OBAMA MUST NOT CAVE AGAIN

THE DEBT ISSUE

There is a debt crisis. How to resolve it was the core issue of the recent election. Obama maintained that the rich had to pay a “little more” to move to balance the budget. Anyone earning less than $250,000 would not have his or her taxes increased. Those earning more than $250,000 would have their marginal rates increased from 35% to 39%.  (It has been shown that this small move would go along way to set the budget on a positive trajectory). Romney maintained that the there should be reductions in discretionary spending i.e. Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps and the like. The rich were the job providers and if they paid higher taxes fewer jobs would be created. Also reduce the amount of deductions, "loopholes" people could take utilize to reduce their taxes was a recurrent refrain of Romney.

The electorate spoke and they backed Obama. Opinion polls now show that two thirds of the population believes that is where the main source of the revenue should come from. – Raising taxes of the rich.

The urgency is that if the issue is not resolved by January the taxes of all will be raised. As things stands at the moment you might believe that the Republicans won the election. Brazenly they are calling for entitlement reduction and "loophole" closing rather than carrying out the election mandate. The Obama administration instead of telling the Republicans the facts of life appear to be buying into this hype.

REPUBLICAN RESPONSE

There are a few Republicans that have recognized that they may have to raise revenues but they are full of ifs and buts. Eric Cantor, the Republican House Leader for example, on Morning Joe was full of conciliatory talk but did not really know how raising the marginal rate would help increase employment. Grover Norquist, who elicited pledges from Republican legislators not to raise taxes, is threatening these miscreants. But for practical purposes the Republicans are holding the line.

 The principle Republican compromise to obtain revenue is for income tax deductions, “loopholes”, to be reduced and therefore more revenues will accrue because everyone will in the end have to pay more taxes. Their principle thrust for debt reduction however is to reduce "Entitlement Spending".

When the Republicans offer to close “loopholes” what do they mean?  Do they mean not to allow mortgage interests to be deducted, excess medical expenses, childcare…? Do they mean donations to charities and institutions must be taxed at the full rate? That is really kicking the can own the road. Food pantries, homeless shelters, Planned Parenthood, the Salvation Army, the Mormon Church, not for profit medical institutions, the museums etc etc will see a massive drop in funds. This together with their suggested entitlement cuts will just worsen an already intolerable situation.  

Nowhere has one heard that the 15% “loophole” for Capital Gains earnings or the “loophole” in tax one gets for investing in foreign havens, for example” should be closed.

So far there has been no real compromise from the Republicans on the basis that the election was fought on. - Just confusing and misleading rhetoric.

REPUBLICAN PARTY MESS

The Republicans still cannot come to terms that twice in a row the electorate chose an African American over their establishment candidates. As Bill O’Reilly of Fox news has said this is no longer a white man’s country.

The Republican Party is in a mess without a coherent message.  They have to find their own salvation. The onus is not on the Democrats to prop up this disparate group of no hopers. If the Republicans do not accept the results of this election and do not support a debt reduction plan that is reflective of the electoral will, they should be made to face the consequences. If they don’t make appropriate compromises the Democrats and Obama should stick to their guns and usher the Republicans into the dark ages. They will be totally crushed in the 2014, midterm, elections.

The trouble with the Republican Party is that unelected megalomaniacs like Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Donald Trump or Rush Limbaugh or minority interests run them. These are the spokespersons of the Party and create the Party platform. Then when Republican candidates are confronted by the lunacy that these bright stars have articulated and enshrined in Party Policy they run away from them.

Grover Norquist holds the party and the country to ransom. With his quaint ideas that there should be no raising of taxes. This concept he interprets broadly to include taking away an oil company subsidy because this would be a tax raise! If the Republicans are prepared to put up with this patent nonsense, the country led by the Democrats should not. You cannot compromise with these people because they don’t believe in compromise. Win, lose or draw it is the same.

ENTITLEMENTS

Then there were the issues of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security that were central to Obama's platform. They were also central to the Ryan Plan and the Republicans. These social programs would be totally altered in the Ryan plan and revenues would be saved. So much so were these issues part of the Obama agenda that there are already adverts on TV from the American Retirement Association exhorting that these be retained. So any compromise on these programs has to be "reasonable" and Obama has not that much room to manouvre. Again he should not loose to much sleep because this was a central election issue.


OBAMA SHOULD NOT CAVE

Obama should stand firm once and for all. If it means that everyone’s taxes be raised let it happen. Everyone knows who will have caused this and let the Republicans run on it in the midterm elections. Obama should have got over his need to be accepted by the Republicans. It is not going to happen.  The only thing that they are happy about is that he cannot run for a third term

Obama should get on the road once again and explain the issues. Tell the country if they go along with the Republican concepts the situation would worsen. That if an appropriate solution is not found then it is worth our while to grit our teeth and wait 2 more years and finish the job off by throwing these arrogant legislators out.

This is against Obama’s natural instincts. He has also articulated his fear of overreach that has marred so many Presidents’ second terms. But this is not overreach he ran on this issue.

Should Obama stand firm it will have the added benefit of really making the Republican Party rethink their platform in the third millennium. This will be to everyone’s advantage because the last thing any country needs is a one Party State.

Obama’s truest test of leadership and character has come. He will mortify his supporters if he caves like he did in 2011.

ISRAEL: WINNERS AND LOSERS

IN THE BEGINNING

In the beginning it looked like a rerun of what has happened so many times before. Hamas fires rockets into Israel and Israel responds with the full might of the most powerful military force in the Middle East. There is then death and destruction. The media would then be full of grief stricken Palestinian mothers and dying children. Israel would be accused of killing civilians. There would be rationalizations as to why Hamas had done what it did. An uneasy cease -fire would be brokered. The Arab support for Hamas, other than Iran, would be muted, the Western response, other than America, would be that Israel brought this on their own head and each side would lick it’s wounds claiming victory. Till the next time.

THE “NEXT TIME”

What differed the “next time” is that there had been an Arab spring. Mubarak who was openly anti Hamas had been replaced by Mohammed Morsy, the first democratically elected President of Egypt. The latter was openly supportive of Hamas. An empowered Obama with a different vision on foreign policy was President of America. Iran was defying the world on the production of a nuclear bomb. Israel was on the verge of an election with a government that is as right wing as it has ever been. Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah movement was center stage in the Palestinian struggle about to ask for recognition of Palestine at the United Nations……

THE INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE.

The 8-day battle between Hamas and Israel brought forth a response from the world’s powers. There is a new alignment of power blocks. Arising out of the Arab Spring the 22 Arab Union backed Hamas. Their response was far more rapid and decisive than it has been in the 9 month Syrian travesty. Egypt, too, assumed their new role as pro Hamas and Turkey made no bones as to whose side they were on.

On the other hand, there were no if, buts, or maybes from the Western alliances that had already labeled Hamas a terrorist organization. With America in the forefront the unambiguous consensus was that Israel had every right to defend itself with no qualifiers such as “this is a reflection of the impossible situation Hamas finds itself”. The incident was seen in it’s own context.

The real elephant in the room, Iran, who had provided the rocket artillery for the attack, just sat back and watched as attention was focused away from their nuclear program and a united Arab world supported their surrogate. So Iran had “found” itself in a situation where Israel once again was the pariah of the Islamic world and their surrogate was carrying the banner.

HAMAS’S PLUSSES

Hamas has firmly established itself as a viable entity in the Middle East. Like it or not they have to be reckoned with. They also mounted a more credible attack then ever before. Their rockets were powerful and notwithstanding the pounding that Gaza took they were firing rockets up to the last minute. Also they gained a crucial concession in that there would be a lifting of the embargo.

They must have met the needs that made them start this war at this point in time. Jay H. Ell believes that the Iranian pressure, support and production of arms was a key reason for the timing of the Hamas offensive. However, Peter Beinart a recognized authority on Zionism has written in Cheat Sheet that there were probably more internal reasons for Hamas’s decision. These include reducing the influence of Abbas the Head of Fattah and the Western Bank section of the now divided Palestine. The latter is due to go to UNO to attempt to obtain Statehood recognition for Palestine – or presumably at least the part that he controls.

 ISRAEL’ S PLUSSES

It was crystal clear that Hamas started this fight. The Hamas claim that Israel deliberately targeted civilians proved to be hollow. The Israelis, if anything, demonstrated  how incredibly accurate they were with their rocket attacks. They dropped leaflets warning citizens to get out of the way. The Israeli technology and intelligence was almost uncanny. So much so that Hamas  had as one of its conditions for a cease – fire was that Israel stop targeting it’s leaders with rockets!

Also it was clear is that the Israeli Iron Dome was highly effective at eliminating the rockets that really mattered.  The undisputed fact was that the Hamas rockets were unashamedly targeted at civilian populations. Whereas the best Hamas could do was to allege that Israel was targeting citizens. This even in the teeth of Israel issuing explanatory communiqués as to what they had targeted on each occasion.

Israel went against what must have been their short term interests by not going ahead with their ground invasion.  President Simon Peres as a spokesman came across exceedingly well as a reasoned caring individual that was striving for peace.

One fact is for sure Hamas cannot easily start firing rockets again without what is considered clear-cut aggression from Israel. It is all getting too old.

Israel’s immediate gain is the shutting of the tunnels that brought in the Iranian rockets and the cessation of hostilities.

MEDIA COVERAGE

The coverage was far more balanced in that Israeli suffering and fear was portrayed as well as that of the Palestinians. CNN, who provided wall-to-wall coverage of the war, had reporters in Ashkelon as well as Gaza City. Al Jazeera, too, was reported to have shown balanced coverage.  If anything the accent was on the futility of war and that the real victims were the citizens. The desire to maintain balance was reflected by Anderson Cooper’s outburst at a tweeter who maintained that he was accenting Palestinian sorrow disproportionately.

OBAMA.

Obama, Hillary Clinton and America played a central role in the whole drama. Obama got Morsy to realize that he and Egypt are going nowhere if they do not act as honest brokers. A little mentioned fact is that America sometime ago had stopped aid to Egypt. Also Egypt needs the Western world. Obama has come to terms that American foreign policy can no longer rely on dictators that the US backs and America has to win the confidence of the newly democratic leaders wherever they may be.

Also Obama made it clear that he was unequivocally behind Israel. If his behavior did not put paid to the bloggersphere hysteria that he was some type of Muslim plant, nothing will. It also became evident that Obama funded the Iron Dome, which was so effective in cutting down mortality in big cities. In addition this was just the beginning of this technology that would not have surfaced if it were not for Obama.

This places Obama in a more powerful position to make whatever Israeli Government is in power recognize that they have to negotiate a fair distribution of land in a two State solution. Obama’s stocks must have risen amongst the Israeli electorate and smearing him as anti Israeli is not going to be as effective as it was in the past.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

The biggest losers, of course, were the families of the dead on both sides.  The destruction of property and the cost to rebuild will exacerbate the anger on both sides. Also Israel by not taking the initiative in the creation of a two state solution has weakened their major bargaining partner Abbas of the West Bank. Abbas has been sidelined as he patiently waited and used peaceful methods to battle on.

Israel sooner rather than later has to come to terms that the onus is on them to resolve the Palestinian “problem”. In some ways Hamas did them a favor by being the aggressor with their indiscriminate attacking of civilians. This gave Israel some credibility as to the fact that there are two sides to this issue. Otherwise the behavior of the people of the bible is inexplicable – do no harm to strangers, as remember you were strangers in Egypt.

Netanyahu, or whoever, has to be aware that if they don’t get onsides on a “just and equitable” solution to the creation of a Palestinian State, they are going to be on the wrong side of history. Doing whatever needs to be done to hang on to the West Bank and Gaza, “as they are really part of Israel” will not fly much longer.

At this stage the fat lady has not even put on her make up let alone started singing. Morsy is already compromised and no – one really understands what the cease – fire means. Palestine is in two halves and a negotiated settlement has a long long way to go.

Finally, hanging over all of this is the possibility of Iran getting a nuclear bomb and that would change the dynamic in every direction. By the way anyone heard of the issue lately?

IRAN BEHIND ISRAELI CONFLICT?

The topics of Israel, Palestine, (with its Gaza and West Bank components), Israeli internal politics and the newly emerging Anti Semitism worldwide are fraught with passion and fire. The Middle East with its Arab Spring turning into an autumn nightmare has added to the confusion and crossed lines everywhere. The ambivalences that the complex situation create in secular Jews, religious Jews, “liberal” Jews, “non Jewish” Jews, Israeli Jews, the divided Israeli electorate and the varying opinions of Diaspora Jews is mind-boggling.  The Muslim world is also fragmented between religious sects; the jihadists, the orthodox and the growing more westernized groups to name just a few of the divisions.

Jay H Ell hopes to focus on all these issues in the coming months but for the moment he would like to focus, as objectively as possible, on the current conflicts in the Middle East. (The only reason he is mentioning these other issues is that he has had repeated requests to address them and several believe that every issue in the Middle East should be seen in terms of these – even the current situation).

CURRENT MIDDLE EAST CONFLICTS AND TENSION.

*IRAN

Underlying all that is going on the Middle East at the moment is the Iranian threat of a nuclear bomb. From Israel’s world this is central to its existence as the daily litany from Iran is that they aim to eliminate Israel. This objective is fundamental to Iran’s foreign policy thrust to become the leader of the Muslim world.

At present the only argument is what the immediate response to the Iranian threat should be. (BLOG: ISRAEL’S NETANYAHU, IRAN’S AHMADINEJAD AND AMERICA’S OBAMA)

It is fair to say that Iran’s intransigent stance on this whole issue has not improved its position in the Islamic world or in the world period. Iran, on the face of it seems to be going full steam ahead with their objective. This in fact would be the only way they could gain prominence as a player in the world especially the Muslim world.

*SYRIA.

There has been civil war since March 2012. The ongoing uprising is directed at Assad’s Ba’ath party. In terms of the Arab Spring paradigm this uprising is in tune with the general rebellion against totalitarian governments. The battle seems a stalemate with forty thousand dead. While the world is not exactly mobilizing against Syria, sentiment is decidedly against it. Syria has lost the one credible ally it had Turkey.

However there is another aspect to Syria’s place in the International world. It is Iran’s chief and really only ally in Islam. Assad’s ouster would weaken and isolate Iran even further. So Iran is on the wrong side of history in yet another global confrontation and has to feel more desperate as it’s quest for dominance recedes.

THE HAMAS POSITION

After a prolonged period of relative stability between Israel and Gaza tensions and incidents suddenly have erupted between Hamas and Israel.

Hamas is an undisputed agent of Iran and has the same stated objective to annihilate the Israeli state. Hamas has advantages that Iran has not in its fight against Israel. They were democratically elected. They represent a constituency that is considered displaced and dispossessed, which have the sympathy of groups of Jews and others throughout the world. Rightly or wrongly Israeli treatment of the Palestinians has lead to condemnation including academic boycotts and has been the rationale for anti-Semitic attacks on synagogues and Jewish institutions throughout the world.

Also the argument, that the timing of the Hamas confrontation coincides with an election with a deeply divided Israeli electorate where Netanyahu needs a war to ensure victory, is persuasive. So Israel could be blamed for the new fighting. This would support a propaganda war with the Israeli Goliath slaughtering the David civilian Palestinians. This might just help the faltering Iranian attempt at the Islam leadership position.  They and they alone are leading the charge against the Zionist imperialists

This looked at from another point of view has Hamas, the Iranian surrogate, drawn into an all out war that they cannot win. There will be Palestinian civilian deaths as at the best of times in war this occurs. The Israelis will be “proved” to be genocidal and fascist. In fact there will be more deaths than usual as Palestinian military targets are invariably placed either in or near civilian institutions.

This can serve two purposes: Consolidating Iranian leadership in the lifelong struggle against Israel and more important removing attention away from Iranian bomb threat

However Netanyahu is not easily going to fall into the trap of a ground war unless he is absolutely forced too. He has learned from his last outburst on the Iranian issue of the propaganda value of playing it cool.

TIME LINE.

This might give us an objective point of view as to who precipitated this escalation propelling it into an inevitable war.

OCTOBER 23: Israeli Defense Force, (IDF), soldier wounded by an explosive device. Palestinians claim responsibility.

NOVEMBER 6: There is an explosion near the Gaza border, injuring 3 IDF soldiers, a Kasssam rocket is fired into Southern Israel and a tunnel is detonated near the Palestinian border overturning 3 IDF vehicles.

NOVEMBER 8:Palestinians fire more shells into Israel In an ensuing firefight with the IDF a 13-year-old Palestinian boy is killed.

NOVEMBER 9. Palestinians fire rockets into Southern Israel. Prior to that they fire on an IDF tank wounding 4 soldiers. In the ensuing battle 5 Palestinians are dead and 25 wounded.

NOVEMBER 10 – 12: up to a 100 rockets are fired into Israel.

NOVEMBER 13:  A cease-fire is announced.

NOVEMEBR 14: Four more rockets are fired into Southern Israel and the Israelis then assassinate Ahmed Jabari, the leader of Hamas’s armed wing and a regional armed wing Hamas leader. They also hit 20 long-range missile sites in Gaza.

NOVEMBER 15 – 17. Israelis hit ever-increasing number of military targets in Gaza. Rockets are fired into Israeli major cities including Jerusalem. Israel mobilizes it’s ground troops. Citizens from both sides are terrified. Israelis are frightened throughout the country because of the indiscriminate rocket firing and Palestinians from the inevitable collateral damage that occurs when military targets are in civilian territory.

NOVEMBER 14 – 17. Syrian rockets are fired into Israel with an Israeli response. President Peres says that Israel is looking at this as an anomaly rather than a war from the Iranian backed Syrians. But to some there is more behind the Iranian backed Syria’s move coming as it does with the conflict in the South.

UPSHOT OF IT ALL

The world response is mooted. The only rage has come from Egypt’s new Muslim Brotherhood leader. He recalled his Ambassador from Israel. The world is watching and waiting. Iran has taken yet another gamble, as it’s own economy withers over sanctions. One outcome is for certain Netanyahu, if he has to commit Israel to ground troops, every nest of arms and military opposition will be eliminated in a country that still has at it’s foreign policy centerpiece the annihilation of Israel and refuses to move into any two state solution discussion. The longer this goes the tougher Netanyahu will have to get and notwithstanding the Republican rhetoric he will be on the phone every day with Obama.

The Palestinian hope to address Israeli wrongs takes a dive when they make moves like this. Furthermore Iran will not commit itself to this fight with troops. It will rally on from the side with weapons, as its surrogates die futile deaths. The Iranian hope is the propaganda war that follows with the inevitable news covering of Palestinian tragedy and despair. Even better they will highlight the inevitable atrocities that sporadically occur in a conflict of this nature.

Legitimate Palestinian grievances will once again take a back seat and the two party state solutions will be even further delayed.

However, for the moment central philosophical issues have had very little to do with the current escalation of violence. The latter points more to yet another cynical move by the Iranian regime that has as much credibility in it’s own country as its other surrogate, Syria. More ominously this could be a smokescreen for Iran to continue on its nuclear program.

 

OBAMA'S SECOND TERM AND THE GOP

It takes much more self control than Jay H. Ell has, to not say that "He has been telling you so for over a year now". He also has been blogging again and again as to the intellectual and political bankruptcy of the Republican Party. It is totally out of sync with the demographic, political, social and financial realities of the new millennium. With all that money, voter suppression activities, the parlous state of the economy, their total neglect of veracity and their unashamed harping that Obama was "Un-American" - code for African American - they still lost the Presidency.  

"COMES DOWN REALITY"


The temptation will be to blame Romney, Hurricane Sandy, Christie or whatever but that really doesn't fly. They can maintain that it was Karl Rove's fault, (in fact he is favorite for the position "scapegoat in chief"), that Obama was better organized and on and on. The crisp point is that their electoral future is just going to get worse. 




The Republican Party are at a crossroads. The establishment can still continue to pretend that they control the Party but they don't. The Tea Party does. The establishment was powerful enough to get Romney as their nominee; their last best shot, but if they stick with the Tea Party, the Republican Party will gradually become more and more insignificant. 




The Tea Party can believe they are an alternative government but they are not. It was their policies that were so soundly beaten. They are the Party of yesterday and as the years roll on they will become vestigial. 




MORE POSITIVES




Besides Obama's victory there are other bright spots to this election. One was that no group made an issue of Romney being a Mormon and the other was that America did not get the best President money could buy. 




The Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision to allow screeds of money to imbalance the voting process had limited impact. The major donors to the Republican cause are apparently furious that their money yielded no return. Trump, for example, has turned his bile on Rove. Rove, as a guru is history. Some of his explanations were bizarre maintaining, "Obama had suppressed the vote". Sheldon Adelson, as a multibillionaire, who made his money from gambling ventures, should know that if you put all your money on red that black can come up even if you own the casino. 




The positive impact of all this money is in accordance with the Republican credo of trickle down economics. Instead of all the money going down to the Cayman Islands it was poured into the economies of the swing states providing plenty of jobs. Also that money is taxable helping to reduce the deficit. Political Action Committees are not tax havens. So the Republican plutocrats have already improved the economy.




The impact on the Republican Members of Congress who have been shackled by the Tea Party and their paymasters is evident. Republican House leader Boehner has already asked Obama for his plan to avoid America going over the fiscal cliff and agreed to compromise. After this mess Boehner can take charge and crack the whip. He may even have to risk just help create a majority with the Democrats with some members of the Tea Party voting against.


GOP FUTURE.




As Jay H Ell has written American politics relies on consensus.  (Blog: The Republican Party after Romney). The GOP have been given a breathing space to adapt and make a contribution to the future of the country. If they don't they will be condemned to the sidelines for a long long while. Against all odds the Democrats held their own in the Senate and picked up seats in the House. In case it passed unnoticed more Democrats voted for House of Representative candidates than Republican candidates. Only the fact that the Republican State legislatures were successful at gerrymandering the voter districts allowed the Republicans to hang in.




As Bill O' Reilly of the Fox stable wailed,” This is no longer a White Male Country". In that vein the Republicans have to ignore the unelected media leaders whose every beck, (pun intended), and call they respond too. 




So they have to change their policy from obstructionism and  "preventing Obama a second term" to involvement. (They don't have to worry Obama is not allowed a third term anyway). They have to dump the arrogant Grover Norquist and recognize to solve the fiscal dilemma they have to increase taxes of the very rich. Who is Grover Norquist anyway? Who voted him in? What constituency does he represent? What is he going to do if they break a "pledge" to him about not elevating taxes for the rich? Sue them?




OBAMA

Obama too has to get his act together. This after all this is HIS second term. He has to lead, initiate, caucus, mediate and circulate. He cannot just leave it to Pelosi and Reid. In negotiating a package he cannot let go of his fundamental election platform plank to alter the American tax structure to get the "rich" to pay their fair share. 

WAR OR PEACE.


It is not just a cliché to say that America is at a crossroads. However only slightly more than half the country has leaned towards accepting the change as women’s glass ceilings get shattered, that the newer Latin American immigrants have begun to assert themselves as Americans and that the youth have refused to accept the shibboleths of their elders. (Blog: Half of America has Romnesia).


America's history has been punctuated by such crises, the first being the Civil War and the last, a half century ago, in the aftermath of the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King and the midst of a futile war where America lost 70,000 of it's youngest and finest died, Voting and Civil Rights were enshrined and the Founding Voters ideal for Votes for all American was realized. 




How the leaders and society and its leaders now behave will dictate how the world's most powerful nation inches into the new millennium. Will it be a peaceful change or will this metaphorical war continue?




Will the businessmen unleash the capitol they are hoarding and get the economy going and co-operate in creating a fairer and equitable society? Will the leaders of all branches of Government reflect the clearly stated will of the majority of society?




Only time will tell but Jay H Ell is optimistic.




HALF OF AMERICA HAS ROMNESIA

What has to be unbelievable, to an objective observer, is that with all that has happened in this election cycle, the National Polls still show Romney and Obama neck and neck. (While this is not the case in key battleground States it is still instructive to examine this phenomenon).

Whatever happens almost half the country, blindly, accepts Romney as a viable candidate to entrust with the Country’s future. Peggy Noonan, the Republican commentator, sometime back called Romney’s campaign a “Galloping Catastrophe”. Nothing has happened to change this perception and now it has become a “Galloping Disaster” that snowballs day after day. All Romney has had going for him was that Obama had one bad debate. Before that Romney ran on the bad economy that Bush had left Obama. Romney maintained that, he Romney would have done a better job making it recover. This was because of his business and personal experience where he outsourced jobs and hid money in foreign havens and paid as little tax as possible.

In the teeth of this all the National polls still reflect a statistical dead heat.

ROMNEY’S RESUME

First and foremost, Romney and Ryan are not available and have not been for several weeks to be questioned or interviewed on anything that has happened or they have said and done. They both literally do what they want to in the belief that it is irrelevant to their political chances and that they are unaccountable.

This has to be seen as a background to Romney’s repeated changes of position on innumerable issues on fiscal, foreign policy and social agendas. This includes his unambiguous and continuing outsourcing of jobs, his belief, that it was fair, that his secretary pay less taxes than him, his double somersaulting and daily changing positions on social issues such as women and their reproductive rights, his vacillation on Roe versus Wade, his vicious position on the Latinos and then the inevitable backpedaling, the disastrous foreign trip and his outlandish accusations on Benghazi, his statement that Russia was the biggest danger to America, his cold war desire to increase, against the Pentagon’s wishes, the Defense Budget  by 2 trillion dollars, the wholesale reduction of every welfare program, making exceptions every time he is challenged, his bizarre approach to health care where his official position is to “Reverse Obamacare” on his first day in office, only to modify his position when he is challenged – he is for retention of insurance for pre-existing conditions, and of course he won’t change allowing children under 26 to remain on their parents insurance…,  his refusal to increase the marginal income tax on those earning $250,000 from 35% to 39%,  his changed position on climate change, his refusal to show his income  tax returns, his derogatory statement that all Obama supporters were bums who were parasites to society and on and on and on.

As Ron Reagan, son of THE icon, summing it all up, said, “Romney said that he was not going to let his campaign be run by fact checkers and he has been, (for once), true to his word!”

And as Eisenhower’s granddaughter, Susan, who considers herself the spokesperson of the descendants, added, “ I am more confused than ever whatever Romney stands for, He has no core beliefs”. She said she was voting for Obama as how could one entrust the Presidency to someone who does not who he is.

Yet about half of America seems to have the same Romnesia that Romney suffers from. Maybe they want two Presidents for the price of one. Maybe all that money that is being spent to promote the “Galloping Disaster” agenda is working.  Maybe Romnesia is a highly contagious disease.

ACUTE ON CHRONIC ROMNESIA

With the country reeling from hurricane Sandy, two new cases of Romnesia broke out. One was related to the disaster itself and the other related to a political ad only viewed in selective counties in Ohio.

* Romney on Obama and Chrysler Outsourcing Jobs to China

Romney produced an ad relating to the outsourcing of auto jobs to China. The ad was not announced as all of Romney’s are. The reason for announcing an ad is that you then get the ad becoming news and it is viewed for free as the news hungry media reproduce it again and again.

You have to admire Romney’s chutzpah. As the pioneer of outsourcing jobs to China he accused Chrysler directly and Obama indirectly for moving Jeep production to China.  Romney had written an Op Ed piece in the New York Times in 2008 entitled, “Let Detroit go Bankrupt.” Romney had been attacked in a Detroit News editorial for his position. Now he was accusing Chrysler and Obama for outsourcing jobs to China. By so trashing Chrysler, Romney seemed oblivious what it might do to it’s sales.

Obama and several analysts called this Romney’s biggest lie to date – and that is saying something! The Chrysler Company responded by debunking the ad and said that, on the contrary, they were creating over a 1000 new jobs in Ohio at the Jeep factory.

• Romney doubles Down,

In response to the rebuttals by all and sundry Romney merely repeated the allegations in a new ad and added, with the ultimate cynicism that Obama had created jobs for China and not Ohio. Chrysler responded that one needed a Hubble Telescope to detect the ad’s relationship with reality. The Jeep employees had been anxious as a result of these ads and needed reassurance that this whole episode was bogus. A General Motors spokesman stated that Romney was entering a parallel universe. The ads were crass and misleading.

Chrysler acknowledged that they had a Jeep plant in China. However this was for producing Jeeps for the Chinese market. They said that that they would repatriate the profit from this venture immediately and had nothing to do with the Ohio plant that they were expanding. Potentially there was 500 million dollars in revenue for the US.

The renewed criticism has produced no response from team Romney He does not care. Neither has this affected his position in the polls from fellow sufferers of Romnesia.

*FEMA and Hurricane Sandy.

FEMA is an acronym for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Romney’s position on FEMA is well known. In answer to a question as to whether he would get rid of FEMA in a Republican Primary Debate, Romney responded:

“Absolutely,” he said. “Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.” Mr. Romney not only believes that states acting independently can handle the response to a vast East Coast storm better than Washington, but that profit-making companies can do an even better job. He said it was “immoral” for the federal government to do all these things if it means increasing the debt.

Needless to say Romney has ducked answering whether he still would eradicate FEMA. Romney was seen 14 times on television being asked by different reporters ignoring the question. Again Team Romney does not seem to care.

Romney’s position is asinine, as this crisis has shown. You have to have an integrated approach to a disaster of this order. Not only does a State not have the resources to respond, inevitably the disaster involves more than one State. If one takes Romney’s argument to it’s logical conclusion then the individual States should be responsible for their own defense locally and internationally. Even better the private sector should be responsible and mercenaries should defend each state. Romney of course would probably outsource defense to China.

With regard to privatizing the agency, one would have hoped that a lesson had been learned from the Iraq war where almost everything was outsourced to Halliburton, the company that Cheney had been CEO of. Billions of dollars to this day are still unaccounted for. It was interesting to note that Halliburton has since moved their offices to Dubai. Cheney shows about as much embarrassment as Romney in what is really financial treason.

            *Obama and FEMA

Obama’s success in the management of this crisis is not an accident. He has worked from Day 0ne to get the Agency up to speed. This particularly in the light as to the way Bush’s FEMA functioned in the Katrina disaster.

Jay H Ell has firsthand knowledge of the seriousness that the administration has approached Disaster Management. He is on the Disaster Committee of a small rural hospital. Obama's FEMA has provided grants and guidance to coordinating and setting standards for emergency response to all types of disasters from terrorist attacks to a massive road accidents.  Standards are set, Seminars are arranged. Disaster drills are mandatory. There is a ton of online information as to how to organize and respond to a disaster whether it is a biological war attack or a hurricane. Federal reviewers visit to see if the grant stipulations are being carried out. All this in a tiny rural hospital that is linked in a chain to several others with the objective of coordinating an area disaster response. Paramedics, firefighters, police are all part of the picture.

So it should have come as no surprise that Hurricane Sandy had Obama and FEMA officials on the ground long before it hit and everything was in place.

*Hurricane Sandy, FEMA and Politics.

*Obama and Christie and local government.

Obama had very little option but to go into the situation room, the National Response Coordination Center, to take charge of the crisis. The temptation to have just one more campaign meeting, a double header with Bill Clinton, was resisted and he returned to Washington. In fact a week of double headers with Clinton were now off the table.

Obama established continuing contact with all the players at every level. He really had nothing to worry about. All the pieces were in place. He just needed to keep a cool head and look Presidential, which he was, and follow the script. The script, however, had not imagined a crisis in the last week of a touch and go election.

His success on focusing on the disaster can be reflected by the response of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. The latter was the keynote speaker at the Republican Congress and considered the Republican standard bearer who just did not run. He had nothing but praise for Obama. He labeled him, in several press interviews, as “outstanding”, “all over it”, and available directly. Christie contacted him three times directly once at midnight. Christie could not thank the President enough and said he deserved all the credit.

In this current partisan climate this praise, from the Republican last hope, is heady stuff. More than Fox news could handle. The latter asked Christie if Romney would be touring the disaster areas with him. Christie responded that he was neither concerned nor interested as to what Romney might do and didn’t give a damn. All Christie was interested in was the people of New Jersey. Obama was due to tour the devastated New Jersey with Christie the next day. (Now there are plenty of political explanations as to why Christie has done all this including the fact that he believes Obama will win and he is looking to 2016. However, he obviously feels confident that Obama had delivered the goods well enough to support his position).

Christie was not the only politician to heap praise on Obama and it came from every quarter – every mayor, governor and operative that could get a word in.  This included the Republican Governor of Virginia and the influential New York Mayor Bloomberg who has announced his endorsement of Obama.

Eight out 10 polled believed the President had done a good job in managing the crisis.

*Romney

Romney for his part cancelled electioneering.  However, this did not remove him from the stump. He labeled an election rally a “Disaster Relief Meeting” and soldiered on. At one of these “Relief” meetings McCain had a go at the President on Benghazi and all this while Romney’s Jeep jobs to China ads were running.

Romney at one of these meetings focused on what the individual, (code for private industry), could do and told everyone to bring some food item for the victims to give to the Red Cross. Yet even this went this wrong. The Romney operatives bought $5,000 of goods at the local Wal-Mart. These were handed to those supporters that came to the meeting who had not brought a contribution. At best Romney seemed uncomfortable and out of touch, in what, indeed, was a difficult situation for him to react.

UPSHOT OF IT ALL

It is fair to say that the Romney cause took another pounding this week but so far this has not been reflected in the national polls. The elephant in the room is his and Ryan’s stated position to defund FEMA and or create the same unseemly bohaai that they did when Hurricane Irene had to be paid for. They demanded cuts from other projects, before voting for the money. But whatever they do does not seem to matter.

Half the country, like Romney, seems to be in status Romnesia and he can continue doing what he likes with impunity and without any accountability to his 47% of support. What this says about the American electorate is for history to decide. The Romnesiacs can only hope that it is all forgotten with the Obama electoral victory, retention of the Senate and a better than expected showing in the House of Representatives. Perhaps if this happens the American Civil War will finally be behind us as the present Republican Party unravels and America will enter a new era, once again reinventing itself.