Out Come the Pitchforks and Long Knives

 

Former and assumed next Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was all sugarplums and sweet herbal teas in her little performance for the media the other day promising on working with President Trump to accomplish those things the American people are demanding. Then in behind the scenes discussion which so many of the soon to be majority Democrat House of Representatives members were so bubbling over that too much reached the ears of some media and then the public. Well, Ms. Pelosi was correct on their working with President Trump if that means working him over. Every potential Committee Chair has announced at least one and usually multiple probes into the business, campaign, Russia, medical records, tax returns, business practices, real estate holdings, graft of government funds to his business partners during time in office and a plethora which would be way too long to even begin to list. Basically, we can expect investigations in multitudes, subpoenas in even greater numbers, calling of witnesses, testimonies, grandstanding, accusations and probably at least one attempt at Impeachment. Then there will be the other side of giving it to the people in the style the Democrats insist is for the people’s own good. There will be Medicare for all, free college tuition, gun control, firearms confiscation and buy-backs, $15.00/hour minimum wage called a living wage, abolishing ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement), end all financing of border wall, open borders, amnesty for illegal immigrants, restoring anchor baby policies, and a slew of Internet controls with many based on user information such as location, real name, federalizing those functions which are deemed vital or requiring government supervision along with other proposals all really intending to remove any anonymity, make all posts traceable to the author, and they will claim this will prevent hacking of user accounts or at least make it easier to trace such hacks and arrest those engaged in such activities. We are not sure how this would work with at least half, if not sizably more, of Internet users outside the United States thus beyond the reach of such laws. This will simply be the way for the United States agency, which will obviously need to be formed, simply growing year after year gaining power and instituting regulations which have but the mere slightest attachment to laws passed for completely other reasons which they will use to slowly but ever so surely lead to the government of the United States being able to prosecute those who “unfairly” attack Congress or Presidents or anything which they can regulate as illegal. This will very quickly lead to censorship of Internet posts even which are written in foreign countries on the basis that they pass through servers based in the United States. This will mean that it will become impossible to question the news reported by the mainstream media as doing so will be considered a breach of civility on the Internet media. Should they ever get these powers, we would soon be banned from posting which would leave us with far too much time on our hands.

 

The question is not will the Democrats in the House of Representatives overplay their hand, it will be by how much will they overplay their hand and will it reach what we suspect it will, becoming a fiasco. None of the items they are pushing, which start with repealing all the Trump tax breaks and possibly raising taxes beyond where they previously were. This, they will claim, will be necessary in order to pay for their plans of Medicare for all and free tuition for all. We hope they will at least propose a limit to the amount of tuition they will reimburse, or pay outright, and require that in order to receive such funding that the students at least pass their courses. Then there is the Social-Democrat wing of the party which goes one-step further than the $15.00/hour minimum wage by also having the government guarantee a job for every person. Basically, all this proposition accomplishes is setting $15.00/hour as the minimum; everybody will receive this minimum wage even if they have no job because employment is a right for everyone thus you must be employed even if you are employed to sit at home. Of course, this will immediately drive up the minimum wage if people can stay home and make the same amount of salary as they could flipping burgers, sweeping floors, cleaning bathrooms or any of the thousands of menial jobs which are considered minimum wage. Of course, if the government did what I would propose if guaranteed work by the government became the law, then we would have street sweepers once again and there would be a number of literally shovel ready jobs picking up trash along the highways and byways or even clearing another Appalachian Trail for hikers from Maine to Georgia and an equally nice trail along the continental divide over two miles up on average in the Rocky Mountains. My bet is the menial labor described above would suddenly become very attractive. That would be fought tooth and nail by the Social-Democrats and most of the just plain Democrats because their proposed guaranteed employment has nothing to do with actual jobs. We just thought of another one which the Chinese used to employ their burgeoning population under Mao, they gave hundreds of people nail scissors and a ruler and started them on a lawn similar to the Mall in Washington D.C. and had them work from one end to the other cutting each blade one-by-one making sure all of them were exactly two inches long. When they reached the far end, approximately two miles in length and a quarter of a mile wide, they would be returned to the starting point to do it over and over. Another group could be set at cleaning the reflecting pool. Pictures below are courtesy of Wikipedia. We are sure that our leaders in the Congress and the department providing these guaranteed employments could have some great and challenging position to add to our suggestions.

 

Mall in Washington D.C. with Reflecting Pool

 

Thankfully, none of these harebrained ideas will ever make it out of the Senate unless somebody spikes their water-cooler. Even should they get past the dignified realm of the Senate, there is still President Trump who we can be relatively assured would use his mean, red veto pen. What are coming are claims by the mainstream media that the Senate is blocking some of the greatest ideas ever put to paper and passed as legislation in the history of human history. We can also all but guarantee that everything which might be written and passed in the Senate will be greeted by equal lack of enthusiasm and not be passed by the house. These items the media will congratulate the great minds in the house who prevented these bills from the Senate from going any further. We hope, for the sake of all Americans, that when the House led by the Democrats demand that any further tax cuts only be passed in conjunction of sizable increases in social spending or include the ideas posed above, that the Senate, or at last resort, the President, refuse to allow spending frivolously and instead hold their ground and use these demands in the 2020 elections. There should be numerous excellent quotes which the average voter would realize the foolishness and potential dangers of such legislation ever becoming law and when President Trump is reelected that the people of America see fit to provide him with large majorities in both houses of Congress. It would not be any tragedy if President Trump received a second term with sixty-three Senators he could count on to assists him in accomplishing his agendas along with over two-hundred-fifty members of the House. This would give him a near identical Congress to work with as President Obama had when he passed Obamacare without a single Republican vote. As far as we can tell, that was the first time in modern history that the Republicans actually held their vote in a unanimous manner. Often, it seems like uniting the Republican in a block for a vote is much like herding cats.

 

We can pretty much sit back for two years where little if anything gets accomplished largely because the Democrats in the House will insist on attaching spending programs to every piece of legislation they send to the Senate and continue to demand their often useless spending programs holding needed items such as repair of infrastructure, defense programs, foreign aid and their favorite weapon, passing a budget. President Trump needs to have advisors who will assist him in holding the line and vetoing budgets which contain profligate spending even if doing so will shut down the government. The truth is, that when they shut down the government, they threaten the citizens with closing the parks, closing schools (which they do not directly fund), closing libraries (which means the Library of Congress as the others are locally funded the same a schools) holding military paychecks hostage, holding Social Security hostage, refusing to fund anything the people would feel the hurt the most and taking away anything which will appear to be cruel-hearted and cold just to threaten the President with being blamed for these impositions. President Trump could Tweet the reality of Congress, meaning the House Democrats, are spiking the budget with unnecessary spending increases and he can point out that when they scream that the Republicans are demanding a cut to some spending they prefer, they really mean that the Republicans are not increasing spending as much as they demand, and that is true even when the Republicans are actually allowing for a reasonable increase. Often Democrats will demand a 20% or more increase to their beloved social spending and when the Republicans try to hold the increase to 5%, they scream how they are cutting spending by 15%, the amount the Republicans refuse to grant them, not a cut to the real spending. This is a means of trickery the Democrats have used for close to if not over half of a century. If it works and the media parrots everything they say, why mess with success. What is different now is there is a President who will call them on their misuse of statistics and making bogus claims. We just hope he can see clear to allowing the closing of the government, a misused term if ever there was one, and not cave to their pressure which is mostly driven by the media. The average person does not see any difference in their day-to-day lives when the Federal Government is closed or the nation would collapse every time there is a three day holiday. The other little truth they never tell anyone is that when the Federal Government workers who were laid off return to work, they receive their full pay for the time they were “laid off” and many will collect unemployment or take a temporary position and thus actually make more money than if they had remained at work. At worst, they get some paid holiday time without spending any of their time off. They really do not suffer from the government shutdowns.

 

We are simply waiting for the circus to begin around January 20, 2019 when the new Congress gets down to the Senate remaining as it was and the House starting frivolous investigations just to try to tie the President into knots. They are going to go so far overboard and what will make it all the better is their supporters will be trumpeting all the insane and crazy antics they get up to. There have been a number of Democrats who as being formerly the senior member of the Democrats in numerous committees, they will now be the chairperson and they have announced that their first piece of business will be to start investigations into President Trump with many having multiple investigations they wish to perform. There are at least three who have announced their intention to bring Impeachment charges as soon as they discover the most minute act which can be seen as misuse of power, unlawful actions, abuse of the Presidency, unconstitutional behavior or anything else which even approaches the line to be classified as high crimes and misdemeanors. It is going to be a wild ride and we suspect that President Trump is not only prepared for these shenanigans but probably looking forward to skewering the Democrats with their own swords. The term we expect which will be placed on any number of the promised coming attractions will be close to the infamous, “hoist on their own petard.” So, let the games begin.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Democrats Offer Rehash of Same Old Song

 

Rereleasing old songs, as if they were new, works well in Hollywood as we always hope the remake of an old favorite movie will offer more pizzazz and though some do, most just let us down and we leave the theater feeling hollow. The music industry does the same thing with old songs, often over and over, and still the original is often the one we prefer best. But at least Hollywood and the music industry choose successful movies and songs to try to modernize, and still they usually fail the test of time. The Democrat Party is trotting out their oldest theme which has worked by lulling the people with stories of getting everything for free and never having to pay. The electorate soon realizes that there is no free lunch and somebody has to pay. The sad reality is that often the people who were promised that everything was to be free are the exact ones who end up paying. But the Democrats believe that they can win the youth over with their message of redistribution of wealth and everything for free with only the wealthy paying. What the Democrats are not telling them is that anybody who has a job is the Democrat definition of wealthy.

 

The War on Poverty has failed which is proven through the Cato Institute study showing that the collection of federal and state welfare benefit packages could deliver over $30,000 to a family without them working or even seeking employment. Perhaps this free stuff is the incentive to remain taking all the free stuff offered rather than working as if done to the full extent, one could keep the family fed for free. Benjamin Franklin offered some brutal and painful truths when he stated, “I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.” Benjamin Franklin allowed for people who were new in poverty, such as those whose job was abolished by unforeseen calamity such as the workplace closing, to receive temporary benefits, as their newfound poverty was not of their making. But as with many such allowances, it comes with a but, and that but is these are to be temporary and none should be supported by other people’s labors permanently, especially over a prolonged period. Franklin firmly felt that making people uncomfortable with poverty was the best remedy for their situation and not making the life of those in poverty comfortable and wanting for nothing. Perhaps it was this position which had the mint place Ben Franklin on the $100.00 Bill pictured below.

 

Ben Franklin on the $100.00 Bill

 

Numerous studies have shown that those in the United States who are considered to be in poverty have a modern flat screen television, computers, a vehicle which is more often previously owned but some have new cars, a microwave and numerous other items which could be considered to be a luxury. We remember the first time such a study was released, which was before flat screens, so then it was just color televisions and stereo systems, we were left somewhat stunned as we did not own a microwave as they were still too pricey for a retail salesperson’s and a secretary’s salaries. We found that one reason was the poverty-stricken were residing in government assisted housing while we resided in the posh suburbs in a spacious two bedroom apartment. The italicized should be read with great sarcasm as the government assisted housing area was less than a mile away across the city limits inside Philadelphia while we then resided in Ben Salem just off Street Road, yes, that was the name of the road. This is not then a new problem as this refers to a survey performed in the 1970’s when even many Democrats feared that those in poverty had become too comfortable in their poverty.

 

The truth which needs repeating, and should be taught to students in their introductory economics classes and political science classes, but that would be considered detrimental and not aiding in the proper indoctrination of the student to expect and support full Europeanizing of the United States, is that socialism has and will always fail. Another item which bares repeating is that the United States was the nation, and even before nationhood, the region where one ran from Europe and its habits, to start a new world where if one worked hard they would succeed and not have governments dictate where their moneys were to be spent. The American Revolution was over a three percent tax on tea. Let that sink in, a three percent tax on tea. It was the principle that they were being taxed to support somebody else’s spending and that this spending was done without their even being allowed a vote to elect the government taxing them to cover its expenditures. Many people in America today did not vote for those who support these seemingly extravagant welfare related expenditures, especially to allow a family to collect a government provided allotment greater than their salaries after taxation. We can fully understand one taking the government handout and not working if in order to take home an equivalent sum annually would require, if our math is accurate, over $42,500 in salary per year. That requires being employed at over $20.00/hr working a forty-hour week. With such generosity provided by the government, one would be foolish to take employment at minimum wage, even if it was the $15.00/hr that the Democrats are pushing. With welfare and other subsidies offering such free money which exceeds even their dreamed of higher minimum wage, it is no wonder that employers are unable to fill minimum wage entry positions. Oh, and guess who pays for all of this largess? Anyone making over $20.00/hr, that’s who.

 

So, where as those who have learned to live off the system may be receiving a free lunch, those who work and pay for it know that their lunch is far from free. We have heard about the degrading system which makes one wait in lines and the shame in paying for groceries with the government card and all the other horrible requirements made for people to collect these funds. We also know the other side of approaching half one’s paycheck being eaten by taxes, federal, state, county and city. Even FICA now goes directly into the general fund as the lock-box has been eliminated as the politicians found leaving little IOU’s on the “Social Security” lock-box far too tedious when stealing what was supposed to be set aside to pay for Social Security in the future. The politicians act like there still is such a lock-box, and there is, it is just no funds are ever inserted as all funds enter immediately into the main stream of cash flowing through Washington D.C. in order to pay for all the goodies they keep enacting. What the systems for eliminating poverty are now accomplishing is guaranteeing that once one reaches the stage of going onto these programs, they become all but impossible to leave simply because it would require quite a cut back in one’s lifestyle as at an entry wage one would have to take almost a one-third cut in their income.

 

Everyone remembers their first paycheck; they waited eagerly those first few weeks, regularly computing all the money they would get, all but spending it on music or the down payment on a super stereo (we were just beginning high school when we went through this calamity), and then we receive the envelope with the check with all our hard earned money inside. Then we opened the envelope and the sum in the box marked, pay to, and the shock went through our young bodies, the mind raced, we felt a little queasy and just knew something had to be wrong. We asked our go-to experts on all things in the real world, we knew them as Mom and Dad, and usually we asked Dad these questions, and Dad explained taxes and how as we were working part time we would get most of those withholdings back sometime next year. Withholdings, next year, whose idea was this rip-off, we wanted names and addresses so we could go and well, go and do something. Time proceeded along its pace and we stopped planning on spending our money until we actually had the check and even got to the point we could estimate what would be left for us. Then you are placed on the sales floor and are paid by commission against minimum wage, which made figuring out your paycheck became calculus. But that shock of the withholdings is one you never get past and when money gets tight, emergencies or whatever, it happens, that is when you really feel that the system is broken.

 

The reason is simple, by taxing the rich using the income tax you are missing their wealth as the truly rich invest, they do not work for a salary, and the average CEO gets stock bonuses and a car and chauffeur and other perks, not a big salary. They pay little to no income tax as income tax is the way the truly wealthy make sure no regular working stiff ever makes into their ranks protecting their status as those with all the power. They may eventually, if they do not reinvest their funds fast enough, have to pay capital gains taxes but only on the increased value of the stocks, the principle is never touched. Their initial wealth remains untouched and should they decide to buy another mansion, they buy it as an investment such that they get to use it as a deduction against their capital gains taxes. They often have all their expenses taken off their portfolio so as to use them as losses incurred and pay themselves some paltry salary as spending money off a trust fund set up to avoid paying taxes. The only way of touching these wealthy, the truly wealthy, would be a wealth tax, and that will never happen. Just for the record, ever wonder how Congresscritters become so wealthy on what is a mediocre income? The answer is so basic that it will really upset you, Congresscritters and their senior staff are immune from insider trading laws because they have so much insider information that they would not be able to control and invest their wealth if they needed to obey such restrictions. These are the people screaming that Trump is staying at hotels where he owns the property and they make insider deals knowing which company is about to receive billions in tax monies for some government program? Please, give us a break. They are all scoundrels.

 

The whole problem is that the monies one receives in the various welfare systems cannot exceed the take-home pay of a minimum wage earner or there is no incentive to go out and work. But the Democrats have a solution for that. Remember, their solution for high college tuition is for government to pay for college, free college, their solution to high medical bills is for government to pay the medical bills, their solution for the problem of the moment is for government to pay, their solution to all your problems is for government to pay; but the government does not earn any money, they just take it from those who work. We wish to close quoting Margaret Thatcher who once said, “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” That is exactly the problem that Venezuela is suffering, Greece is suffering, Italy is suffering and what eventually killed the Soviet Union and cripples Cuba and most of Europe. That is another reason for the United States not to go down the apparently perfect plan of socialism and instead to return to the Constitution and limited government with the powers accumulated in Washington D.C. being redistributed amongst the individual states where the people have greater control.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Ill Placed Anger

 

President Obama made it so very clear, Omar Mateen was a ‘homegrown’ and a ‘lone-wolf’ from some unidentifiable deep well of violence which had ‘nothing to do with Islam, the religion of peace.’ The President was quite guarded of what we have come to identify as his precious ideological visions as to what exactly makes up Islam. Of course the President was far less coddling and defensive when it came to those who are not on his team. Here President Obama had pointed and viciously delivered vindictive over their audacity in criticizing his reluctance to tie Omar Mateen’s violent murderous spree naming it as ‘radical Islamist’ sharply attacking with precise words, President Obama shot forth, “For a while now the main contribution of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle have made in the fight against ISIL is to criticize the administration and me for not using the phrase ‘radical Islam.’ That’s the key, they tell us. We cannot beat ISIL unless we call them ‘radical Islamists.’ What exactly would using this label accomplish? What exactly would it change?”

 

If this sounds vaguely familiar, then perhaps we can be of some assistance in identifying the similar phrase and where it came to be used. The culprit was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responding to Republican questions and sniping at her by their insistence to getting what she saw as an statement about Benghazi they could use against her in her coming predicted run for the White House when an exasperated Hillary Clinton lost her temper and let loose a storm brewing, her lips spitting out, “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator. Now, honestly, I will do my best to answer your questions about this, but the fact is that people were trying in real time to get to the best information. The IC has a process, I understand, going with the other committees to explain how these talking points came out. But you know, to be clear, it is, from my perspective, less important today looking backwards as to why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice, and then maybe we’ll figure out what was going on in the meantime.” (emphasis ours)

 

Both seeming temper tantrums had something similar, they were both triggered by a refusal to actually name Islam as being at the root of the terrorism and that Islam has a radicalization problem which many on the left wish to refuse recognition and instead would prefer to protect Islam from its own radical elements than anger a growing constituency. These defenders of Islam refuse to allow the recognition that there exists Imams who are radicalizing Islamic believers in frightening numbers. They refute any ties between the Islamic State and Islam which are why they prefer to refer to the Islamic State as ISIS or ISIL without identifying what the first ‘I’ in each set of initials refers. Both were lashing out at political adversaries attempting to deflect their pointed accusations which were presumably attempts to viciously attack all Muslims and those who defend them. These attacks are almost universally aimed at Republicans and Donald Trump specifically. What would be amusing, if it were not for the mounting death toll, have been the opposing claims that those who claim a link between Islam and terrorism are needlessly generalizing thus potentially alienating peaceful Muslims while the other side claims they are refusing any relationship between radical Islam and the majority of peaceful Muslims.

 

Both sides actually agree on one particular item, that it will take the assistance of the majority of Muslims who are peace loving to save Islam. Where they differ is naming the challenge. The conservatives have no difficulty naming the enemy as the radicalized Islamists while the liberals blame misguided individual who uses their Islam as their excuse and there are select Imams who do a disservice to Islam with their radical message. The main differences come down to a single question, is the presumed numbers of innocent and peaceful Muslims really the vast percentage or are they an insignificant minority mostly found in the Western World. Then there are the precious Imams whose ‘sermons’ like those of the American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was targeted for death by the CIA in 2011, are capable of reaching disaffected youths in their native language and turn them into weaponized Muslims in the next killing fields. Orlando was the most recent of these and the most deadly. Before Orlando, Florida there were others including San Bernardino, California on December 2, 2015; Chattanooga, Tennessee on July 16, 20125; Morganton, North Carolina on December 18, 2014; Moore, Oklahoma on September 25, 2014; West Orange, New Jersey, on June 25, 2014; Seattle, Washington, on June 1, 2014 and Skyway, Washington, on April 27, 2014. These places and dates were from “What Makes Islam so Different?” The fact that most, if not all, of us cannot or do not remember these events even had we heard of them, is more a reflection on the media and their attempt to cover up Islamist terrorism as it does not fit their worldview and reflects poorly on President Obama the nation while under his and the Democrats handling of the narrative. By even simply listing these attacks on American citizens makes me guilty of feeding the too pervasive Islamophobia. The insanity becomes all the more perverse when one finds out that Islamophobia is not a fear, rational or irrational, of Muslims but rather the thought crime of implying that Islam could contain a radical and violent faction and that is just plain racist.

 

This is where the United States, almost every square millimeter of Europe and all too many segments of Israeli society have sunk. The leftists have so perverted the waters of communication that relating truths is a social misstep and going there may make you a social pariah which would mean not being invited to the next ten million Brie Cheese and Chianti parties. Oh my, how will we ever survive?

 

Donald Trump & Hillary Clinton

 

One thing we have been berated with is that in the upcoming American Presidential race there are two choices; one is sensitive, humane, understanding, loving, caring and simply wonderful while Donald Trump is boorish, impolite, hateful, vindictive and an all-around evil individual, but the media is trying to not be judgmental, simply reporting the facts. The choice is being presented as if one candidate will bring to the world peace and tranquility through intelligent and thoughtful beneficial rule while the other guarantees brash, America first the world be damned and taking the world to war and back to nationalistic barbarity. We see the choice somewhat different. We see one candidate bringing defenseless European socialist madness where the nation will go bankrupt, but not until our grandchildren will be in charge, so live it up while the charade lasts; or nationalist let’s see how much of what was once a great nation can be salvaged and turned away from following the European Union down the rabbit hole into a debt ridden death spiral. It is getting very close to too late and another four years of Obamanomics, and especially eight more years, will take the once great nation which reached from shore to shore with shires of golden wheat in between will fall to a point where feeding her own people may prove difficult as the creditors will take the entirety of our food production as it will be the last morsel with which to repay for the senseless spending. Yes, when it comes to socialism there is too much of what appears to be a good thing because, as Margaret Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people’s money.” The United States long ago ran out of other people’s money and has been living on monopoly money for quite some time as they found a new source; they electronically just kept adding money to the supply. This works for as long as interest rates remain near, at or below zero but once interest falls below zero the entire house of cards and fiat money crashes and the people resort to burning the money come winter as that is cheaper than paying the utility bill.

 

Beyond the Cusp