NO JUSTICE FOR JON: Florida Judge Kills the Rule of Law on Broken Back of Dead Motorcyclist

Today, America officially died as the last bastion of justice for the wrongfully deceased and their families. Any hint of optimism we may have had left, which was not much, must now be eradicated from our conscience. Abjection is the new standard of jurisprudence in America.


First, we had O.J. Simpson’s baffling acquittal led by his rhyming lineup of “dream team” lawyers. Then, Casey Anthony's “trial of the century” circus act grants her a staggering verdict of innocence juggled and dropped on our fragile psyche by the incompetent State of Florida. Now, add another name and face to the list of late victims stripped of their due justice: Jon Michael Green.

On May 3, 2010, Jon Michael Green, age 23, lost his life[1] tragically to a distracted, careless, and negligent driver in Southeast Florida. Jon was traveling eastbound on his 2007 Kawasaki motorcycle in Pembroke Pines, Florida, when a driver named Fran Folic failed to account for Jon in the opposite lane, failed to yield the right of way, and turned left directly into his path, ejecting him from the motorbike instantly. Jon first struck the pavement more than fifty feet away from the initial point of impact, tumbled uncontrollably several more times before finally coming to rest against a sewer drain catch basin.

He was unconscious, unresponsive, bleeding profusely, and suffering from a litany of internal and external ghastly injuries. And yes, Jon was wearing a helmet. Jon died less than 48-hours later in a level-one trauma unit from massive and catastrophic injuries.

Unfortunately, Jon didn’t just die from his body-shattering injuries, his family had to withdraw life support and watch him helplessly suffocate to death in torment. Why? A team of neurosurgeons and trauma specialists unanimously agreed Jon’s injuries were so substantial, so complete and irreversible, that he was a “locked-in” quadriplegic[2] with a fractured and crushed spine, unable to breathe on his own, unable to move at all, not even flutter his eyelids—his condition was beyond grave; it was hopeless.

Jon’s mind, however, was alert, horrifyingly intact in fact, and keenly aware of his own imminent death. Jon’s only means by which to communicate his mental lucidity: a nurse holding open his eyelids manually while doctors assessed his mental status through a series of simple, “look left for ‘no’ or right for ‘yes’ questions and answers. Jon’s binary acknowledgments through his left or right eye movements showed they where consistently and appropriately proper. He was trapped silently and impotently inside his own completely broken, hemorrhaging, and dying body. The only compassionate decision afforded to his family was to free Jon’s tortured mind from a flaccid body through death.

Then, on July 15, 2011, more than a year later, after numerous delays, baseless continuances, and farcical defense shenanigans, in a small, quiet courthouse minus any media attention in Hollywood, Florida, the accused, Fran Folic, was implausibly exonerated of Jon’s death. After nearly five hours of tense courtroom testimony, Judge Arlene Joy Simon acquitted Fran Folic of failing to yield the right of way and, as a result, blameless for Jon’s fatal injuries. The grounds for such an incongruent decision? No Intent.

A driver of an automobile may now presumably drive carelessly and negligently—according to the dishonorable, perhaps venal, and certainly malfeasant Judge Arlene Joy Simon—so long as their resulting actions (in this case, a tragic and fatal motorcycle crash), do not show deliberate “intent.” Judge Simon shockingly opined, since punishing the driver of the SUV, Fran Folic, would not bring back the dead, she pronounced, against logic and overwhelming and indisputable evidence, the accused was “not guilty.” In the eyes of the State of Florida, and in the homunculus mind of Judge Simon, Fran Folic was not guilty because she and her own two living children had suffered too much angst while waiting for trial. Pity the living. Punish the dead.

Yes, you read that correctly, a driver can turn left while failing to yield the right of way to oncoming traffic, cause a fatality, and still be acquitted because "the defendant did not intend harm” and “it will not bring your son back." The ignoble Judge Simon uttered this obtuse and obscene verdict from the bench to the decedent’s mother, Susan R. Green, with virtually no deliberation and only moments after closing arguments. Justice, and this justice of the court, is not only blind, deaf to reason, but also callous and cruel.

Judge Arlene Joy Simon ruled unconscionably, since the defendant did not willfully intend to strike the motorcyclist when turning left and failing to yield to oncoming traffic, she therefore could not find her blameworthy. Still worse, Judge Simon disregarded the corroborating testimony of a near dozen eyewitnesses and the investigating police detective, evidence, pictures, reports, measurements, calculations, and charts of the crash scene inexorably showing Ms. Folic at fault. Moreover, the judge misconstrued, painfully mangled, and even ignored outright Florida’s traffic statutes and existing laws.

Parenthetically, while testimony and evidence from a related civil trial are inadmissible in a criminal proceeding in Florida, the defendant, through her liability insurance carrier Allstate, determined Ms. Folic to be the “at-fault driver” and settled the wrongful death claim out of court for an undisclosed amount. Further, Ms. Folic was cited by the Pembroke Pines Police Department, after a four-month homicide investigation, with two moving traffic violations, “failure to yield the right of way through a highway crossing section,” and, “failure to yield the right of way when turning left.” The deceased, Jon Green, was not posthumously cited nor did the police traffic investigation or the homicide investigation uncover any wrongdoing on Mr. Green’s behalf.

In other words, it was a mockery, a sham; a kangaroo court proceeding in a banana republic presided over by a prejudiced judge. It was a sick joke; a grave transgression perpetrated on the Green family and a courtroom debacle that disgraces the memory of a young, blameless motorcyclist who lost his life at the hands of negligent SUV driver. Or, as one bewildered but astute courtroom observer asked in disbelief, “How is it that you're ‘allowed’ legally to fail to yield to traffic? It makes no sense at all!”

As a result of this contemptible edict by a legally illiterate judge in Broward County, Florida, a person need not heed traffic laws any longer, as there are no consequences to one’s neglectful actions, even when they fail their duty of care to another motorist when operating an automobile. Consequently, going forward, according to the vacant Judge, Arlene Joy Simon of Florida’s 17th Judicial Circuit court, the punishment of lawfully wrong actions is vitiated when there is no intent. Egregious and negligent accidents and crashes, however, are permissible.

So, people of Florida and America too, listen up, drive as inattentively as you like with total disregard for public safety, just be confident you didn’t “intend” to speed, or “intend” to run over pedestrians, or “intend” to crash into motorcyclists, etc. Spin the steering wheel in any direction you prefer, spin your wheels as hastily as you desire, mash the accelerator at will—hell, blindfold yourself as you enter the vehicle, but know, no matter the outcome—even death, it’s the intent, or lack thereof, that really matters. Neglect, it seems, even when it results in paralysis and death, is now officially sanctioned by Florida and their deplorable Judge, Arlene Joy Simon.

I once said modestly, “I navigate the avenues of life best when I traffic in words.” However, this time, I have no words expressive enough to traverse this travesty of injustice.

Author’s Note: A blog in honor of the memory of Jon Michael Green, entitled, NO JUSTICE FOR JON, has been set up by the Green Family so people may voice their outrage publicly over Judge Arlene Joy Simon’s egregiously wrongheaded not guilty verdict and, “to broadcasting the injustice of the malfeasant ruling by the dishonorable Judge Arlene Joy Simon of Florida’s 17th Judicial Circuit court.” Membership is not required to leave a comment (simply chose “anonymous” in the comment box section), but please also consider joining this worthy, cost-free cause to help put an end to non sequitur decisions by activist judges who chose to legislate from the bench, rather than uphold and follow the letter of the law.

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References and notes:
[1] http://www.vindy.com/news/tributes/2010/may/07/jon-michael-gree/guestbook/

[2] “Tetraplegia,” or quadriplegia, is a devastating state of illness or injury that leaves the victim with no motor or sensory function and a complete loss or near total impairment in controlling bowel and bladder, independent limb movement, sexual function, digestion, breathing, including cranial muscle paralysis, and other autonomic functions. A “locked in” quadriplegic usually retains some or most of their mental faculties, typically aware of their grave state, but unable to move or communicate with the outside world in any fashion.

On the Immorality of Christianity

The languid success of logic and facts to dislodge believers from their mistaken beliefs, calls for a new course in the claim for morality’s mantle; religion fails humanity on ethics.


There appears to be no amount of reason or facts that will extricate believers from their cognitive biases, or the nucleus of their intractable, mistaken, and teleological beliefs. Non-theists, in my humble, yet scholarly opinion, need to set aside the Pathos and Logos based arguments. Instead, nonbelievers must begin to advocate on the ethical grounds, that, revealed religion is an antagonist to humanity's progress and ultimately, its survival. It usurps our innate nature of goodness, and transgresses on our naturally earned ethics.

Further, consider, the believer must first successfully defend the idea of providence, which they cannot, and then, the veracity of such a notion, which has been an abysmal failure for the faithful. The devotees of Christ, fortified only with ancient apocryphal and worrisome scripture—putting it mildly, cannot attempt to mount a defense that religion offers us a moral mapping of the mind. In fact, instead, I would argue on the offensive—on the immorality of Christianity.

Chiefly, a person of Christian religious belief needs quite a bit of instilling indoctrination, in fact utter brainwashing, to convince one's self that they, for merely being born, are worthy of “Hell” because an alleged ancient ancestor ate of a forbidden fruit—the idea of “original sin.” Christianity edifies, and thereby institutionalizes, the fallacious concept of salvation through willful subjugation and degradation of our native decency. (This is why, mistakenly, “Christ followers” feel they need a "Savior.”)

Yet, it takes brutish masochism and sheer madness to accept the outrageously wicked and ghoulish notion of vicarious redemption through prostrating exaltation, and then evangelizing for two millennia the murder of an Antiquity's age, itinerant and eccentric preacher. That a bloody, torturous human sacrifice—the ostensible crucifixion at Calvary, found at the center of Christianity—can cleanse away your responsibilities and actions in life. (Actually, there is scant evidence, of any type, for a historical Jesus and zero evidence for a divine Jesus. The dubious and anonymous, not eponymous, four Gospels found in the New Testament, are rife with contradictions and written, at their earliest, decades after a historical Jesus would have lived, if he did at all.)

Moreover, the notion of a human oblation, as a means of vicarious redemption—scapegoating, to a perceived, totalitarian deity is antithetical to human morality; it is the essence of immorality as it is incompatible with human sovereignty, self-respect, and even life itself. Therefore, Christianity is not only silent on true morality—reciprocity, altruism, liberty and life, it is a purveyor of a litany of insidious ideas, spanning infanticide to homophobia, the endorsement of slavery—treating neighboring conquered states as farm equipment—to perpetuating misogyny and the bridge to righteous murder.

Religion and the Christian belief in particular, is tyranny of the mind, when properly understood, can only be construed, at best, as immoral. Wretchedly, it fetters the believer to fear of punishment even after death. Still worse, Christianity compels its ardent activists to love and worship an ethereal, celestial tyrant in life, learning only of his insidious plan through esoteric, immutable texts. Indeed, a cursory stroll through any number of passages in Leviticus or Deuteronomy, naming only a few books of biblical spite, reveals an unmatched wickedness commanded by Abraham's god.

Conversely, morality is innate. Evolution is conclusive on this fact. It is a far better "selector" to the survival of the species—humans, than divinely inspired murder, mayhem, genocide and human enslavement. Christianity, on the other hand, commands compulsory fear, obligatory love, the subjugation of women, and the willful suspension of progressive reasoning via a theology of abject despair.

Consequently, rational ethics, not revealed religion, satisfyingly obliterates the maladaptive and unethical irrationality believers use to justify their god and even their sect of faith. It is through a systematic breakdown of the illogical fallacies religionists use to prop up their dysfunctional immorality—addictive dependence on a non-existent deity—where we find a conduit conducive to modern, civilized morality, secular and scientific ethics.

And so, humankind, despite a vile, prolonged era of religious perversion of our intrinsic virtue, remains moral. We have earned it through millions of years of evolution. While religion stands regrettably as a dark, sinister reminder of the true depravity dogma breeds and passes on to its true believers.

— About the Author —

Frank J. Ranelli is an independent scholar of comparative and contemplative religions, skeptic and critic, author and contrarian essayist. Frank has studied extensively Abrahamic-based religions since 2001, with an emphasis on Metaphysics and Philosophy. His erudite and iconoclastic style of provocative writing has been extensively published, and debated widely, in a variety of news outlets and across the Internet since 2006.

Palin Delivers during VP Debate (And We All Saw It.)

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


Part II of my contrarians view as to why and how Sarah Palin was able to delivery for the McCain camp and reinvigorated the base once again.

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In a recent article, “Why Palin Will Win the VP Debate”, I made the case that she would win, not on acumen, but on style. I argued that “glib stagecraft” and clever ploys of derision would win out the night. I was harangued for suggesting that the appearance of ineptitude, during recent interviews with the conventional press, was deceiving and hid a crafty doggedness for debating people she opposed. I surmised her entire persona is one of calculated disarmament that veiled a skillful debater. It appears, at least in part, I may have been right.

I wish I could take comfort in the fact that I may have been prescient in my prediction about how she would debate, but I am only more and deeply concerned. Truly, I wish I had been wrong, but I have studied authoritarian people, like Sarah Palin, for more than two years now and it takes very little effort to identify one after even a cursory glance, let alone a comprehensive analysis, once you know what to look for and how to diagnose the glaring signs.

To be clear, Joe Biden did everything right, virtually mistake free, in order to stay about the ground fire salvos Palin was carefully dispatching to pillory him. Biden offered strong, cogent answers and showed a sparkling command of superiority on the issues. It was not a foreboding performance by Palin that mortally wound Obama, but it did stop the McCain hemorrhaging. Nevertheless, Biden still took on a lot of shrapnel from the beguiling ideologue, and darling of the right, Governor Sarah Palin.

In fact, Palin did exactly what she has been trained to do – deliver an uncritical, contemptuous attack of belligerent mockery. Authoritarian people do not think; they act. And they act on instinct and emotion alone. They are always loose with facts but stridently persuasive. They are charming, disarming, almost irresistible, yet completely ethically bankrupt and amoral. She did not understand a single obfuscating, sometimes-mangled answer she gave during the debate, but it did not matter. The base of the party, Joe Six-Pack, loved it.

The problem here is they (authoritarians) are masters at using base intellect, not intelligence, to appeal to people’s pathos. (Many barbaric dictators through out history have used this same tactic with stunning and ghastly success.) In essence, they are scheming, devious and capable of anything in order to subvert the will of other people in order to achieve their own objectives.

Scientific studies have conclusively proven that hardliner conservatives suffer a “cognitive dissonance”; they grapple with nuance, struggle with vagaries, and reject abstract thinking. They are visceral, not cerebral. They are ill-suited for and not capable of collegial deliberation. Further, most are highly intolerant people when someone does not share their narrow paradigm window view of the world.

Last night’s put-on was a recital for Palin – it was not a debate. It was absent any lucidity, clearly forced, though a highly successful presentation of chides, condescension and hollow talking points. Palin was even rude and impertinent toward the moderator and Joe Biden, but this is standard operating procedure for an authoritarian person. Assuredly, it was much to the sheer jubilation of the conservative, irascible base.

Have you ever watched Bill O’Reilly shout down a guest, ridicule him or her, or use a sneering outrage of indignation to intimidate the person being ostensibly interviewed? Last night you saw a subdued version of Bill O’Reilly in a skirt with lipstick. The visage changes, but the persona and intrinsic need to dominate by fear is omnipresent. Someone must always be blamed (liberals, gays, intellectuals, minorities, etc.) and they (authoritarians) are never at fault – compromise, tolerance, and humility are not an option.

The purpose is to play always to basal fears, ignorance, and prejudices; it is never to sensibly discuss or achieve anything other than to eliminate a perceived threat (liberals, gays, intellectuals, minorities, etc.) – it is Orwellian in every way and driven by pure appeals to the audience's emotions.

Palin’s folksy, down home hokum and charm is a veneer than acts as subterfuge to hide a venal, vindictive, and brutal outlook towards anyone who disagrees with her recalcitrant and reactionary –certainly radical and fringe – ideology. She lives in a binary world – one of good and evil only. You can easily speculate on your own as to which side anyone that is antithetical to her belief system (liberals, gays, intellectuals, minorities, etc.) falls in this clash of Manichean thinking.

One critical point and it’s worth noting. Sarah Palin is a “compartmental thinker.” She cannot see her duplicitous judgments and incompatible positions, her intense hypocrisy and nonsensical answers, nor can she be facilitated to understand her flawed, uncritical, fealty allegiance. Loyalty to people in positions of power she admires is unchallenged, even when they are as egregious and heinous as those committed by someone the likes of George Bush.

Hence, Sarah Palin makes resolute statements (such as expanding the powers of the vice president beyond its constitutional bounds) that have no relationship to reality, laws, or facts. These types of detached proclamations are to reinforce her distorted belief of the world through a prism of unquestioned and dangerous beliefs. She is an actor acting on behalf of what she deems is a higher echelon from a higher authority. This is not an accident; it is a dare to defy her and a maneuver that covers up a deep, beseeching cry for legitimacy from a person desperately foundering in a sea of irrelevance and mediocrity. The more you press her, the more deluded she will become and act out, sometimes viciously, if necessary.

As Dr. Robert Altermyer suggested (the world’s leading expert on authoritarians), when asked how to deal with an authoritarian person, his reply was stark, “You don’t, and you can’t.” You can only mitigate their influence in society by ensuring they do not obtain positions of power or influence. No amount of rational though can persuade them, as they are quite literally, wholly irrational and mentally unbalanced.

Thomas Paine once said, "It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government." After tonight, it is clear that every patriot's duty is to prevent Sarah Palin from becoming the next Vice President of the United States.

Why Palin Will Win the VP Debate

Palin’s recent gaffes are actually calculated moves to disarm Biden.

BY FRANK J. RANELLI
Wednesday, October 01, 2008


Sarah Palin’s recent abysmal interviews are a canard. She is not the vapid, seemingly naïve and inexperienced candidate we have been led to believe. The bar of expectation has been deliberately lowered so low that once in front of the debate lectern, she will stun Biden with her slick, pat answers, leaving him flustered and trampled by the hockey mom turned-governor from Alaska.

Sound far-fetched or ridiculous? It’s not. Allow me to explain why.Sarah Palin is sandbagging. She is intentionally appearing inept, and at times, outright vacuous and bungling. But she is downplaying and misrepresenting her political skill, guile and debating ability in order to deceive the Obama camp. This was an outright calculated, premeditated ploy in order to lull Sen. Joe Biden into a false sense of security. All of Palin’s botched interviews were done with wily aforethought – they were red herrings and glib stagecraft to hustle Biden.

Forget the static currently being transmitted by conservative lackeys feigning consternation over the Palin pick. I have recently watched several video clips from her debates, when she ran for Governor of Alaska in 2006, and she is far more adroit, astute, and shrewd during these debates than recent interviews suggest. In fact, she is a cunning, clever, and crafty woman who knows how to disarm people with her charm and then coldly go in for the kill shot.

Vice-presidential debates rarely change the true trajectory or final outcome of presidential elections. If that were the case, Lloyd Bentsen’s legendary 1988 slap down admonishment of Dan Quayle’s ill-advised confessed comparison to John Kennedy would have catapulted Michael Dukakis directly into the Oval Office.

However, everyone loves an underdog and this one just happens to be a scheming Pit Bull wearing lipstick from Wasilla. A Palin blistering perform this Thursday night may not be a game-changer in the end for the McCain-Palin camp, but it will stem, at least temporarily, the rising tide and polls currently tacking quite nicely for Obama and Biden. She may or may not know any other Supreme Court cases beyond Roe v. Wade, or a definitive understanding of the Bush Doctrine, but in the end, it may simply not matter.

My Prediction:

The real Sarah Palin shows up and upstages the elder statesmen Joe Biden, facts, figures, and policy positions be damned.

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.

Why Palin is Fair Game

BY FRANK J. RANELLI

:: ::

In principle, I have always agreed with the basic tenets of society’s plea for civility and decorum in politics toward the kids of candidates. However, while the children, as individuals should be held harmless – as they are just merely adolescents – the larger narrative about Sarah Palin is germane and should be out front in the public sphere to debate.

I was at the Dublin, Ohio Obama rally on August 30, 2008, a mere 10 feet away from Obama while he spoke and reiterated what is at stake is the very core principles of this nation. Prior to Obama speaking, I circulated in the midst of the VIP section and spoke to a litany of women. They not only panned Palin, they felt betrayed and insulted; that McCain’s attitude was one of ungainly sexism whereas women are interchangeable parts – that one is just as good as the next.

The near ubiquitous “drip, drip, drip” that spills over daily into another scandal, another tabloidesque story, is evidence either Sarah Palin was an exercise in extremely poor judgment by John McCain or Palin is a pure gimmick –a gambit to court and woo Hillary Clinton supporters.

The overarching viewpoint is the judgment – or lack thereof – of Palin, her duplicitous actions and double standard, faux Christian values, the exploitation of her infant (and now unwed pregnant daughter) for political expediency; her own failed abstinence only teachings – that clearly does not work, even amongst her own children – and the sum total of her (Palin’s) actions that definitively leads one to conclude she is inept, unwise, reckless, and is unfit to be a heartbeat away from governing this nation as President.

It’s not about the children, but it is about her inability to govern and make sound, rational choices – that she believes in Creationism and not science. These flaws need to be exposed and she – as a candidate – needs to be eviscerated for her utter lack of credibility, inexperience, lack of common sense and the extreme fringe values she holds.

As one reader of the local newspaper in Wasilla summed her up in a comment to a reporter, “she is a kook.”

Palin may have set ablaze the benighted crowd of sheeple evangelists into a gesticulating frenzy of jubilation, but she is dangerous to this nation, dangerous to a progressive America, and cannot be allowed to become the next VP of this nation, or be a hairs breath away from the presidency.

Everything from “Troopergate” to “Babygate” is in play when she accepted the nomination as McCain’s VP. Palin could have declined the invitation, but she did not. She could have shielded her family from public scrutiny and spared them the overt embarrassment of her hypocritical stances and statements, but she opted to stand in the national spotlight and allow her disastrous, failed conservative values to be illuminated.

And for that reason alone, America has the right and the civic responsibility to vet this woman, leave no stone unturned, for in politics, as it has been said, is a contact sport.

Just who is Chet Edwards?

Friday, August 22, 2008
BY FRANK J. RANELLI

The Obama Democratic Veepstakes is approaching a frenetic and feverish pitch. Is it Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, or even Hillary Clinton? Surprisingly, and perhaps to the dismay of many progressives, liberals, and democratic voters the answer may be a resounding, “No.”


The name Chet Edwards outside of Texas, the halls of Congress, or the inside of Nancy Pelosi’s rolodex, is a name unfamiliar to most Americans. So, just who is Chet Edwards? Quietly, yet not completely unnoticed by many politicos and pundits, he is widely considered to be one of Obama’s finalists on his list of candidates for the coveted VP slot.

Chet Edwards currently serves the 17th Congressional district of Texas as a moderate democrat. He is a prolific legislator, with little national exposure, yet has distinguished himself as a centrist with a rather curious and capricious voting record.

A telegenic man—with a visage analogous to a televangelist—is also fashionable with Speaker Pelosi. On August 3, 2008, she extolled his “extraordinary credentials” and stated “I hope he will be the nominee” to ABC's "This Week".

While Edwards is largely an unknown nationally, he is a productive, if not hectic, lawmaker. In addition, he is the chairman of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee and sits on a bevy of other committees and subcommittees in the House.

Filtering Edwards through a democratic prism may prove to be dificult and even a harder sell to hardline progressives as a running mate for Obama. The website OnTheIssues has amassed an extensive, if not exhaustive list of how Edwards has voted— and where he stands—on more than 24 issues, ranging from abortion to the economy.

A close examination of his enigmatic stance on a wide range of policies reveals Edwards voted in favor of the invasion of the Iraq War, gave the nod to telcom immunity, registered an “aye” for the Bankruptcy Reform bill, which now requires partial debt repayment and even stands with John McCain and George Bush on drilling in AWNR.

Unfortunately, his conservative chops do not end there, but include a record of anathema toward the gay and lesbian community by casting his lot with Republicans on the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004 – a Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. Among prominent liberal and progressive bloggers, he is considered a “Bush Dog Democrat,” an epithet clearly denouncing him as anything but a “Progressive Democrat.”

Sadly, Chet Edwards has too often curried favors for the political right, racking up a congressional record that paints his voting sheet more red than blue. His overt penchant for gun rights and arms makers, aversion to raising CAFE standards and endorsement of forest thinning projects certainly will be met with strident condemnation from gun control and environmental groups.

Save for a few breadcrumbs meant to throw off “low information” voters from his true political stripes—chiefly his vow to keep social security out of the hands of Wall Street—Chet Edwards is another Repulican-lite masquerading as a Democrat.

The Obama campaign in recent days has confirmed Edwards was contacted—and possibly vetted—but has said little else as to his status or standing with Obama as a potential running mate in 2008. Nevertheless, he appears to be in strong contention, helped along by the behest of Nancy Pelosi, as the Democratic Party’s Vice Presidential candidate to oppose Republican John McCain on November 4.

While Obama’s pick for VP still remains steep in mystery, Edwards’s sudden emergence into the national spotlight as a high probability candidate for Vice President portends another likely losing centrist ticket for the Democrats. As John Kerry firmly demonstrated in 2004, a center-right campaign for the Democratic Party is a certain death knell.

What we do know is that whether any given voter stands for or against Republicans, it is certain when the people are given the choice between a genuine conservative or a fake liberal, America always chooses the authentic contestant, if only for not trying to fool the public – issues, policies and object national needs be damned.

John McCain Quietly Draws on Social Security While Calling the Program Publicly a “Disgrace”

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


A recent revelation that John McCain personally derives full benefits from the long-standing and popular Social Security program stands in stark contrast to his recent remarks in Denver, Colorado.


Republican presidential nominee John McCain, on July 7, 2008, during a town hall meeting in Denver, told the small gathering, “Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed."

The remarks were roundly panned by analysts and Democrats, pointing out that since its inception, Social Security was designed and has always worked effectively in its current format. Whereby current wage earners pay into the system routinely – and in doing so – supply the payroll needed to fund the benefit program for retirees. Democratic Party backer, Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees added, “Social Security has always been pay as you go, with today's workers paying for today's retirees.”

McCain has a vociferous and protracted record of advocating for the privatization of Social Security and cutting benefits for retirees, the disabled, and their dependents, stretching as far back as 1983.

More than 42 million Americans are on Social Security – chiefly, the elderly, widows and widowers, and young children whose parents unexpectedly died – allowing them to live independently and out of poverty.

However, In spite of John McCain’s yearly salary as a U.S. Senator of $169,300, and a reported total income in 2007 of $405,409, public records show that McCain, in fact, personally draws from Social Security. Although McCain and his wife keep separate finances, Cindy McCain, an heiress and direct benefactor of a family beer fortune, maintains an expansive largesse estimated at potentially $100 million.

Incongruently, and in complete conflict with his public views and withering remarks, John McCain received, according to public records, $23,157 in Social Security benefits in 2007 – a welfare benefit that averages nearly $2,000.00 per month.

The advocacy group, Alliance for Retired Americans, has launched a campaign to educate its members and the general voter population to attract attention to McCain’s duplicitous, anti-Social Security views. Bemused and angered by McCain’s comments and double standard stance, Director Edward F. Coyle, in a conference call with “leaders of labor and other progressive groups” stated, “Social Security has kept millions out of poverty, and is one our nation’s greatest success stories.”

Additionally, since Senator McCain has pronounced Social Security an, “absolute disgrace”, while personally and hypocritically drawing out of the fund, the Alliance for Retired Americans has asked that the Arizona Republican “return his Social Security checks.”

Considering the near unanimous condemnation of McCain’s acerbic commentary toward Social Security, while surreptitiously collecting benefits, it is unlikely this will prove to be a success story for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

New Orleans: If Only it was Just Billions

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


The Bush Iraq and Afghanistan wars will cost the U.S. $2.4 trillion, but some fiscal conservatives and anti-tax crusaders are still fixated on derailing the billions of dollars requisite to restore a city lost to Bush’s incompetence and hubris – the city of New Orleans.

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An old, annoying, yet benign, viral e-mail is being treated to a sinister makeover and finding its way into e-mail boxes across America. The e-mail, in its original form, was disseminated ostensibly to ask the reader to posit the vastness of a $1 billion. While ruminating on this idea, the letter goes on to show how politicians cavalierly bandy about such a hefty sum in conversation whilst doing the nation’s business.

Regrettably and inexcusably, the latest revision of this message is laced with lies, race-baiting, and Jim Crow-style bigotry. Its aim is to subtly, but inextricably blame the catastrophic and unprecedented damage of hurricane Katrina, unleashed on the good people of New Orleans, as not only a product of their presumed slothfulness but as a giant welfare windfall waiting to happen for all whom reside there.

The entirely contemptible dispatch contorts and outright fabricates enormous leaps of illogic, Karl Rove-style mathematics, and draws utterly absurd and downright ridiculous conclusions. Playing the Ronald Reagan “welfare queen” card, the e-mail incredulously claims each of the roughly 240,000 city-dwellers of New Orleans will receive a largesse check of $516,528. This insane conclusion—and rather acrobatic and illusionist arithmetic—is misleadingly derived from the aggregate total proposed in and by Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary L. Landrieu’s Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act of 2005.

Naturally, using even the basest of common sense, any prudent read of the bill neither promises nor suggests anything so outlandish. Rather, it is a wide-ranging laundry list of needed ameliorations to restore a litany of essential services, from education, to housing, to small business and veterans’ needs in order to rebuild the disaster torn area. Money rightly requested to reconstruct a fallen city—struck down by a devastating tragedy—rather than Bush’s senseless misuse of trillions of dollars to wage war in order to lay waste to an entire country.

Now, let’s talk trillions.

The United States is spending about $8,000 every month per man, woman and child in this country to pursue criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the most recent estimates by the Congressional Budget Office that estimates the wars will cost about $2.4 trillion over the next decade. These are unnecessary wars of naked aggression, which were, manifested using false pretenses by the Bush administration, and perpetrated using more than 935 lies uttered by Bush and his senior cabinet during his time as President thus far.

More than one-fourth of the money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan—$705 billion—will go to paying interest on the wars' overhead, which are being funded with borrowed dollars chiefly from China. Outside analysts, such as Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, largely agree with the CBO’s findings and judgment.

The usury alone, which stands at a staggering $705 billion, is more than three times the amount proposed to revive and restore New Orleans. And it is more than 40 times the original figure given to fight both theatres of war in the Middle East initially by the Bush administration.

Further, It was only five years ago when Lawrence Lindsey, then-head of the White House's National Economic Council, estimated that the "upper bound" of the cost of going to war with Iraq would be between $100 billion and $200 billion.

Therefore and understandably, most people have difficulty comprehending the scale of $2.4 trillion. To grasp a number that vast in size, one should think of it in these terms: 1-billion seconds equals about 32 years, while 1-trillion seconds equals nearly 300 centuries.

So, if dollars were time, Bush’s war would go on for more than 700 centuries, the equivalent to 72,000 years of combat, death, and violence. To date, after five-plus years of war, we have lost 4,121 soldiers—many of whom where still in their teens or early twenties— at a rate of virtually two per day killed in a senseless act of barbaric hostility.

If the U.S. was at war for 72,000 years, at the current rate of casualties, over the next 700 centuries, George Bush will be directly or indirectly responsible for the pointless deaths of more than 56.4 million young men and women.

The current population of the United Kingdom is 60 million. The present population of Italy is also around 60 million inhabitants. The state of California, according to a 2006 U.S. census, estimates the current populace to reside at around 36 million.

Now, imagine a war that would take the lives of every single individual who lives in Italy or the U.K. A combat mission that is so immense and long-lasting that it would kill off the state of California nearly twice over again.

The above comparisons and analogies might strike a certain cord of hyperbole, but so does the idiotic notion that the people of New Orleans have won a massive welfare lottery as victims vis-à-vis of an enormous natural disaster, yet the proposed government relief is somehow a reprehensible response to people and a city truly in need.

The immeasurable, oppressive expenditure of Bush’s wars is a growing and substantial danger to the future financial security of our nation that now measures into the trillions of dollars. They are also acts of unconscionable bloodshed conjured up by sadistic war profiteers through ginned-up intelligence in order to line the coffers of corporate welfare recipients; beneficiaries of obscene private profits and grotesque public losses—both in blood and treasure.

Iraq is Bush's madness and Bush's infamy, but we are the ones who will pay for it, and the next 2,400 generations of Americans that will follow us. Then again, when former White House Press Secretary, the late Tony Snow, was asked on the grisly anniversary that marked the 2,000th soldier killed in Iraq, in October of 2005, he coldly replied, “It’s just a number.”

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.

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.

Independent Study Finds Bush "Unequivocally" Lied U.S. into War with Iraq

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


In perhaps the most complete and damning evidence yet that President Bush deceived a nation into a baseless war, a nonprofit collaboration of two independent organizations has concluded that President Bush used at least 532 misleading and deceptively false statements to justify military action against Iraq.

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A nonprofit collaboration of two independent, non-governmental organizations has concluded that President Bush used at least 532 misleading and deceptively false statements to justify military action against Iraq. In all, the Bush administration as a whole used a mind-numbing 935 false statements to goad America into war with Iraq. Calling their findings "an orchestrated deception on the path to war," the partnership report may very well be the first fully comprehensive investigation that incontrovertibly proves the Bush administration lied this nation into an unfounded war.

The Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism determined, through a collective study and breakdown of Bush administration speeches, press briefings and interviews, that Bush and other top officials "led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information."

According to the report, Bush alone lied more than 259 times, including 232 false statements "about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" and "28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida." Quoting Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism, "It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida." Furthermore, the shared study noted, "the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

Among the seven top officials cited, Colin Powell was the most egregious in the dispersal of dissembling and mendacious language regarding the requisite call for war against Iraq. Powell is attributed to having made 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in a two-year period beginning on September 11, 2001 and through the commencement of military action in Iraq on March 18, 2003.

As a microcosm example of at least 935 lies cataloged by the exhaustive study, Vice President Dick Cheney declared on August 26, 2002 that "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." Bush's patently false proclamation, made on May 29, 2003, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction," has now been completed discredited. Of course, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found and George Bush, on NBC's Meet the Press in 2004 conceded, "No weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq."

In a never-ending stream of fuzzy rationales to justify war, beginning as early as November of 2001, the Bush administration began making disingenuous statements attempting to tie Saddam to the attackers of 9/11. Quoting Bush, "They're both risks, they're both dangerous. The difference, of course, is that Al Qaeda likes to hijack governments. Saddam Hussein is a dictator of a government. Al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn't, but the danger is, is that they work in concert." However, in stark contrast, the 9/11 Commission Report was unable to establish any "evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with Al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."

The comprehensive study also touches on and illuminates the vast failures of the mainstream media; mainly their failure to offer critical scrutiny, while chiefly operating as Bush's surrogate and disseminator in the misleading rhetoric of the dire need to take the country to war. During that critical, seminal juncture in the run up to the war, the media "creating an almost impenetrable din" that forced out nearly all dissenting views, the report revealed.

In what may be the first true, categorical "War Report Card" that separates fact from fiction, fine tunes mass distortion into utter clarity, the Center for Public Integrity makes a compelling case that "Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq."

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To learn more and read the full report, visit on the web:

Center For Public Integrity: http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx

Does Chris Matthews have a problem with women?

BY FRANK J RANELLI


Is Chris Matthews of MSNBC waging a hostile, chauvinist's agenda against Hillary Clinton and women? His abject track record against women says, "Yes." It's time to end the misogyny of Matthews.

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Does Chris Matthews have a problem with women? It appears so. Prominently highlighted across the blogosphere, Matthews has repeatedly utilized his show on MSNBC to resort to a one-man machination crusade against Hillary Clinton. For years, Matthews has used loosely implied sexist epithets, such as referring to Senator Clinton as “Madame Defarge" and "Nurse Ratched," to defame and disparage her.

Matthews has a lengthy and sordid history of tenuous reproach toward the Clintons; principally aimed at Hillary. Moreover, most Americans are fed up with polemic pundits and are openly outraged by Chris Matthews' demonization of Hillary Clinton. This public ire is because Mr. Matthews has a blatant problem with women in general, and especially strong-minded, independent women.

Matthews’ immense antipathy for Hillary is likely best punctuated by comments he made, published in the Philadelphia Inquirer magazine in 2001, when he thusly pronounced to a colleague, “I hate her. I hate her. All that she stands for.” However, the bona fide nadir of Matthews’ aversion to Hillary is his insane intimation that “she may be a front-runner [because] her husband messed around.”

Chris Matthews' "never-ending naked sexism[1]" is definitely grounds for MSNBC to fire him. His constant diatribes of only thinly-veiled misogynistic views is a vast hindrance to an otherwise credible news organization that needs to outshine Fox News, not emulate it. This has little to do with support for or against Hillary, but for firmly putting an end to the open and sad sexism that is still pervasive on-air and in the mainstream media.

Hillary may or may not be your “cup of tea”, but if she is to be defeated as a candidate for the presidency, then it must be on her failure to galvanize liberals and attract independents; her being out-of-step with voters on the issues, not the ranting of an imprudent, chauvinistic male talking head on television.

Sadly, Matthews distaste for women – and those chiefly in positions of power – doesn’t stop at the baseless condemnations of Hillary. Chris Matthews has also called into question Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, dogmatically describing her as “scary.” Further yet, he has astonishingly wondered aloud if she (Pelosi) would "castrate" House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

NBC fired Don Imus for a singular, similar remark and now it's time to expunge Chris Matthews from MSNBC for his biased, protracted rage against woman, Hillary Clinton and his machismo sexism. It's time to end the misogyny of Chris Matthews and other such purveyors of a hostile “white men only” bourgeoisie embargo on women in our government and in places of power.

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Sources: Media Matters; MSNBC's Chris Matthews problem

[1] Bob Fertik; Chris Matthews Should Debate Hillary

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

John Edwards Brings Populist Message Back to Ohio

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


Democratic Presidential candidate, John Edwards, brought his message of returning power to the people into Columbus, Ohio Friday evening. Speaking to a lively and engaged crowd of about 800 people, Edwards laid out his distinct vision for America. Under his popular grassroots theme of, "Small Change for Big Change", Edwards energized an already eager for change crowd, stumping for about 25 minutes, at the Plumbers & Pipefitters Local #189 union hall, near Ohio State campus.

In a continuing effort to reach out to a broader swath of working-class Americans, the negligible $15.00 entrance fee -- which the Edward's camp has incorporate since June -- is part and parcel to his proletarian message. The "Small Change for Big Change" fundraisers are also a deliberate campaign tactic to distinguish Edwards from his chief rivals, Senators Obama and Clinton, whose benefit dinner entrance fees top out at $2300 per plate.

His first visit to the Buckeye State since July, the ex-senator from North Carolina excoriated President Bush by proclaiming, "I don't believe George Bush has injured our reputation in the world, I think he's destroyed it!" Adding, "It's time for the president of the United States to be patriotic about something other than war!"

Continuously withering Bush's policies, Edwards harshly attacked the current administration's failures to embrace the global climate crisis. To a rousing applause, Edwards announced, "It's time for the president to say, 'We're in this together. If we're going to fight global warming, if we're going to preserve this planet, we've got to be willing to sacrifice.'"

The former senator then outlined his own initiatives and policies to combat global warming. Somberly reminding the gathering at the union hall that America produced 25-percent of the world's pollution, Edwards promised to reduce carbon emissions by least 80 percent by 2050 and necessitate all vehicles to get 40 miles per gallon as soon as possible.

Adding some fresh editorial to his address, in a savvy, jujitsu-like political move, John Edwards openly called-out the Republicans in Congress who voted to condemn the liberal advocacy group Moveon.org. Edwards provocatively asked, if the same Republicans who voted to denounce Moveon's critical ad of General Petraeus, where also willing to "step up to the mic" and censure Rush Limbaugh's incendiary remark that service members who support U.S. withdrawal are "phony soldiers."

Edwards then suggested, to the enthusiastic and progressive assembly, "not to hold their collective breath," though. However, to a thunderous ovation of approval, Edwards said, "In my America, dissent is not unpatriotic, dissent is patriotic."

Finally, touching on healthcare, Edwards rhetorically and cynically asked why front-runner, Hillary Clinton, had taken so long to introduce a healthcare plan for America, which merely and largely mimicked his own.

Bringing the supporters to a raucous, speech-pausing cheer, Edwards, if elected President, promised this declaration to Congress: "If you don't pass universal health care by July 2009, then you lose your health care, because there's no excuse for politicians in Washington to have health care when Americans don't have health care."

Before signing autographs and shaking hands with an on-rushing crowd, Edwards promised to pay for his mandatory healthcare plan, which he estimates will cost $100 billion, by rescinding Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.

After the rally, one member of the audience told a local TV news reporter, "I love John's populist message. I think it's time for America to have a President who stands for 90-percent of us, not just one-percent of us."

Terrorism Awareness Project: The 21st Century’s "Red Scare" Movement

A radical faction of the right is attempting to reconstitute McCarthyism in the 21st century by spreading exaggerated falsehoods to college campuses, eschewing accuracy and espousing hysteria about Islam and the honest threat of terrorism. Their aim is simple: Envelope the next generation of young minds under the umbrella of constant panic and indoctrinate them with deceptive and ignorant fear.

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The last bastion of Bush proffers has once again trotted out a long ago debunked, inaccurate and xenophobic phrase, “islamo-fascists”, once glibly coined by Donald Rumsfeld. Calling their cause, Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a radical right alarmist group called the Terrorism Awareness Project, wants to use old fashion fear and propaganda to persuade college students into this histrionic idea: that amorphous, rogue cells of terrorists operating in the Middle East are, “the greatest danger Americans have ever confronted.”

Now consider these alternatives to so-called “islamo-fascists.” Hitler killed all total 12 million Jews, dissenters and infirmed people, amassed a state-sponsored, mechanical-backed army of millions that wreaked havoc on numerous continents for 12 years. Stalin held the world’s collective stage hostage under a repressive regime replete with thousands of nuclear missiles that came within minutes of incendiary obliteration of the Earth, as we know it.

When in view of the heinous atrocities of Hitler and Stalin, the demagoguery and utter mendacity of the Terrorism Awareness Project should immediately be dismissed. Yet, over two million misinformed and deluded people have visited their site just this year alone. Adding to the sensational theatrics this fringe group is trying to propagate across college campuses are wild assertions such as “the academic left has mobilized to create sympathy for the enemy” and “the nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever - Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.”

Claiming to have organized speaking engagements at over 200 campuses, through the David Horowitz Freedom Center, the Terrorism Awareness Project has lined up a premier delicatessen of right-winged demagogue polemicists. The astounding list is as distinguished as is the disingenuous message they tout. Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Melanie Morgan and Rick Santorum are but a few of the invited partisan hacks and hypocrites who plan to extol the virtues of the Terrorism Awareness Project and proclaim terrorism is a greater threat to America than global warming is to the world at large.

Incredulously, this group of firebrand, paranoid propagandists tenaciously tries again to tie Saddam Hussein with the attacks on September 11, 2001. They also falsely claim Iraq was a “second base of terror” long before American forces destabilized that country and provided the catalyst of chaos under which a new and minority faction of unconnected Al Qaeda groups formed.

Flagrant and desperate, the entire website is filled with intimidating and goading terms as well as foreboding phrases. “Islamo-facism”, “apologists for radical Islam” and “anti-Americans who are part of today’s academic environment”, litters the site and sends any rational mind reeling. The inanity and outright obtuse mindset of these shrinking-violets, who found the Cold War ostensibly a minor infraction, can only be realized by visiting the website of the Terrorism Awareness Project. Only then, after a thorough examination, can the full effects of the use of scare tactics and the unnecessary consternation be realized.

Reminding the reader beforehand, that the attacks on 9/11 occurred during the Bush administration - and that same President smugly dismissed a daily presidential briefing entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike” - do we find instead the old saw that “Clinton did it” amongst the many other apocryphal allegations.

To make the point that the endeavor of this organization is reckless and insipid, certainly a platitude, might seem wasted to the other 219 million Americans who have already rejected the Bush doctrine of fear. Furthermore, only 27% of Americans now - Bush’s unshakeable and dutiful base - find the initiative of democracy through a climate of unwarranted fear anything less than odious. However, exposure is the best sanitizer and it ensures that imprudent groups, such as the Terrorism Awareness Project, are brought under the spotlight for scrutiny and proper dismissal as anxiety-ridden, provocative hacks.

To be clear, everyone lucid person should be offended by blatant suggestions that academics are undesirables or that the vast majority of Americans somehow just “don’t understand” the enormity of the specious adversary we face. Reasoned Americans do not endorse or express sympathy to any deed of extremism or group of fanatics, including the Terrorism Awareness Project.

Quite simply, the time has come for all Americans to choose reason, restraint and modesty, over the present zeitgeist of aggression and extreme nationalism, shrouded in obedience through panic and fear, brought upon us by the Bush regime.


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Sources: Terrorism Awareness Project. Also see: Defining Fascism, Then and Now