Bush’s Great Bailout is Merely Fear Du Jour

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


Bush’s bail out of Wall Street is a leap into Robber Baron-style tyranny. Congress must reject this absolutist, radical proposal outright. Rewarding bad behavior on Wall Street, by theft of money obtained through taxpayers on Main Street, is more than perverse it is an insidious act of vile turpitude.

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Unfortunately, President Bush has once again fiendishly wielded fear as a bludgeon to subjugate and savagely browbeat Congress into handing him a blank check – a $700 billion blank check. In the fall of 2003, it was for the now unmitigated debacle in Iraq. Today, it is a diabolic attempt to seal the deal of The Treasury Department’s proposed bail out, which is a naked and obscene nod toward the largest transfer of wealth in human history.

As Americans, we have a diseased nation. It is sick with avarice and struck down by false flag fears. Today’s “fear du jour” is the transparent canard presented by President Bush and Treasury Secretary Paulson – that our economy will collapse if we, as a nation, do not act with enormous haste and waste billions of taxpayer’s dollars – immediately. This “me first” malignancy has infected everything over the past eight years from science and religion, to common sense and dignity, and now, fiscal restraint and legislative prudence. It is akin to a malignant cancer that grows exponentially until it kills off the host – society itself.

The revised bill Congress is crafting is simple another product built on a propagandist platform put forth by another breathtaking power grab by Bush – this time to aid Wall Street after it has plundered America; it is a distinction without a difference. This plan is not a $700 billion bail out for Wall Street, and it does little, if anything, for Main Street. It is an outright heist borne of an ostensible, yet untrue, exigent initiative that is purely a measure to exploit a coerced, stressed Congress and to extort American’s of our money and our future.

This is a dangerous, plenary power grab by the Executive Branch and would simply be legislative-approved despotism if passed in any form or fashion of its current incarnation. Congress must reject this absolutist, radical proposal outright, regardless of how it is larded up or whittled down. True patriotism and real reform must begin with each of us understanding we must help one another for the greater good of the nation. It is not bailing out irresponsible and reckless, colossal-sized corporate institutions that have insatiability fed at the trough of unregulated greed and avarice over the last eight years of Bush imperatives. Rewarding shocking and irresponsible behavior – to the tune of $700 billion – is a formula that emboldens, not condemns, more of the same financial plunder and excessive negligence.

We have seen this act before when America was wrongfully handcuffed into Bush’s war of choice in Iraq – a now six-year old, trillion-dollar abyss. The last time Congress rushed recklessly headlong into a dire demand from this administration, we were saddled with the Iraq war and false claims of total annihilation by a Third World, tin pot dictator who was thoroughly contained and never an imminent threat. This time, however, the smoking gun is purported to be an economic disintegration of America’s financial market, and the foreboding smoking gun will come in the form of another Great Depression.

The same eerie similarities between Bush’s run up to the Iraq war in 2003 – and the alleged 2008 meltdown on Wall Street are uncanny – the evidence is thin and the lies are obvious. The mushroom cloud never appeared, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, and Saddam was never in cahoots with Al Qaeda. In fact, the fuzzy logic behind this proposed blatant money grab for the rich can be summed up by what a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com last Tuesday: “It’s not based on any particular data point, we just wanted to choose a really large number.”

As evidence of the preposterous notion behind this ruse has caught the attention of many, the Washington Post reported on Friday, almost 200 academic economists "have signed a petition organized by a University of Chicago professor objecting to the plan on the grounds that it could create perverse incentives.”

Moreover, clarion calls from many notable experts are sounding the alarm and asking Congress to reject this bailout bill. To wit, NYU's Nouriel Roubini, the prophetic thinker who forecasted this meltdown, says “The Treasury plan (even in its current version agreed with Congress) is very poorly conceived and does not contain many of the key elements of a sound and efficient and fair rescue plan.” Harvard's Ken Rogoff, a Former Federal Rerserve and IMF official, insists that the prospect of this bailout is, unto itself, taking a manageable problem and making it into “a more intense crisis.”

It took us years to get this deep into our now-financial abyss; hence, we must be vigilant and exercise sound judgment in getting out. This is not a time for rapid-fire, extemporaneous reactions to a boiling-over pot that has been slowly simmering unwatched and headed toward disaster for years.

This cannot stand or America will certainly fall into the hands of further greed for a few, while the continuing diminishment of the prospect for a better future ahead for most will suffer dire, if not deadly, consequences. Therefore, we are all equally under attack and must not stand alone, but together in unanimity against Bush’s socialism for the rich at the expense of the American taxpayer.

It’s time we, as a nation, put people over profits and bail out the real victims – homeowners and families – and not the wealthy moguls on Wall Street.

Quote of the Day!

Frank J. Ranelli

“Unfortunately, they (Republicans) fiendishly wield religion as a bludgeon to subjugate or silence dissent while they eviscerate any force or form of an egalitarian society that puts people first. Ergo, the unmitigated debacle we now have in Washington that is as dysfunctional as it is diabolic. Democrats are inept and weak, while Republicans are corrupt and nefarious.” – Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Cafferty File: High Time We Impeach Bush & Cheney!

Watch it!

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!

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."

Bush one point away from tying worst-ever approval rating for a president

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


76-percent of Americans now believe President Bush to be irrelevant and deem we should “throw the bums out" this next election cycle!


According to the latest Reuters/Zogby poll, President Bush’s approval rating now stands at a near historic low of 24-percent. Only Richard Nixon – shortly before he resigned in disgrace over Watergate in August of 1974 – had a more dismal approval rating of 23-percent.

Furthermore, 66-percent of this nation thinks we are heading in the wrong direction as a country and say the mood of the nation is “bleak.”

The survey of 991 adults included a strong indication of just how dismayed Americans are with the current government. Would-be-voters described their attitude towards Bush and Congress as simply “throw the bums out” and that Bush is now entirely “irrelevant.”

America’s acrid taste for its government was further illustrated by marks given on the Bush administration’s foreign policy stance, of which, only 18-percent approve of and gave it high marks. Adding, “Americans are giving up on this government."

Longtime pollster John Zogby summed up American’s soured outlook for their government by stating, "They tell us (Zogby) they want action on health care, education, the war and immigration, but they don't believe they are going to get it."

Bush administration was either incompetent or is guilty of malfeasance

Frank J. Ranelli


George Bush has been likely caught in another lie, another cover up, and another scandal. One that may debunk his entire justifications for violating FISA, or worse yet, show that the 9/11 attacks were not prevented due to gross incompetence!

Bush simply can't have it both ways.

Impeachment, not immunity, or blank war checks,without aggressive congressional checks and balances, is more warranted than ever now. As first reported on Daily Kos, and summarized by Bob Fertik on Democrats.com, the Bush administration has been pursuing dragnet data mining operations well in advance of September 11, 2001. Of course, once again, Bush has been mendacious and totally erroneous about when the illegal warrantless wiretapping began and for what purpose.

Quoting Mr. Fertik,

“This week Joseph Nacchio, the former CEO of Qwest, revealed the Bush Administration started muscling telephone companies to wiretap American citizens without a warrant on Feb. 27, 2001. When Qwest refused, they were cut out of government contracts and Nacchio was prosecuted for insider trading.

So we now know Bush began violating FISA and the 4th Amendment just 1 month after stealing the White House. And since the 9/11 attack was 7 months later, Bush has lied about 9/11 being the justification for warrantless wiretapping for the past two years.”

Therefore, Bush either lied about the program’s intended purpose or the program failed to prevent the 9/11 attacks! At this point, Joseph Nacchio’s revelation strongly suggests that the Bush administration was either grossly incompetent on September 11, 2001, which negates any and all claims that the warrantless wiretapping has, or continues to, prevent any terrorists attacks at all. Otherwise, it has been involved in a Watergate-like abuse of power for nefarious reasons over the past six-plus years.

Impeachment, not future elections, is the only way to halt this runaway exploitation of claimed plenary power by President Bush.

The Fading of America: Failing our children, funding a president's war

By FRANK J. RANELLI


George W. Bush, just days after heretically eulogizing Monday as "Child Health Day", turned around silently and glibly vetoed a bill to aid millions of children through subsidized healthcare. The insincerity is more than real; it is now potentially lethal to millions of vulnerable children.

Part V of the "American Democracy in Crisis" series.


Is anyone else feeling the intense hypocrisy, the thick, cold heartlessness of denying the cries of powerless and defenseless children? George W. Bush, just days after heretically eulogizing Monday, October 1, 2007, as "Child Health Day", turned around quietly and glibly vetoed a bill to aid millions of low-income children through subsidized healthcare. No cameras or media were present for this brutal act of callous cruelty that was carried out like a stealthy thief under the cover of night. The insincerity is more than real; it is now potentially lethal to millions of vulnerable children and their struggling families.

The nauseating duplicity does not sufficiently affix what has been perpetrated by Bush in vetoing this bill. The outright gall to offer empty, rank rhetoric and then fiendishly denying healthcare for millions of low-income children falls beyond deceit and lands on the edge of treachery.

This "President in perfidy" is a lifeless sociopath who posses the audacity to veto a bill -- one in support of expanding an essential program to aid millions of children -- yet will look Congress dead in the eye and demand $190 billion more to fund endless aggression, death, mayhem and global hegemony. All of this madness is at the cost of the American taxpayer's wallet to fund continually senseless war, and the cost of so many children losing their healthcare is the loss of our collective conscience to demand morally what is principled and right.

Reciting dismal polls, writing scathing articles, acts of civil disobedience, demonstrations for redresses, outrage, disgust, contempt, disdain, and letters to Congress are simply no longer enough. America, as a unified whole, must set forth and take swift action to end the reign of a tyrannical presidency gone dreadfully awry.

When we as a nation presumably allow war and degenerate crimes against humanity to be prioritized and sanctioned over the health or our posterity, then we as a nation have not only lost our footing, but have slipped beneath the very foundation of what this nation once emblemized. No longer are we the nation that claims to ask the world, "Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free." We have become the nation of the "coalition of cowards" and the "coterie of complicit" that finds rejecting over 4 million children access to healthcare as "politics as usual." All it takes, as it has been said, for evil to take root, is for good and decent men and woman to stand by and do nothing. Right now, at this very moment, we are doing just that -- nothing.

We are a nation of 303 million people now. Yet, somehow, we have allowed 536 diminutive-minded, self-centered, grotesquely egotistic individuals to commandeer our values, our principles, and now our nerve to stand and fight for the wellbeing of helpless kids. We huddle in angst; we sigh in antipathy, and then quietly permit 535 subversive members of our very own Congress -- and one demonic, inhumane megalomaniacal maniac -- to brush our booming voices aside with the single, sickening sweep of a pen.

Saying, "enough!" is simply no longer enough. Massive malfeasance must be fought with radical new measures to combat and strike at the heart of the malignancy that has inflicted the entire body of our democracy now. If we as a nation are to exist beyond the ephemeral moment in time, then the time has arisen to take a stand, and to stand against the Bush doctrine and its merciless machinery of cold-blooded coronation of a tyrant!

At the behest of all that is sane, reasoned, and vital to fight for the survival of our sovereign nation and its future, we must demand, be forever resolute, and ensure that George W. Bush is forced to resign immediately. Forget the idea of impeachment. Anything short of George Bush immediately resigning will codify into law and write his reprehensible deeds into the historical annuls of precedence for all future Presidents to prey upon.

If we are to survive as a nation, and to resemble again anything close to that which the founders of this country envisioned, then we must accept America is in grave peril. And this time the casualties are not only unwitting soldiers unjustly caught in a deadly game of Risk, but that which we cherish and have fought for the most for over 200 years in existence. Children, above all, are the hopes, dreams, and future of our nation. If we cannot muster a modicum of decency, without bitter, partisan divisiveness, then hope will certainly fade for countless children, as it will fade for America, too.

Congressman Duncan Hunter’s Message to Universities, “Be Patriotic, or Else!”

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter brazenly attacks the world of academia, insistent on legislating an Orwellian doctrine and desires to return McCarthyism and blind nationalism to governing by censoring the thoughts of the American people.


Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA), a textbook authoritarian and uncritical sycophant for the Bush administration, has been consistently aiding rabid Republicans in reaching new party nadirs. Now we can add xenophobic, blind nationalist, and adversary to dissent to his growing and disturbing resume of Orwellian penchants.

Hunter has torn a page out of Orwell’s, 1984, and Bradbury’s, Fahrenheit 451, and pasted them neatly and expediently together. The Congressman has introduced legislation, H.R. 3675, with the expressed stated purpose to, “prohibit Federal grants to or contracts with Columbia University.” Mr. Hunter believes quite vehemently, by virtue of his pending bill, that by cutting off all federal funding to Columbia University will, “restore patriotism to university campuses.”

The motivation behind this brazen act of McCarthyism is self-evident. Congressman Duncan Hunter disagrees with Columbia University’s invitation that allowed the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to speak to its students. The implications behind such an anti-democratic proposed law -- that we should deny disparate views from being heard, by way of banning unfettered access to those a few may disagree with -- are preposterous and lethal to independent thought. Such a bill is also purely antithetical to the very foundations of the free and open society we rightly enjoy.

Moreover, Hunter’s overt attempt at stemming dissent, using euphemistic vernacular such as “restore patriotism” more than tidily falls under the umbrella of fascist ideologies that aim to suppress academia and critical-thought. Independent judgment, as evident by Mr. Hunter’s proposed edict, is independent of, and irreconcilable with, a person or establishment’s patriotism. Hunter’s delusional and quite obtuse observation is that one’s love of their country must include the love of their government and its current policies.

This is more than repudiation by Congressman Hunter of the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; this is an assault on all dissension by proxy of right-wing, American chauvinism. Hunter’s deceptive and veiled syntax -- which feebly attempts to hide the insidious nature of such a proposal -- fails to prevent the obvious conclusion that this is an effort at unadulterated censorship via threats of cutting off subsidy to schools.

The paranoia in Hunter’s bill is palpable. The Orwellian overtones are conspicuous. There is more than a minor allusion to Bradbury’s book-burning society that believes ignorance and compliance are compulsory to stability. Nuances are to be shunned, vagaries are shirked, and violators of American reverence are to be punished.

Hunter’s perverse veneration -- that by law only people and ideas by which the U.S. government consents is acceptable -- is a twisted, conflated effort of draconian law and totalitarian governing. Using dissembling language that cloaks the true intent, Hunter ineptly tries to define “patriotism” as utter loyalty to a Big Brother government.

Wholly advocating derailment of enlightenment through diverse educational experiences, the Congressman from California, in an act of sad irony, invokes the USA Patriot Act to make his case for denying universities federal funding. Under Section 3(a) of his Restore Patriotism to University Campuses Act, Hunter draws together in a loose, but covert fashion that by allowing Ahmadinejad to speak to college students is, “Permitting State Terrorist Access to Campuses.”

This type of legislative, theatrical dogma plays on the “giving aid and comfort to the enemy” Bush theme. One could logically conclude that Hunter’s next legislative act includes a draft to name all those present during Ahmadinejad’s speech are to be labeled as “enemy combatants.”

This is more than a disingenuous and dangerous attempt to monopolize the truth and to sequester informed debate. Hunter’s unscrupulous act of accusing anyone who does not agree with the Congressman as disloyal is blatant censorship. The bill Hunter is proposing more than smacks of the “Red Scare”, Joe McCarthy era. Instead, Hunter has reawakened McCarthyism and has simply replaced the fear of Communism with Terrorism as the scapegoat enemy of consternation.

In Duncan Hunter’s illusionary view, touchstones of American democracy, such as freedom of speech, the right to assemble, and even liberty itself, must take a back seat to unwavering obedience to the state and marshal in hyper-nationalism. Anyone who dares to fall out of line, ceases to goose-step, or questions Big Brother are undesirable seditious contemptibles, who must suffer the wrath of an autocratic and unforgiving government.

Fortunately, the House referred this loathsome bill to the Committee on Education and Labor, where it will likely die an ignoble death. Mr. Hunter has every right to his opinion, and every American has the right to dissent from that opinion. However, Congressman Hunter, in his single quest for a complacent and Orwellian society, would be wise to ponder the notion that no entity or person has a patent on patriotism.


Correspondent Lindsay D. Riggs contributed to this article.

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Source: H.R. 3675: To prohibit Federal grants to or contracts with Columbia University, http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-3675

Dystopian and Dysfunctional, Senate “Expresses the Sense” that Critical Thought Must Be Censured

FRANK J. RANELLI


While Republicans can openly and with applause deny soldiers equal rest at home for equal days in hell, the Democrats, gutless and apprehensive, are once again lulled into interpreting “supporting the troops” means suppressing dissent and kowtowing to Bush’s brood of enablers.

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Bush sycophant, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, through his absurd Senate Amendment 2934, took out his zealous militarism and ire on Moveon.org for the group’s questioning of the neutrality of General Petraeus’ report last week on Iraq through a newspaper ad.

The amendment states “To express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces.” It passed by a vote of 72 to 25, with 22 Democrats joining bloodstained hands in this shameful exercise that makes a mockery of democracy.

The same Senate that can't assemble enough compassion to restore Habeas Corpus, or provide weary troops with enough rest and time to spend with their families, implausibly found the time to condemn and deride a popular anti-war message that a clear 72-percent of Americans now find agreeable.

Interestingly, Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd voted against this revile bill, yet Joe Biden and Barack Obama abstained from voting. Further, not one Republican broke ranks or voted against Cornyn’s jingoistic rant, while the Democrats fractured and scattered to three different corners.

What the Senate did today, in a sickening, sad salvo, was abandon all philosophies of independent thought and ridiculed any encroachment of skepticism. Foolishly, and quite transparently, the Senate vainly attempted to hide that General Petraeus’ report was little more than a political stunt by the White House. Petraeus’ day on Capitol Hill was also an inane exploit to whip up, yet again, false patriotism for a failed and now perfectly hideous war of agressision and occupation of a foreign land.

Senate Amendment 2934 is analogous to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which aimed to smother disapproval of John Adam’s Quasi-War with France. Cornyn’s act of blind loyalty is far more seditious than any newspaper ad that brings into question an unconvincing and dubious speech by a military general turn partisan hack for a flailing Bush administration.

Visions of Ray Bradbury’s character Guy Montag, the anti-intellectual fireman, who is the central protagonist in Bradbury’s enduring book Fahrenheit 451, should instantly comes to the reader’s mind. As should Faber, Fahrenheit 451’s ex-English professor who knows the wrong in his world but is too fearful to act. Montag, through chance fate with a little girl, begins to understand that mindlessness and totalitarian governments are the true shackles of ignorant oppression, not books, contemplation or vagaries about human life.

Unfortunately, Montag’s courage to finally speak the truth is a lesson Democrats can’t seem to grasp. In the meantime, Cornyn’s uncritical loyalty demonstrates his authoritarianism is uncompromising and bitterly immovable to the end.

Perhaps the suggestive narrative Bradbury finally hints at, that Montag’s world suffers a total collapse and must be rebuilt from scratch, is a direction America must move in before we all awaken to the detrimental elements of elective tyranny that disgracefully shrouds all of us now.

Pelosi's Gavel Proves to Wield Little Power to End Conflict in Iraq

Amid disingenuous half-truths, an obvious penchant to submit to Bush’s resolve to indefinitely stay in Iraq, and now cobbled together excuses instead of results, Nancy Pelosi has shown little true grit to exercise Congress’ ability to end the bloodbath in Iraq.

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Yesterday, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, condemned Bush’s failed occupation in Iraq as “a path to 10 more years of war in Iraq.” Claiming, “The American people long ago rejected the President’s plan to stay in Iraq,” Pelosi additionally called General Petraeus’ report “endless war” and a “status quo” sales pitch for a permanent footprint in Iraq.

The newly dubbed “Bush-Petraeus plan” is neither innovative or a new strategy to wind down an unfounded and once wholly avoidable war of aggression. This continued shell game to run out the clock on Bush’s tragic presidency only brings troop levels in Iraq back down to the pre-surge level of 130,000 troops by April of next year. The proverbial goal post has once again been moved another six months down the battlefield.

After 54 months of hostilities, No WMD’s, nine shifting rationales to stay in Iraq, and a tragic story of hubris and obstinacy, Bush has escorted our country in a vicious, and now complete, deadly circle. We have arrived empty-handed at where we began, with an ill-advised pre-emptive war, based on flimsy and manipulated intelligence, minus nearly 3,800 American soldiers and half a trillion dollars futilely spent.

Sobering facts in hand, Americans in near unanimity, voted for Democrats in 2006 to take the reigns of power in Congress and end Bush’s misbegotten adventure in the Middle East. Since then, using only paper tiger arguments and toothless legislation, the Democratically-led Congress has accomplished little more than symbolic gestures in an attempt to please a vastly emergent anti-war base that handed them an historic election victory just ten months ago.

Equally content to merely watch the sand in Bush’s hourglass run out, Pelosi has turned to a dangerous political game of “blame Bush” and hollow rhetoric. The Speaker’s website, The Gavel, crafts spurious allegations that it is Bush’s veto pen, and a lack of a super-majority in the Senate, that is the reason Congress is unable to fulfill their election promise to America. This is the penultimate, intolerable excuse for being unable to deliver a mandate to President Bush to cease hostilities in Iraq.

However, the definitive, insufferable failure on Speaker Pelosi’s part is her statement that the Bush-Petraeus plan is “an insult to the intelligence of the American people.” To the contrary, Bush has bullied, lied, and been outright indifferent to the demands of the American people. It is Pelosi’s dissembling, amid a tempest of empty vitriol indicting Bush for Congress’ failures, which is the damning insult to our intelligence.

Nancy Pelosi’s invective to America’s wisdom began when she took impeachment “off the table” and ended when she commenced funding Bush’s illegitimate war. America is no longer only insulted by Pelosi’s inactions, but increasingly angry and restive.

In truth, it is not Bush’s veto pen or the lack of votes in Congress causing a deadly, failed foreign policy to drag on into its fifth year. It is Speaker Pelosi’s acquiescence and incompetence that is the centerpiece of culpability and the reason why we are still expending blood and dollars in Iraq.

As Speaker of the House, Pelosi ultimately determines what legislation is, or is not, brought to the floor in the House. As such, she has no constitutional directive that demands she allocate any further funding for Iraq. No legislation is requisite. No vote is necessary. All that is bluntly needed is for Pelosi to say “no” to Bush, and “You have the money to bring the troops home.”

Sadly, Nancy Pelosi, America’s first female Speaker of the House, has chosen the path of least resistance. She has failed to heed the clarion call of America to put a stop to virtually five years of circular madness. In the end, it is Pelosi’s continual capitulation to political pressure and propaganda from a deeply unpopular President, which will render the gravest consequences of all to America for years to come.

Senator Voinovich, are you watching?

Watch it!

Former Ohio AG Jim Petro Likely to be Replacement for Deborah Pryce in OH-15

BY FRANK J RANELLI


In the wake of the current Republican D.C. mass exodus, that now includes Ohio’s own favorite Bush toady, Deborah Pryce; it appears that former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro (R) will try his sorry hand at yet another republican political run. This time, for Pryce’s soon to be vacated and soiled congressional seat.

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Republican Jim Petro, the former Attorney General for Ohio appears to be the heir-apparent candidate to replace the sycophantic Deborah Pryce as the Republican Party’s candidate for Ohio’s 15th District. Petro is infamous for successfully arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court for the State of Ohio’s right to uphold the banning of late-term abortions in 2005. He then lost the Republican nomination race for Governor to ultra corrupt, then-Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. The Columbus Dispatch is now reporting that he is the most likely person to follow Pryce.


Given Petro’s observable penchant as a typical republican, he too spuriously claims republicans want a smaller and less intrusive government. He then proceeds to climb into a woman’s womb to stake an American Flag and plant a Bible, which would only signify “more of the same shenanigans” to be expected if Petro were elected to Congress.


Petro, in 2006 was unable to beat out the mega-crooked, preacher turned politician, Kenneth Blackwell – of Ohio voter suppression fame – for the Governor’s nomination to the Republican Party. This clearly illuminates how far-right and out-of-touch Petro is; he could not even muster enough support to supplant Blackwell as the Republican Governor nominee.


When Kenneth Blackwell is seen as the lesser of two evils for republican voters, just exactly how bad are you? Keep in mind that Ted Strickland (D) obliterated Blackwell in the general election for Ohio’s Governorship last year. A poll at the Columbus Dispatch might just clue us in on the answer. The poll entitled, “Would you prefer Jim Petro or Mary Jo Kilroy to replace Rep. Deborah Pryce in Congress?” shows Mary Jo Kilroy a clear winner by 18 percent over Jim Petro. While the poll is far from scientific, it does provide a glimpse as to how unpopular and untrustworthy Petro is to Ohioans.


Consider these facts: Petro, after leaving his post as Ohio’s Attorney General, failed to garner enough support for the Republican Party Nominee in 2006 for the Governor’s post, and now can’t even gather enough republican backing to represent a solitary congressional district!


The very last thing needed in Ohio’s 15th district is another republican representative in Congress. America and Ohioans have overwhelmingly had enough of obsequious, warmongering, goose-stepping, and genuflecting Bush toadies in the people’s House of Government. Pryce has voted in total synchronicity with the Republican Party and George W. Bush virtually every time. Pryce has always been about choosing her party over the people. Jim Petro would assuredly commit to the same acts of blind deference just as Pryce has done for Bush since 2001. Ronald Reagan previously demonstrated and said that government is the problem, and then Republicans go about proving just that.


Deborah, Ohio and America will not miss you; you will gleefully be added to the virtual graveyard of botched political conservative ground crawlers, right next to Dennis Hastert, Tom Delay, Karl Rove, et al. The only grave markers you might find in the midst of our virtual necropolis from the Bush Era conservative failures would be annotated as such: Do not exhume, dangerous to democracy!


Jim Petro, it appears, already has one foot in the political grave.


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Correspondent Lindsay D. Riggs contributed to this article.

A Message for the ‘Dirty 41’ who voted FOR the Bush changes to FISA

BY FRANK J RANELLI

America is headed on a fast track of elective tyranny, fostered by a cowering and once-again trembling legislative branch. The seemingly uninterrupted, expansive powers that Congress continually acquiesces to President Bush have downgraded Congress to being merely a Ceremonial Branch of our government.

James Madison, acutely aware of the dangers of any form of authoritarianism stated, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judicial in the same hands, whether of one a few or many, or whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Remember, the very despotic powers that you, as a member of Congress continue to grant freely to President Bush, may someday in turn be used to usurp your very own liberties or rights to live in a free and sovereign society.

History has taught us, as recently as the Bush Administration’s egregious behavior, disdain for Congress and the rule of law, that once power is wholly consolidated, those who aided in the establishment of a totalitarian government by achieving unconstrained authority may themselves become enemies of, or victims of, the very police-like state they helped create.

Please, think about what you are doing to all of us, including yourself and you family next time you decide to mistakenly vote to give President Bush more unconstitutional and despotic powers!

A Prescient Thought to Ponder, Especially for Republicans

By Frank J. Ranelli


A Bush proclivity for secrecy, a reputation for arrogance and power grabs, and openly flouting the rule of law has one conservative Republican asking, “Do we candidly desire reaping what we have sown over the past six-plus years?”

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A short article entitled, More Bush-Congress court fights likely, is an interesting and contemplative piece highlighting the aggressiveness and smugness – including outright hubris – of the Bush Administration’s transgression of, and secretive standards by, a belligerent and confrontational President, that far exceeds Nixon’s pugnacious approach, has operated under since January 20, 2001.


Contained within this brief but telling essay, by Associated Press writer Charles Babington, is a keen and perceptive quote from Bruce Fein, the former associate deputy attorney general throughout the Reagan administration.


"The Bush administration is close to reducing Congress to wallpaper, when it comes to oversight, if Congress does not respond" more forcefully, he said. Republicans, he added, may come to regret the precedents that Bush is asserting. "I tell my Republican friends that Hillary Clinton will be the president some day," Fein said. "They just don't get it."


Fein, a strong conservative and constitutional lawyer, also recently spoke to Bill Moyers on PBS about Bush’s power grabs and over-reaching, calling for his (Bush’s) impeachment, critically reminded Moyers and us all why the Founders fittingly feared an unchecked executive by stating, “Men are not angels. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition to avert abuses or tyranny. The Constitution embraced a separation of powers to keep the legislative, executive, and judicial branches in equilibrium.” That “equilibrium”, or symmetry and balance, has been vilely attacked and to a great extent neutralized under the Bush Administration. Abuse indeed, has been bountiful.


Of course, Fein is reminding the Republicans, and their supporters, of the old axiom that quips, “Be careful of what you wish for; for someday you may actual receive it”. Moreover, by abdicating and bequeathing many of Congress’ co-equal capacities under the Constitution to Bush, that this continued genuflecting to an egocentric, deeply unpopular President may likely be returned in kind, in the very near future. And the Republicans may find the fruits of their disgracefully obsequious labor to be a very fetid orchard crop of ill-advised deference once an exchange of power ensues.


Power only has as much clout and muscle, by that which it is given by those who bow or consent to it. In addition, power, no matter how seemingly omniscient and enduring is only immortal for an exceedingly limited time. No matter how consolidated, power habitually and frequently changes hands. When it does, the invertebrates that acquiesced and yielded to a flawed fallacy of permanent supremacy – and helped bring it about – always tend to have a rude and unpleasant revelation.


Recipients of power through overturn then tend to use the very monopoly of authority that the previous preponderance of blind ambition errantly and extemporaneously built, by relegating the erstwhile primacy to the minority, and therefore the retributive target of, the new pre-eminence. History is replete with examples of terrible and devastating consequences of such precarious power plays and shifts for omnipotence rule.


What Bruce Fein is suggesting, in fact pleading for, is for Congress to act as a whole and synchronous body of our Government, in the interest of our Nation, and not continue this sycophantic behavior to a supercilious Executive bent on an imperial presidency. To prolong doing so begets the very question Fein posited in his very quote above for all Republicans (and perhaps the rest of us) to deliberate, “Do you genuinely desire the near unmitigated and proto-despotic powers Bush has defacto claimed in the hands of President Hillary Clinton?”

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich Eviscerates Bush, Calls War on Terror “Phony”

BY FRANK J. RANELLI
Friday, August 03, 2007

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The contentious and conservative, erstwhile Speaker of the House bemoans how Bush has helped America become a country that is “no longer serious”, harshly criticizes the Bush administration's handling of terrorist groups, calling the war on terror “phony”, and claims hyper-partisanship is a “stupid way to run a country”.


In an extraordinary and stinging repudiation of Bush’s phantom war – the so-called “War on Terror” – former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, justifiably pronounced Bush’s apparent and failing exercise of nation building in Iraq as a “phony” war.

Quoting Gingrich, who was attending and speaking at the National Conservative Student Conference in Herndon, Virginia on Thursday, “the Bush administration is waging a ‘phony war’ on terrorism”, and “there is no evidence that we are winning this war”.

Gingrich, the architect of the Republican Revolution in 1994, which swept Republicans into Congressional power for thirteen years, before the historic, mid-term election of 2006 thrust Democrats back into control, is no ally of the left. However, Gingrich, due do his deep conservative roots, makes his admonishment of Bush’s failing foreign policy and flawed, mock war especially cutting and acerbic.

Signifying just how out of touch Bush’s energy policies are with Americans, and especially his own political party, the former Speaker declared, the U.S. needs a “national energy strategy aimed at weaning the country from its reliance on imported oil and some of the regimes that petro-dollars support”.

In his strongest chastising and chiding of the Bush years, Gingrich, referred to the autocracy years from 2001-2007, when the Republicans controlled both branches of Congress and the White House, as a time where “I don't think you can look and say that was a great success”.

Further illuminating on Bush’s crippling and abortive war of futility in Iraq, Gingrich lamented on how America “took on Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany” and “beat all three in less than four [years]”, yet somberly, Gingrich staidly pointed out that “we're about to enter the seventh year of this ‘phony war’...and we're losing”.

Whilst Newt Gingrich is an antithetical ideologue of a progressive America, who once shut down the government for 28 days during the Clinton years, he has managed a small, token gift to the left; he has properly proffered the best analogy for what Bush’s seven-year ‘war on terror’ is: “Phony”.

Censuring Bush Is Not Enough!

An open letter to Senator Russell D. Feingold, of Wisconsin, highlightling the ineptitude of censuring the president and why impeachment is the proper instrument for accountability.


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Tuesday, July 24, 2007


The Honorable Russell D. Feingold
United States Senate
506 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-4904
DC Phone: 202-224-5323
DC Fax: 202-224-2725


Dear Senator Feingold,


With all due respect and support for restoring the rule of law, if these transgressions (listed below) are not impeachable, what usurpations do rise to the level of a High Crime? Is impeachment optional in the face of such blatant and incontrovertible evidence, or does not the Constitution stipulate Congress must act?

Bush/Cheney Offenses:

- The assertion that Iraq was linked to al-Qaeda;
- The claim that Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction that threatened the U.S.;
- The knowingly false declaration in the 2003 State of the Union Address that Saddam Hussein tried to purchase yellow-cake uranium from Niger;
- Insufficient war planning;
- The failure to protect troops and preserve the military;
- Fiscal mismanagement of the war.
- The implementation of the illegal, domestic wiretapping program and for misleading the American people regarding the legality of the warrantless program;
- The use of military commissions;
- Redefining torture;
- The politicization of the U.S. Attorney scandal;
- The refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas.

The only proper instrument for accountability -- when a president becomes despotic in his actions -- is impeachment, trial, and removal for failure to respect and honor the Constitution and faithfully execute the laws of the land.

Impeachment is a just and necessary remedy and I disagree that it takes away from other work Congress should and can be doing. When you have a president who openly flouts and disobeys the law, intentionally attempts to erase the separation of powers of our tripartite government and assume dictatorial powers, no work, as has been the case so far, except for the minimum wage bill, will be accomplished!

Here's the simple reason why: No matter what legislation Congress passes, Bush will veto it, ignore it, or add a dubious “signing statement”, making unilateral claims he may ignore it or claim the bill is "unconstitutional", plainly bypassing the judicial process of the Supreme Court, as well. As many historians have appropriately point out, not even King George III of England had or assumed these kinds of tyrannical powers.

I fully understand that impeachment starts in the House of Representatives, but it is also your solemn duty, as much as it there's, to ensure the Constitution is respected and the laws of the land rule our country, not an imperial president who ignores them or invalidates them.

Censuring Bush and Cheney is a start, but there must be far more significant consequences for these abuses of power, or the actions of Bush and Cheney will simply become historical precedence for future abuses by future presidents, Republican or Democratic.

The fabric of democracy is feeling the strain and we must unburden our country from a despotic president and a dangerous vice-president who uses fear and subjugation to rule by and not the rule of law to govern our nation.



Frank J. Ranelli

STEP INTO THE MORASS

An open letter to Senator George Voinovich, of Ohio, highlightling the gravity our troops face in Iraq and what he MUST do to help end it.

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Thursday, July 19, 2007


The Honorable George Voinovich
United States Senate
524 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-3503
Phone: 202-224-3353
Fax: 202-228-1382


Dear Senator Voinovich:


ABC News recently ran a four-minute video clip entitled, Exclusive Look at Soldiers on the Front Line, illuminating the enormity and misery in Iraq. Here is what one soldier, Specialist Michael Vassell, had to say:

"I challenge anybody in Congress to do my rotation... Because we have people up there in Congress with the brain of a two-year-old who don't know what they're doing...I challenge the president to ride along with me for 15 months."

This rare, candid, and somber video confirms, in lurid and stark details, of the daily horrors and despair that U.S. soldiers and Iraqis face together, while President Bush prosecutes his ceaseless 'War on Terror" in Iraq.

The casualties in this video include, six U.S. soldiers burned to death in an up-ended Humvee from an IED, an old woman's wits; whose tears and shrieks of terror echo eerily in your mind long after the video stops, and finally a taxi cab driver erroneously shot to death by over-vigilant, weary and nervous American troops – from an extended 15-month tour – who was circling a neighborhood looking for an address to pick up a customer.

Senator, your recent vote on the Levin-Reed Amendment perpetuates this endless cycle of dread and death, senselessness and insanity - by failure to enact the will of 70 percent of Americans and end Bush's misbegotten exploit in the Iraq.

Please, watch the video (link provided below) and stop supporting President Bush's failed foreign policy and start truly supporting the troops – by bringing them home – and help sustain the resolve of the American public, which you were elected to serve and represent, by ending this ruinous and unjustified war now.


Respectfully,
-Frank J. Ranelli

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Video Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3383873

Soldier Challenges Bush & Congress to Step into the Morass

Watch it!

Specialist Michael Vassell:

“I challenge anybody in Congress to do my rotation... Because we have people up there in Congress with the brain of a two-year-old who don’t know what they’re doing...I challenge the president to ride along with me for 15 months."

Click on the link below and watch the ABC video of an,

"Exclusive Look at Soldiers on the Front Line"

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3383873

This rare, candid and somber video confirms, in lurid and stark details, of the daily horrors and despair that soldiers and Iraqis face together, while Bush prosecutes his 'War on Terror" in Iraq.

The casualties in this video include, six U.S. soldiers burned to death in an up-ended Humvee from an IED, an old woman's wits; whose tears and shrieks of terror echo eerily in your mind long after the video stops, and finally a taxi driver erroneously shot to death by over-vigilant, weary and nervous American troops -- from an extended 15-month tour -- who was circling a neighborhood looking for an address to pick up a customer.

Six U.S. soldiers, an old woman and a cab driver: fighting "them" there, so we don't have to fight them here....

Think about it, America.

Impeachment matters

Barbara Boxer on the Ed Schultz Show yesterday:

"I've always said that you need to keep it on the table, and you need to look at these things, because now people are dying because of this administration. That's the truth. And they won't change course. They are ignoring the Congress. They keep signing these signing statements which mean that he's decided not to enforce the law. This is as close as we've ever come to a dictatorship. When you have a situation where Congress is stepped on, that means the American people are stepped on. So I don't think you can take anything off the table. Because in fact the Constitution doesn't permit us to take these things off the table." -- United States Senator, Barbara Boxer