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Showing posts from August, 2010

What Attacks on Obama are Really About

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The readers who have nothing better to do than read this blog may know that I have claimed for some time that attacks on Obama are not really aimed at Obama at all, but are largely an attempt to talk away the grotesque failure of Republican administrations since Nixon, by fabricating claims that Democrats are just as bad. Here is an example of this, from Jim Hoft at Gatewany Pundit, that would make any decent human being die of shame: "If Saddam Was Still Alive Today…" This picture of Saddam and Obama is, of course, a photoshopped phony, unlike the following picture, which is all too real: Yes, that's Republican hero Donald Rumsfeld, serving under Republican God Ronald Reagan, doing pretty much exactly what Jim Hoft's phony picture pretends Obama would do. Could there possibly be a clearer demonstration of what these malicious traitors are up to when they attack Obama?

A Short Note About My Wingnut Coverage

I'm just so sick of the same lies over and over again, and the same utter disregard for any shred of truth and decency. What's more, I'm sure you are too. I'm giving Wingnut Wrapup and most of my coverage of the right a little rest, until I can face it again. Sad to say, like cockroaches, if we ignore them too long, they will be all over the place.

Keep Your Fingers Crossed

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Here's the current estimate for the track of category 4 Hurricane Earl: Maybe if we're really lucky, it will move a little to the southwest and take out both North and South Carolina.

Ignore This Report- It Means Nothing!

I wonder if this will change anyone's mind: "The world's most high-profile climate change sceptic is to declare that global warming is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and "a challenge humanity must confront", in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby. Bjørn Lomborg, the self-styled "sceptical environmentalist"...is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of policies to stop the problem. But in a new book to be published next month, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change. "Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century," the book concludes." What, conservatives are undoubtedly just going to ign

Conservatives Lie About Rally- What a Surprise!

I was preparing a careful list of the right wing "estimates" of the size of their grand Glenn Beck rally on Saturday, when I realized that it would be the most boring post in the history of the internet. Let me remind you that the only count of the crowd that I have seen that was based on an actual scientific analysis of aerial photos was done by CBS news, and reached a figure of 87,000 attendees. Beck had confidently predicted over 300,000, and is claiming himself that the crowd could have been as large as 650,000. Now, I don't believe that this consistent gross overestimating of the size of their rallies is an accident, or due to too much enthusiasm. I want to repeat a story, which I have told before, about about how we do things in the movie business. Suppose we are going to film a scene that takes place at a baseball game. The stadium holds, say, 30 or 40,000 people. Do we fill the stadium up with fans in every seat? No, of course not. We get a couple thousand p

Irony Writ Large

I have seen a couple of posts in the last few days about a concept that distinguished fascism from other authoritarian ideologies. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia: " the doctrines which are used to comprise the political ideology of fascism often (involve) the notion that fascism itself is the rebirth of a state and/or empire in the image of that which came before it - thus, the ancestral political underpinnings...The best examples of this can be found with both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany - Italy looking to establish a...line between the 20th century regime under Benito Mussolini as being the second incarnation of the Roman Empire, while Adolf Hitler's regime was seen as being the third...incarnation - beginning first with the Holy Roman Empire ("First Reich") then with Bismarck's German Empire ("Second Reich") and then resulting in Nazi Germany ("Third Reich")." Sound familiar after this weekend's Glenn Beck rally to "

The Apocalypse Approaches

From CBS News: "Fire at Tenn. Mosque Building Site Ruled Arson...Construction Equipment at Site of Planned Islamic Center Torched; Vocal Protests Against Mosque Have Been Ongoing... The chair of the center's planning committee, Essim Fathy, said he drove to the site at around 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning after he was contacted by the sheriff's department. "Our people and community are so worried of what else can happen," said Fathy. "They are so scared." Can anyone tell me how, in the face of incidents like this, Muslims are not supposed to view us as hostile, violent enemies? The people who are inciting behavior like this want a holy war and they are doing what they can to get it, for all of us. There are just not any words to describe how abominable the Republican party and its followers have become.

How Many People Showed, Glenn?

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As usual, I have been following Glenn Beck's inexcusable desecration today of the memory of the greatest religious leader in our nation's history. I have, as yet, been unable to find any wide shots of the crowd, which was predicted to be around 300,000. Dave Niewert of Crooks and Liars estimates that 50 to 70,000 people showed up. We'll see Just for your information, Glenn, here is what 300,000 people looks like: Update: Well, CBS News commissioned a company to take aerial photos of the demonstration, and produce an attendance figure. Here's the article, together with a couple of photos. Their attendance number? 87,000. This would be commensurate with the 70,000 which they turned out last September, which the right wing media reported as up to two million. I think it is important to know things like this, because we need to understand whether the tea party "movement" is much more than a media fiction. Certainly, a turnout of 87,000 to see their two

Jewish Expulsions

I want to link to a very well researched post about a subject that has interested me for some time- the fate of the Jewish populations of Muslim countries after the establishment of the State of Israel. For those who don't know this, the number of Jews who were expelled from mideastern and north African countries, often in very hostile circumstances, was roughly the same as the number of Palestinians who lost their homes in Israel. We hear over and over again about an alleged "right of return" for those Palestinians and their descendants, but of course we all know that the notion of a right of return of Jews to Iraq or Syria or Libya or Yemen, where they would be subjected to merciless persecution, is ludicrous. The Israelis took these people in, and their descendants are now fully integrated in Israeli life. If you have travelled in the middle east, you know that many Palestinians too have built new lives, but far too many languish in the most squalid of conditions, h

Buckley the "Intellectual" Conservative

I want to take exception to something that Greg Dworkin from Daily Kos had to say about Glenn Beck's infantile march on Washington this weekend, and about the participants in general: "This isn’t intellectual conservatism, a la Bill Buckley, with a coherent world view and a philosophy that can be argued and defended. " Sorry, Greg. The "conservatism" of Bill Buckley et. al. was promoted by a bunch of guys who went to Yale, and knew how to sound like Yalies when they pushed their agenda. That's the extent of intellectual content which their ideas had. Peel off the phony Yale accent, and underneath is the same old "everything for me, and let's find someone to hate" behavior that has been the Republican party's stock in trade since William Howard Taft took over from Teddy Roosevelt.

What a Good Sign

Karl Rove: "We Haven’t Seen GOP Turnout Like This Since 1926 " And how did that work out for us, Karl?

Big Republican News!

This Just In! Remember Ken Mehlman, the former head of the Republican National Committee, before he was removed because he couldn't possibly be as embarrassing as their current head, Michael Steele? Well, Ken Mehlman has just announced that he is gay! Who knew? In other news, Hank Aaron has finally confessed that, yes, he actually was once a professional baseball player.

News of the Sept. 11th Koran Burning

For those of you who are interested in the great patriotic event to commemorate the World Trade Center bombing, at which Christians are to get together in Florida and honor Jesus by burning Korans, this news: "Dove World Outreach Pastor Terry Jones says that when his Gainesville, Florida church conducts it's plan burning of the Koran on 9/11, he and his flock will be protected by an "armed militia." Terry Jones has accepted the support of Right Wing Extreme, which he said offered to come to the church with between 500 and 2,000 men on September 11. He described the organization as an armed civilian militia group." And nothing reminds us of doves more than 500 to 2000 armed religious lunatics. "Right Wing Extreme founder Shannon Carson said: "We fully support Dove World Outreach Center and its efforts to put an end to the notion that Islam is a peaceful religion. Islam is a violent cult..." Islam is a violent cult. We know this to be true becaus

Just When You Think You're Never Going To Hear Good News Again...

A story like this comes along: "When you count the people in the pews on Sunday rather than having a pollster ask whether or not they attend church, fewer than 18% attend church regularly. From 1980 to 2005 in the Southern Baptist Church, baptisms of people between eighteen and thirty four – in other words, their next generation of leaders – fell 40 percent, from 100,000 in 1980 to 60,000 in 2005...In 2006, the Southern Baptists – who claim almost six times more members than any other white evangelical church – made a concerted effort to baptize one million people. Not only did they fall over two-thirds short, they actually baptized even fewer than they had the year before. You might think that some faith group must have grown during the last thirty years, and you’d be right: atheists and nonbelievers more than doubled in the eleven years between 1990 and 2001, from 14 million to 29 million: from 8% of the country to 14%. There are more than twice as many atheists and nonbeli

Al Jazeera Responds to the Mosque

Just a short note on Middle Eastern response to our orgy of hatred over the Burlington Coat Factory Mosque in New York: I have been looking at Al Jazeera the last couple of days to see how they were handling this disgusting display of racism. If you would like a sample, you could look here, where you will find that their response is dispassionate and factual enough to really put to shame the jerks in this country that seem to be spoiling for a holy war every bit as much as Al Qaida. I was actually a little surprised that they aren't rising to the bait a little more, but on the other hand it is interesting to know that the Muslim world, allegedly violent and vicious beyond redemption, can show so much more restraint that our home-grown Christian Taliban.

It's All God's Fault

I couldn't help but get a laugh out of this article, from the ludicrously misnamed American Thinker website: "Is God trying to tell Obama something? Since Obama came to Washington DC, America has witnessed nature manifest itself on more than one occasion. Rodents scurry, flies swarm and a "ferocious blizzard'" sends snow-laden branches crashing onto a cavalcade of presidential SUVs. From a biblical point of view, one would be hard pressed to deny that pestilence, "lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds" are doing someone's bidding, but that Someone does not appear to be President Obama." Yes, indeed, the world has reached the point where even the wingnuts can't deny that something is wrong with our climate; but never let it be said that the world's scientists were right and Exxon was wrong- no, it can't be global warming. God did it, to punish Obama. Yeah, that's the story, God did it. Here's some of the in

Don't Get Your Hopes Up

I've seen a lot of happy remarks recently from Democrats, concerning the extremely small amount of money the Republicans have collected in the last quarter. Have you guys forgotten about the Supreme Court? Why should corporations give the money to the Republican party when they can now spend all they want on any kind of despicable smear, while leaving the Republican candidates able to totally deny any connection to the whole thing? Just wait until October- there will be more money on their side than you ever imagined, and it will be spent on things that are going to make even cynical observers like Green Eagle blanch. This is the brave new world of Republican campaigning, brought to you by five corrupt Republican Supreme Court justices, placed on the court by corrupt Republican Presidents, aided by gutless Democrats. Thanks to all of you.

Socialism Pollutes Our Government!

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"The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation" "Liberal?" What pinko commie scum said that? Barney Frank? Hitler? Oh, this guy. Never mind.

Greed...Right You Are

Today's citation for putting it in a sentence goes to Sam Pizzigazzi, at a blog called Too Much: "The takeaway from the latest top gun flame-out at Hewlett-Packard: Chief executive ’success,’ in America today, essentially demands no more than greed and a developmentally arrested ego. ...corporate tall tales, unlike urban legends, actually make a difference in our lives. Corporate tall tales...drive these decisions in a reckless direction. And the most reckless of these drivers? That may be the tall tale of the “rare talent.” We’ve heard this whopper quite a bit over recent decades. Running a major corporation, we’re told, takes enormous — and exceedingly rare — executive talent. To get this top talent, and keep it, firms have no choice but to pay top dollar and then some." In fact, all it seems to take is greed and a sociopathic personality. Once people like this claw their way to the top, they get a few years to plunder their companies before some person who

Well, At Least Now We Know What They Worship

Andy McCarthy, at National Review Online, starting off yet one more dose of racist garbage about the Burlington Coat Factory Mosque: "A friend poses the following: Imagine that there really were these fundamentalist Christian terror cells all over the United States, as the Department of Homeland Security imagines. Let’s say a group of five of these terrorists hijacked a plane, flew it to Mecca, and plowed it into the Kaaba." Andy, I'm just not sure what you're suggesting here. The Kaaba is the most sacred site in all of Islam. The World Trade Center was two buildings full of investment bankers and stockbrokers. Are you really saying that investment brokers and stockbrokers are the most sacred thing in our world, the apotheosis of everything we worship and hold holy? Actually, please don't answer that. I'm afraid you would agree.

Wingnut Wrapup

News from the ever-accelerating rush to nothingness that has gripped our country- here's what's rockin' their world these days: "Michael Barone, Town Hall: "Stimulus and Health Care Have Democrats on Defensive" Because it is always shameful to actually do something for the American people, rather than using our tax money for another giveaway to the rich. That makes sense, right? Ann Coulter, Town Hall: "Liberals are constantly hectoring Americans to adopt Sweden's generous welfare policies without considering that one reason Sweden's welfare policies haven't bankrupted the country (yet) is that the Swedes don't grant citizenship to the children of any deadbeat who manages the spectacular feat of giving birth on Swedish soil. " Well, actually, the Swedish have one of the most liberal policies on earth (surprise, surprise) on asylum seekers, and the country has a very high number of non-citizens living there. But how could we expec

Republican Freeloading Continues

Via Crooks and Liars, an article about t he most Republican county in California "Modoc County-- A Lesson In Republican Extremism And Their Cult Of Freeloading " Those who remember the brave new world being brought to us in Colorado Springs will find this tale quite familiar- another Republican crusade to reduce us all to third world peasants. I guess they will do it one county at a time if they can't do it all at once.

Simple Answer to a Simple Question

Buzzflash links to a article today, which they describe as follows: "Why the Republican Appeal to Fear Triumphs Over Reason and Enlightenment" The article predictably theorizes about stress, fear and such factors. Can I be bold as to suggest a much simpler answer: Republicans have about a hundred times as much money to spend on their lies as we have to spend on the truth.

Great Advice, George.

George Will, one of our greatest pundits, and for decades one of the most respected voies in Washington: "You can argue that the peace process is the biggest threat to peace in Palestine." How is our country ever going to survive? This ignorant, hateful pig continues: "Mr. Abbas wants East Jerusalem as the capitol of a Palestinian state. Mr. Netanyahu says Jerusalem is and will remain the undivided capitol of Israel. Mr. Netanyahu says a West Bank state -- a Palestinian state on the West Bank -- must be demilitarized, must be forbidden to have relations with Hamas, with Hezbollah and Iran. It must have on it an Israeli presence to make sure weapons do not come in the eastern border" he continued." George, who gives a God damned what Netanyahu claims to believe, any more than we should have listened to what Dick Cheney or Karl Rove or Joe Lieberman claimed to believe eight years ago? Nietanyahu is a lying, violent right wing monster just like them, and

Keeping Our American Values

The idea of a mosque a few blocks from the World Trade Center site drives 'em crazy, but they don't seem to mind that the tantrums of a greedy real estate developer have kept our great shrine to our national unpreparedness as nothing but a muddy hole in the ground for eight years. Free enterprise, yeah! It's in the constitution! Somewhere... I think.

Oh Great, Guys, That's Really Doing Your Job

From TPM: "The New York Times (among others) is reporting that a federal grand jury will soon hand down an indictment of baseball great Roger Clemens for lying to Congress during his 2008 testimony to the House Oversight Committee regarding steroids in baseball. The announcement could come later this afternoon." Just tremendous news. I wonder how long it will be before indictments are handed down of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Colin Powell et. al. for lying to Congress in order to start a war of aggression. Perhaps this is a peripheral question, but could anyone tell me how many hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians died because of what Roger Clemens did, or how many trillions of dollars it cost us? It must have been really terrible because here it is, eight years later and Bush and company are still running free, whereas Roger Clemens is being charged only two years after his testimony.

Green Eagle Attempts to Calm Wingnut Outrage

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Well, up at Gateway Pundit today, they are up in arms! They are furious! And with good cause too, I can assure you. You see, some private company held a little contest for graphic artists to submit new designs for American currency, with the winner to get a i-pad. And SOMEONE submitted a design featuring the COMMUNIST TERRORIST MUSLIM BARACK OBAMA! What an outrage! Well, here is the offending design, which I am sure will just raise the hackles on you, whatever hackles are: This kind of disrespect for the Greatest Country on Earth is surely NOT TO BE TOLERATED! So Green Eagle has worked very hard to address this issue, by coming up on his own with a set of designs for our money which more adequately reflect true American values, and which certainly DO NOT feature any representation of the dreaded you-know-what: I encourage you to click on my creative output, so you can see it larger, and decide for yourself whether these bills don't more fully portray our values as a nation.

A New Idea In Republican Theft

Here, courtesy of a post at Crooks and Liars, is the worst idea to combat unemployment in recorded human history: "With 9.5 percent unemployment and millions more underemployed, it seems like a daunting, almost impossible, task to find jobs for everyone. But Ken Maryland, president of ClearView Economics, has an idea: Cut everyone's pay by 10 percent. "EVERYBODY -- from the president down to the chambermaid -- takes a 10% cut in compensation," writes Maryland for Marketwatch. "This freed-up compensation expense is then used to re-employ the 8% (12.3 million) of the unemployed. Net-net, the nation's compensation bill has remained unchanged, and the unemployment rate is now 4.5%! Voila!" And of course, the "freed up compensation" would be used to create more jobs, just the way that increasing corporate profits are being used for the same purpose now, right? This may very well be the most preposterous new idea in Republican theft for the rich,

What a Bunch of Liars

Jonah Goldberg: "But there’s one point that I haven’t seen made that I think is really worth reminding people of. Simply: This is an incredibly tolerant country and, it has shown remarkable tolerance since 9/11. There has been no “anti-Muslim” backlash." Man, I've always said that there is no one easier to lie to than yourself, but considering the unbelievable damage that wingnut hatemongering is doing to our country, don't you think these people have some sort of a responsibility to be a little more honest with themselves? And I mean particularly people like Jonah Goldberg, talentless assholes who are making a living out of all of this hate, rather than sweeping up at the homeless shelter, which Jonah would be doing if his filthy witch of a mother hadn't bought his job by stoking the worst side of the American character.

Will These Guys Please Get With the Program?

Report: " Israeli Generals and Intel Officials Oppose Attack on Iran" But John Bolton and Pam Geller are all for it. Who are you going to listen to anyway?

The Jobs Are Coming Back!

At least I expect them to come back soon: "Call centre workers are becoming as cheap to hire in the US as they are in India, according to the head of the country’s largest business process outsourcing company... High unemployment levels have driven down wages for some low-skilled outsourcing services in some parts of the US...At the same time, wages in India’s outsourcing sector have risen by 10 per cent this year...Pramod Bhasin, the chief executive of Genpact, said his company expected to treble its workforce in the US over the next two years, from about 1,500 employees now." Ah, the miracle of private enterprise. Our mighty business titans have finally found a way to bring jobs back home. Now that Americans are willing to work for less than people are getting in third world countries, we can have all the jobs we want. See, we didn't need any of that nasty government intervention. The Republicans were right all along- just starve us long enough and we'll do

Wingnut Wrapup

Boy, these guys have been tedious lately. It's taken me days to compile enough of their stuff for this column. Oh well, here goes: Walter Williams, Town Hall: "Will Republicans Save Us?" Don't bet on it, Walt. Unless, by "us" you mean really rich guys. Erick Erickson, Red State: "The Democrats’ Disaster: More Americans Question Barack Obama’s Birth Story Than Support the Ground Zero Mosque" And I guess you are really proud of yourself and your associates for getting them to believe that. And this guy was recently hired by CNN as a commenter. Our liberal media at work. Art Horn, Pajamas Media: "NOAA and GISS claim a warm Arctic region made this June a record-breaker. They don't have a single thermometer in the Arctic!" Art...no, wait. Forget it. No one can get through to someone this stupid. Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit: "Ambassador John Bolton: Israel Has 8 Day Deadline to Attack Iran" What, or else John Bolton is goin

"Is this the run-up to war with Iran? "

Over at Crooks and Liars, they are asking this question today. Well, here is your answer: It absolutely is, if the Republicans get their way. There. Simple to figure that one out, huh?

I Must Have Misunderstood the Meaning of the Word "Blessing"

William Bennett, a very serious pundit, on CNN: "BENNETT: Oh, you mean Iraq? Well, that is going nifty, as a matter of fact. That is a blessing for the people of Iraq."

Petraeus- Trouble Ahead.

Andrew Bacevich, talking about General Petraeus in the New Republic: "Within the past week, complaints dribbling out of Petraeus’s headquarters in Kabul—duly reported by an accommodating press—indicate growing military unhappiness with the July 2011 pullout date. Now, Petraeus himself has begun to weigh in directly. This past weekend, he launched his own media campaign, offering his “narrative” of ongoing events. Unlike the ham-handed McChrystal, who chose a foreign capital as his soapbox, Petraeus sat for a carefully orchestrated series of interviews with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NBC’s “Meet the Press,” each of which gratefully passed along the general’s view of things." This guy has been a bootlicker of the right since the day he first appeared on the national scene. Sorry, Barack, you screwed up when you picked him. He was bound to end up stabbing you in the back, and like some military Newt Gingrich, he doesn't even have the decency to wait unt

Republican Values in a Single Phrase

Roger Simon, at Pajamas Media: "...what’s the point of doing the right thing if your party is going to lose seats because of it?" Boy, that pretty much sums things up, doesn't it? Isn't it ironic that they have convinced themselves and a lot of others that they are the noble, moral people in our country?

Religious Hatred Goes Mainstream

I want to point out that the campaign to demonize the proposed Islamic cultural center a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center site has been, as is pointed out in this post from Charles Johnson, been largely generated by the sick, perverted hatemonger, Pam Geller, who readers of this blog will be familiar with from my reporting of her endless, vicious lies about Muslims, Obama and others. Pam sunk so far into her hatred a few months ago that I found it too painful to cover her, and have stopped giving her even the minimal publicity she gets from my fringe blog. The reason I bring this up is to point out a perfect example of a phenomenon that I have talked about a number of times. Here we have ideas that should be as tolerable to decent Americans as the writings of Hitler, and yet the conservative machine is walking them step by step into common discourse, so that now these hateful views can be spoken aloud by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Peter King, Tim Pawlenty and other elec

The Really Important News

Just to keep you up to date: "The Supreme Court has upheld a $20,000 fine against a leader of the movement challenging President Barack Obama's citizenship." A writer at Orly's website: "It is a real shame to see that our nation has come to the point with the BS/BO Administration that people do not feel free enough to send a contribution to Dr. Taitz due to fearing retaliation from usurper. This is not the first time that people have been terrorized by a dictatorial ruler, but it is the first time it has happened here in the USA!!" Really. Personally, I think people didn't send Orly a contribution due to fear of waking up the next morning and realizing it was the stupidest waste of money in their lives. But wait, there's More! From Orly: "great Idea from reader Laura, we need a pig head at the site of the proposed mosque" Good thinking, Orly. A pig head. How about yours?

Wingnut Wrapup

One more descent into the maelstrom of stupidity: Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit: "Confidence in State-Run Media Continues to Slide" State run media, huh? Would that be ABC, owned by Disney, or NBC, owned by General Electric? Or CBS, owned by Viacom? Or CNN, owned by Time Warner? Can't you guys even try to tell a believable lie any more? Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit: "Obama Lectures America Over Ground Zero Mosque Plans" Reminding us that we believe in religious freedom in this country. Or at least some of us do. Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit: "The Socialist Party of America announced in their October 2009 newsletter that 70 Congressional democrats currently belong to their caucus." The real Socialist Party of America disbanded in 1972. I can find no information about this current alleged group except their "press release" being featured on several right wing blogs. One more lie from our Republican friends. Town Hall: "Black Man Murders 8 Wh

A Republican Finally Tells the Truth

I believe what follows is probably the most important thing I have ever posted, and I'm a little sorry that so much of it is not mine. I am going to reprint here what may be an unfairly long series of excerpts from an article in the New York Times by a man named David Stockman. For those of you who weren't around at the time, or have forgotten, David Stockman was President Ronald Reagan's budget director, and he was a major participant in the Republican plot to convince the American people to believe in the absurd theory of "trickle-down economics," the idea that if we just give the rich lots more money that it was going to somehow make the rest of us richer too. This is not the first time that Stockman has lifted the curtain on this cruel deception, which we are all now paying for. In the mid-nineties, in the introduction to the second edition of his memoirs, he admitted that none of the participants in that plan, from Reagan on down, regarded it as anythin

I'm So Proud

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As a person who grew up in Ohio, I am so proud of the level of intelligent, serious discourse which emanates from my former state: Man, I am so in there with you! I don't want a baby-murdering Muslim for my president either. Who are you talking about, and is he (or she- maybe it's Sarah Palin) really running?

Friday the 13th News

Well, Friday the 13th is sure turning out to live up to its reputation, as far as the news goes today. I'm just going to lump all of the horror in one post, so we can be done with it as soon as possible. Let's start with this cheery report, from the New York Times: "KABUL, Afghanistan — An ambitious military operation that Afghan officials had expected to be a sign of their growing military capacity instead turned into an embarrassment, with Taliban fighters battering an Afghan battalion in a remote eastern area until NATO sent in French and American rescue teams. " It has been obvious as anything on earth that the "war" in Afghanistan is lost, and has been since Bush and Cheney took their eyes off the ball to go fight in a country with oil. Obama should have pulled out the day he was inaugurated, no matter how much Republican abuse resulted. Now, he is stuck in the tar too, with no cogent strategy to bring any sort of good end to this sorry spectacle.

Some Nice Graphs Tell an Interesting Story

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Two graphs today really have a lot to say about the state of our country. First, this one from Ezra Klein, at the Washington Post: This chart compares Obama's proposed tax policy with that of Bush and the Republicans. As you can see, they are nearly identical until you get to those earning $500,000 a year or more. For those taxpayers, the Republican plan gives vastly larger tax cuts, particularly to those who earn over a million a year, who get a tax cut approximately sixteen times larger under Republicans. Well, there you see it. I don't think this chart needs much explanation. The next chart is from Bob Cesca: Mr. Cesca's comment: "On the left, job losses from December 2007 through July 2009 (the earliest President Obama's policies could actually have an impact on the economy). On the right, job losses since July 2009. Around 41,000 compared with the Bush administration's job losses numbering 7,796,000." There you go. You sure wouldn't know t

Don't Have Enough to Worry About?

Well, consider this important information from Survivalist News: "Homeless Eating Pets And Small Children to Survive The United States is not experiencing a famine but millions of homeless families are facing starvation as they fight to survive on the streets. The mental stress of losing their home in the financial collapse and lack of functional street skills is forcing many to find easy access meals for their family. A small dog in the backyard or an unwatched child playing near the street are easy targets for the desperate and hungry. A whole family of apparent cannibals has been found living near the south side zoo in Des Moines, IA. From what’s been reported the 3 adults, 2 teens and 4 very young children were taken into custody after a teacher on a field trip to the zoo reported a missing child around 1 pm. Tuesday afternoon leading to a search of the area. Unfortunately they were too late to save the missing 4 year old. It’s being reported that the child was deceased and

We Should Have Kicked Them Out When We Had the Chance

Some hopeful news about all of those polls showing Republicans doing so well, from a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll: "The GOP has a HUGE generic-ballot edge in the South (52%-31%), but it doesn’t lead anywhere else. In the Northeast, Dems have a 55%-30% edge; in the Midwest, they lead 49%-38%; and in the West, it’s 44%-43%. Yet do keep this caveat in mind: Many of the congressional districts Republicans are targeting outside of the South resemble some of those Southern districts they’re hoping to win back in November -- where you have whiter and older voters." What a great country this could be, if the Southern states were not part of it. Too bad we didn't let them go when we had the chance. Of course, then we would have a gigantic problem with illegal immigrants trying to cross the border to escape their hopeless life of poverty and squalor in the Confederate States of America, and we would probably need to amend the constitution to prevent pregnant white southern

Wingnut Wrapup

I wonder what would happen if Obama would offer these guys a bogus $200.00 tax cut. Do you think they would decide all of a sudden that global warming was real, or do they only take their greed with a side of hate these days? Jonah Goldberg, Town Hall: " Whenever conservatives propose a constitutional amendment, progressives suddenly rediscover the delicate gears of the Constitution and the horrible dangers of "tinkering" or "tampering" with its precision craftsmanship." "Tinkering," in this case, being a synonym for turning the country into a fascist dictatorship. Only a bunch of namby-pamby liberals would be against that. John Stossel, Town Hall: "Memo to Alan Greenspan: Keep Quiet...I'm getting tired of Alan Greenspan. First, the former Federal Reserve chairman blamed an allegedly unregulated free market for the housing and financial debacle. Now he favors repealing the Bush-era tax cuts." You loved him when he was helping y

A Little Warning

I seem to be suffering from some sort of spyware, which I have reason to believe was inflicted on my by one of my wingnut victims, and which is sending out e-mails in my name. I am very careful to maintain antivirus and antispyware protection on my computer, so whoever has done this is both sophisticated and determined. I am doing everything I can to terminate this problem, and I just want you to know that I would never send spam e-mail to anyone; so please delete any alleged communications you get from me, unless you are sure they are really from me. Thanks.

Staggering News!

In Green Eagle's endless search for enlightenment, he sometimes comes across the most amazing information. Here is the latest gem of knowledge that Green Eagle has unearthed, at great expense to himself, in order to spread wisdom among the people of the world: "The only successful monkey artisans are to be found promoting a dark nihilistic culture of addictive substances and degradation. It is very unlikely that monkeys would be permitted access to the ladders of Classical Culture and the Fine Arts" I promise you that I will be carefully examining this startling insight to discover what we can learn about our plight in the world today. UPDATE! The revelations are coming fast now! "Make no mistake - the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion were written by reptoids, but not by any definition of Jew that resides in the public/monkey domain... There is no end to the slaughter that will be perpetrated by the reptoids in the name of culling the hated herd of mo

There's Nothing So Bad that Religion Can't Make it Worse

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" Pakistan floods could give Taliban time to regroup" I 'm beginning to feel like this every day:

Another Republican Screaming Lie Revealed

Revealed to be the usual load of conservative garbage by this information about Obama's oil drilling moratorium. Republicans have been thundering in anger for weeks about all of the jobs lost by Obama's efforts to keep the oil companies from doing whatever they please, regardless of the danger. "weekly unemployment claims data in the mining industry sector, which comprises primarily oil- and gas-related jobs, have shown no noticeable spike since the moratorium was declared May 28. Overall employment data in coastal parishes also show little change since the drilling ban." So, once again, the Republican party has managed to gin up a whole mess of outrage about nothing. In the meantime, Democrats have continued to try to do their jobs. How can there even be any question about which party is more fit to run this country?

A Real Nice Religion, Yes Sir:

Reported at Yahoo today: "DUBLIN – Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has told priests that the Vatican has rejected the resignations of his two auxiliary bishops following their reported involvement in the Roman Catholic Church's cover-up of child abuse. Benedict summoned Ireland's bishops to Rome in February to discuss the Dublin Archdiocese scandal. The following month the pope published an unprecedented pastoral letter to the Irish Catholic people that...studiously avoided any acknowledgment of hierarchy culpability in covering up crimes." The Catholic Church is not (and has not been for probably centuries) a real religion; instead it is far more comparable to some sort of mafia-like gang of criminals. It's long past time when we as a nation stop giving them tax breaks and other signs that they have any more role in decent society than any other organized group of pedophiles.