Why Palin is a Danger to Us All

A Ranelli Rumination
BY FRANK J. RANELLI

Tuesday, October 07, 2008


If we are to succeed as a nation, we all must be in utter agreement about who Sarah Palin is as a person; she is stunningly uninformed and breathtakingly overconfident. Orwellian with an outward, Machiavellian patina is an aptly just description of Palin.

However, her unconcealed, overt certitude is potentially the biggest problem of all. She has mastered the art of flowery platitudes and sneering contempt. All of which, to the low-information, Neanderthal voters we are all unfortunately witnessing first hand from the right wing political spectrum, combined with her tacky, sophomoric charm, actually makes her very attractive, in a very spine-chilling kind of way. She uses blatantly appealing demagoguery to create eerie exultations among a fringe fraction and faction of Americans – the visceral, not cerebral coterie that follows her with frightening credulity.

It is this set of events and actions that concerns me the most. She is a glib, authoritarian person who has a Manichean mindset – a dualist – one who only sees the world as good or evil; no nuance, nothing abstract or ever vague. Moreover, after judiciously studying authoritarian personalities for over two years, I can tell you they are loose with facts but stridently persuasive. They are charming, disarming, almost irresistible, yet completely morally bankrupt and amoral. They are hostile toward intellectuals, takes pleasure in deriding academia and immense pride in their willful ignorance.

The problem here is they are masters at using base intellect, not intelligence, to plead to people's pathos. (Many grisly dictators of the past were all "gifted" experts at this tactic.) In essence, they are scheming, devious and capable of anything in order to subvert the will of other people in order to achieve their objectives. And their objectives are not inline or in step with a progressive, balanced America – they are wholly recalcitrant reactionaries.

Here, with Palin, we see the pathology and pattern of someone infatuated and fixated on one's identity to the exclusion of others – an inborn need for social dominance (often overlooked as merely being "spirited"), personal ambition bereft of circumspection, outrageously aggrandized bragging, arrogant immodesty, and total insensitivity.

It is these sophistry skills and nefarious guile that disturbs me greatly. All of these traits are markers identified in one of only two groups of maladaptive, narcissistic personalities – authoritarians and sociopaths.

Do I make these indictments lightly, no, but it has become increasingly clear that Sarah Palin's confrontational convictions are more than a benign personality tick; it is a deeper insight into how she would govern a nation in every respect: Unflinchingly autocratic.

Stop her, we must!

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.

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.

:: ::


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.

Paulson's Plenary Proposal Must be Rejected!

Frank J. Ranelli


This is not the time for petty partisanship, nor is the time for rushed decisions. The Treasury Department’s proposed bail out is an obscene nod toward the largest transfer of wealth in human history; it is also a leap into Robber Baron-style tyranny. 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.

I refer you to these extreme portions of Treasury Department’s proposed bail out:

SEC. 2. PURCHASES OF MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS

"(b) Necessary Actions.--The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation”

SEC. 8. REVIEW

“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

NO ONE in our government should be allowed this much power with this little oversight.

This is a dangerous power grab by the Executive Branch and simply legislative-approved despotism. Congress must reject this absolutist, radical proposal outright. True patriotism and real humanity must begin with each of us helping 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.

Rewarding shocking and irresponsible behavior is a formula that emboldens, not condemns, more of the same financial plunder and excessive negligence.

I implore every American to reject this dangerous, plenary proposal – to slow the legislative process down – and to invoke prudence, not haste, during this economic crisis. It took us years to get this deep into our now-financial abyss; hence, we must be vigilant and exercise sound judgment getting out.

This is not a time for rapid-fire, extemporaneous reactions to a boiling-over pot that has been slowly simmering toward disaster for years.

It’s time we, as a people and a nation, put people, and our nation, over the profits of Wall Street moguls and plutocrats. This enormous theft of taxpayer’s dollars is an unparalleled sinister crime, with real victims – homeowners and working-class families.

Quote of the Day!

Frank J. Ranelli


“Privatized profits, socialized losses—it’s the Republican way; socialism for the rich.” – Frank J. Ranelli, Wednesday, September 18, 2008

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

Sarah Palin: A Heartbeat Away

Palin, radical right, radically anti-American!

Watch it!



Palin Cheered On the Alaskan Independence Party. Six months ago, Palin “told members of the Alaskan Independence Party” — who advocate for a vote on secession from the union — to “keep up the good work” and “wished the party luck on what she called its ‘inspiring convention.’” Palin and her husband attended the party’s convention in 2000, and “for all but two months from 1995 to 2002, the governor’s husband was registered as an Alaskan Independence Party member.” George Clark, the vice chair of the party, claims that Palin was a member of the party “before she got the job as a mayor of a small town.”

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.

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!

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!