The Pennsylvania Progressive, one of my favorite blogs, blew me away last week with the latest about Carl Romanelli. Remember him? He's the Green party wingnut who tried and failed to get on the ballot for the U.S. Senate. He's the dude who actually paid people for every signature they could drum up. And he's the idealogue who thought nothing of accepting over $150,000 in blood money from Halliburton subsidiaries and Blackwater USA.
He tells Amy Goodman of Democracy Now he "needed money." That explains everything. Next time a Green wants to critcize Republicans or Democrats for accepting money from a union or big oil, they can simply say they "needed money." That must be one of the secret Green party principles.
Romanelli explains all money was funneled through the Luzerne County Green Party. But guess what? There was no explanation for the $40,000 in coordinated expenditures supposedly spent on behalf of four Greens running for Congress in Pa., including psychotherapist Greta Browne. She just posted own her explanation of Romanelli's blood money on her website Thursday, claiming she knew nothing about it. But she disingenuously backdated her statement, which fails to address the money paid to several of her volunteers or the pay per signature scheme in which her campaign participated.
This election cycle has convinced me at long last that minor party candidates are minor party candidates for a reason. I've never seen a bigger bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites.
9 comments:
And they want to be my latex sales people. As far as I'm concerned, this sets the Green Party back to square -1. Yes, that's a minus sign in front of the one.
dg
Bernie, I agree. The Greens have always been the party "way out in left field." But, when they took money from the Devil himself to get on the ballot, they showed just how corrupt they are. The ends never justify the means, no matter how naive you pretend to be.
dg & anon, I myself was a Green party member until 9/11/01, when I was chastised for skipping a local green party meeting because I wanted to be with my family that night. There are some great people in that group. Bernie Berg is one of them. Greta Browne is not.
I'm sure that confession felt good.
Carl and Ricky can console each other November 8.
As Republicans and Democrats go to the polls tomorrow, I'm sure blaming Green Party's Romanelli for the current dismall state will make democracy all good again. A 2-Party system is what is bringing your country to its knees. External policies, reliance on the military industrial complex focussed on combatting terrorism and the growing debt as a result, and widening poverty gap not to metion the 25% of Green House Gas emission that the US is responsible for ALONE (and make up 5% of the World's population), no public health care (the only "democratic nation" with that tag). Ask your children and grandchildren in 2012 what they thought of the lack of responsibility and accountability the current administration and BOTH houses had. The whole system is not working (either is ours) and the anger is crossing over the border...
--A concerned Canadian observer.
Hey Canada,
Watch your ass or we'll nuke you!
No, you're right. The two party system is a big part of the problem. But guys like Romanelli do a real disservice to any effort to ease ballot access laws. Hence my criticism. I think it's fair. But I'm an idiot.
Flattery will get you everywhere Bernie.
The funny thing is that I usually listen to Amy Goodman but missed that show. I'm glad you didn't.
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