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.

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

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.”

Turning their back on the Constitution

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


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

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

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

BY FRANK J. RANELLI


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bush and the modern GOP: Same party, same problems

Frank J Ranelli


A number of articles recently portray President Bush as someone who strayed from the path of true conservatism. On the contrary, he’s the very model of a modern movement conservative. Cutting taxes while waging wars, fiscal irresponsibility, general incompetence, disenfranchising minority groups, and disdain for the rule of law. Paul Krugman shows - citing contemporary history examples - that the GOP is the “same old party.”

Krugman, of the NY Times, compares numerous similarities within the GOP - that he terms the “modern movement conservative” - over the last fifty years and how Bush is only the latest heir to this odious and democracy destabilizing form of political governing.

Read Paul Krugman's full expose´ detailing why we should not be shocked by the Bush administration’s authoritarianism and why naïve republican voters may need to ask, “My God, what have we done?”

The REAL Rudy: Flip-flopper or just plain flop?

Watch it!

Rudy Giuliani is seen in this video being asked, "In 30 seconds, what is a defining mistake of your life and why?"

He made a joke about how he couldn't possibly list all his mistakes in 30 seconds. Giuliani is no joke, though. He is very serious about becoming America's next BIG mistake - another Republican President!

The "Green Zone Fog" seems to only effect republicans

Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), gets called out for his outright lies by Wolf Blitzer of CNN:

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.

The Duplicity of Dick

Dick Cheney in 1994. Appears Dick did not heed his own advice.

Watch it!