The election battle heating up: the new Watergate scandal to the tax
Correctly to say - would know where you fall - would podstelil straw. Moreover, it is especially useful to remember in the hot pre-election period, when any episode can be turned in different directions. Even such a tragic, which is indirectly linked with Barack Obama.
This story happened in Akron (Ohio), where the President recently looked into in connection with the election campaign, and hungry, went to a local restaurant Ann's Place. Quite trivial situation - presidents are people too, and hunger is not my aunt. In general, ordered the head of state of the two fried eggs, toast, bacon and corn porridge, made happy with a visit mistress institution 70 years Josephine Harris, who shows much sentimentality, hugging goodbye to the president. After more than two hours she became ill, and in intensive care to save her already failed.
Covert operation Fast and Furious
It is clear that Obama is in this tragic incident can not blame anyone - anything can happen in life, but a residue of this case still remains. If this sad story Republicans are unlikely to want to use against Obama - say, it brings misery to Americans alone, the scandal with the Attorney General Eric Holder, who is already being called the new "Watergate", they unwind in full, as it is very beneficial material for the next attack on the current Authority and its head. We briefly recall the essence of the story. Several years ago, the Agency for Drugs (DEA) in consultation with the Attorney General's Office has decided to carry out an operation against Mexican drug traffickers who regularly cross the border into the U.S., code-named Fast and Furious. To this end, DEA agents in Mexico to smuggle "narkosam" for a number of weapons in order to trace its path and thus get to the leaders of the Mexican mafia. But the operation is, in fact, a failure - one of the weapons disappeared, another was used against the Mexican border.
Naturally, the Republicans could not miss such a case - the House of Representatives, where the majority belongs to them, began investigating the story, but did not receive from Attorney General requested the documents in the case and charged him with contempt of Congress. Clearly, all this somehow speaks at the President, trusting relationship with the Holder which are well known. Besides, a few months before the election, a scandal for the Democrats - not a gift. Especially against the background is not too comforting economic situation. No accident that the IMF has lowered the forecast for U.S. economic growth in 2013, arguing that it is on the verge of "fiscal gap" and reach the debt limit of 16.4 trillion dollars this fall.
It is easy to see that go with such a burden on the election Obama can not, it is like the air to give the country some hope for improvement in the near future. And he tried to give this hope by putting a new tax initiative, propose to extend for another year tax breaks for families with an annual income of $ 250 thousand mneee. Recall that the duration of such benefits established under President Bush, expires in January next year. If they do not renew, scares Obama, it will "bounce" on the family budget of ordinary Americans and "slow the economy", as will reduce the purchasing power of consumers. With particular emphasis on the benefits he made his initiatives for the middle class, the tax burden is the U.S. economy pulls back. However, with a standing ovation greeted the president's initiative is not even within the party - for example, the leader of the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer proposed to raise the bar for tax benefits up to 1 million dollars.
We can assume that pushing the idea that Barack Obama was acting on the known principle - we would have to stand overnight, but day to hold on, that is, until November 6. But Republicans understand this very well and are not going to give him any odds. And above all, do not intend to do it, Mitt Romney, who has cut taxes for 20 percent of all citizens. It creates a certain degree of stalemate - because each chamber of Congress controlled by different parties, not interested in a proposal from political rivals. And given that both candidates support about the same (with a difference of 2 per cent in favor of Obama) the number of voters in 12 key states, the current occupant of the White House desperately needs at least some breakthrough in the economic field. Even symbolic - in the form of a new bill.
That Romney put in offshore?
And here, at least at this stage, it appears that the ball in the basket election Obama can help to throw himself Romney, who became the hero of a financial scandal. According to a publication of Vanity Fai investigation, from the end of the 1990s with his direct participation in the Cayman Islands was created about 130 companies, of which at least 12 are still controlled by the Romney family, particularly his wife, Ann. Moreover, the income of these enterprises in the tax returns of the future presidential candidate missing. Moreover, according to the publication, he still receives income from the activity of Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd, registered in the Bahamas, though indirectly, in 2003, the day before the inauguration of the governor, he transfers the shares of the company in the management of wife. That said, I'm not me and not my hut. After being checked in the offshore company is nearly impossible. In any case, the declarations of Romney's income from offshore companies are not listed.
So, no matter how Romney is now trying to wash off the suspicion, his "stigma" has appeared in the tax gun, threatening the loss of part of the electorate. It is clear that this situation the Obama campaign spin up to full speed, making no secret that he would seek full disclosure of financial information Romney, recalling the offshore accounts and millions in Swiss banks.
But Democratic strategists are well aware that one scandal Romney again to enter the White House for another four years - is problematic here need additional funds. And one of them more than once Proven - the Jewish card, which, with varying degrees of success using the two parties, but the Democrats have it turns out better. In any case, at present about 64 per cent of Jews U.S. to support Obama, while Mitt Romney - all 28protsentov. True, the Democrats believe that it is not night, recalling four years ago in the same June Obama support of 62 percent of American Jews, and in November - already 78 percent. So it's no accident you can see it in the pile at the meetings with the rabbis and hear from him the type of revelation that he knows Judaism, maybe better than any other American president. Approval, which is unlikely to pass peer review, but it is not so important. Anyway, not only Jews U.S., but Israel, despite the well-known rift between Obama and Netanyahu, who paid tribute to the fact that American and Israeli experts have started in computers Iranian uranium centrifuges virus that brought down at least a thousand cars and halt nuclear program Iran for nearly two years.
Of course, trying to play the Jewish card and Mitt Romney, presenting himself the best friend of Israel than Obama, the benefit of a long-established close friendly relations with Benjamin Netanyahu, which, as we know, Obama does not. And, of course, the Israeli factor Romney will play in full during the upcoming visit to the Promised Land, and especially after returning from the U.S., where he hopes to get not only financial but also the electoral support of American Jews.
Moscow calms: an Iranian bomb would not be
However, in this game in the Jewish field today swept another famous player, and obviously not odd man - Russian President Vladimir Putin. And not because of his warm childhood memories associated with Hasidic family who helped future leaders of Russia, as he told about that period of his life the chief Russian Rabbi Berl Lazar. But this story is confirmed by the fact, noted by many, that with all its known quality Semitism Putin did not suffer, at least in the open form, and is unlikely to experience more confidence in leaders "Islamic revolution" and the Iranian mullahs than to Israel. In any case, while recently in Jerusalem, he said, according to the newspaper Il Foglio, assured his interlocutors that in Moscow they know "a lot more than Americans about what is happening in Iran," assuring them that Iran "does not is the atomic bomb. " As you know, Barack Obama, Benjamin Netanyahu, such assurances are not given. But most importantly, according to Israeli analyst and former diplomat Zvi Magen, "Russia and Israel are in the same boat", experiencing the fear of Islamist uprisings. "Moscow is afraid of political Islam, especially in the Caucasus - indicates, in turn, the world-renowned expert on Middle Eastern affairs professor Dan Vittorio Segre. - Russia understands that the challenge in the future will not only be in the competition for international influence between Moscow and Washington. He will be the demographic and ideological confrontation between Islam and the West, which is part of Russia because of its Christian past. Israel, in turn, needs Russia, which controls the military supplies to Syria, not to mention its impact on Iran. "
Russia understands that the challenge in the future will not only be in the competition for international influence between Moscow and Washington.
But beyond that, there is another important point that must not be forgotten - Moscow is trying to regain lost ground in the region, using the shaky U.S. influence here. So Putin and made one of the first foreign trips to Israel, demonstrating commitment to strengthen relations with the Jewish state, the first "caress" the remaining Jews in Russia. True, the stakes in this game and he has two contenders for the White House is different - Vladimir Putin for the "golden key" to the Kremlin voices of Russian Jews were no longer needed.
