Twilight Time for President Trump

Before anyone cheers us, or is ready to convict us of turning to the dark side, please recall that Marcus Antonius (Mark Anthony) came to bury Caesar, not to praise him. Even President Trump has admitted that time is against the efforts to rectify any irregularities which may have taken place. Should President Trump actually intend to repair the United States election system, increasing the security and integrity, then he should continue the fight through until every last hanging thread has been inspected and snipped from the voting systems. Once the election has been made official and President Trump has conceded to President Biden, then people would be more likely to come forward with their suspicions or even actual evidence, especially should all be granted immunity ahead of their testifying or being deposed. This would also give President Trump’s claims that all future elections must be made completely transparent, beyond all suspicion and as close to universally accepted as humanly possible true. After one or two years of leading such work, President Trump could then announce a run for 2024 and have fulfilled his implied promise to make American Elections Great.

Our concerns would center behind supporting all efforts to secure elections by providing greater transparency and accountability. What we have never understood is why any government would even entertain any voting system which utilizes the Internet in order to have connectivity with a central system where the final tabulations are performed. Such systems simply make themselves vulnerable to abuse and fraudulent voting causing additional suspicions. My experiences with satellite communications equipment and medical equipment have taught me much about networking systems, and none of the systems I have used, serviced or installed utilized any outside system in order to have full communications and interconnectivity. Voting machines could easily be connected through dedicated phone-lines while avoiding satellite or other microwave or RF transmissions, as by using only secure ground lines, voting tabulations can be proven to be secured. Such systems can produce additional paper-trails such as internal registers that tabulate counts of votes by candidate providing hourly totals throughout the entire counting including when counting has been suspended as the machine should also provide assurance of no tampering during the off periods. The paper ballots which are fed into the machines will remain as another paper-trail and a printout which is provided the voter as proof that their votes were tabulated correctly with a second copy retained for any recounts as an additional check. We are sure that there are experts far more familiar with modern electronics as we have been retired longer than we will admit at this time. With any good fortune, President Trump will take the lead in making every future election voting free from irregularities, or minimized at the very least; so the people will have greater faith that their votes matter and the United States can prove Stalin wrong when he was possibly misquoted stating, “It is not who votes that counts but who counts the votes.”

Beyond the Cusp

Israeli Political Stalemate Strikes Again

 

 

When nothing has changed between now and whenever President Rivlin finally surrenders to reality, these are our observations and thoughts. Should everything remain as it appears, Israel will be going to a fourth set of elections. It appears that yet another election will likely leave things the same without anyone able to form a coalition numbering sixty-one or more Knesset Ministers. These past three elections fit neatly into the Einsteinian definition for insanity, performing the same tasks expecting different results.

 

We here at BTC are going to go out on a limb and predict a winning side; but first, our reasoning behind the change we see coming. Former Blue-White leader, Benny Gantz, performed the political pirouette going back on any number of his former promises. There is one main U-turn which will damage him and lose him followers. This U-turn came when General Gantz (ret) attempted to form a government by allying with the Arab List. Even with this attempted new alliance, Gantz ended up unable to reach the magic sixty-one majority. This attempt also blew apart the Blue-White alliance leaving the former alliance torn asunder back into the component parties. This breakup comes at the same time as Labor and Meretz ended their alliance as well. Meanwhile, the parties making up the right-leaning alliance are well as in tact for as long as Bibi Netanyahu honors the promises made to them and not take away their ministries so as to bribe left-leaning parties to join the coalition. Breaking these promises would be the quickest means for destroying the right-leaning alliance.

 

We at BTC are actually looking forward to a new round of elections. These elections, we believe, will be held sometime in either August or September. The reason for holding the new elections that late is for any number of reasons including an end to the COVID-19 pandemic allowing people to feel safer being in groups and still allow for some time for campaigning. Granted, the vast majority of Israelis are set in their voting choices. So, what changes have we noted, despite the difficulties caused by the pandemic? The most obvious has been the breaking apart of the main left-leaning party, Blue-White, and another leftist alliance where one of the members is unlikely to break threshold. Of course, there is always the chance for any slip to come along and change everything.

 

 

Well, guess the time has come to predict the results of any fourth Israeli elections. Top of the list will be Bibi Netanyahu yet again with sixty-two to as many a sixty-five mandates. The Arab List will remain between fourteen and seventeen mandates leaving less than a mere fifty mandates, falling completely from contention. Hopefully, Bibi can get past his paranoia suspecting that others are trying to replace the leadership of Likud into the future. While having Netanyahu returning one more time as Prime Minister may not be the most desirable, one last tour to collect more cigars and champagne and getting even deeper in trouble with the media; after Gantz’s recent self-destruction, there really is no other choice.

 

Taking the nearly identical results from the previous elections, the fourth elections will be predicted to simply be yet another repeat, yet we believe it could easily be the charm. What we advise Bibi Netanyahu, or any other right-leaning leader, to do is better Israel politically and place her beyond physical threat. The first effort should lead to completely annex all lands west of the Jordan River while providing any Palestinians desiring to leave with aid to assist their relocation. As for the remainder of time to the next elections, it would serve Likud and the right-leaning political wing to replace Bibi at the helm and promote a new leadership. Meanwhile, Israeli politics will remain one of the most absurd and delusional found on this Earth.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

British Choose Conservative Party While People Riot in Iran

 

The British elections led to a victory and mandate to complete BREXIT with Boris Johnson as their Prime Minister. But there was a secondary message coming from these elections, namely that the British renounced the hateful racism and anti-Semitism which had become part of the messages coming from the Labour Party in general and from Jeremy Corbyn in particular. The British elections were just the next step coming from Europeans demanding their nations return to their independence and away from the European Union (EU) and centralized rule from Brussels. We have to add that most of the distrust of the centralized power without any input, that the EU intends to spread over all of Europe, has come from former Soviet nations which perhaps remember their former results from centralized power ruling from Moscow.

 

Boris Johnson

 

These results will be used by some in the United States to boost their arguments about President Trump, both pro and con. These sorts of arguments are best just left behind as one walks away, as arguing with such people from either side, using the British elections as a predictor for the upcoming 2020 elections in the United States is simply a waste of one’s time. Yet, the results of the British elections will not be affecting much on the world’s stage as the central focus of the world revolves around two nations, the obvious is Iran followed by the favorite nation for United Nations General Assembly to condemn, Israel. Of these two, Iran is the larger problem which the world needs to find something to remove the current Judeophobia, prevent Iranian hegemony of the Middle East and, in a perfect world, return control over Iran to the Iranian people. These problems are far more important keeping a careful watch over Iran and the effects of her involvement in the Syrian strife and violence as well as her influences in places such as Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and beyond. Currently, the ball is on the Iranian side of the court leaving more room for speculation backed only by feelings. So, what do we expect in the coming future?

 

News about the internal struggle spreading throughout Iran has been sketchy at best and totally suppressed about the remainder. Meanwhile, the people of Iran are fighting for new governance which is more representative of the Iranian people. There is a large and growing undercurrent eroding at the power wielded by the Mullahs currently ruling in Iran through use of force. The situation in Iran is exactly as one might presume, with fixed elections and other shams giving a pretense of democratic elections. This is what has led to the current round of rioting and protests against the current rulers. News about the spreading protests has been relatively disorganized at best and imposed silence at its worst. This leads to much news being pure speculation mixed with hope for the Iranian people.

 

Our biggest fears are that this atmosphere of rejection targeting the ruling Mullahs could lead to an irresponsible set of actions by the Mullahs. The most feared scenario includes a nuclear attack on the American Fifth Fleet of the United States Navy assigned to patrol the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and parts of the Indian Ocean as well as the nations bordering these waters. Their mandate includes Iran. Often another scenario is mentioned where Iran starts their offensive in earnest against Saudi Arabia while simultaneously launching a massive attack upon Israel used to distract the world’s attention. Such an attack would be played in Iran as their leadership taking care to protect the people from these outside menacing forces. We do not foresee Iran using force against Israel beyond the consistent launching rockets by the IRGC in Syria as any escalation could trigger a larger Israeli response. Iranian leaders are aware that Israeli leadership would be required to respond to missiles detected coming from Iran well before they would strike their targets and possibly crippling Israeli capabilities. Israeli leadership would need to decide how severe any Iranian attack might be as well as which warheads were launched, specifically as to whether any WMD’s were included in such an attack. Such weapons include chemical and bio weapons as well as nuclear warheads. Any such attack from Iran would be hopefully largely, if not totally, intercepted by the layered protective spheres of the Israeli anti-ballistic missile defenses.

 

Talking about any Iranian strike, our belief is that Iran has absolutely little if any desire to exchange ballistic missiles with Israel as they are aware that such an exchange would result in the destruction of much of Iran with potentially minimal destruction in Israel as Iranian missiles were intercepted by Israeli defensive systems. Should Iran strike anyone, the most likely target would be the American naval ships off her coasts. Iran has been observing how President Trump has pulled American forces from much, if not all, of the Middle East battlegrounds. This has probably led to their concluding that President Trump would avoid any direct conflict initiated by Iran. They likely feel that such an attack could lead to concessions from the United States in order to avoid further American casualties. Such presumptions are the perfect setting for an ever-escalating exchange between Iran and the United States where Iran would be the loser. The United States would not consider herself as the victor as the resulting protests against the use of force and against Trump would prove to be a divisive and destructive force in the country.

 

This leads to our final vision of the future and the results of the people rioting across Iran demanding new governance and an end to the rule by the Mullahs. We fear that the results from these protests will be the deaths of thousands of Iranians as the Mullahs will refuse to go down without a monumental fight. In the end, the rulers of Iran will unleash the IRGC and the Basenji Militias upon the protesters. It will result in a near exact copy of the 2009 protests except with far higher casualty count for those protesting. Should the pro-democracy Persians, the actual and correct name for most of the Iranian people, start taking to the streets in vast numbers, their success or failure will be dependent upon what response and potential arming the Iranians receive from the United States. The knife edge upon which the world currently sits has Iran and the United States in direct opposition to one another. Iran could initiate problems in any number of means. Iran could stop all the oil tankers from entering or leaving through the Strait of Hormuz or block the Bab el Mandeb (see map below) blocking the only exit and entrance to the Suez Canal from the south.

 

Strait of Hormuz and Bab-el-Mandeb Strait

 

The Bab el Mandeb blockade would also negate the sole Israeli port in the south, Eilat, from access to the Indian Ocean and beyond. Preventing access to shipping lanes is considered an act of war. Well, that is, except if the nation in question is Israel. That aside, the most likely conflict will break out between the United States and Iran and not Iran and Israel. Should the conflict turn to being between Iran and Israel, the world (aka General Assembly) will immediately blame Israel with minimum opposition. This is the one item you can bet and rest assured of a win. The world’s ‘blame Israel’ reaction is the one constant in this rattled and violent world. Directing hatred towards Israel is the latest Judeophobia spreading around the world. We can only pray that the world awakens and removes their blinders and finally accepts that Israel has been reborn as predicted in Torah and related commentaries and this time, we are returning home and have little if any desire to leave. Hopefully, the world comes to grips with their unsupportable Judeophobia before it leads to another great war which will result in much of the world being destroyed and a death toll beyond any other war.

 

Beyond the Cusp