Russia – Trump – Clinton – Saga

The Russia Investigation will eventually run its course, but despite the motivations of it, we should be willing to understand these 2016 election facts.

Hillary, in spite of her ‘fait accompli’, experience, or the many allegations, lost an important national campaign for president against a historically unpopular, politically inexperienced, misogynistic, boastful, inconsiderate, rude, willfully ignorant, and compulsive liar.

Hillary Clinton – explains it’s everyone’s fault but hers

It’s not the fault of the FBI, or the Russians, that made a difference, she still could have won. What she failed to do was visit Wisconsin, hardly paid attention to Michigan, and Pennsylvania. She lost by very narrow margins in those states.Whatever your perception of the embassy attack in Libya, the fact was the attack at Benghazi went on for hours, without any outside support. As a matter of fact, the support ready and willing to go was ordered to stand down. Even if Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State didn’t issue such orders, her response when asked about her lack of being in the loop, “What difference does it make”, coupled with earlier false assertions by her and others, it was motivated by a video critical of Muslims.

Then we saw her response to using private email servers in her home, for classified government communications, maintained by a private “uncertified” tech support company, as if that’s perfectly OK. It was another demonstration of, she will do what she wants, public interests be damned.

Even if you didn’t know or care these things mattered, to many voters it did. She even lost some support within her own party after it was revealed how her campaign undermined the Bernie Sanders primary campaign. It was seen by many as, she would do whatever she thought necessary, to win. That was another blow to her credibility / integrity.

It was a campaign on the slow drip of morphine, oblivious to the impact of the activities of the Clinton Foundation, which curried favor to individuals or organizations making large donations. It was another set of denials to make in the face of mounting evidence.

So, here we are, left with someone who knew how to self promote and is now routinely attacked in the media. It’s as if the national humiliation of the woman they all thought would be the next president, could be erased, or at least the person responsible for her defeat could be shown to be as big of a scoundrel as a large number of voters thought Hillary Clinton was, and even more incompetent.

 Official Government Report on the Benghazi Embassy 

The report says there were no undue delays in responding to the attacks, and they pointedly rejected unfounded allegations that the U.S. response was deliberately thwarted by a “stand down” order.

“Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response,” the independent Accountability Review Board concluded in its Dec. 18, 2012, report.

Note by author: Like most government cover ups, those who continued to work for it, compromised their stories to preserve their jobs and reputations. The accusation of a stand down order wasn’t about the local CIA operatives, they responded quickly. Army Lt. Col. S.E. Gibson located in Tripoli said; “I was not ordered to stand down. I was ordered to remain in place,” Gibson told the House Armed Services Committee. ” The Tripoli team arrived in Benghazi in about an hour, but it was delayed at the airport “for at least three hours,” according to the Senate homeland security committee report. They later concluded the delay was caused by operation confusion, “miscalculation”, not a deliberate effort to thwart the rescue. It wasn’t necessary to have additional boots on the ground immediately. The GRS force in defense of the compound was standing by to laser guide any support aircraft which could have been there in approximately 1 hour.

“General Ham was head of AFRICOM and Commander of the 2011 US-NATO operation to depose Gadhafi in Libya. Rear Admiral Charles M. Gaouette was in command of the Carrier Strike Group Three (CSG-3), then deployed in Middle Eastern waters during the attack on Benghazi.” 

“Both Ham and Rear Admiral Gaouette reported receiving the same desperate cables for additional security and backup that Obama administration officials received and ignored from Benghazi.”

“General Ham and Gaouette attempted to launch ready response teams in the region capable of provided the much needed assistance during the seven hour long assault on Benghazi. Both were then relieved of command for their actions, described by the US Military as “allegations of inappropriate leadership judgment.”

“General Ham immediately had a rapid response unit ready and communicated to the Pentagon that he had a unit ready to deploy to Benghazi. Then, General Ham received the order to stand down. His response was “screw it,” – he was going to help anyway.”

“Within minutes after issuing an order to deploy his ready response team, Ham’s second in command apprehended the General and told him that he was now relieved of his command. Ham knows who issued the order to STAND DOWN as well as the order to relieve him of his command at AFRICOM.”

“Gaouette readied vital intelligence and communications operations for an extraction effort to be launched by Ham.”

“Stars and Stripes reported October 18, 2012 that General Ham is being replaced by Gen. David Rodriguez. They also reported on October 27, 2012 that Adm. Gaouette is being replaced by Rear Adm. Troy M. Shoemaker. The Navy stated that it was “replacing the admiral in command of an aircraft carrier strike group in the Middle East, pending the outcome of an internal investigation into undisclosed allegations of inappropriate judgment.”

Notes from the Pentagon Investigation:

Q: But do you think, you know, if an F-15, if the military had allowed a jet to go fly over, that it might have prevented [the second attack]?
A: Yeah, and if we had gotten clearance from the Libyan military for an American plane to fly over Libyan airspace. The Libyans that I talked to and the Libyans and other Americans who were involved in the war have told me also that Libyan revolutionaries were very cognizant of the impact that American and NATO airpower had with respect to their victory. They are under no illusions that American and NATO airpower won that war for them. And so, in my personal opinion, a fast-mover flying over Benghazi at some point, you know, as soon as possible might very well have prevented some of the bad things that happened that night.

Response to Hillary Clinton’s use of Personal Servers for State Department Email

Note by author: The use of private, personal servers for official government communications at a State Department level was one of the most glaring bad judgement calls made by Hillary Clinton. No matter what her motivations were, the fact that she wasn’t concerned about the ramifications, and to use language which attempted to portray this as something innocent, assumes great naivete of the electorate on how classified material is supposed to be handled. Many of us have served in a capacity, either in the military or for contractors which are required to handle communications in the strictest and most secure methods as required by government. The NSA has for many years posted guidelines for private companies on how to maintain security. With Clinton working as head of the State Department, she was required to uphold these regulations.

I’ve heard many excuses, or the explanation as described in the above link, “the State Department’s track record for its own email security isn’t exactly spotless”, “there’s no evidence these servers were hacked.” Perhaps that’s true, but the same couldn’t be said for the DNC, and many of it’s users were the same people communicating on the Clinton email servers.

“At the Department of State, there is accountability for the security of email systems. If we learned that State’s email servers had been hacked or left needlessly vulnerable, there would be investigations and consequences. With Clinton’s off-the-books scheme, there are only questions.”

“… there have been five separate security vulnerabilities identified with Outlook Web Access since ClintonEmail.com was registered in 2009. These security bugs include doozies like “a flaw that may lead to an unauthorized information disclosure” (2010) and “a remote attacker can gain access to arbitrary files.” (2014).

Heartbleed was unknown but active during her tenure as Secretary of State

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Perceptions vs. Reality

The Second amendment was written in recognition of human behavior, in all its forms, both good and bad. It’s not there to preserve hunting rights, sporting events, or permission to collect interesting mechanisms. It was written as a right of every free person to defend themselves or their property, and as a means under extreme circumstances to guard against tyranny and anarchy.

Those who use a firearm in a criminal enterprise, do so to get gain. They may when confronted with deadly force, recognize the error of their ways and stop. Those who are driven by murderous compulsion, often don’t stop until deadly force is used. You need to be in possession and capable with a firearm, or near someone with one, who can save you.

For those without a means to defend themselves a greater form of tyranny emerges, and there’s no simple way to restore prior rights. The European Jews realized this too late in Nazi Germany. After World War II, they swore to never again willingly give up their freedoms to an oppressive government.

K-12 and University Shootings Deaths: The number of deaths has been declining over time

Click on the picture above

It’s not quite what some may think in the UK

Everyone who advocates gun bans, likes to use the UK as an example. Let’s look at their homicide rates before and after the ban. Compare that with the number of police they put on the streets.

 Click on the above chart to see the effects of gun ban in the UK

Just as important as it is to be able to speak freely, gather together in common purpose, prevent unjustifiable search, capricious arrest & property seizure, worship how we may choose; self-protection is absolutely fundamental to a free society. Without it, the other civil liberties can’t be guaranteed.

Murder in the USA is primarily concentrated in larger populated areas of 250,00 or more. 54% of US counties have zero murders. 51% of all murders occur in 2% of US counties. * 2014 statistics.

What we don’t seem to recognize or are unwilling to deal with on a rational basis are the issues of hatred, mental dysfunction, and violence.

Instead of figuring out why less than 1% of the population turn to using firearms as instruments to carry out their violence, we want the ~ 99% of people who own and use firearms safely, to support vilifying the mechanisms and not the people.

Repeatedly throughout my lifetime I’ve witnessed good people taking it on the chin for the insanity and depravity of others.

Frankly, I’m a little tired of it. I’m tired of hearing about how teachers aren’t helping little Johnny or Suzy become model citizens, while their parents or parent are a mess and couldn’t safely raise a Gerbil, let alone a child.

We cheered when a mother saw her son acting out in a public disturbance, grabbed him away from the crowd and swatted him. We see that’s usually not the case. The home has to be the place where it starts to come together. Society isn’t responsible for all the ills.

Yes we need police, but they can’t be everywhere to guard everyone. If they were that prevalent, we would be hearing even more complaints about living in a police state.

You can choose not to own a firearm, that’s your right. I don’t want to force you to own one. Neither should you tell me I shouldn’t own any or it has to meet your specific criteria on limited effectiveness. Frankly, I want the most effective firearm available should the need arise.

Stop making inanimate objects responsible for the carnage. Start to recognize those people who do, and demand more effective ways to keep them from coming into possession of any.

Quit letting your fears and emotions drive your life or insisting that others bend to your will. Obviously the anti-gun owners believe in firearms because they want the full weight of government to take them away from the >99%, even at gun point if necessary.

Think what that implies for your future as well as mine, because a government that can disarm a population wont stop there. It won’t be immediate, but further subjugation will happen, maybe not completely in your lifetime.

I’ve lived through a time when I was vilified by others for serving in the military. I’ve been accused of imaginary crimes for being born a man, and for serving in the Marines during Vietnam. All of that criticism was nonsense, but for those who insisted their perceptions were correct, they fully believed in their delusions.

I didn’t support their ridiculous ideas then, and I certainly don’t support the irrational insistence of anti-gun people now.

Societies protect themselves, and so should any free person. If we cast our fate to the whims of criminals, and fortunate timing of a benevolent government appointed employee, we stand as victims in waiting, without assurance or a legal right to self protection.

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Seriously Misleading Tax Reform Act Posts

Yes, I’m probably going to anger a few folks, but I just can’t seem to let some of these frequent posts go unanswered. Why? It’s probably because I’m old, cranky, and don’t have a high tolerance for BS. You folks know who you are, because you keep regurgitating the Democrat talking points from the popular sources and any other possible source of disinformation. [Don’t believe a word I say – read the actual Tax Bill – I included the link at the bottom of the post]

TAX REFORM ACT –

“By a 51-48, strictly along party lines, the US Senate has passed a GOP-backed tax reform package that will cut taxes for more than 80 percent of all Americans (raising taxes on a tiny, disproportionately wealthy fraction), benefit small businesses, and make America’s extraordinarily high corporate tax rate — both statutory and effective — far more internationally competitive.”

Let’s start with what it isn’t — It’s not a giant step toward tax reform. As a matter of fact, it has some serious flaws, some of these changes don’t solve a darn thing, except as a political attempt by the Republicans to say, we got something done. It does however help many that its intended.

The main things it won’t solve; the national debt, it may even add to it, but that’s not its major flaw because the only way that problem will go away is through serious reductions in spending and assessing what our priorities are as a nation. I can tell you, if these politicians ever did get serious about debt reduction, the howling would be heard in other countries.

The other point I will make is there’s never going to be a perfect tax bill. Many people have been arguing for a Fair Tax system for years. It’s been rejected. It’s not a matter of how strongly you feel about it, the fact is, it’s never going to be passed, primarily because the left would see it as a regressive tax.

Now lets talk about what bothers me with so many Social Media posts on this topic.

The Democrat strategy wasn’t one of, lets bring our proposal forward to see what the public thinks. It was about class envy, trying to create a public opinion that only the evil rich will be the main beneficiaries, while everyone else has to take up the burdens of the national debt.

According to the CBO, the ~ 39% (combined federal and average of state and local rates), United States has the highest marginal corporate tax rate in the OECD and the third highest in the world. I can almost hear the collective eyes roll on this point. So what you may think? These corporate fat cats need to pay more. We’re tired of Corporate welfare, etc.

Let’s start with the basics of what a corporation is, and isn’t. It’s not the heirs of the Walmart stores (Waltons), the Koch brothers, Mobil Oil, whomever. A corporation is legal identification of a business. A means to hold together a business, control it as a single entity, totally separate from individual officers & staff who may come and go. When a corporation is taxed, it’s the entire business, which passes the costs of taxes on to it’s customers along with all the other expenses. So, if you’re mad at a company, you really just pass that litigation and taxation cost to all of its customers. Of course if a company can charge at a consistent rate, even if it can lower it’s overall operations cost, it’s going to make greater profits. This disturbs some people, but it’s a simple fact.

This is where the tax bill was trying to alter the playing field for corporations to keep making profits, but also, for the large ones to reconsider their overseas management / tax havens. Yes, the large ones do place their offices in more favorable taxed countries. The Republicans want them to move back, and if you recall, President Trump talked to several major automakers and other large industries early on, to bring back more domestic jobs. Yes, I know Trump has clothing in offshore manufacturing. Don’t look for absolute perfection.

Here’s the thing that keeps getting ignored, there are over 100 times more small businesses than large ones. They pay the same tax rate and they’re also the ones that overall employ more people than those with over 500 employees. So if you have just a handful of employees, a reduction from the mid 30% down to a low 21% is going to help. That’s the real focus of the bill, not the political party claim to it’s minions… `Republicans just want to create tax giveaways to the rich.`

President Barack Obama called for a reduction in our uncompetitive corporate tax rate. His proposed cut was smaller and structured different than the Republicans bill, but Obama agreed the existing rate was too high.

The anti-Trump analysts quickly weigh in. It reminds me of the Great Karnak. Lets see if any of their predictions come true. One thing that could be counted on even before this is passed, the annual debt is going to rise at just over the $1 Trillion level. It hasn’t a thing to do with the new tax act even though they want to tie the two together. The problem is and always has been, spending at a rate far greater than revenues.

• The Tax Policy Center found that the bill would only boost GDP by 0.7% in 2018, well short of growth promised by Republicans.
• The bill would also add $1.23 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years, even when adding in new revenue from economic growth.

About 70 percent of all US taxpayers currently take the standard deduction. This deduction will approximately double in the newly passed bill.

Independent analyses found that the proposal would (a) result in net tax reduction for average taxpayers and households across all five income groups, including middle-income families, (b) create nearly one million new, full-time American jobs, and (c) boost US economic growth. The average household of four people, based on national median income, would save nearly $1,200 on their tax bill next year.

Does the new law cut Medicare or stop payment for certain cancer treatments? The short answer is no. There were OMB provisions passed well before Donald Trump took office, which have triggers altering the funding to Medicare should spending levels exceed specific thresholds. * Paul Ryan stated that if this were to happen, Congress would act to prevent this from occurring.

What does that have to do with cancer treatment? In 2013, when Medicare faced an automatic 2 percent cut under the sequester, some cancer clinics told the Washington Post that they couldn’t afford to continue administering pricey chemotherapy drugs and still stay in business. The Post‘s Sarah Kliff wrote: “Cancer patients turned away from local oncology clinics may seek care at hospitals, which also deliver chemotherapy treatments.”

“Oncology clinics are again concerned about a potential cut to payments they receive from Medicare for these cancer drugs.” The Community Oncology Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group for these practices, said in a Nov. 30th press release, that a further cut “will reduce access and increase costs for patients.”.

Once again, this was politics being played out through Democrat sympathetic news organizations. Designed to stir up the base, it did so for a while. This is not what the tax bill would do. There’s certainly concern, however, about the pay-go spending cut trigger and the potential impact.

* McConnell and Ryan issued a joint statement on Dec. 1, saying Congress would waive the pay-go requirement.

The sunset provision was necessary to meet the Byrd Rule requirement (adopted in 1985 and amended in 1990) that only allows Senate legislation to be passed with a simple majority if it does not result in net tax cuts beyond a 10-year period (otherwise, it requires 60 votes to prevent a legislation-stopping filibuster).

“1986 was a marquee year for tax reform. Back then, Republicans controlled the White House and the Senate, and Democrats controlled the House. Neither party was in a position to dictate the terms, and any legislation passed was, by definition, a compromise. The result was the Tax Reform Act of 1986, signed into law by President Reagan on October 22, 1986.” The Hill 27 August 2012

References:

• Tax Reform Act Final Bill – You might not have asked for it – It’s 1097 pages (including covers)
• The Waltons – A family for people to obsess over what they do with their money.
• Ways & Means Committe – Tax Bill Report
• Individual Tax Regs for 2018 – Still a lot to consider