both sides demanding something be done. Well, we have a plan for making the media into the investigative in depth coverage that both extremes will love. They will look into why the Congress refuses to pass legislation when the nation is demanding that they address the demanding problems of the day. There will be enough meat and gristle for both ends of the spectrum and for a change they will pretty much agree about the problems but still differ about the correct directions the nation should turn. They will stand in agreement throwing shots at Congress at different sides there but will blame the voters and, of course, the White House. There is only one thing which needs to be done to bring about this miracle; elect Donald Trump.

 

That’s correct. Electing Donald Trump will bring the political classes together like never before, well, since Ronald Reagan until Reagan started going to the real power in America, the people. For those of us who were old enough to understand what was happening, Ronald Reagan was not particularly loved by the establishment money of the Republican aristocracy and was hated by the liberal Democrats. Congress was not exactly enamored with his election and probably would have remained gridlocked, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But Reagan had a secret weapon, the American people, even those in flyover country. Reagan made his first address to the nation and a weapon for getting America’s work done was launched. Reagan went to the public whenever it counted and the chips were down as well as when things were going well as he kept the nation involved like few before him. The media was not his greatest fan but slowly he won respect and slowly got some media respect.

 

Is Donald Trump comparable to Ronald Reagan? In a word, no. Well, at least not thus far. Likely Trump will never be Ronald Reagan and there likely will never be another, he was a one off, single model after which they broke the mold. Donald Trump is from a different mold. A really different mold and he is a one off as well. There are other niceties about a Trump White House; it definitely will not be boring. Just watch all the conniption fits the media will have and the near heart failure of the political elites. Of course in a Trump Presidency the Congress will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do the nation’s business. But as we pointed out a little earlier, a do nothing Congress might be the best manner for doing the nation’s business in the best interest of the people possible. Of course the people would probably like to see tax cuts and a repeal of Obamacare, not an adjustment, a full repeal and pray the healthcare industry can make a speedy recovery. Beyond that, the American public may have to make their feelings known through the media or through social media which may prove to be the greatest pressure cooker for political change ever invented. Eventually, providing the Internet remains the greatest open forum for free and open discussion, for as long as it lasts, the power brokers will clamp strict rules and controls, very possibly almost invisible to the average users.

 

That could be an angle for a smart politician who could make proposing a Constitutional amendment making the Internet forever the property of private enterprise free of national or international controls for all parts under United States control. That will never happen as long as the two main parties have their lock on power. The two main parties are only likely to leave the Internet alone for as long as it does not challenge their power. As soon as the Internet and social media realized that it can actually cause the media, the political class and any other powers that be up to and especially the United Nations to sit up and pay attention, that will be the instant that the Internet becomes the property of the governments and the power elites and freedom of expressions will be gone in an instant. Blogs will be sanitized or removed and there will be second by second monitoring of all things entered onto social media with anything which crosses their path being nixed. The Internet scares the elites and the power brokers for the same reason Donald Trump scares them. They can be unpredictable and stray from the beaten path into strange fields where otherwise only dreams and nightmares reside. Of course that is the problem with the great unwashed, the public; they are unpredictable and uncontrollable which scares those who believe they control everything the most. They hate unpredictability because they have everything planned out for decades in advance and they just hate surprises, unless they marketed them. Thus far the Internet and social media have not challenged the Man so nobody who is anybody has had their feathers ruffled. If anything, those powers that be have more controlled and used social media as their personal echo chamber serving their purposes and probably plan on doing more of the same far into the future, possibly for perpetuity. But what if that should ever change?

 

The first thing that need be understood by Donald Trump and the people, the people who believe they actually control the world really believe they control the world. They also have their fingers deep into the Internet and social media and have programs to predict what will be the next big thing and what they can expect to be right around the corner. Their programs and geniuses they hire to make things work to their best interests have thus far done a wonderful job. But what happens when they fail and the people finally awaken to the power they have at their keyboards? The one beautiful thing is that when the people decide they have had all they will take; no amount of money or innate political power can win against the will of people with a desire to be free. There is one prerequisite which need be addressed first, people who have never known freedom and do not understand what freedom is or can be must first be educated and shown what it means to have freedom and with any luck, given the feeling of what freedom tastes like. That may be the first and foremost challenge that social media must overcome. When the human race understands and demands freedom to live their lives unfettered by government rules and burdensome taxation then maybe things can change. That will not be something we will see tomorrow, but perhaps in the future.

 

First is the beacon of freedom, the United States needs something to reawaken their spirit and yearning as it has appeared to wane these past ten or so years. The people need to break beyond their self-imposed limitations and believe again. The old must educate the youth as their education system has failed them. The schools have become a jobs program for teachers and administrators primarily and indoctrination centers producing little drones secondarily and lastly they teach enough to produce obedient little workers. What has been forgotten is that parents are responsible for teaching their children but that used to be performed by the schools in generations past, but that has changed as the schools became unionized and began to care more for the employees and electing those who would increase their salaries than about the children. Are there still good teachers who truly care, yes, but nowhere near sufficient to change things from the pitiful state that will only grow worse. Freedom and its loss was actually predicted in a warning given be Ronald Reagan and as I seriously doubt we will hear such profound words and elevating language from Donald Trump unless somebody gets his undivided attention and trust and writes the words for him, please allow a quote from Ronald Reagan.

 

 

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

 

Beyond the Cusp

Turkish Coup Second Guessing Begins

 

We will hear any number of theories about the “failed coup” in Turkey. Due to any number of uninteresting and technical points such as why was internet left running and why were not more of group ‘a’ through ‘z’ not neutralized at the onset and others and the reasons why it failed or if it was an Erdogan run rouse to allow him to remove even more opposition, the realities are the same. Anybody known to be at all important in any Mustafa Kemal Ataturk associated group would do well to become invisible and leave Turkey by any means necessary. Recep Tayyip Erdogan will use this coup as his license to remove all opposition especially from the upper officer class making his position safe for the foreseeable future. How far he might take things will depend on how assured he is that he holds absolute majority. Erdogan made sure of that with a second election after invalidating one where he would have required a coalition and thus not absolute power. Now Erdogan can use this coup in order to cement all power in the President, change the Constitution so as to prevent any further coup attempts such that the sitting President must be voted down by a majority of the people in an election where he runs unopposed and as long as he wins over any negative votes, the election would be Erdogan or full elections, then he would remain and no elections would be required. As Erdogan is supported by the Muslim Brotherhood he would easily win such a vote by such an amount he would appear to be their savior. He could even declare himself Caliph and by doing so challenge al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State as in the end there can be only one Caliph, surprise, surprise.

 

We cannot think of any means by which Erdogan could extend his clearing of the senior and mid-level officer corps and possibly even the non-commissioned officer corps of anybody not known to be somebody he knows is reliable thus permitting him at any future point using the military to enforce his views. Say Erdogan was to lose an election. With his current power he could easily claim it to be another insurrection just like the coup and claim deep seated voter manipulation and other irregularities and then have another election six months later after a similar removal of key opponents and viola, a reelected Erdogan. The real question is what can we expect in the coming days and weeks.

 

The elimination of any and all coup plotters is obvious and even if this was crafted by Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood, there would still be those officers who willingly signed on to the initial plan and who were betrayed. They will pay dearly. Some of the soldiers who may have simply been obeying the orders of higher ranking officers will also be made an example of. The critical question will be how many media types; bloggers and other civilians from within and outside of the government will face punishment. Bear in mind, for most punishment will be execution or life in prison with few getting lesser punishments. Being charged with being on the wrong side of things will be really, really bad as torture for confessions and other names will likely be part of the investigatory methodology. I would not like to be a blogger within Turkey right now as even my small slights against Erdogan would be sufficient and my support of Israel would be sufficient for suspicions, it may be that deep reaching.

 

Turkey was originally steered away from Islam and more to a secular democratic state with equality by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, as he saw that as the only path to modernity. Any hope whatsoever of Turkey returning to a true democratic society, with equal rights, what Turkey had been since Ataturk gave her their Constitution, is now lost possibly forever. If there is to be hope for Turkey it now rests with Islam having a reformation, something many Quranic scholars and others who study Islam and the Middle East believe is next to impossible. As the situation now exists, Erdogan will be placing Turkey on the express to Sharia. Once Sharia has been installed in a society elections are meaningless as the old Stalin definition of how to hold elections takes over where it does not matter who votes and for what but matters who counts those votes. Elections in Sharia states, if any hold them; can announce their results three weeks before the people go to the polls to vote. Candidates running against strict Islam will be duly watched and scrutiny in such states almost always leads to prison and death or worse, and there is worse.

 

Anybody who might look to recent events in Egypt and point out that the Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi was overthrown and President Sisi, a brave man who we can only hopes succeeds in his efforts to bring a reformation to Islam allowing it to coexist with other religions and forms of governance, replaced him after a second election in less than a year are hoping against hope. Erdogan has been in power since the early 2000’s and has steadily taken Turkey to the dark side and Sharia. One might ask if I have something against Sharia and the answer is only that it enslaves a population removing all need or ability to question the government as the government is religiously installed by the will of Allah thus questioning the chosen leadership is punishable as is apostasy, death. There is no personal freedom and the Quran becomes the only book to study and the Quran and Hadiths are the beginning and end-all of all knowledge. Any study outside of these requires the approval of an Imam and then can only be pursued so as to serve Allah. Perhaps this is what stirred Winston Churchill to write his scathing commentary on Islam in which he said the following; (The below-quoted passage did appear in The River War when it was first published as a two-volume set in 1899, but the selection was removed when the book was condensed into one volume and republished in 1902.):

 

Churchill gated stride impugning the morning about to tackle the world and all its problems

 

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or.

 

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

 

Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

 

We can only hope and pray that such does not befall Turkey as it has modern cities and a well developed intelligent urban communities. The rural areas of Turkey are less developed and in some locations literally still living as they had hundreds of years past. It is in these rural areas where Islam rules their everyday activities and where Sharia is not an imposition, it is their way. Turkey has a population fairly balanced between these two societies with a slight edge towards the urban communities. The difficulty extends from the strong minority of urban citizens who are first generation and remain firmly attached to their Islamic roots. Had Turkey not had the rise of Erdogan and the regimentation and collective awakening brought on by concerted efforts by the Muslim Brotherhood, within the coming century Turkey would have crossed the threshold never to turn back and easily merged with the developed world. This may still come to fruition as the urban population continues to gain and with time perhaps a majority will find an Islamically acceptable leader who still believes firmly in Islam but, like President Sisi of Egypt, desires not to have Turkey pose a direct threat to the non-Islamic world but rather join and forge a new and more acceptive Islam. As things in Islam now stand there can be only one of three outcomes; Islam is defeated and expunged from the face of the earth, Islam conquers all the nations forming a world Caliphate which becomes Allah only knows, or Islam goes through a reformation and declares the Mecca Quranic writings as superseding the Medina Quranic writings (click for a brief explanation of the differences and reasons with links provided by other readers in the comments). Odd as it may seem, that is all that is required for Islam to become as any other religion preaching acceptance and coexistence. The sticking point is that at some point, many claim stated by Mohammad just before he died while others claim this was added at a later date to cement Islam as a religion of conquest, is one of the final Surah states that the Medina verses, the later verses, supersede the Mecca verses, the earlier verses. As with all too many things, time will tell and we can only hope our prayers are favorably received by Hashem.

 

Beyond the Cusp