THEY'RE BACK!

Picture the last scenes of a horror flick, the hero is riding away on horseback or speeding down a highway in a sleek convertible and the camera backtracks to a close up of the  remnants of the villain lying in a heap at the bottom of a canyon, from all appearances  gone to the netherworld. Suddenly he opens his eyes, jaundiced yellow eyes at that and lifts his head slightly, looking all around as an evil smirk slowly spreads across his face, revealing greenish, uneven teeth.

This is apparently what’s taking place now. For all intents and purposes the 2012 presidential election has come and gone and the Republican Party and its standard bearer were severely and soundly trounced, and yet the Republican pundits, including Bill O'Reilly, Karl Rove, Grover  Norquist,  El  Rushbo, as well as Sean  Hannity continue to spew anti-president Obama rhetoric as though the campaign is still ongoing.  It would seem that the millionaires who gave almost a billion dollars towards the defeat of the president would be having second thoughts about what a waste this was, since the untruthful negative ads proved to be worthless in persuading voters. You would think that the Republican electorate would be rethinking their reliance on Fox News and CNN for their news sources.
Yet, Fox News who continually and intentionally misleads it's viewing audience has not recanted any previous coverage and continues to spread misinformation about the Benghazi tragedy. Fox News initiated the supposed cover-up story about Benghazi as a way to tarnish the President’s  foreign affairs record and the Mittster quickly started using this strategy until he was caught flatfooted during the second debate  and then dropped it like a hot potato. Not deterred Fox News has kept up the Benghazi issue and somehow has now tied it into the Petraeus affair, insinuating that President Obama dismissed the general in order to prevent him from revealing the real back ground on the death of Ambassador Stevens and three others in Benghazi.  The fallacy of this argument is that even after his resignation the general could still be subpoenaed to testify before congress and the general has already made a statement regarding the Benghazi tragedy which supports the administration’s position. The toothless hoard however are never convinced by facts and they continue to believe that the ambassador and his three body guards could have been saved but for the actions of the administration. This includes Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain who have made statements that they would not support United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice for secretary of state even before she has been nominated because of statements she made five days after the Benghazi incident that it occurred as a result of a protest against the anti-Muslim film that had been released at that time.

 Immediately before and after the attack on the consulate, 19 protests had occurred in the Middle East as a result of the film and it would have been logical to believe that this incident was the result of a similar protest. Yet it appears that John McCain is still miffed at his defeat by President Obama and evidently remains in anti-Obama campaign mode.

Meanwhile the Mittster in his first speech since the election has actually blamed the voters for rejecting him. In another behind closed door presentation, (when will he ever learn) he said minorities, young voters and women supported President Obama because of the gifts that they had received. Governor Romney displayed the extent of his extreme hypocrisy since the donors he was addressing must have expected some gifts in return for the monies they had contributed. The Mittster remains out of touch with the common man and cannot accept that the reason for his failure to capture this voting block was because he stood for everything that they were against. Mitt Romney after giving a gracious concession speech thereby proving that he was capable of doing so reverted to his true form in blaming minority voters for rejecting him.

Leading Republicans, who two weeks ago in spite of his infamous 47% video were strongly campaigning for his election, are now distancing themselves from him as quickly as possible,including Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, both vocalizing the obvious, "if we want people to like us we have to like them first (or at least make it appear that we like them). Senator (R-S.C.) Lindsey Graham said "when you're in a hole you stop digging," Romney "keeps digging." Romney is the same disengenious individual now that he was two weeks ago so why the pius response from Repulican leaders. Why do they want to appear shocked?  Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, the French saying for the more things change, the more they stay the same!

The reason why President Obama received the support of these groups was not because of gifts but what they stood to lose if a disingenuous, unethical individual was elected. Romney after all had promised to repeal Obamacare on the first day of his administration, defund Planned Parenthood, failed to endorse the Lily Ledbetter equal pay for equal work bill, would make life so miserable for the immigrants that they would self deport, would repeal Pell grants and transfer jurisdiction of student loans back to the banking industry making them more costly and finally because he was  so untrustworthy in that he knowing approved of ads he knew were factually false.

The voting bloc consisting of minorities, unmarried women and college educated women and young people supported the president because of his philosophy of inclusiveness, where we help one another rather than the selfish philosophy of the Mittster that everyone was on their own, each one for themselves and one should not worry or care about those less successful who were not capable of caring for themselves.

So they’re back in mass, or did they ever leave, ignoring the fact that President Obama received a mandate to raise taxes for those earning over $250,000 and close tax loopholes, Valuable time will be lost dealing with the investigation of the Petraeus extra marital affair. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar so folks should just move along, there is nothing to see but this will not deter the naysayers. General David Petraeus is a strict military man who fell on his sword by submitting his resignation knowing that he had violated the code of conduct for a man of his stature and there is nothing more to say.

It is time to pay attention to the looming Fiscal Cliff and time to let those in charge know that the public will no longer stand for obstruction politics.

FIST BUMP!

THE AFTERMATH

In a decisive victory President Obama was re-elected as the 44^th President of the United States.  Many thought that as a result of the ongoing economic crisis, the election was there for the taking by the Republican Party and their nominee Mitt Romney. This might have been possible but for his flawed character, disingenuousness, insincerity, untrustworthiness, flip flopping and his Etch a Sketch mentality to mention some of his best points, and Mitt snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, to coin a trite phrase. Three million Republicans failed to vote for their party’s flag bearer, which says a great deal about the Mittster.

 The referendum on President Obama which he emphatically won, both in the popular as well as in the electoral vote, 332 to 206 (including Florida) was the result of his extraordinary intelligence, his decency and idealism which aided him in securing support from diverse factions of our society. He won 93% of the African American Vote; 71 of the Latino Vote; 67% of the unmarried college educated women’s vote; and 60% of the younger voters, 18 to 29; 

President Obama lost only one of the 9 battleground states, (North Carolina) that he needed to win. Polls showed that the electorate felt that he was more in touch with the people 53% to the Mittsters’ 43%.

 Almost 1 billion dollars spent by the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson($60 million) and Karl Rove($350 million) did little to influence the voting public, largely because the Mitster continually displayed his famous foot in the mouth syndrome, which was highlighted by the 47% video, where he demonstrated his disdain for 47 % of the population who he described as irresponsible individuals dependent on government programs who were incapable of caring for themselves.

  His other major Gaffe occurred during the first debate when he told the moderator, Jim Lehr that he like him and liked PBS but would eliminate their budget including Big Bird. The annual PBS budget is 450 million dollars which equals 6 hours of the defense budget; you do the math, since the Mittster is incapable of doing it.

 During the second debate he thought he caught the president misrepresenting facts about when he first declared that those responsible for the Benghazi attack were terrorist and he pounced in for the kill, only to have the moderator Candy Crawley, verify that the president did in fact call the attackers terrorist the day after the attack.

Who can forget Mitt’s disastrous European trip where he sought to spot light his foreign policy experience when he slighted his host, Great Britain by questioning  their readiness for the Olympics.

The Sunlight Foundation reviewed Karl Rove’s campaign and his super PACS, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS and found that of the $350 Million dollars spent they had a 1% success rate in unseating targeted candidates. Imagine of the $350 Million dollars collected, less than 1% went to a successful campaign in Nevada. President Obama’s re-election is a victory for the 47% and a solid defeat of the super PACS! Money and negative advertising cannot surpass boots on the ground and it was volunteer foot soldiers in Denver, Colorado like 80 year old Bertha Gallegos who spent hours on the phones extolling Latinos to get out and vote and 70 year old Antonio Esquibel, a retired college professor who personally registered 700 people who voted for the president, using the 47% comments as motivation. Colorado was a battleground state and Latino volunteers were successful in delivering this state into the democratic fold.

During the final two weekends before the election, over 200 volunteers who were a microcosm of the America. Young, old, male, female, Latino, Asian and African American manned a phone bank in Mission Viejo, California placing calls to Nevada, Iowa, Colorado, Ohio and Pennsylvania, energizing the Democratic electorate to vote. This was duplicated by 2500 other phone banks throughout the country, all volunteers who strongly supported the president’s values. Money cannot buy this dedication!

The Republican Party pundits were in denial about the results of the election and who can blame them. Fox News has repeatedly provided them with misinformation which they greedily accepted without question. Fox News denied the unemployment reports showing a drop to 7.8, saying the figures could be skewed; they denied the polls which gave the president any type of lead in the battleground states, they quickly endorsed the Gallup repeated polls that the Mittster lead by 5 points among “likely voters” which is a meaningless poll. The president was called un-American and lazy and Mitt did nothing to prevent the continuance of the negative statements, because they were readily accepted by Romney’s supporters.

There was a very noticeable difference in the makeup of both candidate's crowds with the Mittster’s crowds being very homogenized and the president’s crowds being very diverse.

 Evidently, Even the Mittster with all his gaffes, so strongly believed that he had a chance of winning that during the last week of the campaign he started wearing suits and ties, giving up the mom jeans that he wore to pretend he was a regular Joe. He told his press corps that he had only written a victory speech, an 1118 word victory speech. In the end, after a long delay he gave a five minute concession speech which was gracious and proves that the Mittster could have given an honest stright forward speech all along if he had wished to do so. At the age of 65, this is the end of the Mittsters political life. He started running for the presidency in 1994 and you would have thought that he would have perfected his act. He truly believed that he was the chosen one to lead the free world and still does not accept how out of touch he is with the common man.

 As a result of Fox News policy of denial, it was no wonder that the Republican pundits would deny the election results as they were being announced. Karl Rove was challenged on Fox about his math when he complained that Ohio was called to soon in favor of the president. The Republican electorate in general continues to be in a quandary as to the loss by the Romney/Ryan team because they never received accurate coverage by Fox News either as to the true state of today’s economy or the issue of character and dishonesty that surrounded the pair. Everyone is being blamed for the loss except the one most responsible, Willard Mitt Romney himself who ended the last few weeks of the campaign by approving an ad that falsely accused the president, Chrysler and General Motors of closing down U.S. Auto plans and outsourcing the work to China, leaving U.S. workers unemployed. This ad caused the Denver Post in an editorial to question the Mittsters’ character but this was never reported on Fox News. President Obama responded to this false negative ad by saying "You don't scare hard-working Americans just to scare up some votes." 

 Fox is now busy misrepresenting the facts about the Benghazi tragedy by saying that the U.S. and the president were aware of the attack and did nothing to prevent it. The incident was over within one hour which was not sufficient time for any type of response. It occurred on 9/11 and if Ambassador Stevens had any concerns about terrorists or his safety, he would not have gone to the consulate on that day. Security on all the embassies was reduced in May 2012 as a result of budget cuts voted on by among others, Paul D. Ryan.

The Fox News faithful however have swallowed this misrepresentation of the Benghazi tragedy to the extent that some have started calling for the president’s impeachment.

This same group of mislead individuals do not attribute the economic stagnation to President George W. Bush’s policies. They are in denial that George W took office with a balanced budget and a surplus in the treasury and left office after 8 years with two raging wars, the economy in a severe depression and a 1.4 trillion dollar deficit. They blamed the economic crisis on President Obama and do not recognize that he averted a complete collapse of the economy by the actions he was forced to take such as the stimulus bills and the bail out of the auto industry. They do not accept that the country is better off now than when the president first took office because all of this information has not been part of the Fox News format.

Donald Trump (they say that repeated use of hair dye can impair cognitive reasoning) tweeted, “this election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy”. Not content to stop before he proved himself a complete idiot, he tweeted “we can’t let this happen we should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided”. He continued to tweet “let’s fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice. The world is laughing at us.” (at us, well maybe at him),Finally to let us know beyond a doubt that he was slightly disappointed he tweeted, “he lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country”

Bill O’Reilly complained that the white establishment is now the minority. He said that 50% of the electorate  supported President Obama because they want “stuff” He gives them ‘Stuff”   

 El Rushbo rattled on that President Obama secured the women’s vote because he pandered to them giving them what they wanted in birth control and contraceptives.

The Republican Party had an opportunity to win the women's vote on economic issues but were turned off by the Romney social issues which were emphasized by comments from Todd Akins and Richard Mourdock. 

Dick Morris who had predicted a Romney electoral landslide was at a loss to explain the results except to say that he used the 2004 turnout believing that the coalition of voters that turned out in 2008 was a onetime thing.

 So finally, victory after a hard fought battle, but there are still 87 tea party congressmen in the house who didn’t learn a thing from the election, believing that their candidate lost because he became a moderate. They still owe their allegiance to Grover Norquist and don’t seem inclined to resolve the upcoming Fiscal Cliff issue. The press is making it appear that the crisis has to be resolved between now and January 1, 2013, however even if it is not resolved by then, Congress can reach a solution during the first weeks of January making it retroactive to the end of December 2012.

The president however will need support from the electorate to make this happen. The battle has just begun!  The president said he had the pen ready to sign the bills and called for the immediate extension of the cuts for the middle class. This is not likely to happen, however because if the house submitted this bill the only remaining issue would be extending the tax cuts for the rich and it would put the Republican party in bad light to hold out for this.

FIST BUMP

SANDY AND THE FINAL DAYS

The presidential election was 9 days away and it was anticipated that the final days of the campaign would be consumed with endless campaign hopping to the battle ground states, for last minute speeches directed at undecided voters.

However all of this was postponed by what some might call divine intervention, although with the loss of lives (more than 92, 38 in NYC  people and a cost of over $70 billion dollars) I wouldn’t call it an act of God. 

Whether it was an act of God or an act of man, Hurricane Sandy gave the voters an opportunity to compare and contrast how the presidential candidates reacted to this dire emergency. President Obama immediately suspended  his campaign, preparing  for the worst, while overseeing federal  emergency efforts, and thus was able to immediately expedite federal aid for rescue, recovery and reconstruction efforts, which drew praise from New Jersey Governor Chris Christy, a surrogate and keynote speaker for  Romney.  New Jersey Governor Christy’s words of appreciation for the president angered many right wingers, including El Rushbo himself, who ranted and raved to impress his sub marginal listeners.

On the other hand Governor Romney while trying to appear non political in this time of national disaster, came up with the idea of collecting canned  goods and non perishable items which he planned to have trucked from Ohio to New Jersey. If he truly wanted to be of value to the cause, he would have contacted emergency relief groups which would have advised him that for logistical reasons it is preferable to give money or donate blood. The Mittster has never been known for his common sense.

Do you have any doubts during this period of devastation, about which candidate has demonstrated that he has the necessary  competence, compassionate and leadership to be entrusted with the presidency of this country?

Governor Romney, during his Republican primary campaign debates, made the statements that if a federal program can be given to the states it is a move in the right direction and if the program can be removed from the federal government and given to the private sector it is even better. He was talking about FEMA, suggesting that he would get rid of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and hand its authority to the states which he considers to be in a better position to solve their own problems. Governor Romney has been reminded of these statements and asked if he planned to get rid of FEMA, not once but at least 14 times and he has refused to answer. In fact the Governor has not answered a question from a reporter during the last three weeks of this campaign. No wonder, he doesn’t need a reporter to help him make a fool of himself, he can do it all by himself.

In an Ohio unscripted speech which is usually when he makes romneys he said, “we have heavy hearts as you know with all the suffering going on in a major part of our country. A lot of people hurting this morning. They were hurting last night and the storm goes on.” I won’t try to decipher it for you.

 In the midst of this grief however the Mittster did manage to release an ad wherein he blamed President Obama for the outsourcing of auto industry jobs to China. The news media describes the ads as discredited which is a polite way of saying they are outright lies, which is not new for the Mittster. The Mittster will not respond to questions from the media about whether  the China claim is misleading.
Both General Motors and Chrysler have issued press releases stating that the Romney clains are incorrect, that U.S. auto industry jobs will not be outsourced to China.

On his campaign bus tour “every town counts” the Mittster failed to stop in Freeport Illinois, the home of Sensata,  a Bain Capital Company which is  a producer of sensors and controls for manufactures in the automobile, appliance, industrial and HVAC markets (Sensata.com). The Bain Capital Company in which Romney has an investment of $8 million dollars plans to offshore production to China, causing the loss of jobs to 170 workers. Two Republican congressmen, Dan Manzullo and Bobby Schilling urged the Massachusetts based Sensata Technologies to abandon plans to offshore production to China and keep the work and jobs in Freeport Illinois, but the Mittster has not made any statements regarding the plant closure. Romney has repeatedly said that he will be tough on China to create jobs but has failed to make any statements about this plant closure.  Yet he has the audacity to put out an ad which is total outright lie about President Obama outsourcing jobs to China. It demonstrates what a total hypocrite he truly is!

Romney continually attacks President Obama on the auto bailout while at the same time talking out of the other side of his mouth arguing that President Obama followed Romney's prescription to save the industry. President Obama and independent analysts say it was necessary to offer federal loans  to the auto industry to get them through bankruptcy because at the time banks were no longer lending to struggling industries., because credit was frozen. President George W. Bush gave GM and Chrysler a bridge loan in December 2008. President Obama  gave the industry federal loans which have since been repaid and the companies are now profitable.

The Mittster has continually criticzed the auto bail out without once admitting or ever acknowledging that his running mate, Paul Ryan voted for the auto bailouts!

From the inception of his campaign, Romney’s mantra has been “We will not be dictated to, by fact checkers” so he doesn’t care what he says or whether it’s truthful. In the last few days of the campaign expect a continuing cascade of outrages from the Romney camp as well as from Super PAC’s like Restore our Future and American Crossroads, both of which in the final days of the campaign are now spending millions.  Romney has started the final days of the campaign with an anti- Obama ad, aimed at his Latino supporters which features, Che, Castro’s daughter and Hugo Chavez as Obama supporters implying of course that President Obama is a socialist. This will have no effect on his Latino supporters and it clearly points out the Mittster’s desperation.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg who did not endorse a candidate for the 2008 campaign endorsed President Obama today (November 1, 2012) citing the issue of Sandy and Global Warming, and the fact that the president has turned the economy around. The Mittster as Governor of Massachusetts endorsed Global Warming but in his race for the presidency he quickly abandoned the concept since it is not accepted by some of his biggest supporters, the Koch Brothers.

Romney continues with his same stump speech about the economy, not conceding that at the time President Obama took office the economy was hemorrhaging 575,000 jobs a month, banks had collapsed and the country was in the worst depression since the great depression itself.  Since then with the auto bailout, which saved General Motors, and auto part jobs in Ohio, General motors’ is alive and generating profits. Housing prices are going up and unemployment is going down, but the

Thomas L. Friedman in the October 21, 2012, edition of the New York Times’ Sunday Review wrote that besides President Obama’s domestic innovation in Obamacare, in addition he instituted his Race to the Top program in education which has already set off a nationwide wave of school reform. In the automotive industry President Obama has raised the standards for American made cars and truck fleets from 27.5 miles per gallon to 54 miles per gallon between now and 2025. This is already spurring a wave of innovation in auto materials, engines and software.  

Mittster is ignoring all this and is still promising that he will add 12 million jobs to the economy. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich stated that in a good year 2 million jobs can be added yearly, but 12 million in a year  is an impossibility, but the Mittster doesn’t care, if he get elected he can always say “Oops my bad!” The Mittster subscribes to the Moonlight Magnolia theory, which argues that when you strip away the unions and pension’s funds jobs will increase. The Mittster’s only true ideology is he believes in Mitt Romney.

The election is now only 5 days away and a wrong decision could lead to a Romney/Ryan victory which will result in damaging consequences for generations. 

Mitt Romney has demonstrated again and again that he cannot be trusted, that he is dishonest and has shown distain for the 47 % of the population which were not born with a silver spoon in their mouths. He is out of touch with the common man and has no real concept about how others exist. He pays minimum taxes, this year paying 13 %( and he would have only paid 10% if he had claimed his total contributions to the LDS Church. However after the election he will amend his tax return and receive a refund for the money he overpaid). He maintains offshore bank accounts in the Cayman Islands (for tax purposes, of course) and he only closed his Swiss Bank account after receiving ongoing criticism.

 He told teachers that class sizes don’t matter, he told students that they should shop around for the best student loans and that if they want to start a business that they should ask their parents for a loan. In short the Mittster lacks integrity and his involvement in governmental affairs would create havoc and severe discord. There is no comparison of the candidates and one only has to look back at 2000 and 2004 to see the serious errors that can result when an unqualified person is elected who does not have integrity and is incapable of dealing with America’s complex issues, at any time but especially during this period of economic crisis.

FIST BUMP