Partisanship and North Korean Threat

 

The November 28, 2017, ICBM missile test by North Korea of a Hwasong-15 missile, the first test of this missile, was a development which forced the world, the United States particularly, to be placed on notice that Kim Jong-un just entered near parity with all other nations in launch capabilities. The missile reached an altitude of around 4475 km (2780 miles) and traveled some 950 km downrange with a flight time of almost one hour. If fired on a more traditional attack trajectory, then the Hwasong-15 would easily be able to reach anywhere in the United States and the world (see map below for ranges of previous tests including the Hwasong-14 ICBM). This latest missile is considered to be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Whether North Korea has the technology to produce a tactically usable warhead has been debated by Pentagon and CIA personnel. The two questions which would require North Korea to be capable of making a tactically usable weapon come down to miniaturization of an actual weapon to sufficiently small size and weight, and survivability of reentry while retaining all capabilities. Most estimates grant the miniaturization part of the process, though some still have their doubts, but the jury is still out over the survivability part of the equation. We believe that North Korea has likely solved all of these problems and had done so even before Kim Jong-un came to power and he simply lacked the missile for delivery of the package. Now he has all the elements necessary making production and distribution of the missiles and warheads is all Kim Jong-un requires to have the ability to threaten the world whenever he chooses.

 

Hwasong-14 ICBM Estimated Range

 

President Trump made a statement on the economy and tax cuts but began the media meeting with a short mention of the North Korean missile test in the video below. The remainder of his talk he stressed that the Democrat leaders of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate, Chuck Schumer, were absent from the meeting to which they were invited for a discussion with the President and their Republican counterparts. The President noted that the Democrats and Republicans are far apart in their ideas for the country and the direction it should be required to move. The main differences were defined as crime, immigration and national defense and how these issues should affect the budget and the issue of tax cuts and simplification. It was obvious that this meeting with the media had been planned for addressing economic priorities and that the President knew and was well prepared to make hay out of the Democrat leadership refusal to join him just to be harangued over their positions. Sometimes a small shame is preferable to a drawn out spectacle, and the President is long on spectacle and thus far short on production. This has mostly to do with two simple facts, one blaming the Democrat Party and the other the Republican Party.

 

 

We will return to the budget, taxes and the divided Congress and nation, but first a short trip to the United Nations where the Security Council held an emergency meeting on North Korea and their Ballistic Missile Launch. Below is a video about said meeting with commentary from United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley as well as the Ambassadors from Japan, Great Britain, China, Russia and South Korea. The approximately one hour meeting spent much time on the seriousness of the breaking of the United Nations placed limitations on North Korea. The Breaking of this treaty is a serious and threatening action which requires the United Nations to take steps. The estimate was given that if flown on a standard trajectory it would have a range in excess of 13000 kilometers. The polar circumference of the globe is 39,931 kilometers which means that this North Korean ICBM could readily strike anywhere over around two-thirds of the planet with Africa and South America being the only continents not mostly within range and leaving the southern most parts of Australia beyond the missile range. This missile is the game changer which President Trump had set as one of the parameters of the North Korean capabilities which would force the United States to act. The other items included miniaturized warhead capability and reentry-hardened capability, both of which may already have been realized. The problem is without an actual successful deployment of a nuclear weapon on an ICBM, hopefully into an empty part of the oceans and after warnings with adequate time for ships exiting the effected area, there is no means of actually verifying these last two items.

 

 

The meeting was as much of a punch-down on the Democrats and list of their opposing attitudes for the future of the United States. The fact is that the Democrat Party members in Congress, both the House and Senate, will vote almost exclusively as a single entity opposing everything and anything which President Trump or the Republicans attempt to pass as legislation. The President also took a jab at the media for their misreporting on his words parsing his words looking for any single misstep to flaunt before the people. The recent Senate passage of tax reform legislation was a perfect display of both problems faced by President Trump and the shortfall of the Republican leadership in and outside of Congress. The tax cuts were passed without a single Democrat voting in favor, not a single Democrat Senator voting favorably. This has become the expected voting by the Democrats where their leadership has taken an extreme position of complete and total opposition. The sole example of the Republican opposition of President Obama and his legislation was against Obamacare, otherwise the Republicans were permitted to vote their conscience and representing the desires and needs of their constituents. Not so from the Democrat Party which has decided that everything passed which was not of their drafting will be opposed totally and completely until the Republicans realize the error of their ways as the majority party and allow the Democrats, who are in the minority and do not hold the White House, to write and pass into law everything according to their demands and ideas. Very simply stated, the Democrats have decided that only their party may lead the country and they will oppose everything not of their authorship. That is more dysfunction than principled stance. A principled stance would permit those in the party who felt that something written by the other party was worthy, could support that legislation. That is no longer permitted by the Democrat Party and any Democrat voting for any legislation will not be permitted funds from the central party and may face party sponsored opposition in the primaries. That is not the actions of a functional party, that is the attempt of the few to assume all-powerful positions given even the slightest opportunity.

 

The other side of the coin has exactly the opposite problem, as there are a group of Republicans, specifically in the Senate, who willingly oppose the Party leadership and especially the President and his proposals by refusing to pass necessary legislation. Even this tax legislation was held up by the ‘Never Trumpsters’ until they were permitted to weaken some parts and add their own pet propositions which were not desired by the President as his aim was to simplify the tax code and this small set of demands accomplished the opposite. These are the same Republicans who while guaranteed their legislation to repeal Obamacare was guaranteed under President Obama passed legislation calling for exactly that over one hundred times yet now that such legislation would be received with great enthusiasm by President Trump, this small group of anti-Trump Republicans who believe that only political functionaries such as themselves should be permitted to seek the White House, have refused to try and repeal Obamacare now. These few recalcitrant Republican Senators, which include a former losing Presidential candidate, believe their positions are more popular than those upon which the President of the United States campaigned. These problematic Republicans could guarantee that President Trump would be reelected simply passing two or three of the Presidential programs, tax reform, border wall and stronger immigration vetting, to make the Presidential 2020 campaign one based on accomplishments. They appear to prefer he fail and the Democrats gain control. This may be because they find it easier to oppose from the minority than act as a majority and take responsibility for the country and the needs of the people. So the two problems the nation is facing are the complete opposition by the Democrats and the lack of unity in the Republicans. There will always be those who side with the other side and others who insist on the limelight not capable of sharing center stage. If they only would realize that they are but the clown left to entertain before the adults take the stage, perhaps they would act responsibly for a change.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Saving of America

 

After the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama years it appeared that the schism reputed to exist between the Republicans and Democrats had narrowed to a small step-over rather than a seismic event. With Hillary Clinton appearing in the polls to be about to steamroll Donald Trump, any chance of widening that difference appeared dead. But sometimes the political world takes a lunging alteration of course and nothing could have made such more apparent than the election of President Trump, well, almost. People are painting the Alabama Special Election Primary as a Trump loss as he, in a likely peace offering to try and gain at least a modicum of support from the Republican mainstream in the Congress, backed former Alabama State Attorney General Luther Strange over the former Alabama State Supreme Court Judge and eternal misfit, Roy Moore. Well, the Alabama Republicans sent the Republican Party another message and selected, actually elected, Roy Moore to run in this fall’s election to replace Senator Sessions in the United States Senate. This was a step which may prove even more exasperating and frustrating for the Republican Party than was the election of President Trump.

 

Let us explain. President Trump came from a background of business dealings where you give and take and adjust to reach the closest you are able to your goal. This means you compromise to get something and you give something. Roy Moore is a staunch and opinionated proponent of absolute principles. He stands on his principles no matter the cost and compromises with nobody. He believes in these truths he holds and brandishes them as weapons to smash convention and tradition in the face if they dare disagree. He is not going to quietly fit into the groove with the Republican mainstream in the Senate and he fully supports President Trump’s drain the swamp agenda and the correcting of the glutton-like foolishness where the Congress simply bought votes with other people’s monies wasting taxpayer funds and running up enormous debts. Roy Moore will demand responsibility and stand as the adult in the play pen under the Capital Dome, well, actually to one side. The mainstays and Republican big-shots are more than a little put out especially when the first meeting Roy Moore attended upon hitting the slimy streets of Washington D.C. was Steve Bannon, the man the Republican elites took special interest in forcing from the Administration.

 

Mr. Bannon has a view and a plan to go with it, he wants to back more people like Donald Trump and Roy Moore who do not fit the mold we have been forced to accept for politicians, the go-along-to-get-along group. He wants rabble-rousers who will take great pleasure in upturning all of the existing apple carts. Moore is seeking people who are of a similar political set of views and the intestinal fortitude to stand firm on those principles they believe deeply about against all adversity and opposition. He is seeking conservatives, true conservatives, who have preferably no political experience and have either been standout, principled, steadfast, absolutist, honorable conservatives. Steve Bannon has a very high view of himself seeing his mission for the remainder of his life as saving the United States from the barnacled infestation created by the power creep in Washington D.C. and which has issued an ever-rising debt which will destroy the future of the United States, the Western World and any possibility of advancing freedom for our children and all posterity. Bannon, despite what his detractors’ claim, actually does love the United States and the principles upon which it was founded. He is some form of a purist, an absolutist, a Foundationalist, one who believes in the exact wording of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence (in particular) and the numerous principles and theories from the political philosophers of the era leading up to the revolution which formed the United States. He sees Washington’s establishment as a large part of the problem, and places the blame on the politicians for dereliction of their duty to the people of the United States. His belief is that the Congress has a primary duty to fight for the people by preserving their nation and protecting it and especially the Constitution, from all threats foreign and domestic. And yes, that is a piece directly from the oath that every member of Congress, the Military, the President, the Federal Judges and many of the ranking members of the Administration and within the government.

 

Singing of the Declaration of Independence representative as the majority were present at the date considered to be the official signing but some had returned home and would sign it before it was delivered and there were several copies such that one could be delivered to King George III in London and others delivered to the spate State Committees and other copies stored separately for their collective safety

 

How will Steve Bannon bring about his marvelous revolution of his? Well, he will have to fight a good fight, as there is a man who desires nothing less than the entire destruction and downfall of the United States. This man believes the opposite of everything which Steve Bannon holds dear and desires the complete failure and crumbling of these United States which Steve Bannon desires to save. Everything which Steve Bannon desires to bring about would only make the United States a greater abomination to this individual. This person has made it his life’s work, amongst numerous other equally perverse aims, to bring down the United States by any means necessary, and this is an individual of means. His name is George Soros and in his book,

The Age of Fallibility: The Consequences of the War on Terror, Soros said, “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States. This is a harsh — indeed, for me, painful — thing to say, but unfortunately I am convinced it is true.”

One of these men will succeed, and only one, as their aims for the future are diametrically opposed. What is more probable is one of these men’s aims will have their cause win out, but it may not be due to their efforts actually succeeding. Obviously one of these views must come about, as the United States will either survive to the end of time or crumble at some point in the future to either its own rust or the cruel cudgel of invasion. What is the only consequential reality is the immediate future where the efforts of these two adversaries will play out. What is the sad part is that people such as many members of Congress and the political swamp which sustains their careers and everything which contribute to the ooze and the slime, all of this is aiding George Soros and may be partially why he feels as he does and is the more likely victor. The money and the momentum are behind this direction and the eventual drowning of the United States in its own debt and futility.

 

The battle Steve Bannon is fighting is one that we here at BTC are very familiar and may have indirectly assisted in its birth. We reacted to the idiocy of our Congress woman who when we wrote telling her we opposed the addition of a special tax on Internet providers use of telephone lines, way back in the time of modem-phone Internet interface, because we did not desire paying even more for access to the Internet. This was a big issue back then and we were quite animated over the issue. She replied, and this is a paraphrasing, ‘Your rates are not affected by the tax as this tax is on the phone use by the provider and not the end user.’ Like any tax goes no further than the people, the corporations, upon whom the tax is levied. These corporations and industries would never pass along the additional cost along to their customers who use their goods and services, that would never happen. Well, in our Congress woman’s world, that is how it would work. We were incensed enough with the disrespect, the assumption of the public’s ignorance, and the belief that we would accept such a preposterous answer that we ran for office against her and everything else. Our communicating of our idea and ideals that the government required being brought back to serving the people and not itself or the mega-corporations and that the basics which founded the United States were being threatened and trod asunder and only required the people realizing the dangers and standing up to bring their desires to the fore. We were able to speak to maybe close to one thousand people but received many times that many votes. Our strongest support, despite being rebuffed by the NRA as too inconsequential for their consideration, were gun owners who arrived in numbers Election Day requesting posters and pamphlets as they struck out to the polls and even donated a final contribution to our campaign in the maximum amount permitted by law. Here we are a decade and a half later and we have had the Tea Party and now a simply we are fed up revolt by voters; if only we had waited we might have had more financial backing.

 

The problem for Steve Bannon is he will have great difficulty finding people who believe and are willing to stand against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. There will be many who will believe in his cause and still choose when challenged not to do while a very courageous few will be willing to do. So, to be or not to be, that is the question, and whether to stand against the moneyed interests and their character assassination will be what those who consider the challenge will and must answer. To ignore the coming hardships and potential threats would be foolish. We write this from experience. How many of us actually have the fortitude to stand toe-to-toe in a debate with people whose livelihood depends on their debating skills. People who can twist words into a pretzel, still sell them as a pretzel stick, and then tell people they enjoyed it even if they used hot peppers instead of salt. Our best memory other than the support from the gun rights supporters on Election Day morning was when we were in a debate at a predominantly minority church. The question was about support or opposition of the death penalty and we went last. Both the Democrat and sitting Republican stood directly and completely opposed to the death penalty, an expected response. We stood and stated that we were not in favor of the liberal or common use of the death penalty, but that there were a certain class of criminals who were beyond the ability of our systems, medical and criminal, to repair their damaged lives and personalities. Such people are psychopaths, sociopaths, psychotics and other simply evil people who were beyond any chance for being permitted return into society. As no prison is absolutely inescapable and some of these individuals have a devious brilliance which would make them the perfect candidate to escape even the highest security prisons, and thus the only means would be the death penalty or a form of solitary confinement with limitations to their ability to move such that they were not even permitted the movement to feed themselves or any other such normative functions such that execution would actually be more merciful, for people, and we listed a half dozens or so mass murderers, are the types who the death penalty would be appropriate. The two main party candidates in their rebuttal both agreed with everything I stated in thirty seconds and it was remarkably uplifting knowing we had bested them on at least one question. Mostly we held our own sufficiently well that they formed a bi-partisan committee with members of the staff from both campaigns to work and keep me from appearing anywhere in public. That included debates before religious groups, public groups, political clubs and the televised debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters. They even had lawyers from the State’s Attorney’s Office witness against us in a court to prevent a judge from allowing us into the debate as we sued. They even had the judge refuse to allow a member of my campaign to represent me in court and demand that I defend my need to be represented in the debate with almost thirty seconds of meeting with the person who had done all of the research. We managed to lose this one, remarkable, right?

 

This is what anybody attempting to break the political class’s hold on absolute power will face, this and far worse, because the political class has figured out that the people are mad as, well, you know. Will the American people arise and remain aroused long enough to actuate the changes necessary? Six years is the minimum to be able to change the entire Senate once and we may require three times through to manage the changes we require. Senators John McCain, Lisa Murkowski, Richard Shelby, Marco Rubio, Chuck Grassley, Jerry Moran, Roy Blunt, Rob Portman, Pat Toomey, John Thune, Mike Lee and Ron Johnson were just reelected so we are stuck with them for the next six years. These were just some of the Republicans and we saw no reason for adding Democrats who disregard the limitations of the Constitution as they promise to do that while the Republicans claim they are the protectors of the Constitution. Most of them could not even tell you most of the particulars included in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Ask your representatives for the Congress, both the House of Representatives and the Senate, to simply state the Tenth Amendment (see image below) and then explain what they believe it means. Then ask them if it matters at all to them. Then, if you really want to have some fun, ask them what in the Constitution was behind, and then list any number of votes they made which can be looked up on the Internet at their own sites very often. Do this when other people are listening and watch them squirm before they start to lie to you.

 

 

Will the United States survive into the distant future? The first question is what will the United States look like in about ten, twenty, fifty years or even a century or more? We will have a simple measuring meter, the debt. Every trillion of growth in the debt is probably an additional decade of the United States as a debtor nation. Being a debtor nation is not a good thing. There will be so many, especially in the political class, who will argue that as measured against the GDP, the debt is not as terrible as it may first appear. They will tell you that you cannot even think about numbers like the level of the debt and even the GDP. One has to wonder, if we cannot even understand such numbers, what makes these supra-geniuses we vote into office have such ability, as they appear to talk about such things with a complete cavalier attitude. That should be a stumper which will leave them sputtering and attempting to backtrack before they do additional damage. The United States no longer requires a Balanced Budget Amendment, as even with such a law, the Congress would find means around such by using continuing resolution with built in increases in spending to continue the same-old-same-old. The United States requires responsible stewardship leading to budget surpluses which are required to be applied to reduction of the principle of the debt. This need be required until the entirety of the debt is reduced to nothing.

 

From that point forward, the budget must be balanced and should any year run into debt, then the next year must place repaying that debt at the top of the budget which must also remain as a balanced budget. There should not be any leeway allowing any debt to build up and every yearly budget should be corralled such that they not exceed some set percentage of all funds collected by the Federal Government the previous year. Should any yearly debt be incurred, then that would immediately bite into the funds for the next year, as it is required to be placed at the head of the next year’s budget in order that it be paid and not increased, as is the current habit. Should the United States continue in the current direction, then very soon the United States will no longer be capable of fielding the strongest military in the world, and will have reached the point where having a large Navy, Air Force, Army, Marines or any other military organizations beyond that required for border patrol, if that. We have watched as the European nations have almost to a nation degraded their militaries to the point that they are not meeting their obligations under treaties and are no longer capable of exerting force projection. The Europeans had a secret weapon, the United States. Whom will the United States offload their defense onto? Answer that question and you will have permitted the United States to become just another European socialist nightmare. Well, the next five elections will tell much of the story and we will continue to watch and hope along with the rest of the world. We just pray we will not need to write an article titled, “What Will the World Without America Be?”

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Obamacare in the Balance

 

The Graham-Cassidy partial repeal and replacement for Obamacare is rapidly approaching the September 30 reconciliation deadline by which it must be enacted to be of any real usefulness. The problem facing the Republicans is very simple, they probably will never have the votes to do any replacement and a straight repeal is even less likely. The problem is very easily stated from their last fiasco where the votes which sunk them all came from the Republican side, as they knew going in that the Democrat vote would be a single block of solid against any repeal of their President Obama signature accomplishment. The Democrats are going to double and triple down on Obamacare as without Obamacare they stand behind eight years of nothing. The problem this time includes everyone from the last go-round Lamar Alexander, Shelley Moore Capito, Susan Collins, Dean Heller, John McCain, Lisa Murkowski, and Rob Portman plus one additional, Rand Paul. Many a pundit and Capital Hill expert claim that this list can be narrowed down to probably just four names, Rand Paul, Susan Collins, John McCain and Lisa Murkowski. The good side is apparently the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare Replacement Bill has addressed the concerns of the rest of the Republicans and cemented the opposition of the entirety of the Democrats. With reports that place Rand Paul and Susan Collins in Schumer’s Democrat opposition column, McConnell cannot lose a single other Republican vote; and with too many placing John McCain and Lisa Murkowski as still in the undecided column, the entire idea of calling a vote should be in doubt. Still, it appears that McConnell will call for a vote next week. Now many articles are going to talk endlessly about how the Republicans are committing suicide playing these games while the entire healthcare insurance business burns to the ground. They will claim that their promise to repeal and replace Obamacare was a sacred oath which will cost them dearly in the midterm elections. Well yea and yes on all of that and what more can be said. That has been covered ad-nauseum. Why not talk about Chucky Schumer and the Democrat solid block of opposition for a change.

 

The one item which has escaped coverage in the debate over repeal and replacement of Obamacare has been the lockstep denial of any need to do so by almost every single Democrat and every single democrat in the Senate. Senator Chuck Schumer has been leading them to what might be for them an inglorious end come the midterms. The people who have witnessed their insurance premiums go up or their plans nixed all together or who have lost their physician were not merely Republicans, many were also Democrats who may feel betrayed if something is not done to turn these events around. One need recall that President Trump won thirty states outright in the Presidential elections which would appear to depict that there are some very upset Democrats who either voted for Trump and thus favor the repeal and replace of Obamacare amongst other items or an equal number of Democrats who stayed home as they are done with the Democrats until they get their bearing back. Either way you look at this, it means that the Democrats tripling down on Obamacare is very likely to bode poorly for them come the midterm elections. Sure, the Republicans will face some anger but their anger will be focused on those who refused to vote according to their promises of seven years when they were repealing Obamacare once a month on average, or so it seemed. The voters know that Obamacare was passed purely on Democrat support and lies, but mostly on forced Democrat unity while the Republicans in both the House of Representatives and Senate voted against it, not a single Republican vote was cast to pass Obamacare. Apparently, there is a difference between voting for Obamacare and voting to remove Obamacare on the Republican side, not so on the Democrat side, as they remain lockstep voting as a block without any defectors to save Obamacare at all costs. This has apparently become a position upon which the leadership of the Democrat Party are willing to hang their shingle upon and run as the Obamacare Party in elections for as long as this remains an issue, which apparently will be at least through the midterm elections. They are following Chuck Schumer in the Senate as if he were the Pied Piper.

 

Chuck Schumer and his Democrats

 

The idea that not being capable of repeal and replace will sink the entire Republican Party is what we hear from critic after critic and apparently, the Democrats have been sold the concept that Republicans and only Republicans are going to pay for any failure to repeal and replace Obamacare. This is a false picture as what is far more likely is that should Obamacare not be repealed and replaced then on the Republican side Rand Paul, Susan Collins, John McCain and Lisa Murkowski will be held to blame and face the ire of their voters. Senator McCain will not likely be running for another term due to health issues and thus does not care about the ire of his constituents, but the rest, if they are not also retiring, should. On this issue, all those hurt by Obamacare will likely have very long memories even to lasting six years out for those just reelected. Meanwhile, the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare Replacement has been revamped and though not a complete repeal and replacement, it fills in many of the gaps and repeals much of the hurtful sections of Obamacare, retains the most popular, and is still not the complete fix desired but a long step in the right direction. There is plenty to be happy over and there will be further legislation to tweak and patch the remaining problems both foreseen and unforeseen but soon to crop up. The voters are not in favor of the complete repeal because Obamacare did give voters free things and they want to retain all the free stuff which is understandable even if unwise. Where the problems arise is it took far too many things people have relied upon for a long time and destroyed those systems. Many realize that should Obamacare continue that it would destroy the entirety of the healthcare insurance business leaving only government healthcare for all and this was completely unacceptable to a large sector of people. This includes a good percentage of Democrat voters and they are scared, just as scared as the Republican voters, and this will be shown as the Democrats become the Obamacare Party and seen to represent little else than complete takeover of healthcare by the government. Has it even occurred to anybody that the people of the United States do not want to become just another European style government handout nation? If that thought has escaped you as a representative of the people, perhaps it is time you weighed that thought before you vote to retain the one piece of legislation designed to do exactly that. That includes Democrats as well as Republicans. If the Democrats wish to go down as the Obamacare Party, that is their choice, but as the Whig Party went down over opposition to slavery and the Republican Party was thus born, perhaps some of the Democrats should consider what to call the party that will be founded on the remains of the Democrat Party as its brand dies over Obamacare.

 

Beyond the Cusp