Children Speak Out on Global Warming & Iraq War!

Convinced you have the answers about Iraq, global warming and taxes? Cock-sure George Bush is "protecting" you from the boogeyman? Maybe you should ask the ones who it will effect the most -- your kids!

Watch it now!

George W. Bush's 50 "Greatest" Accomplishments

As President:

1. I attacked and took over two countries.

2. I spent the U.S. surplus and bankrupted the U.S. treasury.

3. I shattered the record for the biggest annual deficit in history (not easy)

4. I set an economic record for the most personal bankruptcies in any 12 month period.

5. I set all-time record for the biggest point drop in the history of the stock market.

6. I am the first president in decades to execute a federal.

7. I am the first president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.

8. In my first year in office I set the all-time record for the most days on vacation by any president in U.S. history. (Tough to beat my dad's, but I did)

9. After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I Presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.

10. I set the record for most campaign raising trips by an president in U.S. history.

11. In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs.

12. I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in U.S. history.

13. I set the all-time record for most real estate foreclosures in a 12-month period.

14. I appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any other president in U.S. history.

15. I set the record for fewest press conferences of any president since the invention of television.

16. I presided over the biggest energy crises in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed. (Enron - Hey, Their board had some of my biggest supporters.)

17. I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other U.S. president in history.

18. I cut health-care benefits for war veterans.

19. I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.

20. I dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.

21. I've made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in U.S. history.

22. Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history. (the poorest multimillionaire, Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her)

23. I am the first president in U! .S. history to have all 50 states of the union simultaneously struggle against bankruptcy.

24. I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud in any market in any country in the history of the world.

25. I am the first president in U.S. history to order an offensive first strike attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United nations and the vast majority of the international community.

26. I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the U.S.

27. I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any other president in U.S. history (Reagan was hard to beat, but I did it!!!)

28. I am the first president in US history to compel the United Nations to remove the US from the Human! Rights Commission.

29. I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from Elections Monitoring Board.

30. I removed more checks and balances and have the least congressional oversight of any presidential administration in US history.

31. I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.

32. I withdrew from the World Court Of Law.

33. I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.

34. I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors access during the 2002 elections.

35. I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for the most corporate campaign donations.

36. The biggest lifetime contributor to my campaign, who is also one of my best friends, presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation)

37. I spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.

38. I am the first president to run and hide when the US came under attack ( and then lied, saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1).

39. I am the first US president to establish a secret shadow government.

40. I took the world's sympathy for the US after 9/11, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in U.S. and world history).

41. I am the first U.S. president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.

42. I changed U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.

43. I set the all-time record for the number of administration appointees who violated U.S. laws by not selling their huge investments in corporations that later made bids for government contracts.

44. I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in U.S. history.

45. I have created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided that the U.S. has been since the Civil War.

46. I entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down. RECORDS AND REFERENCES

47. I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (My Texas driving record has been erased and is not available.)

48. I was AWOL from the National Guard and deserted the military during time of war. I refused to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.

49. All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father's library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view. All records of any SEC investigation into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

50. All minutes of meetings of any public corporations for which I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view. Any records or minutes from meeting I ( or my VP ) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.

One Nation Under “Whose God is it Anyway?”

By Frank J. Ranelli
Friday, October 27, 2006

From atheists to polytheists, from Allah to Buddha, just whose God is it anyway? How realism and not mysticism can deliver us from a dark time in our history.


On the back of United States currency are the words, “In God We Trust.” The U.S. Pledge of Allegiance states, “One nation, under God…with liberty and justice for all.” Most people rarely think about these statements, their true meaning or examine their origins. It’s time that we give these decrees a thorough dressing-down and not only discover their origins, but also answer the longstanding question, “Exactly whose God is it anyway?”

“In God We Trust” did not appear on American paper money until after the Second World War, sometime around 1957. Prior to that, “In God We Trust” appeared only on a few metal coins, shortly after the Civil War. This was done, circa 1865, by then Secretary of the Treasure, Salmon P. Chase, at the behest of a number of religious leaders that insisted that our money be “deified.” In particular, a Rev. Watkinson of Pennsylvania, in a letter to Mr. Chase, asserted that by adding these dogmatic words would, “relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism.” Rev. Watkinson’s observable obsession with currency – and his attempt to cleanse it with divine dictum – begets the opinion that the dear reverend had never heard that “the love of money was the root of all evil.”

Rev. George M. Docherty, while preaching a sermon in 1954, whose attendees included then President Dwight D. Eisenhower, became the impetus for the addition of the words, “under God” to the nation’s Pledge of Allegiance. While weaving and invoking references to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Rev. Docherty may have tipped his hat to his monotheist views by loathing in his lecture that “the pledge” did not make mention of “the deity.” Nevertheless, “under God” was added to an already idolating, over-flowingly patriotic nation, fresh from its victory in World War II, at the hand of Congress on June 14, 1954.

To pledge an allegiance is the act of commuting one’s loyalty; and therefore faithfulness, to a cause or country. Certainly pledging your devotion to a state-based nation is a tangible, palpable idea of goodwill. Freedom and integrity for everyone is a concrete and reality-based creed that few would dispel. However, when avowing adherence to God, exactly which God would that be? A whole nation under Christ, Allah, Buddha, Zeus, Jupiter, Xenu, or Ra the sun god, how do we choose and who decides? Undoubtedly, these two men of faith, which brought us these two dubious phrases, were consigned to the Christian god, ostensibly abstaining from the adherence to the Establishment Clause and the freedom of religion in this country.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Danbury Baptists in 1802, penning the famous “Wall of Separation Letter”, Jefferson’s intent was to clarify that the Constitution as a whole was a separation of church and state. Jefferson, then President, saw no need to curry favors towards any religion and carefully refrained from any statements that could be misconstrued as an establishment of a state-endorsed, government-recognized religion.

In a letter to Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin wrote, “There is no motive to worship a Deity, to fear his displeasure, or to pray for his protection. I will not enter into any discussion of your principles, though you seem to desire it.” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a devout Christian man wrote, “No government can blatantly favor one faith or church over the others, or favor belief in God or the Supreme Being over non-believers.”

These are hardly ringing endorsements for worshipping a single deity nor are they an invitation to provoke a celestial being into the governing of people; but that’s just what we have done. The Constitution does not make one mention of the word “god” and the word “religion” is used once – to make certain that “Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion.”

The constructs of our tripartite form of government were keenly aware, and had witnessed first-hand the destructive nature of tyrannical government wrapped in the illusion of good faith – namely the Church of England and King George the III. What the architects of the American democracy realized is that no matter how benign a person or group believes their religion to be, it is likely to be offense or insulting to another person or another organized sect. These founders, many of which were vaguely deists, believed much more in the human spirit and not an arcane, heavenly spirit. They were convinced, brought on by years of persecution by the Church of England and its variant of Christianity, that religion divides, not unites.

This is neither in defense of any other religion nor an antagonist of Christianity. Religion in any form is based on faith over facts and not true, empirical certainty. Therefore, religion has the greatest propensity of all things to be used as weapon to segregate us, rather than integrate us. It also has a great penchant, when distorted among masses, the ability to bring about another tool of less than altruistic use, the exploitation of fear. Fear is, after all, the current administration's favorite weapon of deception and methodology to subjugate and govern compliance. Faith, when transmitted to religion always turns more fateful than faithful; more hate-filled than hope-filled.

People of this country our bound by many different covenants, but fundamentally, we must begin to agree on placing unreserved importance on the value of the human experience and the value of individual life. The divergent that must be made is where one religion is seen as superior, and therefore somehow more deserving of a following than another is, as the true burden of all organized religions.

When contenders for civil office begin malicious condemnation of whole other political parties – proclaiming that a vote for the opposition is a vote for “legislation of sin” – this castigation of candidates is a distance, twisted derivative of our secular country instituted by worldly men. Worldly men driven on the reliance of self-governance, not divine intervention.

Whether it is Islam, Christianity, Communism or imaginary alien invasions, human beings can always be brought to rally about a conflict-ridden cause with the simple tools of a symbolic flag, a book of faith, and one of the seven deadly sins, pride. Pride is by definition, "self-importance" and the antonym of "humility". Perhaps, in this time of immense blind nationalistic pride and hubris – and belief that as Americans we have a monopoly on the truth – we should all reach for a little dose of humility. There is always after all, the danger that when one protests so vehemently against which that they do not believe, they run the discourse, and therefore danger, of adopting and transforming into the very thing they detest so wholly.

So whose God is it anyway? It’s everyone’s God and no one’s God. Most of all its no one’s business whether you are an atheist, a theist, a deist, or a polytheist. Faith of the divine and sublime rests and exists in the minds of the individual spirit. It is the collective spirit of human courage and conviction that sometimes shows that realism, not mysticism, delivers us from a dark night and a dark time in history.

Electronic Voting Machines "Hack" off Democrat Jim Webb's Name from November Ballot!

By Frank J. Ranelli
Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Hacks, hackers and hacking off! How the right-wing machine and its “machines of voter mayhem” intend to steal your vote again by hacking off the Democratic candidate’s last name from the ballot!


As being reported by the AP press, Jim Webb, Democratic challenger for U.S. Senator in Virginia to Republican incumbent, George "Macaca" Allen, has had his last (Webb’s) name chopped off or "hacked" off by electronic voting touch-screen machines!

What is being called a "glitch" by Hart InterCivic spokespersons, three cities in Virginia -- Alexandria, Falls Church and Charlottesville -- will not properly display Jim Webb's name on the November ballot summary screen. Voters will only see 'James H. "Jim"' on the ballot, instead of James H. "Jim" Webb.

To make matters worse, the candidates will have "their party affiliations...cut off" even after navigating through the summary screen nearly blind. To put some perspective and clarity to this, in Alexandria, Falls Church and Charlottesville, Virginia, voters will not be able to recognize Jim Webb by his full name OR by his party’s affiliation!

The AP is also reporting, "Jean Jensen, secretary of the Virginia State Board of Elections, pledged to have the issue fixed by the 2007 statewide elections." How generous of her, to have the "issue" fixed by next year! In the mean time, unsuspecting voters, in these three cities, will show up on Election Day and not even find the name "Webb" on the ballot summary screen or be able to find Jim Webb’s party affiliation – Democrat – once they do find Mr. Webb’s full name.

That is correct; the vote stealing “black boxes” of 2004 are back with a new trick! Not only are the people designing and operating these machines “hacks”, not only do they allow their machines to be “hacked” into for political gain, now they program these dubious devices to “hack off” candidates names and party affiliations. Somehow, we are all supposed to believe – after all the deception in 2004 – that it is just another coincidence that it happened to a democrat – again!

Whether it’s just another “oversight” by the republican-owned and controlled electronic voting machine companies, or further proof of the malicious attempts by the GOP to suppress voter information and perpetrate election fraud, it is another glaring example of why these machines must be banned immediately.

That pungent odor now smelled in the air is some good ole’ hometown, Republican-cooked “thuggery” that is being dished up right under our noses. The same kind of mob-like voter suppression, disenfranchising and strong-arm tactics used in 2004 by the rapid Grand Old Party and their pack of hyenas in Ohio to deliver the vote to George W. Bush.

Besides the rancid smell of foul play, that sound you hear is a crunching noise; the crunching on the bones of Virginian, democratic voters by these hounds from hell hoping to chew up and spit out a win for Allen and his radial right agenda!

If the pen is truly mightier than the sword, then we should all write-off the failed experiment of neoconservative government, demand paper and pencil to vote and etch a valuable lesson into the consciousness of the American public – never underestimate your opponent, especially Republican ones!

Lying is legal, so says the Pentagon!

Press prevarications deemed legal by self-adjudicating Defense Department.


By Frank J Ranelli
Monday, October 23, 2006

At the behest of Senator Edward Kennedy, the Pentagon was recently asked to investigate the planting of “false” positive propaganda in Iraqi newspapers about the U.S. mission in Iraq. A company called the Lincoln Group was paid millions of dollars for printing, translating into Arabic and disseminating the propaganda.

Yes, that’s correct; a company called the Lincoln Group -- as in “Honest Abe” -- was hired to plant misinformation in Iraqi newspapers. The local Iraqi “fish wrap” turned out to be truly fishy! The irony of this is more than funny; it’s a perfect metaphor for describing the mockery that the Bush Administration has made of our own government.

Senator Kennedy’s request was taken very seriously. So seriously, that the Rumsfeld run Pentagon performed its own investigation into the matter by appointing an “internal watchdog!” Their own conclusion concerning their own actions: everything was perfectly legal!

Never mind the fact that the records keeping were so poor that the “investigator” could not make a determination as to whether or not the monies were awarded correctly or if the payments were made appropriately. No, the kicker is the Pentagon appointed itself to be judge and juror of its questionable and unethical planting of pro-American stories in Iraq!

Forget the truth! Things aren’t going as planned? No problem. Just whip out a few million, hirer a contracted “author assassin” to write blatantly false stories, engage in “psychological operations” to spread the gooey gospel and appoint the fox to guard the hen house, just in case.

Just exactly how does the planting of bogus news in newspapers fit into the whole idea that we are supposed to be spreading democracy and freedom to Iraq? I guess a free and independent press is not part of an Iraq democracy model. Kind of sounds like the old standby lie, “I didn’t tell you the truth because I didn’t want to hurt you!”

Then again, truth and standing up for democracy has never been one of the Bush Administration’s strong suites.

The Day Freedom Died: October 17, 2006

The Crowning of a king in America and how the repeal of habeas corpus ensured a dictatorship and not a democracy.

The Day King George Was Crowned...

Watch it!

The Burning Bush

Except this one has NO answers!

Watch it!

America: Dead-Democracy Walking

The apathy, silence and complacency of the 21st century American.

By Frank J. Ranelli
Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Part III of the "American Democracy in Crisis" Series.

:: ::

When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated we, as a nation, were suffering from some form of “moral confusion”, he was partially right. America is confused, but not morally in the sense that the dubious Secretary of Defense was crowing about. America is confused about its purpose, its civil duty, its foundation and what living in a democracy is all about.

America, and therefore Americans, is confused in relation to what our responsibilities are as stewards of our own government. While every leading poll indicates a deep resentment and distrust towards the current administration, for the most part, Americans have stood mute. Most proclaim to be too busy to notice or appear too self-absorbed in their own isolated cocoon at the dawn of the 21st Century. A bumper sticker from Seven-Eleven for 99 cents, which was made in China, and charged on a credit card, “ought to do the trick”, most say. A nod of approval to the few, brave, patriotic souls who actually do take action to bring about change are given a trite rousing of “keep up the good work” as the populous passes by on the way to Wal-Mart.

Our confusion as a society is merely an enhanced model of complacency, apathy and downright lethargy that has lead to a culture of complicity. While parading around our newly found patriotism stuck on the back bumper somewhere, a debt-ridden, natural resource-wasting, self-indulgent population has been suckered into a pre-occupation with adulation of material possessions at the expense of our own decorum and civic obligations. Civic silence always leads to consent and consent without opposition is a prologue to oppression leaving someone else to cast your vote and therefore, your fate!

While polemic pundits on Fox News banter away awash in propaganda, forcing an uninformed public to chose either “the red pill or the blue pill”, no one is noticing how deep the rabbit hole really does go. Average, “everyday Alice” is neither wondering or in wonderland. Alice, between American Idol and soccer practice is merely, deluded. Our “Alice”, like most of us, has bought the freedom for comfort and convenience idea that has been sold to us by the political hacks in Washington.

Like Stepford Wives, we have been programmed to sell our national birthrights for supposed safety while handing over liberty as payment to a nefarious government, which fails to represent anyone but big business and its profits. Congress continually trots out fringe, wedge issues, such as abortion and gay marriage amendments to the Constitution, while eschewing any real governance of our country. Genuine, meaningful legislation has been replaced by rampant pay-for-play politics, nauseating cronyism, perverse corruption and a legislative body that votes and marches in-line with the most unpopular President in American history.

The middle class is disappearing faster than acres of wetland in the rain forest, our government has moved from a democracy to an autocracy, heading towards dictatorship, and America ostensibly is “alright with it all.” Ambiguous authorizations of our military to wage wars against distance nations bridled by reasons that morphed at a moment’s notice, along with toxic bills that revoke habeas corpus and permit torture on the President’s whim are just “another day at the office” for people of the United States of America.

Through it all, we have become afraid of our own shadows, endorsed the subjugation and usurpation of basic, fundamental liberties in lieu of a security blanket that only masks a deeper national fracturing of our psyche. We, the American people, have enabled an abusive surrogate parent, in the form of a malicious government, to divide this nation in order to conquer it! We are prisoners of our own fear and it has come to this: “We the People” are on the brink of extinction, set for summary execution and are subject to be replaced by lords and masters, while the remaining few are relegated to mere serfs and vassals in a feudal system of American Kings.

In spite of our walk down the “green mile” as a nation, there is a diminutive, but growing hope that we will be granted an eleventh-hour stay of execution. Our death sentence may be commuted to life or even asylum granted by-proxy of a republican party that is enormously swollen with hubris and spilling over its embankment. The republican river of deceit and scandal has eroded its own banks through unrestrained control and given a weak opposition -- the democrats -- a chance to no longer look frail and ineffectual.

If America this November can set down the remote, crawl off the couch long-enough to vote some adversary back into the system, she just might have a fighting chance. If not, lady-liberty will continue to be abused by a misogynistic, spousal government and may have her torch extinguished forever. It has come to this America and now it’s up to you to decide if we make history or become history as a nation!

The Case for Impeachment: A Thunderous Cry for Bush’s Removal and Why!

By Frank J. Ranelli
Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Why the book, The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office, is a must read for every American of all political stripes and parties!

::

Richard M. Nixon, a president with imperial conquests of his own, once stated in 1973 that he failed to notice the 400,000 plus protesters outside the Whitehouse while he watched a ball game. Arrogance and an infallible belief that he was beyond the reach of not only those patriotic citizen’s redresses and grievances but the laws of this nation proved his political demise. Thirteen months later, amid lies, spying and scandal, Nixon resigned in order to stave off an inevitable impeachment that had already begun in the House Judiciary Committee.

Thirty years later, in a repeat of an imperial presidency, this time run amuck on steroidal injections of self-aggrandizing megalomania, George W. Bush has taken the idea of a tyrannical despot at the helm of the Executive Branch to dizzying heights and abject lows in America in the 21st century. Bush is not merely a President seeking to increase the muscle of the presidency; Bush’s defacto administration has all but neutered Congress, usurped civil rights at a breath-taking pace, and without a shred of credible evidence, lied his country in to war. Now that 2700 America soldiers are dead, 20,000 wounded and 100,000 plus Iraqi civilians has been slaughtered, Americans want to know why and what we can do about this appalling blight on our nations history and leadership.

Considering the Bush administration’s assault on our civil rights, the Constitution itself, American principles as we know it and rampant republican cronyism, there is no shortage of books to read that outline the worst Presidency in American history. In fact, there is a literal litany of them to read and depress one’s self over it all. The problem with such a plethora to pick from is you can’t read them all and many of them are either too dry, histrionic or too full of legal blather to bother with.

Enter David Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky and their book, The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office. Mr. Lindorff is a thirty-year veteran of journalism and Ms. Olshansky, an attorney, is the Director Counsel for The Center for Constitutional Rights. Together they achieve what few other books can on this subject can, mainly a lucid argument for removing the Bush cartel without boring the reader to death or burying them in lawyer lingo. Blending a mixture of just enough pragmatic history, clear-cut evidence and easy-to-understand legal language, the authors present a damaging case that clocks in under 275 pages, including the index and ample supporting documents.

After reading this all-important book that mitigates any remaining doubt as to why Bush should not be impeached, the overwhelming sentiment that most readers will walk away with is searing, seething anger. Angry at Bush, angry with Congress, and angry with ourselves as a nation for being so gullible. The book is charged with six impeachment articles of tenable and irrefutable evidence that Bush personifies exactly what the framers had in mind when they includes article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, which spells out the impeachment mechanism. Interlaced is a minor history lesson on why impeachment is healthy to a democracy and damning, empirical evidence that illustrates the massive deceit and nefarious deeds of our 43rd President.

Whether you need to wrap your mind around the cornucopia of criminality by Bush, or find a friend or family member still in denial and needs help grasping the grisly, grim truth about “Dubya”, this book does the trick in just ten easy chapters. While the Internet, through grassroots efforts, has given rise to a thunderous cry for Bush’s removal, The Case for Impeachment, gives a mainstream voice to a venal, virulent presidency and a deep demand for the people-powered recall of a would-be dictator.

This book is more than a legal case supposition; it’s an indictment, supporting evidence and a closing statement that would convince any jury to return a verdict of guilty in the first degree! If you read only one book on why George Bush has trespassed against this nation, trampled our rights, freedoms and rule of law, this book is it! The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office can be purchased through Amazon.com or through David Lindorff’s website, www.thiscantbehappening.net.

# # #

Impeach Bush Now!

Quote of the Day!

Frank J. Ranelli


"Silence is merely a prologue to complicity and complicity without resistance leads to oppression, for when you have chosen not to decide, your choice is still cast....a choice for someone else to decide your fate." -- Frank J. Ranelli

# # #

Ohio Republican "rats" scurrying to flee sinking GOP ship!

Frank J Ranelli


While Ohio Democrat Bob Shamansky hit it right with calling the GOP leadership "a moral and ethical sewer", Mike Dewine and Deborah Price continue their "Bush Bash" dance to distance themselves from Bush's sinking polls and the sinking GOP SS Titanic that's going down nose first.

Amazingly, according to the Columbus Dispatch this morning, Mike Dewine and Deborah Price suddenly got a case of "decency" and called for all House leaders involved in FoleyGate to resign. How quaint. There is only one thing worse than the sinking GOP ship: the rats scurrying over top of helpless passengers (citizens) to save their own flea-infested hides!

Still more incredible is this nugget from Mike DeWine, one day after we found out that he failed to show up for most of the Senate Intelligence Committee Hearings on Iraq, and then stated he would have voted different on the AUMF, if he had prior knowledge:

Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, who is in a tight battle for
re-election against Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown, said last night that "if anybody in the leadership had information and didn’t take the appropriate action with that information, then they’re going to have to resign."

Good advice Mike, you should follow it....and resign!

Lots More from the Dispatch, Foley scandal hits Ohio

Quote of the Day!

Frank J. Ranelli


"Absolute Power: Few have it, many want it and everyone fears it." -- Frank J Ranelli

A testament to show you how far our leaders have fallen.

Frank J Ranelli

This is a priceless description of the the magnitude of ineptitude and a testament to show you how far our leaders have fallen.

"It is remarkable that our fledgling nation of 3 million could produce leaders like Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson, and others to lead it. Today with 300 million we get Bush, Rumsfeld, Rove, Cheney, Perle, Chertoff, and Michael Brown." -- Anonymous

If there is a God, can you please send us the "Real President" named George?

Foley Turns Another Page!

Frank J. Ranelli



Former Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) interrupted a vote on the floor of the House in 2003 to engage in Internet sex with a high school student who had served as a congressional page, according to new Internet instant messages provided to ABC News by former pages.

ABC News now has obtained 52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys under the age of 18.

This message was dated April 2003, at approximately 7 p.m., according to the message time stamp.

Maf54: I miss you
Teen: ya me too
Maf54: we are still voting
Maf54: you miss me too

The exchange continues in which Foley and the teen both appear to describe having sexual orgasms.

Maf54: ok..i better go vote..did you know you would have this effect on me
Teen: lol I guessed
Teen: ya go vote…I don't want to keep you from doing our job
Maf54: can I have a good kiss goodnight
Teen: :-*
Teen:

The Kicker:

The House voted that evening on HR 1559, Emergency War Time supplemental appropriations.

::

This truly is turning another page on congressional immorality and Republican hypocrisy!

Confirmed: Condi was briefed by Tenet on looming attacks just before 9/11!

Frank J. Ranelli


The Ny Times is reporting that Condi Rice is lying, specifically that she in fact was briefed by George Tenet about the looming threat of a strike by Al Qaeda in 2001!

An excerpt:

A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman said Monday.

Condi's position:

Ms. Rice, the national security adviser at the time, said it was “incomprehensible” she ignored dire terrorist threats two months before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Facts:

Now, after several days, both current and former Bush administration officials have confirmed parts of Mr. Woodward’s account.

Officials now agree that on July 10, 2001, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, were so alarmed about an impending Al Qaeda attack that they demanded an emergency meeting at the White House with Ms. Rice and her National Security Council staff.

To read the whole account, read the article at the NY Times:
Records Show Tenet Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda Threat

# # #

Truly Unclaimed and Uncharted Territory!

Frank J. Ranelli


A thousand thoughts and no words best expresses how I feel after the past 48 hours. We have ceased to operate as a democracy and a dictatorship has begun. This is not hyperbole. Its fact. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 , H.R. 6166, became law and thus ended, or at best suspended, the right to America to function as a free republic. This bill, among many other things affords President Bush near unilateral and unfettered control over every person in the United States. (Below is the condensed version of how wicked this piece of legislation is.)

In the absence of my own words, I will use Glenn Greenwald's, of Unclaimed Territory, instead:

We are a country ruled by a President who has seized the power to break the law in multiple ways while virtually nothing is done about it. Yesterday, we formally vested the power in the President to abduct people and put them in prisons for life without so much as charging them with any crime and by expressly proclaiming that they have no right to access any court or tribunal to prove their innocence. We have started one war against a country that did not attack us and, in doing so, created havoc and danger -- both to ourselves and the world -- that is truly difficult to quantify. And we are almost certainly going to start one more war just like it (at least), that is far more dangerous still, if the President's Congressional servants maintain their control.

On that most somber of notes, for as long as this blog remains up, here, in a nut shell, is HR 6166:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

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Sanity Check, Please!

Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/opinion/28thu1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin