PARIS AND THE FUTURE OF TERROR

The volcanic explosion of hate, death, slaughter of the innocents, sadism, guts and gore erupted and spilled out onto the streets of Gay Paris to the accompaniment of the ISIS manifesto spewing out its paranoid rationale for its psychopathic, seemingly inexplicable behavior, namely France’s leadership role in the “Crusader Campaign” against the Islamic State and daring “to curse our prophet”. The bare measurable statistics - over 130 dead and 350 wounded and a city defiled by those who purport to be holy. The immeasurable sequela of this abomination are vast and it  will be regarded as a watershed event in world politics, comparable only to the 9/11 evil in America. The cold reality of terrorism is that relatively tiny numbers of individuals in this asymmetric digital social media saturated computerized shrunken planet can wreak havoc on communities. The French attack will result in far reaching consequences and assumptions as to the threat ISIS proposes. It will also result in hysteria which the media will heighten in their own unique irresponsible way.

ISIS - A WORLD POWER?

The first consequence of the Paris attack especially in the wake of the crashing of the Russian passenger jet in the Sinai and the Beirut suicide bombing is that the new world power kid on the block is ISIS. The assumption is that the newly found Caliphate, with about 30,000 soldiers in its army, loosely made up of ever changing chunks of Iraq and Syria is akin to the Soviet Union, America, Europe and China. That they have a plan to takeover the world which has been masterminded in their capitol Raqqua that is slowly being put into motion by their operatives in Western States and other Shia and Arab Gulf States. 

The talk of the integrity of the USA, for example, being in peril is really such nonsense and no evidence for this hypothesis exists anywhere. Firstly, in terms of conventional war ISIS haven’t one plane, one warhead and their arena of action is where it is  - the Middle East. Israel has not considered it to be part of the existential threat against it and heavens knows Netanyahu doesn’t hold back. Bibi is not dreaming of mixing in the fight that is essentially an internecine struggle for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. ISIS outside of the theater of war in the Middle East is pure and simply a terrorist organization that can effect the most dastardly destructive disruptive cowardly deeds but in spite of the Paris massacre and tragedy the French Parliament are not going to hand over power to them anymore than the American Congress told Al Qaeda they were calling it quits as they had the U. S of A beat following 9/11.

ISIS would love to gain status by an on the ground fight with the USA and or Russia so it can truly carry out its fantasy of taking on the infidels. Thus far in spite of the hawks screaming at him Obama has wisely kept his distance. Real world power foot soldiers will give ISIS the prestige it craves to establish itself as The Muslim power.

So ISIS is not a world power. It has however two areas of operations - its central headquarters the new Caliphate and the terrorists that ally themselves to the movement on the international scene.

ISIS IN MIDDLE EAST - ISIS CENTRAL-  THE CALIPHATE

ISIS is unlike Al Qaeda that had an infrastructure, a hierarchical chain of command and initially the protecsia of the Taliban, and inhabited Afghanistan where they were not under constant attack by countries in the region and world powers. Al Qaeda was a firmly established group that had won a war throwing the Soviets out of Afghanistan with the help of the West.  None of this reality pertains to ISIS. What ISIS has got going for it is that it operates in vulnerable weak and/or despotic countries and has a radical brutal philosophy to give it an identity and a purpose. Their manifesto is carved out of a bloodthirsty interpretation of Islam and receives a worldwide circulation through the social media which as it can reach everybody and anybody anywhere anytime is its greatest recruiting tool. The one arena that ISIS has mastered and manipulated is the internet via social media and YouTube. The grotesque videos, that it professionally produces and that outrage the world, hone into the minuscule audience that it is aimed at. It does need to recruit millions it just needs thousands from a pool of 1.6 billion Muslims. Their priority at the moment, as a fledgling country, is immigrant recruits who will fight for their cause and their chunk of land. 

ISIS INTERNATIONAL

Almost as a byproduct there are going to be supporters and recruits that are nationals of other countries. Here the numbers in the “army divisions” can be in the single digits. They can effect deeds that they claim are in support of ISIS and more importantly the ISIS Central leadership can claim ownership of their obscenities such as the Parisian attack.

While exact details are still unclear there were reported to be seven terrorists involved in the Parisian attacks and a further nine that were involved in a shoot out with French security a few days later. One might have been a refugee from Syria as a passport, which the CIA believes is fake, seems to indicate this. There are a number of French and Belgian nationals where the attack is thought to have been masterminded. The Belgian authorities believe that the brain behind the attack is Abdel Hamid Abaaoud who was one of the leaders of a cell of returned Jihadi fighters from Syria which was largely smashed by the Belgian Security police in a shoot out some time back. It is uncertain whether he was killed in the subsequent shoot out.

So that is the full extent of the ISIS army in Paris, plus a couple of thugs who may still be on the run, who have declared war on France! There is no evidence that this was orchestrated from ISIS Central. The incendiaries may have won the first battle but Jay. H. Ell hardly thinks they will win the war. This has not stopped the media hyperbole as to the strengths of ISIS in all the world capitols - nowhere more is this more evident than in the USA where it is election season. Moreover it allows ISIS Central to feed on the fanciful descriptions of its newly attained power. They have just threatened to attack, yes to attack, Washington.

THE COUNTER TO ISIS

ISIS Central

So there are really two distinct conflicts - one in the Middle East, ISIS Central, and another in the rest of the world, ISIS International. Of course they are linked but mainly by the internet. If ISIS is removed as a power in the Middle East that will not stop the terrorist phenomenon in the world. There are apparently a tiny but nevertheless tremendously significant number of disaffected deranged individuals who will latch onto the terrorist movement du jour that have morphed as fighters for ISIS.

In the Middle East in the struggle against ISIS Central the allied plan should not deviate from providing air cover and logistical support for the locals. Now if Jay H. Ell was the Commander in Chief, the Kurds would be getting far more support than they are getting. Take the line from Israel who are in the area and if Bibi isn’t sending ground troops no one else should. Essentially this is a Muslim battle which the Gulf States and Egypt should be bearing the bulk of the fighting as should be Iran who have the most to lose. Obviously the issue is complicated what with Syria unraveling. However, the line is the same there - nothing will be achieved by mixing in with ground troops. This lesson does not need to relearned at the cost of lives.

The hell that is going to ascend on ISIS Central will make them wish that they had never claimed the Paris branch of ISIS International as their own. This attack is just too big to let go much as 9/11 sowed the seeds of Al Qaeda’s destruction, who were by far a tougher nut to crack than will be ISIS Central. Also taking on Russia in the same month will bring down the gates of hell on them.

The prognosis for the new Islamic State sucks and whatever time it takes they will be reduced to bands of marauding terrorists. As Obama keeps cautioning eradicating this bunch totally will be a long long process. Their scary videos of them marching around hugging each other, teaching children how to kill, shooting ammunition into the air and savagely executing infidels in jump suits will not get them past the radar surrounding sovereign countries.

ISIS International

Now ISIS International is an internal security problem for each country and for intelligence cooperation between nations. The objective here is to flush out some hundreds of  fundamentalist Jihardi thugs and for the profilers who think this is a piece of cake there are over a billion and a half Muslims. It is hard to believe that the Paris massacre participants were missed by the internal and international intelligence. It has to be getting harder and harder for these miscreants to escape detection. In the wake of Paris the world needs to prepare itself for more intrusions into privacy. 

The Muslim community itself has been hammered. They are being asked to take a much more active role in the detection of these angels of death. The social media is awash with Islamic condemnation of the events yet the perception remains that there isn’t a concerted enough effort by religious groups to denounce and ferret out these cells. Particularly there are allegations against radical clerics. Rightly or wrongly the Muslim leadership, political, religious and the NGO’s have to get a coordinated act together. Till this is done the xenophobia will continue apace. If they don’t act they make the task of the rational voices harder and harder to curb the excesses of the naysayers.

HUMANITARIAN AND POLITICAL SEQUELS

The immediate casualty of the Parisian apocalypse is the plight of the Syrian refugees. In a mixture of anger, fear, xenophobia and prejudice the stop button has been pressed. Already a hot button issue in European countries the contagion has spread to the USA where Governor after Governor has refused to accept them. To date Obama has been extremely conservative in his approach only offering to accept 10,000 and these have been slowly filtering in. 

Ironically they have all been vetted up the ying yang as most have been in refugee camps for years. However this is election season and with the confrontations in the Middle East and the recent terrorist atrocities their status will become a front and center issue. Maybe The Donald will want to build a wall to keep them out. It is sobering to note that since 9/11 three quarters of a million refugee immigrants have come to America and according to CNN very few if any have been involved in terror. The Boston bomber brothers incidentally came to the USA as tots and were radicalized here and as Americans citizens. However reason is not going to dictate behavior as fear and xenophobia are the order of the day. 

For practical purposes the issue of refugees is of far greater import in Europe where Angela Merkel’s go ahead for a total of 800,000 fugitives has just received a rejuvenated heft to be halted. Many are forecasting that the whole Paris incident has now hastened her political demise with the newly formed group, Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident, organizing a mass  protest meeting in Germany. 

The same angry sentiments are felt everywhere in Europe - France’s far right leader Marine Le Pen has careered in and upped her anti immigrant rhetoric that has been on the boil since the Charlie Hebdo incident. With the French elections only three weeks away she has called for an immediate halt on the influx of the refugees. She reminds all that one of the gunmen, Ahmed Al -Mohammed was purportedly, “among the mass of immigrants who flow into Europe each day”. A fuming French Premier Hollande needs no spurring on and is already forecasting that France’s borders face a return to barbed wire. The EU’s plan to divvy up 160,000 displaced is lying in tatters, facing outright rejection and court challenges while the UK has the same refrain to call a halt till there can be security checks.

Netanyahu was not slow to point out the double standard that exists between the world response to their own home grown terrorism and their, at best, disinterest to what the Israelis go through almost on a day to day basis. Sweden and the South African government were quick to couple their condemnation of the event with the Palestinian plight making one wonder if the world’s problems can ever be solved with this selective morality. 

The thread running through this all is a ninety degree turn to the right as a food fest of xenophobia spreads like a contagion. The extreme right wing are becoming main stream. Al Jazeera, an Arab media company that is considered to have a voice of moderation, pointed out that all religions have biblical texts exhorting violence and that crimes committed in the name of Jesus are so vast and heinous that it would take volumes just to highlight them and that the Jews are responsible for the world’s most longest and brutal occupation. However, this tack is not going to win friends and influence people in this climate. They also point out that the biggest victims of all this violence are Muslims themselves and the Hindus in India are responsible for the largest scale discrimination and massacres in the modern day.  

The only focus at the moment is the savagery and brutality evinced in the name of Allah which is then coupled with women abuse and other Sharia law barbarism that Islam ostensibly supports. Any ifs, ands and buts merely anger the critics. While Al Jazeera may be ringing their hands in frustration none of this will cut any ice till those associated with Islam, across the board, move determinedly so that it is obvious to all but the bigots that the Islamist Jihardi terrorism is to them what Nazi Germany was to the World. Invoking the Crusades and simplifying the Israeli situation thereby exhibiting bias will not help the cause of normalizing relations and attitudes between civilizations of all persuasions. 

FUTURE OF TERRORISM

State sponsored terrorism will eventually die on the vine. Al Qaeda under the Taliban has been reduced to a pale shadow as will eventually the whole caliphate of ISIS. There sources of income will be cut off as they are systematically bombed. 

As far as countries where the international arm of ISIS is supposedly operating these acts will continue as there will sadly always be the deranged and estranged to effect them. Paris is likely to be followed by copycat attempts and ongoing scares in the near future. (The media are keeping this all going by highlighting threats that are on the internet every other day as if they are part and parcel of the great tide of ISIS frontal assault on the world). There are unhinged in every society that turn their anger outward in the most dastardly and cowardly way. When ISIS collapses those who wish to alienate themselves with the terrorist moment du jour will do so and obviously they will be embraced as army members of the new psychopathic group they purport to represent. 

Ironically the country that feels they have the external threats under control, the USA, are not much fussed by the almost weekly terrorist carnage in schools, malls and cinemas, unleashed by the unstable, who have unhindered access to arsenals, as they are not considered to be external acts of terrorism. The same crowd who are screaming for screening in depth of the refugees don't believe that simple background checks are necessary for those that purchase arsenals in the USA.

So the future of terror seems assured - certainly the homegrown variety. As this piece is written it is alive and well throughout the world. What is beyond doubt is that they will not overturn existing governments.

There are no winners in any of this as essential values such as peace and understanding between all peoples receive yet another setback because of the actions of just a few and the response of many.

RABIN 20 YEARS LATER: SO WHAT IS NETANYAHU’S END GAME?

With the twentieth anniversary of Yizhak Rabin’s assassination evoking so much debate and speculation about what might have happened had he lived it is as good a time as any to reflect on the future of Israel in the Middle East and the hope for peace in this conflict torn area. There are so many ways to look at it all. On the one hand Israel have in the past two decades become a power to be reckoned within the Middle East. (Blog: Powerful Israel Needs A Paradigm Change). But on the other hand they are as far away from the establishment of a two State solution as they have ever been. 

No reasonable person could expect such an eventuality with Hamas not remotely interested threatening death and destruction. While Abbas would have to be dragged screaming into a settlement as his behavior has shown.  Since Rabin’s death the hope of peace appears to have been abandoned by Palestinian regimes, if they were ever there, but they have been provided with more than enough plausible assistance from the Israeli side to appear as the victims. Netanyahu seems only too comfortable in the cycle of insurgency and insurgency crushed and in the process giving Hamas and Arafat the public relations victories they seek. So the realities that Israel face twenty years after the tragic demise of Rabin are:

* Israel’s existence and role in the Middle East is as secure as ever with the Jewish State being a key partner with the fundamentalist Gulf Sunnis and Egypt against Iran and its Shia allies and radical ISIS.

* Israel faces a conflict against mainly Hamas and with its over riding fire power and impeccable intelligence raises it to the ground each and very time. Hamas has two objectives - periodically making life very uncomfortable for the Israeli population and by the way it fights its wars to see to it that there are enough of its own young dead amongst the rubble photographed for the world to see.

* For the Israelis this means living in constant fear of terrorism punctuated by periodic wars with peace and normalcy an ever distant hope. Mothers still have to send their sons and daughters off to war and far to often nobody can venture out of home. Rabin’s hope for peace is all but forgotten and the Netanyahu administration barely pays lip service to the concept.

So no one argues with Israel’s right to exist and their right to defend themselves. The question on the mind of many is what has been done to bring to peace? 

IT MAY BE UNFAIR BUT THE TERRORISTS ARE THE CLEAR WINNERS OF THE PROPAGANDA BATTLE

So much has happened since that fateful bloody day giving justification to both sides of the Israeli political divide. Whatever the two sides may argue there is one clear winner - the Palestinian terrorists. Twenty years later when they have no conceivable hope of winning a conventional war they are garnering increasing world wide and political support from a coalition who are condoning their obscenities in view of their plight and the mistaken belief that Israel is solely responsible for it. It has now become fashionable in intellectual and even political circles to boycott, disinvest and sanction Israel. Something even Abbas feels uncomfortable about as he recently asked the activists to just apply this to settlements. While Abbas can do whatever he believes is tactically the best for his cause the fact that the International Court of Justice can seriously weigh charges against Israel for its war conduct when put plain and simply the charges are directly related to the manner the Palestinians conduct war with women and children first - first to be bombed that is - is outrageous.

So while Hamas quietly and systematically prepare for the next bout of terrorism and Israel do nought to counter this propaganda surge by attempting to change the perception among everyday Palestinians, the purveyors of death gain more and more traction in the public relations battle. No one in the Netanyahu administration is out there making initiatives for peace. No Netanyahu operatives are thinking outside the box to make inroads to change the ever worsening status quo. Who is encouraging NGO's to make contact and form liasons for example? There are private initiatives and poignantly the most visible is the group of Palestinian and Israeli parents who have lost a child in the conflict. The anti Rabinians just bluster along while Hamas and Abbas bide their time believing that if they stick it out forever they must win.

That so many of the verbal attacks and abuses laid on the Jewish State are hypocritical and biased is reflected by the fact that half the motions that the United Nations Committee on Human Rights have ever passed have been condemnations of Israel’s abrogation of Human Rights. This while the world has seen unholy genocide, widespread torture and real abrogation of human rights and the rule of law and violence towards woman and children on an unheard of scale. That it is all based on double standards and is not fair is not the argument. Firstly, Israel proudly claims that it is a transparent democracy and that is the way it should hope to be judged. Secondly, it is the reality and the onus, rightly or wrongly, is for Israel to change the paradigm of its current approach to the problem.

WHAT WAS RABIN’S OPPONENTS  GAME AND ITS OUTCOME?

As an ardent believer and supporter of Israel with the firm conviction that Israel has never been the aggressor and have had an ongoing battle to survive bloody onslaughts, first from the surrounding Arab States and subsequently and to this day by terrorist organizations, Jay H. Ell is still more than uneasy about what the end game is of those that opposed the Oslo Accords then and to this day. Put another way what have those, who pilloried Rabin as a traitor, done in the past two decades to resolve the Israeli Palestinian crisis?

Now before Jay H. Ell is jumped on everyone take a deep breath and firstly analyze what the objectives were of those that opposed the deal. One does not have to speculate too much as the guy who was Rabin’s chief opponent and has been in power almost continuously since, Bibi Netanyahu, is still around and calling the shots. While Rabin’s assassin was a loner and no sane person condoned the behavior it is fair to say that the opposition and the environment surrounding Rabin’s deal was toxic and BIbi was the cheerleader in chief. It can be even argued that the opponents did not trust Abbas but what was their alternative? Well, they have had twenty years to put it forward and it is hard not to argue that whatever they have done has been counterproductive to peace and the two state solution that Israel signed onto seventy years ago. Netanyahu can hardly take credit for Barak and Sharon’s efforts although he can argue that they went nowhere. The alternative policy has been to build settlements. Rabin’s opponents cannot contend that by building and defending settlements they have contributed to peace. It is nonsense in this day and age's weaponry and assymetric warfare to believe any longer that it actually contributes to security.

NOW WHAT AND WHERE ARE WE NOW ?

All this begs the question as to what in the past twenty years has Netanyahu put forward to resolve this conflict and what does he propose doing in the next twenty? If the narrative is accepted that, “What can anyone do with such savages”, then let it be said once and for all. Then the solution is an ongoing fight to the death with the Palestinians so get on with it. But that is not what Netanyahu is saying nor has he ever said that. Instead he has added to the argument of those that believe that the Palestinians are the sufferers as he has allowed and encouraged settlements to be built by those who opposed Rabin’s two state peace talks and answered the attacks on them and Israel never convincing anyone that the Israelis are the sole victims. The retaliatory measures, viewed on every medium, of blowing up the homes of Palestinian terrorists as the pathetic families stand by with their few pathetic belongings has not helped and just provided more prime time footage for a press hungry to portray the Israelis as the barbarians. Likewise the flattening of Gaza after each war is welcomed by Hamas who are standing on the rubble next to the dead bodies for photo ops with the Associated Press.

WHERE TO NOW?

So Netanyahu and his followers answer to the Palestinian “problem” is settle on the land that could reasonably be argued that should have been ceded in a two state solution so that it can never be part of a solution. For argument sake let us assume that the opponents of Rabin’s initiative believe they have enough settlements what do they advise next? 

Do they advise a one party state where the Palestinians will be in the majority in no time? If all they are doing is legitimizing and institutionalizing the status quo they then support a one party state with no rights for Palestinians? If this is the end game it would lend even more support to those who are cynically calling Israel an apartheid state. 

Or do they believe, while every so now and then reaffirming the concept of the two State Solution, as Netanyahu has just done at his meeting with Obama, that the status quo should continue and they will just wing it? Nothing that Netanyahu and the inheritors of the opposition to Rabin do give any reassurance that the policy is anything other than to increase the settlements and remain in constant war. Put another way unless this policy changes the inheritors of the Rabin opposition are committing their own children and grandchildren with the children and grandchildren of others that do not support this policy to permanent war and death. If the belief is on the basis of a biblical injunction, it cannot be from My God. Ironically, the Israeli political leaders that have been war heroes and have kept Israel safe are those that have made the peace moves. They have been opposed inter alia by those who don’t get drafted for religious reasons as well as ideologues like Netanyahu. 

WHAT NOW

In this new Middle East that Netanyahu and the opponents of Rabin find themselves where Israel has garnered Gulf Arab support and is flourishing economically what can be done? It is fair to say that for the moment a two state solution is out. What needs to be done for now is set into motion policies to change the hearts and minds of the Palestinians. Netanyahu is doing just the opposite with regard to the Palestinians that are Israeli citizens and nothing for those that are not. Netanyahu has done nothing to deny his settler class any of their demands. They need to compromise within the Israeli context. 

True to his twenty year bull in a china shop style he has appointed a Press Secretary that has called Obama an anti semite. What is he trying to do? In case no -one has told him over fifty percent of the American Jewish population agreed with Obama on the Iran deal and that by his arrogant, intrusive, aggressive approach to the nuclear talks he has turned Israel into a bipartisan issue. The President still has a large Jewish following and this will not sit well with them. Netanyahu still needs Obama otherwise he would not have gone off to Washington with his begging bowl in hand. Seriously, maybe it is time for Bibi to call it quits or show some bold initiatives that may in the years to come change the dynamics of the Middle East.

For the moment the Israeli Premier’s end game is the same game he has played for twenty years and Israel on a day to day basis does not sleep any easier than it did on the day Rabin was murdered. So all those cynics who shrug their shoulders and say there is no hope should stop complaining that there is no hope. The onus is on the Jews and Israel in this situation like it or not. It would be a long long process to change attitudes and for those looking for a biblical, philosophical and ethical explanation as to why they should, read Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s paradigm changing blockbuster “Not in God’s Name”. This giant intellect has put forward a rationale for regarding us all as one human family and more significantly in this context shown hope for peace. To simplify his message - We should all reach out to someone who is different and start a dialogue. 

KOCH BROTHERS $889 MILLION PROBLEM

Charles and David Koch have a problem - a real problem. They announced in January of this year that they had nearly $900 million to spend on the 2016 Presidential election and they just can’t find anyone to spend it on. Any Republican that is. Jay H. Ell feels their pain as in spite of all those candidates he would be at loss as to where he might spend $900 let alone the millions. Charles Koch in an interview with MSNBC”s Morning Joe Scarborough that brought tears to one’s eyes, bemoaned the fact that with all the money he has spent thus far in American Presidential politics he has achieved very little positive. Jay H. Ell would agree with him on that. But Koch’s frustration is mounting with an awareness that he can’t take it with him and he is now in his eighties and in 2020 he will be closing in on the nineties.  

THE KOCHS ARE THE GODFATHERS THAT WRECKED THE OLD GOP

The Kochs can look back at nearly fifty years of trying to influence the American world with hundreds of million of dollars. In Charles’s therapeutic “pour it all out” session with Morning Joe he lamented the fact that he had made very little impact in the political world but Jay H. Ell believes he was just being modest. He is responsible for think tanks and advocacy organizations that have played the central role in changing the culture and direction of the GOP whether he likes it or not. Declaring war on George W. Bush, 43, was the seminal event that spawned the Tea Party. He has get togethers of the likeminded that Presidential candidates literally die to be invited too. This year round Cruz, Rubio and the departed Scott Walker were in attendance. The brothers were the founders of the most influential Political Action Committee, America For Prosperity and the lists of libertarian and Conservative leaning organizations that they are involved in are legion. 

Softball empathetic counsellor MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough might have enquired, “Do you feel that anything you might have done has created the dilemma you now are in with regard to the direction the country is going and for the present array of candidates for the Republican nomination?”. Because much like with Bush 43, whom the Kochs despised for going into Iraq not only wasting trillions accompanied by the loss of thousands of lives, there are unintended consequences to their interventions as well. Bush has the Middle East chaos on his conscience and the Kochs have the three ringed circus that passes for a Republican nomination contest on theirs. 

Well enough already with the blame game let us look at the Koch dilemma.

WHO WILL IT BE?

Now Governor Walker, who the Kochs were said to favor, is out of the race, retired hurt. So let us move to the hopefuls that the Kochs will never support. Numero uno in this category is the flag bearer of the Bush dynasty, George W’s brother, Jeb. Then there are the no hopers on the B list, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Rick Santorum. No sense in wasting all that hard earned cash. In addition there are a list of Tea Party fellow travelers on the original A list that are also chanceless - Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina. There are two candidates that the Kochs are unlikely to live with - Chris Christie and John Kasich. The choice has to come from the remaining four -  the big two, Ben Carson and Donald Trump and the newest white hopes Marc Rubio and Ted Cruz.

WHO FITS THE KOCH’S LIBERTARIAN BILL?

Going over this list you can understand the Koch angst. They all represent anarchy. The lot have disowned the Republican Party and want to negotiate the rules of the debates  on their own.  There is precious little that they agree about the debates either other than they all don’t want to be asked questions that might embarrass them. Trump and Carson are ad idem on one item - keep the debates short so the others cannot get too much exposure. Trump is holding the media to ransom. As the number one attraction, as he so modestly reminds everyone, they are more less negotiating with him with what is a sequel to his “The Apprentice” show.  Their objective is ratings and Trump delivers. Now while Trump is being discussed he does not want Koch money, for the moment, he has enough of his own so that rules him out as a Koch welfare recipient. Anyhow Trump is all over the show - his populist financial stuff must leave the Kochs stone cold. He wants to keep Medicare and Social Security. So no sour grapes that The Donald does not want their pot of gold they wouldn’t pick him anyway!

Now it is conceivable that Chris Christie could be lifted over the hustings with a ton of money but he is flawed in more ways than one. Anyway Fox kicked him off their main debate. More to the point, he, like chanceless Kasich, compromises on welfare and the like. What about Rand Paul he is a Libertarian just like the Kochs but he is at 1 percent and is as crazy as the rest of them. Oh woe is me. Now the Kochs, Jay H. Ell is sure do not want to spend all that money lifting someone from 1% to 10% in the polls so realistically it boils down to choosing between Ben Carson, Marc Rubio and Ted Cruz. Carson has to be too off the wall to garner any type of institutional support - some of his statements like Joseph built the pyramids to store wheat and have to really put his sanity into question. The latter two have been honored by invitations to a Koch rendezvous with the rich and the generous so it has to one of them.

The Kochs, one would imagine, if it gets down to Cruz or Rubio would let the two of them duke it out and then go for the winner. The thought of either of these two neophytes is scary but someone has to do it! So the Kochs will hang on to their money till then. 

This is all moot if Carson and Trump keep to the top of the pile. Then what? Do they sling all this money behind one of them to keep Hillary out? Jay H. Ell’s guess is that they will then concentrate on the legislature elections.

WHAT ABOUT THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT?

Karl Rove and the Establishment cannot fold that easily and Jay H. Ell’s guess is that they have to have a dog in this fight. Secretly, they will never give up on Jeb till Jeb gives up on Jeb. But Daddy Bush has joined Mommy Bush in wanting Jeb out of this race by criticising Dubbaya Bush on Iraq when Jeb had supported him. (If the three Bush's can't be on the same page the GOP are in even more trouble than imagined). They will certainly look at Kasich and Christie a lot longer than the Koch crowd. However, if all else fails they will tip the nomination in favor of Rubio and declare him their candidate too. (Now Rubio if he hits Prime Time has real money problems relating to his person and alleged malfeasance with expenditures while in the Florida legislature). 

But again all this is moot if the two independent musketeers, Trump and Carson hang onto the top positions. However, unlike the Kochs, the establishment will spend money, big money, to keep them out. If one of those became the nominee then what are the GOP supporting? Can they ally themselves on deporting 12 million Latinos. In addition the Tea Party literature is full of Trump punting gold over the dollar. Or can they ride along with Carson and own statements such as that if the Jews would have had guns there wouldn’t have been a holocaust or that in the endless gun massacres in schools it is the victims’ fault as they should rush the shooter!

THE ESTABLISHMENT DESERVE THIS MESS AS WELL

If the Kochs are to blame for facilitating the climate for this disaster the Establishment are even more culpable as they allowed to happen and did nothing to counter it. After the last election they had a post mortem that warned them not to repeat everything that they had done in the 2012 cycle. But once again they stood by in the hope that the Tea Party cranks would fall by the wayside, as they did last time.Then carrying on that hope that the candidate that emerged could change the Presidential election narrative just like Romney couldn’t last time. The Party elders to this day haven’t challenged the Tea Party narrative. They still haven’t heeded the warnings about ignoring the demographics that they need to win an election. Instead they have antagonized them even more. 

They have sat by and hoped that it would all go away and now they have a Trump or a Carson as their standard bearer.  And failing them Cruz who has told the Republican leader in the Senate to go to hell. Or at best Rubio who declared war on the personification of the GOP Jeb Bush and who is a pompous whipper snapper who politically is all over the show. The cancer has metastasized even further. The Senate is almost certainly lost and their new white hope speaker Paul Ryan is history, like Boehner, if he doesn’t pander to the crazies. By his statement that, “it would be ridiculous to do anything about immigration”, ostensibly because he doesn’t trust Obama, he has upped the ante in exclusivism.

Just to remind Reince Priebus the Chairman of the Republican Party, whom all the Presidential candidates have just ditched, what the 2012 report he commissioned told him:

“The Republican Party needs stop talking to itself. We have become expert to providing ideological reinforcement to like minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with or welcoming to, those who don’t agree with us on every issue”.

It’s worse than that now as the narrative has become even more exclusive. This discussion is pervasive in every arena whether it be the Benghazi hearings, Planned Parenthood, LBGT equality, minimum wage and the like.

 CARSON, TRUMP, CRUZ, FIORINA ET AL ARE FOR REAL

For those all knowing pundits that are reassuring themselves that all these “outliers” are not for real they need to get real themselves. The disillusionment with politics and its politicians is endemic. The body politic is highly impressed with Trump, his record, his confidence and his independence. Likewise Carson, the antithesis of Trump’s bluster exudes politeness, capability and sincerity. Most of all they are both regarded as honest brokers. 

While the anti political establishment impact is far more marked in the GOP the Dems are not immune from this sentiment. Bernie Sanders, who is wowing the youth on the coasts, is not exactly a career Party politician. Although he is running for the Democratic Party nomination he is elected as an Independent and he has been on the fringe all his life. The GOP however has been totally taken over by the “independents” nearly all of whom no longer toe the Party line. The last establishment member standing is Jeb Bush who is looking quainter and quainter every day.

For the record over fifty percent of the GOP registered voters are supporting candidates in the Presidential Primary that have never ever occupied political office. This is not a fleeting phenomenon in fact the number is growing. Then the next two candidates with about ten percent each are Cruz and Rubio both who have only been in the Senate for two years and are wildly anti establishment. So where is Jeb going to get his votes from? 

Hillary has to have one fear - low turn out. The “GOP” has just won the Kentucky Governorship with a Trump clone and the turn out was thirty percent. Hillary needs to capitalize on the enthusiasm Bernie has created amongst the youth and see that they follow through with her. To date Hillary has moved with the times and Elizabeth Warren is way out in front of it all. Come to think of it Obama was a political neophyte from left field himself so maybe the Dems have already made their adjustment!

And don’t cry too much for the GOP Old Boys there are just tons of boards they can join and legal firms that are lobbyists - although at this rate they will have no colleagues left to lobby.

WHERE THE KOCH MONEY SHOULD GO

Jay H. Ell believes that the Kochs should either spend all their money on prison reform which they agree with or give it to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or even better the Clinton Charitable Foundation, either one who will put it to good use. Or maybe they will learn something new in the next debate on November 10 but Jay H. Ell is sure they are not holding their breaths.

THE TROUBLE WITH HILLARY

It is fair to say that amongst most non Democrats Hillary Clinton is hated with a passion. It is not a question of whether, it is a question of degree. (Blog: Benghazi - Why the GOP Don’t Care).  Jay H. Ell believes this bile far exceeds the usual political animus. In some ways this vituperation is incongruous because she is a middle of the road Democrat who persuades the party’s left that she is their best bet. Now remember the venom spat towards her is rarely in a vacuum - there is always an argument backing the assertion even if the response is way over the top. 

Why is this? Some of this anger is sheer frustration because as the land lies she is odds on favorite to win the Presidency. No serious political analyst has a doubt that this will be the outcome. It is also fair to say that her adversaries just refuse to accept their reality that such a “bad” person with such “hypocritical” attitudes is such a certainty. The more they think of this the angrier they get. 

Part of their problem in coming to terms with the American world and what politics  - especially American conciliatory politics is really all about. That coupled with the failure to differentiate between the role of an activist versus that of a politician in effecting the political process adds to the confusion and rage. The politician’ s personality plays a role and Hillary, it is fair to say, just does not connect, with the GOP voter. There is also the issue of the composition of the American body politic in the twenty - first century that the anti Hillary club refuses to come to terms with.

AMERICAN POLITICS  AND THEIR POLITICIANS.

American democracy is pretty unique. There is a meaningful dissipation of power. The country’s leader, the President, is elected directly by the body politic and not by the elected legislators. The majority of the legislators in both Houses of Congress need even not be of the same party. Now at the best of times politics is about compromise but even more so in America. The President, who is not the choice of his parties legislators, needs to persuade them as well as those of the opposite party, especially if they control one or both of the legislative bodies, to effect his legislative agenda. 

One doesn’t need a doctorate in politics to realize that the President with the most experience, knowledge and influence of the process and its players will get the most done. Lyndon Johnson, with transformative social legislation such as Medicare and ground breaking Civil Rights legislation requiring Republican support, as his conservative Southern Democrat “Dixiecrats” deserted him, will ultimately be shown to be the most effective President of the modern era. It really is just him and the Roosevelts, since the earlier trail blazing greats, that have got it done on a grand scale. It has to be no coincidence that prior to assuming the Commander in Chief Position he was the most powerful wheeler dealer in Congress, having served decades in leadership positions. Johnson’s major problem was his lack of foreign policy knowledge and it is his Vietnam disaster that has obscured his legacy. Modern day examples of moving the chains of government along are Ronald Reagan and Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill and Bill Clinton and Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich. 

Now compare Hillary with her 50 years experience starting by leading a Republican student group to be a highly involved First Lady to a Governor and a President, a Senator who worked with and was respected by both sides of the aisle and an individual who effected monumental work as Secretary of State where she worked with every foreign leader imaginable, to the array of crazies, nonentities, mediocrities, and neophytes fighting for the Republican Presidential nomination. There isn’t a comparison and the fear from the opposition is not that she won’t get anything done rather the panic is that with that resume she will move the liberal agenda on guns, climate change, inequality of wealth distribution and the like “deviously” and effectively. Then the dread is that the country will then be changed irreversibly and become a sickly pale shadow of a stagnant European State.

So Hillary has the experience and the where with all to effect legislation. Likewise the electorate haven’t forgotten her husband and the prosperity he brought them in office while simultaneously moving the Democratic agenda. There is a mythology that has been built up about the "teflon" Clintons that they are invincible and that too strikes angst in the hearts of the right.

POLITICIANS AND ACTIVISTS AND HYPOCRITICAL HILLARY

One of the misconceptions when weighing up the merits of prospective political office bearers is confusing activists with politicians. The latter need votes as well as the acceptance of their policies while the former just need a following. While both want to change society for the better the activist can be a purist and the politician needs to compromise and may have to accept just a piece of the pie. Martin Luther King was an activist so he could tell it undiluted. Lyndon Johnson to get King’s civil rights agenda passed wasn’t so lucky. He had to make promises, compromises, twist arms and trade favors to get the Pastor’s agenda through. It is well nigh impossible not to be compromised if you are in politics. There is always a thin line between conceding and even changing one’s position and outright opportunism. Also there is the surrendering on the less significant issues for the good of the grand scheme. That sadly is politics and in the American system this type of “give and take” is more essential due to the way the system functions. To put it less genteely it is very hard to remain a virgin, for long, if you are working in a brothel. 

Just as an aside there are very few activists who can remain purists and then they are designated as statesmen. Churchill was one in so far as he had one mission, fight fascism and eliminate Hitler. Once he had done that he did not have a post war platform and was removed from office with the slogan, “Thank Churchill but vote Labor”. President Mandela was not much interested in political maneuvering once he had achieved a non racial South African Constitution and retired after one term in which he was just a unifier leaving the day to day politics to his Prime Minister. But these are anomalies both in stature and the exceptional circumstances they operated in. 

So Hillary’s long path is strewn with compromising “adjustments” she has had to make either through the changing of her convictions, (Republican to Democrat and in her perception as to the merits of the Iraqi war), the changing circumstances surrounding an issue, (Trans Pacific Trade deal or Keystone pipeline), or those that she rationalizes as being necessary for the greater good for the moderate philosophy she claims to represent. In fifty years there has to be a stack of these “adjustments”. These inconsistencies and anything else that can be dumped on her are the rationale for the merciless hammering from the opposition that she is subject to. Benghazi and all that has been dredged up related to that fateful event, and there has been a ton as there has been 20 million dollars spent in investigations into her, is the topic du jour. A field day is being enjoyed by her tormentors with the massacre itself, her e- mails, her server, her friends’ e- mails and on and on. There have been mistakes related to that episode but these pale into insignificance when juxtaposed with the Republicans naked misuse of power “to bring down her poll numbers”.

So far her well prepared, logical and dignified response to the criticism heaped on her has merely given her an opportunity to demonstrate how well fitted she is for the job. The body politic recognize, albeit unconsciously, the way politics works and are giving her the thumbs up. Hence her poll numbers have increased rather than plummeted . There are the smears that she is ambitious  - show Jay H. Ell a politician who isn’t and that she is mean and bitchy. The latter jabs are sexist and resound to her favor particularly among women. It is ok for a male to be tough but a woman is a bitch apparently. There is also is a certain sector who harbor a complete aversion to a woman as Commander in Chief. It is true too that for a large part of her career she has appeared to lack the common touch but there has been an improvement.

So all in all her compromising political persona has done her more good than harm even against the neophyte trio of Rubio, Cruz and Paul who have not been around long enough to be too “inconsistent”. Obviously the perception that politico Hillary’s career “adjustments” are a fertile ground for attack is not shared by the electorate even though her opponents still persist that this disqualifies her from the Presidency, Still the whole concept of living up to an activist’s standard must still give her nightmares as Barack Obama basically beat her running as an activist pointing out her political mistakes.

 THE AMERICAN ELECTORATE COMPOSITION AND THE MISLEADING MEDIA

The fact that the current election is taking place in the rapidly changing demographic of the American electorate is conveniently denied by the media as it has been since 2008. There is a failure to come to terms, to this day, that first McCain and then Romney could never have won, given their stance on immigration and that applies even more to today’s GOP hopefuls. Romney received twenty -  seven percent of the Hispanic vote. It is estimated that for the anti Hillary candidate to move into the WhiteHouse double that number is needed. This would exclude every Republican challenger starting from the current leader in the polls, Donald Trump. The possible exception could be the highly talented Marc Rubio, who is an Hispanic and who has one foot equally plonked in the GOP Establishment camp and the other in the Tea Party conference. He has quite a few problems but the relevant one here is that he has sold out the Hispanics in order to be competitive in the GOP Primary. He has ditched the compromise Immigration Bill that he co sponsored in 2013 and even the most conservative Hispanics have gone on record to say that they are not interested in any Republican Presidential nominee who changes his or her line for the General Election. It is a gateway issue for them.

To a certain extent one cannot blame the Republican electorate for not coming to terms with the demographic real world as they are aided and abetted in their denial by the media. In order to keep viewership and ratings up the media need to create an ongoing horse race with all its excitement and alleged uncertainty with regard to the Presidential election. Jay H. Ell has blogged extensively about this practice the latest piece being, “Trump, The Media, Ratings and Reality”. This circumstance occurs across the media political board and the proponents also include the sources that the GOP electorate gain their news from, the Rush Limbaughs of this world and even the Fox News crew from O’Reilly to Hannity to the latest craze, Megyn Kelly all of whom weigh the chances of the candidates and parties, ad nauseam, in a vacuum far from the American demographic real world. 

The upshot of this as it has played out in the last two elections is frustration and animosity that was deflected towards Obama in 2008 and 2012 and now on Hillary in 2016. More so on Hillary as she is an unashamed politico whereas Obama was an activist and everyone still had hope that he might save the world. Put another way they think that Hillary is an out an out opportunist and does not really care about the Hispanics and just is cynically championing them for political gain. So that the demographic is an issue thatis really her fault and they hope against hope that the Hispanic electorate will see through her and back the Republican nominee, all of whom in one way or another will have told the Hispanics to go jump across the border, but at least is sincere!

So the demographic reality is blamed on Hillary as she is exploiting it instead of agreeing to the rational responsible Republican view that they should be deported.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

All this adds up to Hillary being the favorite to be the 45th President of the United States of America. If the GOP are serious about challenging her they need a candidate who takes into account the current American political realities instead of just trying to bring her down. Now neophyte Rubio has the brains. Maybe he should redevelop his immigration policy and put forward some rational policies on taxation and spending. Smartarse putting down of moribund Jeb coupled with an unbelievable arrogant attitude to doing the people’s work and claiming that he is bored in the Senate is not going to cut it. If there was one glaring deficiency in Obama’s tenure it was that he was a neophyte with no hill connections or real experience in governing leaving him to learn on the job. The country does not need another one of those so that leaves Christie, Kasich, Bush, if he is still interested, and Lindsey Graham. Of the latter Graham and Kasich are the only ones not in la-la land but they both have a long long way to go.

So the trouble with Hillary as far as the GOP are concerned is that she has fooled the American electorate into believing in her, her invincibility and the inevitability of her Presidency. The real trouble, however, lies with those who think they can win an election just by attacking her. This is not working because the electorate have computed all the above variables and are choosing her with all her warts in the absence of any Republican candidate meeting the requirements to become President.