Quote of the Day!

Frank J. Ranelli


“Unfortunately, most people around our nation are still unaware of the massive subterranean usurpations against liberty and democracy that have been unknowingly mined beneath their very feet by the Bush administration.”

The absence of proof as God

A RUMINATION BY FRANK J. RANELLI


Religion is still the greatest threat to humankind’s own extinction. It is gravely disturbing that the ABSENCE OF PROOF is the clarion call for a large swath of sanctimonious supporters who believe a dubious figure of ancient canonical lore will magically appear, and soon, as a redeemer for the devoted few.

However, it is refreshing that an emergence of sanity – through a renaissance of rational-thinkers – has risen up in opposition to the religious, reactionary throng of certitude in mysticism as authenticity.

So many of us are duped into denial and deluded by proselytizers who indoctrinate us from life’s true reality. Therefore, I find it to be a prescient sign of the 21st century’s ‘movement realism’ that has begun to wholesale reject religion and the foolish optimism of mystic liberating deities.

Finally, a small but bonafided subset of critical and independent-minded thinkers have emerged to confront once-sacred canon as dubious and not beyond reproach. Thusly, the time has come to dispel the myths, lies, and duplicity of religion.

It is time for that “true reality” to be revealed – that god simply does not exist.

Quote of the Day!

Frank J. Ranelli

"Fascism drowns out all dissent through an unyielding demand to glorify the nation and militarism, juxtaposing allegiance to the state and devotion to divinity as requisite and one in the same. Thusly, deifying the 'homeland' and subjugating the civil liberties of the individual. This is, in a microcosm, the Bush doctrine."

George Bush’s Approval Rating Plummets to Just 19%

Clearly voicing their discontent for George W. Bush, Americans are now reaching historic levels of undisputed antipathy for America’s 43rd President. A new poll has Bush breaking a new nadir in presidential approval ratings, beating out Harry Truman’s 22% for the lowest support among Americans in the nation’s history.

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The latest American Research Group polling of how George W. Bush is conducting himself as President, in the eyes of the America people, is an historic, if not an abysmal low, at just 19% overall. An astounding 77% of those surveyed disapprove of Bush’s job performance. A full 79% of those sampled from February 16-19, were critical of how the President was handling the retreating economy.

Until Bush dipped below the 20% mark in this latest poll by the American Research Group, it was Harry S. Truman, in a Gallup Poll taken in February 1952, who previously held the worst presidential approval rating at just 22%.

Further demonstrating the dour mood of the country, 78% of Americans, more than three-fourths of the nation, believe the economy was getting worse and 47% are confident the country is in a full-blown recession.

The near unanimity among registered voters was that Bush was not getting the job done as president. Merely 18% found him to be successful in his duties and 78% gave him a failing mark. In addition, an astonishing and historically all-time low number of registered voters, just 15%, found Bush favorable in his ability to deal with the economic woes the country is currently facing.

Even amid registered Republican voters, Bush still failed to break through to a majority of supporters with only 45% of Republicans in favor of Bush’s job performance.

Independent voters matched the sour mood of the country as a whole with only 17% finding Bush to be satisfactory in his job achievements and 75% expressed displeasure for America’s 43rd President.

Democrats, who have been sharply acrid toward Bush for some time, showed their disdain for his perceived and mounting failures, voiced their undisputed discontent for Bush with 99% finding him unsatisfactory in his job.

Interestingly, among the disparate few who found favor with Bush’s abilities, only 1% believed the economy would approve with Bush in the White House. A certain sign that even Bush’s most ardent supporters believe he is incapable of restoring the economy from its current somber state.

Finally, of the 77% of Americans who disfavor Bush’s job as president, a full 85% stated that the national economy was bad, very bad, or even “terrible.”

The only optimism shown by those polled, indicated by a margin of 42%, feel the national economy will improve a year from now – when Bush will be out of office.

Coupled together with the Federal Reserve’s latest forecast that suggests the economy may weaken further still, with even higher inflation and unemployment rates, it appears unlikely that Bush, with less than a year in office left, will stand any chance of stirring any hope of buoyancy before the next president takes office in January of 2009.

Turning their back on the Constitution

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


Everyone take a good look at every one of these gutless, republican sycophants who, instead of representing the American people and the rule of law, staged a petulant, puerile walkout. Why? Because Pelosi and crew finally decided to stand up to their furor and act like a co-equal branch of government.

They have violated their oath to "support and defend the Constitution" and do not deserve to represent the American people. Come November, each and every on of these seditious Bush enablers should be voted out of office!

McCain Votes Against Banning Waterboarding, but Claims it is “Illegal”

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


Senator John McCain, the erstwhile prisoner of war, whose previous vehement opposition to torture stemmed from years of torment at the hands of the North Vietnamese, has voted against banning waterboarding while claiming it is illegal.

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As reported in the New York Times today, the Senate passed a measure by a vote of 51-45 to ban waterboarding and other “harsh interrogation methods.” The legislation had already cleared the House in December that would “limit all American interrogators to techniques permitted in the Army Field Manual on Interrogation.”

President Bush, threatening to veto the bill, drew harsh criticism from Democrats Charles Schumer and Senate Leader Harry Reid. In a salvo to prod Bush into signing the bill, Schumer exclaimed, “If the president vetoes intelligence authorization, he will be voting in favor of waterboarding.” While Reid proclaimed, “We are taking an important step toward restoring our moral leadership in the world. It is now up to the president to show his own moral leadership and sign this bill into law.”

However, self-proclaimed maverick and presumptive Republican nominee for President, John McCain, took a mercurial stance. McCain who was a prisoner of war during Vietnam for five years, and who was tortured while in captivity, voted against the banning of waterboarding.

McCain, claiming his support and vote for the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which gives the President the ability to approve harsh interrogations methods not in the Army Field Manual, provides proof his record is consistent with his views and voting record on torture.

Nonetheless, McCain seemed to contradict himself, telling one reporter, “Waterboarding is illegal and should be banned” and “the agency (the C.I.A.) must adhere to existing federal law and international treaties.”

The “Straight Talk Express” may be posing tough on terror, in an effort to shore up a shaky relationship with hard-line conservatives, but obvious prevarications, such as this, will do little to convince likely voters McCain is anything but an opportunistic politician who claims, when asked about potential political motives, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

Hillary Must Be the 'Right' Women President, not Just a Woman President

By Frank J. Ranelli

Barack Obama has registered ten straight caucus and primary victories, taking the inevitability out of Hillary Clinton’s campaign to win the White House. Many older female voters are now dismayed at the likely prospect of never seeing a woman president in their lifetime. But, is it Clinton’s gender or her politics that has sparked Obama’s incendiary ascent to front-runner status?

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As Sheldon Drobny, co-founder of Nova M radio and Air America Radio, points out in his article, Hillary Is Not Losing: Bill And The DLC Are, it is not necessarily or wholly Hillary, per se, that is causing the hemorrhage of support for her. It is her “DLC message”, using the infamous “triangulation strategy” of her husband and former president, Bill Clinton, during his campaigns of the1990’s. This simply does not resonate with today’s informed 21st century voters. The Al From centrist position and water carrier candidates of the “republican-lite” affiliation, which as one reader dubbed them, “easy-listening candidates”, seem dated if not totally anachronistic to the present political landscape.

Hillary Clinton and the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, represent an antiquated paradigm of politics. Americans want fresh, visionary leaders who inspire us to believe again, not wrap us up in constant intrigue and incessant fear that is is counterproductive to the issues of gravitas we face and must triumph over as a nation if we are to survive as a vibrant and productive society.

As Mr. Drobny poignantly illustrates, much of Hillary’s imminent demise is due to the faulty and fatal centrist campaign strategy she adopted. Yes, Senator Clinton has been maligned unjustly and unrelentingly by ignorant, partisan, and bigoted people who hate her merely for the purpose of hating her. She has also been the victim of baseless machinations over the past 15 years by limitless amoral Republicans and the target of mainstream media misogyny.

However, and I am speaking on a personal level now, at least in the primaries, I cannot in good conscience vote for Hillary Clinton. I have reviewed her positions on the issues and carefully vetted them each assiduously. Prima facie, there is substantive merit to argue she is a progressive and worthy candidate for the presidency. But, Hillary’s vote for the AUMF in 2002 – and subsequent refusal to admit she was utterly wrong – which was only made worse by her dissembling excuse during the last debate, is her very mortal Achilles heal.

Hillary’s contemptible announcement that "lobbyists are people too" reveals just exactly who she curries favors to – corporations over constituents. Not so coincidentally, her semi-cozy relationship with Rupert Murdoch of News Corp and Mark Penn, her chief strategist, who has ties to the odious mercenary firm Blackwater, does little to dispel the tepidness of many would-be Hillary voters.

Americans want a woman president, but she must be the right president. I find myself empathetic toward the plight that many women voters feel who may never see a female president in their lifetime. Nonetheless, we, as Americans, simply cannot vote for Hillary on the matter of gender identity alone, nor can we vote for her on sheer principle because she is simply female to settle a score.

Great leaders can be of virtually any persuasion, but that presumed greatness must be demonstrated by way of sound judgment. Hillary’s Iraq war vote – and it was a vote for war – was a profound mistake that I simple cannot overlook. And I do not buy into her endless practice of obfuscation as to why she voted for a wretched bill with inevitable and hopelessly tragic consequences.

Where I do agree, and I believe this is the seminal issue at hand, is that a McCain presidency must be absolutely avoided. Failure to prevent john McCain from becoming the 44th President of the U.S. is a pledge to delve this country into endless and more wars, ceaseless bloodshed and the abolishment of the middle class. A McCain presidency also guarantees more needless tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, while ensuring ending poverty and providing healthcare for all Americans will be banished from government discourse.

This was the message that John Edwards brought to the debate and into the limelight, making it a touchstone of the new Democratic message: Populism is back. It is a torch that for now is best carried and burns brightest within Obama, not Clinton. For it is not an issue of gender or race, during this 2008 race to the White House, but a matter of clarity in judgment, and the company she keeps, that renders Hillary unfit to be America’s first female President.

Pelosi and Reid Ratchet up their Campaign of Capitulation

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone Magazine gets it right:

"Elected to end the war, Democrats have surrendered to Bush on Iraq and betrayed the peace movement for their own political ends...Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have completed one of the most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain. At long last, the Democratic leaders of Congress have publicly surrendered on the Iraq War, just one year after being swept into power with a firm mandate to end it."

The really tragic thing about the Democratic surrender on Iraq is that it's now all but guaranteed that the war will be off the table during the presidentialcampaign. Once again — it happened in 2002, 2004 and 2006 — the Democrats have essentially decided to rely on the voters to give them credit for being anti-war, despite the fact that, for all the noise they've made to the contrary, in the end they've done nothing but vote for war and cough up every dime they've been asked to give, every step of the way.

Adding,

The Democrats have systematically taken over the anti-war movement, packing the nation's leading group with party consultants more interested in attacking the GOP than ending the war.

Their is no question that political hacks Pelosi and Reid have traded American lives for perceived political expediency. Beyond that grisly detail, the sad double irony here is that not only have the lives of Americans been needlessly ended by a warmongering President, but they may very well have been doubly wasted in a fruitless effort by a pair of narcissistic partisan sycophants who traded American blood and lives for a McCain presidency - guaranteed to mire us in a "100 years of war."

Quote of the Day!

Frank J. Ranelli

"If being liberal means critical thinking and informed dissent, instead of blind obedience and ignorant nationalism, then I am all for it!"

Quote of the Day!

Frank J. Ranelli

"The answer to fear is defiance."