Jerusalem Coming Attractions Next Week

 

Jerusalem will become a driving nightmare next week while both United States Presidential security and Secret Service plus Israeli security for the Prime Minister and close to half the Knesset, Mayor of Jerusalem and a list of unknowns who deserve safety as well all gathering at the scene of the dedication and opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem, the capping off of President Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the Capital City of Israel, even its eternal Capital. We have been informed through rumor and unofficial reports and semi-official reports that, as we stated yesterday, Donald Trump’s Daughter Ivanka and Husband Jared Kushner will be making an appearance at the grand opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem. This means, Presidential level security or higher will be in place. The Secret Service will be thoroughly, exhaustively efficient and competent in their security put in place and attention to detail in assessing threats. Their work will probably be set just that little bit higher level as this is Jerusalem. Then there is the Israeli security which will be in place to protect Donald Trump’s Daughter Ivanka and Husband Jared Kushner above and beyond that in place for the Israeli VIPs who will be attending plus possibly other important people. This will mean that certain roads, bus routes and other forms of travel will be diverted, in some cases for no reason which is obvious or understandable. Some of these obstructions will be familiar to Jerusalem natives who have experienced these inconveniences before but they will probably complain that this time they went too far. The only reality that matters is that nothing untoward occurs to those attending the opening, traveling to the opening, leaving the grand opening, or simply visiting Jerusalem will be very safe almost anywhere within the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor with an emphasis on Jerusalem and Ben Gurion International Airport. The safest place on Earth will be this area of Israel during the three days around the opening of the American Embassy coinciding with Israel’s 70th anniversary. The Embassy will initially be located in the Arnona neighborhood, in a modern building that now houses consular operations of U.S. Consulate General Jerusalem.

 

The reports that President Donald Trump is also potentially considering attending will make little difference to the level of required security. It likely will not even make any difference in the roads blocked and the detour routes and all the other security arrangements. Granted, should the President attend, and we really wish he would be there, as it would add much to the meaning of this dedication. He began this with his Jerusalem announcement and this would be the exclamation point which could only help. If the President is concerned about his attending making peace more difficult, not to worry, as long as Abbas and Hamas are in existence, then peace will not happen, as they do not desire peace, they desire all Israelis dead. President Trump should most definitely come to celebrate the fruits of his efforts. He signaled the importance and direction he intended for the emphasis of his foreign policy with the selection of his Ambassador to Israel, his choice of Ambassador to the United Nations and his establishment of a special group to affect his policies in the Middle East. This was further established with his statements about the unviability of the Iran Nuclear Agreement and his slowly sliding towards pulling out of the agreement and placing embargoes back on Iran, which President Donald Trump announced Tuesday where he called the 2015 agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) an “embarrassment” that “should never have been reached.” The President added, “After the sanctions were lifted, the dictatorship used its new funds to build nuclear capable missiles, support terrorism, and cause havoc throughout the Middle East and beyond.” President Trump stated pointedly, “The agreement was so poorly negotiated that even if Iran fully complies, the regime can still be on the verge of a nuclear breakout in just a short period of time. The deal’s sunset provisions are totally unacceptable.” This and his declaration recognizing that Jerusalem was exactly as King David declared, the eternal capital of the Jewish State. Some things simply are beyond man’s ability to alter, something all the previous Presidents thought their wavers prevented the truth; it did not. One thing which was definite, the Jerusalem Municipality welcomes transfer of United States Embassy.

 

Jerusalem Municipality welcomes transfer of United States Embassy

 

The Palestinian Authority, PLO, Fatah and every other organization which has any relation to Mahmoud Abbas have all called for everyone officially attached to their organizations, parties, governing groups, terror organization or any other identity to boycott the establishment of the new American Embassy in Jerusalem. This, they believe, will ruin the reality of the establishing of the Embassy of the United States in Jerusalem. They all have a very high view of themselves and we ask what difference does their refusal make and who actually expected them to come and applaud the opening of the United States Embassy, especially in Jerusalem. Hamas has decided that they will breach the border fence between Gaza and Israel and storm Jerusalem foiling the attempt to establish the United States Embassy in Jerusalem. Hamas has sworn that this will be the finale to their Gaza month of riots and it will be a grand spectacle. Some people are risking the lives of the youths who unfortunately believe what they have been fed and even believe their efforts will prove invincible and they will overwhelm the Jews. They have been fed a regular diet about the cowardly Jew who cannot find the strength to stand up to their grandness of will and their Arab will which Allah uses to make them into the weapons of the new caliphate and thus impervious to the IDF soldiers. They have been told that their rushing an IDF position will so frighten the Jew soldiers that they will drop their weapons and flee in terror and then they can use those weapons to kill the fleeing soldiers. Many of them believe the entirety to be a lark, a game where they play the part of the indignant and insulted party and the Jews are not going to use force to prevent their efforts because, well, because that is what they are told to believe and all too often the IDF appears reluctant to use deadly force. This has reinforced this idea in their heads that the IDF is scared to actually shoot them. It is honestly a sad reality that the reluctance of the IDF to take lives needlessly and without overwhelming need might lead to them needing to shoot into a crowd of hundreds of youths who have been told by their Hamas leaders that their time to storm the fence and march on Jerusalem has finally come. These Hamas leaders will be right behind them all the way, about two or three miles behind them. Hopefully non-deadly force will be all that will be necessary to prevent the youth from reaching a point where deadly force is the only option left to the soldiers.

 

This brings us to the question of what happens if the worst-case scenario should come to pass. There are several such scenarios. The mass of youths breaching the Gaza fence is the most obvious and among the most dangerous. The best scenario with this would be water cannons and other nonlethal crowd control methods, even to include sound amplification methods, will be sufficient to prevent an extended breach. Should the Hamas effort include people shooting at the IDF from within the breaching crowd, that will leave no choice but to return fire and hopefully snipers can pick off only those with weapons and the IDF troops not be forced to fire into a crowd of apparently unarmed individuals simply because they are taking fire from somewhere within the group. This was a tactic used before in the Gaza Wars where Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters would grab a younger child and run from one position to another position holding the child to their torso using them as a bulletproof vest. This has been brought up at the United Nations by Ambassador Haley.

 

The other item which must be guarded against, and this is where preparations and intelligence serve as the best hopes, is to be ready to intercept and prevent any attack on the ceremonies by terrorists or other forces. Hamas has rockets which are capable of reaching Jerusalem and Hezballah and the IRGC have many missiles which could be used to target specific targets within Israel, anywhere within Israel including Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority does not have the rocket capability compared to Hamas and the Iranian backed Hezballah and IRGC, but it would not take much of a rocket to cause an international incident. Such an attack does not even need to be remotely accurate, simply anywhere within a number of blocks would be sufficient to shut down the ceremony unless serious orders were given to ignore the distraction, as the dedication cannot be prevented by such an act. Such a decision could only come from one of two people, President Trump or Secretary of Defense Mattis. There is only a chance that one of these gentlemen will be present to give such an order, and he is still undecided. There are other threats which will overshadow the preparations and potentially the ceremony itself. The preparations are the antidote to any interference with the ceremony, but that does not mean there might not be some surprises. We hope all will go smoothly and, to be honest, we have sufficient faith in the Israeli intelligence and IDF to feel confident that everything will go smooth as silk.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Internet Insanity Over Potential Trump Assassination

 

There have been numerous articles where people are all but, and some obviously, salivating over the possibility of President Trump being assassinated including as an example about Quora postings. What proved far more interesting was that many people had similar responses over had Bill Clinton, Barack Obama or both George Bushes had been assassinated. Much of this could be due to Quora being an international forum thus those disrespecting any American President becomes less surprising. Still, the reaction to the idea that no thinking or feeling Secret Service Agent should ever consider taking a bullet intended for President for us was unsettling. The fact that Kerry O’Grady, a now former senior Secret Service Agent who was the senior agent in Denver, explains that she viewed Trump as a candidate for President to be a “disaster” for the country, and especially for women and minorities and she would rather suffer “jail time” rather than “taking a bullet” to save his life. Apparently, she never read the fine print in her job description. Nowhere did it say take a bullet to save the life of whomever you are assigned to protect only if you liked them and believed them worth saving. Her position did not provide for such leeway or other considerations beyond it was her job to do everything within her power, to include but not limited to taking a bullet, to protect the President of the United States and all others deemed by the department as somebody the Secret Service was protecting. Apparently, the train has left the tracks and is teetering on the edge of a cliff as everything has gone south and the entire system is starting to fall apart all due to the simple fact that half the nation is upset that their preferred candidate lost an election. Could you imagine the New York Times, Washington Post and a thousand other leftist newspapers and news outlets reaction had a Secret Service Agent gone on the Internet and claimed that they would not protect Barack Obama? We would have become just as outrages over such a protestation and demanded that agent be relieved of their position, not just punished, but fired and made sure they never again received any position in law enforcement or other position where they were responsible for the lives of others, as to do so would be as criminal as would be her refusal to protect the President of the United States regardless of her personal feelings.

 

Now on to the continuing events and social media storms which are still showing little signs of reduction in numbers, ferocity of opinions or extremes in temperament. This is not normal nor is it healthy for the nation as it is tantamount to a Civil War except thus far without the bullets. The opinions were just as divided, though in exactly the opposite direction, both times when Barack Obama won and became President of the United States, yet there were minimal eruptions on social media and no Secret Service Agents refusing to take a bullet for the President on social media or marches on Washington or in major cities across the nation. Yes, there were the Tea Party rallies which somehow managed not to permit any signs showing the President being shot or otherwise being harmed. The Tea Party rallies mostly spoke of political action to take back the Congress and the White House through elections, not revolutions. There were no ninja styled black clad figures attacking Obama supporters on college campuses or at pro-Obama rallies. There were no rallies demanding he resign. The Tea Party was actually organized to fight the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and after that, other legislations which those people did not particularly care for. There were neither calls for the assassination of the President nor discussions on social media which gleefully called for him to die any one of numerous horrific deaths from assassination to diseases to poisoning and others. There were no demands that his opponents from the two elections be placed in the White House in his place by any means necessary. But, there really were many, many people equally upset when he won the first election and started implementing his socialist agenda and even higher emotions against his second term but never to the point of desiring him illness or physical harm. That was seen as simply beyond the pale by all and his opponents simply prayed for the nation to survive and for the harm to be minimized such that when a new election allowed for rolling back some of what his opponents saw as harm to the nation could start and sanity return to politics. Apparently, the desire for sanity to return to politics was one desire too far. The one thing which definitely has not occurred was for sanity to have returned to politics and that is true about both sides.

 

That is the one item which has proven the sole outlet for humor, that there are conservatives just as irate as the leftists though the conservatives are not amongst those demanded Trump’s head, at least not yet. The Never Trump conservatives such as journalist Jeff Jacoby and Arizona Senator John McCain have yet to decide that working with President Trump might result in accomplishing more for the conservative cause than trying to beat him into submission along with those from the left. Similar such things happened before in the conservatives corner and it cost the Republican Party severely. It was when Barry Goldwater won the nomination for President and the core of the Republican Party felt thwarted and worked more against his candidacy than they supported him. Their lack of effort very likely cost him that extremely thin loss to John F. Kennedy which led to the Presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the singular president most responsible for the socialization and destruction of the United States. Many have laid blame for the wrong direction taken by the United States for the past three-quarters of a century at his feet even more than they do at those of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We would rate President Johnson as the worst President in United States history and it will remain to be seen if President Barack Obama manages to eek out a victory over President Johnson for that title. We sincerely doubt that but are open to the possibility as President Obama does have a lot of potential going for him. Where much of the damage done by President Obama can still be reversed or at least mitigated, what President Johnson committed is now engrained into the fabric of the United States and to remove it would take a concerted effort and the winning of both the Congress and the White House for at least a third of a century, a near impossibility for the conservatives who are but a state or two away from electoral extinction. Should the Left manage to rip Texas over to the other side, the conservatives will possibly never recover without some cataclysm befalling the nation, and the United States might never recover from such an event.

 

The left realize how close they are to near total control of the electoral levers and the complete victory. They have been working to turn the United States ever since Woodrow Wilson if not Teddy Roosevelt. The problem is that both the Democrat (not Democratic) Party and the Republican Party have both been supporting the leftist goals of socialist governance. The mere difference has been the speed in which to arrive at their socialist utopia. The Democrats would have preferred to have arrived at their goal around 1999 while the Republicans were for a slower progress arriving around 2250. What is interesting is why President Donald Trump has equal disdain coming at him from both the extreme left and many on the empowered right. The reason for the mutual disdain is because President Trump actually is against the Progressive agenda, be it slow or fast. President Trump is no progressive, no socialist, no normal politician, he is actually as advertised, a businessman. President Trump knows little of the political games or how government works, nor does he care. He likely has an idea of what he would like to accomplish but unfortunately, less knowledge of the give and take required to reach his goals. The brighter side, for those who think that President Trump might be their knight in shining armor, President Trump is probably a faster learner than his opponents believe. That is something we will see with time. If Donald Trump is half the man he thinks himself to be, then it may be interesting to watch and see what he will accomplish. If President Trump is as big the fool as his opponents constantly claim, then the United States is in for four years of horrific despair and then hopefully a more fitting President after the next election. Again, we will see.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

GSA and Secret Service Why Such Total Corruption?

Before diving into the irresponsible and tawdry actions by government employees which was plastered on the front pages of the news of late, we need to first off recognize that those caught partaking of these misadventures are not indicative of government employees in general. The vast numbers of government employees are dedicated professionals who work diligently giving 100% efforts. Those who we refer to in what follows are the few bad apples in the barrel. Despite the joke about a substandard performance at a task as, “close enough for government work,” does a disservice to those who toil away, often thanklessly, in the services of the many layers of government. Most tasks performed by government employees are required to meet the same standards as similar professions must meet in the private sector, there are entire departments in government which hold their employees to an even higher standard. This editorial is about those government employees who have failed to maintain a high standard of discipline and judgment and have earned any aspersions thrown at them.

With the latest of the malfeasance and misappropriation of our tax monies have many questioning how could such actions have been committed and with such disregard for allowing it to become public knowledge yet nobody even seems to feel the slightest guilt. Granted, some of the Secret Service did pay for their sins with their jobs, but that was more for their breaking protocols established for securing the President and others whose lives they are held responsible for guarding more than it was for such poor judgments and misconduct. As some of the agents involved will remain in the department, the sin was not in the act but in the poor judgment to allow these actions to have taken place in their rooms within what was presumed to be a secured environment. And how many heads were placed on the chopping block from the GSA extravagance? The count thus far is the chief of the General Services Administration Martha Johnson resigned, two of her top deputies were fired and four managers were placed on leave. Perhaps that was sufficient but I question why those who did the actual planning of this disgrace were not also shown the door along with the compliant chiefs as they were the ones who presented the initial arrangements and had they done their jobs responsibly instead of making a lavish joke out of what was supposed to be a working conference, then none of this could have transpired. This is one of those times where the underlings were just as guilty as were those who as supervisors should have refused their plans.

But the question which often asked is how can the amount and expanse of corruption of the Federal Government in Washington DC be so extreme and beyond that found at almost any other level of government in the United States. Believe it or not, I have a theory on this; what a surprise, huh? When you consider the corruption we find from our elected Senators and Representatives we need to keep something in mind; these are not simple, ordinary politicians, the majority are true professional politicians. These are the product of years of holding public offices. Many started as township, city, or county office holders who then graduated to state level offices and after a decade or more they finally make it to the big show, the United States House of Representatives and eventually even into the Senate. These are people who have been living in the make-believe world of politics where they have the power to solve most of the problems brought before them by the lesser, little folk simply by having a staffer place a phone call or send off a memo to some bureaucrat whose salary they control through their power of appropriations. They attend lavish parties thrown by those seeking influence and as they get higher up the ladder the parties get more and more lavish. By the time they get to Washington DC their taste has been refined to caviar and champagne, and not the cheap stuff. Many of these lifetime politicians have ten, fifteen, even twenty years of experience of being pampered, primped, perfumed, and treated as almost royalty and it has often gone to their heads. They honestly feel they are above the people, above the law, above reproach, basically above everything they see before them and that is what creates the problem which leads to the graft, corruption, and excesses of virtually any kind.

The corruption in many of the elite levels of the upper ranks of the Civil Service personnel have the same track record except they simply held government jobs moving up regularly and eventually they are at what I call the convention level. This is the level that invents reasons to hold training sessions or hold a convention for some legal sounding excuse and it is almost always held in Las Vegas, Hawaii, Bermuda, or other vacation Mecca, possibly even the French Riviera, if your GS Level is at a minimum of twelve. Such is more often an inter-department event where almost everybody is a GS 15 or higher. These are the true professional people whose ability to make expenditures is of the highest orders and quite beyond the imagination of mere mortal taxpayers. These are government employees who have government provided chauffeurs driving them around in a Lincoln, Cadillac or even a Mercedes. By the time you get to the highest level of our Federal government you have been rewarded and rated as exemplary at your job for so many years and for levels of work that are often the butt of jokes for comedians performing in the Nation’s Capital. Actually, after having been raised in the suburbs of our Nation’s capital, I am surprised that there are not far more instances of such extravagant and over-the-top malfeasance by our highest level miscreants, sorry, government employees. The sorry thing is many actually do attempt to work diligently and competently, but the ones who are along for the ride give the whole a bad name. The only thing I can recommend we, the tax paying public, can do is to thank those who work in the government at any level when they treat their job and the public they serve with respect and show diligence. Complaining about the others will usually not accomplish anything except supply the water-cooler circle with grist for their comedic mills.

Beyond the Cusp