I am Irish, second generation Los Angelino, worked for almost twenty years in film post-production, and I have to say, the only terror I have brought to the unsuspecting public is the fact that I worked on some terrible, terrible films. I apologize.  If you saw them, you will never get that two hours of your life back.  All I can say in my defense is I did not write or direct them.   Just a lowly blue collar film assistant needing a paycheck.

I will tell more of this surreal experience down the line.

For now, I just want to have a place to write when I am freaking out about this administration, and why we are sitting still, frozen, folding in on ourselves.

They are keeping us in fear, and the only way to stop it is for all of us to be fearless.  It will be a hassle, but there are more of us than them.  If the NeoCons are heinous, and the Democrats are spineless, we can, somehow, find a new way.  But we have to be fearless.  And boy, it is not easy.  I suffer from extreme anxiety as it is, and have to take medication for it.  But where this country is headed makes me more anxious than what might happen to me if I speak up.  All of you bloggers and writers and YouTubes and MySpace people who are in the political realm - keep going.

Thanks.  I know sometimes it feels like we are preaching to the choir, but if you go to my blog 'Partners on a Dime', read Oct......16th.  I think it is.  The word rant is in the title - I am naming  only three heavy hitters who have had enough and are fearless.  We need to follow their lead.  We need to not only support the troops and get them back home, but stand behind people who have huge careers in the entertainment business and are standing on the front lines also, putting what is right over their own self interests.  And there are way more than just these three.

                                          October 23, 2007 by Kelly Mahan Jaramillo


I am a member of MoveOn.org, and because I do not have a nickel to spend on politicians, nor do I have the energy to host a gathering or participate in any financial or physical proactive way.   It's sad. When John Kerry ran in 2004, there was an event called " Bake Back the White House.  I got wild and crazy, and decided that we should host one when we lived in Venice - we had a huge front lawn, and I took the leap.  One of the major players in MoveOn dropped by with her daughter, she gave me an autographed copy of MoveOn's book, "50 Ways to Love Your Country", and I was about to faint.  If Bruce Springsteen had shown up, I think I would have had Tomas talk to him about music.

We raised over $1,100 that day with sweets, pastries, cookies.....people were dropping their contributions off the night before, and YES, it was mandatory that we sample the wares!  It was one of the best days in my memory bank.

Now, all I can do is sign their petitions and add comments of my own.  I have been threatening the Democratic party that they no longer have my vote, I am so angry with them - They promised to bring our troops home, and THAT IS HOW THEY WON BOTH THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE!  We got punked again ,gang.  I feel  for the moderate Republicans who are horrified at what their party has become, because I am repulsed by what my party has become.  One cannot even tell the difference anymore.

So, my comments to Congress are getting more and more sarcastic, and angry, from disappointment to disgust to contempt.

Today there was a petition concerning the illegal wiretapping issue.  These are the facts, from MoveOn.
Here's what's going on: For years the Bush administration has been illegally spying on Americans' phone calls and emails with the willing assistance of big telecom companies like Verizon and AT&T. Lawsuits moving forward against these companies may be the only way we ever find out how far the Bush administration went in breaking the law.

So the White House is putting enormous pressure on Congress to give the phone companies retroactive immunity for all the laws they broke spying on innocent Americans. And some key Democrats are ready to go along!


I signed the petition, and added my comment, below.


Democratic party, you have lost your way.  I guess we American citizens just have to start facing the fact that we live in a dictatorship, and every good value we strove for and we have been known for has been tossed in favor of money.   You can all go to hell.  You could certainly learn a lesson from former Mexican President Vicente Fox.  But you won't.  You don't care that I will no longer vote for the Democratic party.  You don't care.  You do not care that you have decided to jump on the corrupt Bush Boat:
Grab the money and run.

You Just. Don't. Care.

But a word of caution, my corrupt little weasels - there are more of us than you, and the American citizens are getting angry.

Oh, make sure you red flag me as making threats - I am a 45 year old woman, crippled from a car accident - make sure I am not a threat.  Because you have kept the country so safe from "the terrorists", wowee, no more incidents since Sept. 11th!  Good for you!!

When did you decide to become your own version of terrorists?


Many years ago, a young woman  - let's call her J.G.- did not like the fact that Tomas had a girlfriend, and was no longer at her beck and call.  She called our house screaming and yelling that I was "One Angry Woman."  She was slightly deluded on her issue concerning Tomas, but I have to say, J.G., you were right.  And anyone that is NOT angry with the state of our country today is either taking too much E, or they must be brain dead.

Really, I am too insignificant to be taken to Gitmo, so,

More soon............and today I will not remind you to subscribe to.....VERACIFIER, I promise.

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Always Good to find someone more  articulate than myself

Column submitted courtesy of Sandy Berman

"If we can't be free at least we can be cheap." --  Frank Zappa


October 29, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

Fearing Fear Itself
By PAUL KRUGMAN


In America’s darkest hour, Franklin Delano Roosevelt urged the nation not to succumb to “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.” But that was then.

Today, many of the men who hope to be the next president — including all of the candidates with a significant chance of receiving the Republican nomination — have made unreasoning, unjustified terror the centerpiece of their campaigns.

Consider, for a moment, the implications of the fact that Rudy Giuliani is taking foreign policy advice from Norman Podhoretz, who wants us to start bombing Iran “as soon as it is logistically possible.”

Mr. Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a founding neoconservative, tells us that Iran is the “main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11.” The Islamofascists, he tells us, are well on their way toward creating a world “shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes.” Indeed, “Already, some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia.”

Do I have to point out that none of this makes a bit of sense?

For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.

Meanwhile, the idea that bombing will bring the Iranian regime to its knees — and bombing is the only option, since we’ve run out of troops — is pure wishful thinking. Last year Israel tried to cripple Hezbollah with an air campaign, and ended up strengthening it instead. There’s every reason to believe that an attack on Iran would produce the same result, with the added effects of endangering U.S. forces in Iraq and driving oil prices well into triple digits.

Mr. Podhoretz, in short, is engaging in what my relatives call crazy talk. Yet he is being treated with respect by the front-runner for the G.O.P. nomination. And Mr. Podhoretz’s rants are, if anything, saner than some of what we’ve been hearing from some of Mr. Giuliani’s rivals.

Thus, in a recent campaign ad Mitt Romney asserted that America is in a struggle with people who aim “to unite the world under a single jihadist Caliphate. To do that they must collapse freedom-loving nations. Like us.” He doesn’t say exactly who these jihadists are, but presumably he’s referring to Al Qaeda — an organization that has certainly demonstrated its willingness and ability to kill innocent people, but has no chance of collapsing the United States, let alone taking over the world.

And Mike Huckabee, whom reporters like to portray as a nice, reasonable guy, says that if Hillary Clinton is elected, “I’m not sure we’ll have the courage and the will and the resolve to fight the greatest threat this country’s ever faced in Islamofascism.” Yep, a bunch of lightly armed terrorists and a fourth-rate military power — which aren’t even allies — pose a greater danger than Hitler’s panzers or the Soviet nuclear arsenal ever did.

All of this would be funny if it weren’t so serious.

In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration adopted fear-mongering as a political strategy. Instead of treating the attack as what it was — an atrocity committed by a fundamentally weak, though ruthless adversary — the administration portrayed America as a nation under threat from every direction.

Most Americans have now regained their balance. But the Republican base, which lapped up the administration’s rhetoric about the axis of evil and the war on terror, remains infected by the fear the Bushies stirred up — perhaps because fear of terrorists maps so easily into the base’s older fears, including fear of dark-skinned people in general.

And the base is looking for a candidate who shares this fear.

Just to be clear, Al Qaeda is a real threat, and so is the Iranian nuclear program. But neither of these threats frightens me as much as fear itself — the unreasoning fear that has taken over one of America’s two great political parties.

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What more can I say?  Except don't forget to subscribe to Veracifier. 

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At Least I Feel Bad About It

It is late, there has been a lot going on, and I am tired tired tired.  I checked my e-mail, and there was only one, thank god.  I want to have a cigarette, lie down and watch "Cold Case".

I am a member of MoveOn, I have been fairly active, but tonight it was a letter outlining a plan on how to get voters out there, but it would cost mucho dinero, and could I contribute just $25?

I cannot believe it, but I blew my exhausted stack.  I am not sorry about what I wrote, but I do feel bad lashing out at the MoveOn folks who are tireless and just keep pushing for change, and they have done some amazing stuff.  Maybe my own pessimistic view these days just happened to collide with a request.  I am not sorry about what I said, as I meant every word of it,  but I am so fed up with being ignored by my own party, and asked to do more more more more more while things just get worse worse worse worse.  I suppose I felt MoveOn should somehow know that a loyal member was fed up.  But I feel like I yelled at the only organization that seems to give a damn.  I am glad I still care a little, too, and sad that my care for this country is dwindling.  Below is my tired rant, naked with mistakes, just like all of us in our own way, I guess.

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Dear Eli, and the rest of the team -
I am Very sorry I cannot donate anything.  This yoke around our necks called the Bush administration has left me utterly broke.  In 2004 my husband and I raised around $1,100 for "Bake Back the White House" and.....well, you all felt the pain as keenly as we did.

All I can do right now is call and/or write when asked, and believe me, I do.  I am just as infuriated with the Democratic Party right now, and just don't know what to do.  To be honest, Ron Paul is sounding interesting.  Will you discuss him with me/us?

On a high note, Dianne Feinstein (sp.? I am tired) responded to one of my blistering comments to Congress with a letter telling me what she has done, and made it clear that I could call and discuss any issues with her.  Probably a form letter, but I am threatening to change parties, and somehow it made it's way to her.  A good thing.

Carrie had dropped by our bake sale and mentioned that MoveOn often had to "hold Dianne's feet to the fire" - well, you certainly seemed to have accomplished it with her.  She obviously wants to keep her job.  Sadly, so did the rest of the country.

I still have a modicum of hope, but find that more often I throw my hands up and Just. Don't. Care.  It has all become a shell game, Repubs and Dems.  I never thought I would feel this way.

The frontrunners are a joke, but they are pretty.  The experienced ones don't have a chance in hell, because voting for the next President feels just like voting for Miss America.  The prettiest one promises to save the world.  Hillary, Obama, Edwards - just put them in a bathing suit with high heels and a sash and call it a day.

I have a web page that has a section on political satire, and a serious section called "No Fear is Mandatory in 2007."
So I still have a toe in the game, but I am not immersing myself ever again.

I worked with three extremely bright young women last year, the
youngest 19, the oldest 29.  two of them vet techs and one of them the practice manager.  Not idiots by any stretch, and yet NONE of them had heard about the Military Act of 2006, and when I told them, they DID NOT BELIEVE ME.
It felt like another nail in the hollow coffin of what this country has become.

So, to end this tired rant, I will never donate a cent to any politician again.  My trust has been smashed by our Democratic Party, and they can go to hell right along with the neocons.

I've organized, I've gone to Cindy Sheehan and End the War, waving my sign, I launched my own campaign along with political satirists Allen and Lani Voivod to Kick Rumsfeld Out, and it failed.  Rummy is doing just fine. is doing just fine. Now I just write.  One lone voter that my own party does not give a shit about.  I am ready to launch a campaign stopping everyone from voting at all.  Let's just start over, see what new criminals get up there and jockey for power.  At least it would not be the same old faces, same old songs.

But, you guys keep at it, and I respect you for that.  And Al Franken is running in Minnesota.  I would move there to vote for him.  That's about it.  Oh, sorry, one more.  The reason I have no fear is because I have no fear of what awaits us all in the end.  The great equalizer, death.  This administration and our wimpy party has made me look forward to the next journey.  Again, at least it might be different.  Overall,  it seems kind of silly to "take back" a country that was never "ours" in the first place.  It makes me feel like an eight year old.  Let Bush and the gang have the country -  they can play with their broken toy all they want.

But kudo's to you all for your passion and dedication.  I am sorry that I did not stay on the bandwagon, but life is just to short, for me at least.  Just one nobody's opinion.

Best to you all,

Kelly Mahan Jaramillo
http://www.kellymahanjaramillo.com


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November 5th, 2007

The letter got kicked back.  I figure if I really want to have a fit at MoveOn, I will find the proper e-mail  address to send it to, not just hit reply and blow my stack.  I will have to sleep on it.  Goodnight, and do not forget to subscribe to Veracifier.
Go ahead and call me a nag.  It's the truth, I can handle it.  :)