Green Eagle

Well, here are some excerpts from today's Republican response to the Supreme Court's decision about Obamacare this week, delivered by some jackass Republican Congressman who claims he is a doctor.  It's just about as idiotic and malicious as you would expect: “The President and his allies in Congress are going to try to convince the public that the Supreme Court just gave the health care law a seal of approval." Whereas, in upholding it, the Supreme Court actually rejected it out of hand, I guess.  If the Supreme Court had really approved it, they would have done cartwheels on the lawn and screamed "whoopee," the traditional way the Supreme Court has always used to indicate that it is upholding a piece of legislation. “The President’s health care law hires more IRS agents to investigate you and to make sure you buy insurance—but it fails to deal with the shortage of nurses and doctors to actually take care of you." Then vote more Federal money t...

Yeah, the denizens of the wingnut world have been boring me for some time now, but I thought it was a good time to look in on them, as they wallow in their pain over having one of their own Supreme Court Justices put honesty over corruption for once in his life. Oh God, here we go.... Town Hall:  "Romney Rakes in More Than $1 Million Since ObamaCare Ruling" Well, that will be a comfort to you as you struggle to cast off the deep depression you feel at the notion that one of YOUR guys didn't kill his conscience completely before taking office. John Boehner:  "Today's ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this harmful law in its entirety" Because nothing underscores the urgency of repealing a law than the fact that it was passed by both houses of Congress, signed by the President and upheld by the Supreme Court.  Katie Pavlich, Town Hall:  "House to Vote to Repeal ObamaCare Again July 11" What a surprise, huh?  The next day, I sus...

Here's a list for you: Jason Altmire (PA-04, lost primary in PA-12) * John Barrow (GA-12) * Dan Boren (OK-02, retiring) * Leonard Boswell (IA-03) * Ben Chandler (KY-06) * Mark Critz (PA-12) Joe Donnelly (IN-02, running for IN-Sen) * Kathy Hochul (NY-26) Ron Kind (WI-03) Larry Kissell (NC-08) * Jim Matheson (UT-02, running in UT-04) * Mike McIntyre (NC-07) * Bill Owens (NY-23, running in NY-21) Collin Peterson (MN-07) * Nick Rahall (WV-03) Mike Ross (AR-04, retiring) * Tim Walz (MN-01) These are the stupid, vicious bastards that voted with the House Republicans to carry on with the treasonous attack on Attorney General Holder.  No real Democrat should rest until they are all removed from office, whether or not they are replaced with other Democrats.

Conservative does the right thing. I just want to say, I'm traveling,  so I haven't been able to write much the last couple of days, but of course, Green Eagle has plenty of squawking coming about this startling event, as well as a rather long post about what a total ass Antonin Scalia is.  See you soon.

From their new platform: "We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills" I have nothing to add to that.

Via the ever-valuable Daily Kos , this story from Bloomberg , illustrating the degree to which the Republican party has worked for decades to destroy any semblance of the government we have had in this country for two hundred odd years: "Obama Health Law Seen Valid, Scholars Expect Rejection The U.S. Supreme Court should uphold a law requiring most Americans to have health insurance if the justices follow legal precedent, according to 19 of 21 constitutional law professors who ventured an opinion on the most-anticipated ruling in years. Only eight of them predicted the court would do so. “The precedent makes this a very easy case,” said Christina Whitman, a University of Michigan law professor. “But the oral argument indicated that the more conservative justices are striving to find a way to strike down the mandate.” Click through to the article if you'd like- you'll find similar views from a number of other legal scholars. Let me make what is being said here c...

And it is as ugly as you could ever fear it would be.  Here are some excerpts from a Salon article about a newly released bunch of NSA documents relating to the period before 9-11.  This article is absolutely must reading, and I urgently encourage you to click on the link and read it all.  Every American needs to know what these documents reveal:  "New NSA docs contradict 9/11 claims Over 120 CIA documents concerning 9/11, Osama bin Laden and counterterrorism were published today for the first time...Perhaps most damning are the documents showing that the CIA had bin Laden in its cross hairs a full year before 9/11 — but didn’t get the funding from the Bush administration White House to take him out or even continue monitoring him. The CIA materials directly contradict the many claims of Bush officials that it was aggressively pursuing al-Qaida prior to 9/11, and that nobody could have predicted the attacks. Many of the documents publicize for the first time ...

His contempt for American voters is absolutely boundless, and it is never going to end because his lies will be covered up by the press as fast as he tells them: Here is a quote from Yahoo news, reprinted at Americablog today: "I like having two sides. I didn't go to law school , I didn't practice law, but I like the idea of arguing points back and forth and sorting through them, and being able to probe, in some cases you need to go back and get more information." The lying bastard.  How can he expect to get away with statements like this when he has a Harvard law degree?  Well, this is how:  here is this quote as it stands at the Yahoo news story now: "I like having two sides … I didn't practice law, but I like the idea of arguing points back and forth and sorting through them, and being able to probe, in some cases you need to go back and get more information." Yahoo has simply erased his lie from history.   At the bottom of the articl...

Doyle McManus in the Los Angeles Times: "Romney's prescription is simple: unleash private enterprise through lower taxes and less regulation." What an original Republican idea!  Who would have ever credited Romney with such  forward thinking! How can anyone fall for this sort of thing?  The Republican party doesn't give a damn about the welfare of the country.  As they have been for a hundred years, they exist solely to loot the economy for the rich, and the rest of us be damned.  Of course, after making the statement quoted above, it never occurs to McManus to point out that this is the exact same prescription, in good times and bad, that Republicans have had for every problem confronting our country; nor does he think it worthwhile to mention that it has now caused two depressions.  Nor does he point out that the Democratic idea- fair taxes for everyone, and reasonable regulation for the benefit of society, was given a try under FDR, and it eliminat...

From an official Catholic piece of trash publication: "The fourteen days from June 21—the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More—to July 4, Independence Day, are dedicated to this “fortnight for freedom”—a great hymn of prayer for our country. Our liturgical calendar celebrates a series of great martyrs who remained faithful in the face of persecution by political power—St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, St. John the Baptist, SS. Peter afortnight-for-freedom-montagend Paul, and the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome." Forget about any of those guys?  St. John Fisher, St. Thomas More, and St. John the Baptist all had their heads cut off for being Christians.  (Peter and Paul only made the list to remind us that this is all about the Catholic Church.)  Honestly, I haven't heard much about any Catholics having their heads cut off by the Obama administration, but then I haven't been following the news that closely the last few weeks.  Well, a...

And you know that this accidental revelation represents the very small tip of a very large iceberg: "Insurance giant Aetna inadvertently disclosed more than $7 million in donations to conservative political groups in a regulatory filing made earlier this year, according to a Washington-based advocacy group... Documents obtained and distributed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington show that Aetna made a $3 million donation to the American Action Network and a $4.05 million donation to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2011. Advocates of campaign finance reform say the disclosures, first reported by trade publication SNL Financial, are extremely unusual, and represent the first known major donations from a publicly traded company to political organizations that are not required to reveal the source of their funding. "No funds were provided to these organizations for lobbying purposes; however, we have provided funds to these organizations for e...

Like many people, I rarely change the list of blogs that I have linked to over on the right.  In fact, most of them have been there since very soon after I started Green Eagle.  Today, I'm removing Truth 101, which has switched to an invitation-only status; there is no point in linking to something only to have people get denied access if they try to go there.  In fact, after following Truth 101 with enjoyment for some years, I have been blocked from access too.  Well, everyone can run their blog any way they want, I guess.  'Bye, Truth 101.

Some of you may have heard of the recent "religious liberty" ballot initiative in the State of North Dakota.  It was defeated, but if you think that will make the proponents of this sort of malicious garbage think twice about it, you are very naive.  Here is the text of the initiative: "Government may not burden a person’s or religious organization’s religious liberty. The right to act or refuse to act in a manner motivated by a sincerely held religious belief may not be burdened unless the government proves it has a compelling governmental interest in infringing the specific act or refusal to act and has used the least restrictive means to further that interest. A burden includes indirect burdens such as withholding benefits, assessing penalties, or an exclusion from programs or access to facilities." The main thing I have to say about this is that these stupid jackasses came very close to making Sharia law legal in North Dakota.  This while they scream a...

I've had such success with my art criticism, that I thought I'd take a chance at literature, featuring the musings of the very well-to-do Mr. Podsnap, from chapter 11 of Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, slightly edited: "In the mean time a stray personage of a meek demeanour, who had wandered to the hearthrug and got among the heads of tribes assembled there in conference with Mr Podsnap, eliminated Mr Podsnap's flush and flourish by a highly unpolite remark; no less than a reference to the circumstance that some half-dozen people had lately died in the streets, of starvation. It was clearly ill-timed after dinner. It was not in good taste. 'I don't believe it,' said Mr Podsnap, putting it behind him. The meek man was afraid we must take it as proved, because there were the Inquests and the Registrar's returns. 'Then it was their own fault,' said Mr Podsnap. Veneering and other elders of tribes commended this way out of it. At ...

And get used to it- this is shaping up to be the deciding factor in the 2012 Presidential race, sad to say, just like it did in 2000 and 2004: Today's dose is from Matt Taylor, at Slate: "If he were not in the White House right now, there's a good chance Senator Obama would be among the growing number of dissident Democrats -- Cory Booker and Bill Clinton among them -- expressing unease with the Bain line of attack by his party's presidential nominee. He is a self-proclaimed "New Democrat," a business-friendly moderate who often rhapsodizes about the magic of free enterprise. But Obama's re-election team apparently did the polling and testing -- and saw how Ted Kennedy's brutal, relentless campaign against Romney in 1994 worked so well -- and decided the attacks were just too promising to pass up." Let me see if I have this straight, now.  It is really beyond any concept of fair campaigning for Obama to mention the fact that Mitt Romney i...

Yes, culture fans, Green Eagle's Art Corner is back!  Today, we want to bring to your attention, one David Bugnon, an artist who will certainly be looking to challenge Jon McNaughton as the grand master of Conservative painting (although it must be admitted, I have yet to find a chicken in his work- an important thing, I am sure you will agree.) This challenge to McNaughton's supremacy comes in the form of the following masterful oil painting, featuring a heroic vision of the great knight of European culture, Andrew Breitbart in a magnificent suit of armor, which is listed for sale right now at the Conservative website Patriot Depot, for the low, low price of $3995.00: Well, it was listed for sale.  That's until someone at Wonkette discovered this: That image on the right there is a still from the video game Assassin's Creed.   Whoops, I guess the thing wasn't an oil painting at all, just a cheesy photoshop job, made from stolen images.  The offer to sell...

Here is a rather wonderful excerpt of a speech in the European Parliament by Nigel Farange, a British MEP.  I have stolen it from Infidel753, and I think you will enjoy it.  You may not agree with everything he has to say, but isn't it nice once in a while to see a politician at least trying to say what he really believes:

Mitt Romney:  "He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.” Firemen, policemen and teachers are now the enemies of the American people, according to Romney.  At what point do the great masters of our pundit class decide that there are some people who are so loathsome and dishonest that, really, we shouldn't be considering placing them in the most powerful position in the world? Or is any level of moral degeneracy perfectly fine as long as it is applied in service of the rich?

From the National Climatic Data Center: "According to NOAA scientists, the average temperature for the contiguous U.S. during May was 64.3°F, 3.3°F above the long-term average, making it the second warmest May on record. The month's high temperatures also contributed to the warmest spring, warmest year-to-date, and warmest 12-month period the nation has experienced since recordkeeping began in 1895." Just sayin'. Anyway, here's the other side, courtesy of a post at Pharyngula: Much more trustworthy sort of people, huh?

The press does the dirty work of the Republican party again.  A few days we saw a story about a new Pew poll showing a fairly dramatic increase in the percentage of voters who call themselves independents rather than identify with one of the two political parties. Here are just a few samples of the sort of reporting we saw.  I can't be bothered to link to them- sorry if that upsets you: ABC News:  "Pew Poll: Independent Voters Swing Right, Oppose Party Supported in 08" Seattle Times:  "Poll: Partisan gap grows; party affiliation erodes...moderates abandon both parties" The Oklahoman:  "The results indicate a collective thumbs down to both the Democratic and Republican Party" Well, we get that...voters are abandoning both parties, and if anything this is a sign that they are moving to the right. So, here is a graph of the actual data from the Pew poll: So, sure enough, independent voters have increased from 29% to 38% of the electorate.  And...

That would be the recently oh-so-in-the-news John Edwards.  Funny isn't is:  Here you have a Democrat who hasn't held office for six years, and whose offense was to have an affair and attempt to buy silence from his mistress. On the other side of the aisle, we have the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the hundreds of Republican legislators around the country which it pays to introduce and support legislation written by corporations.  Now, isn't that the definition of corruption- to take money to influence their job?  Yet this massive, widespread practice is of absolutely no interest to the mainstream press.  The long-gone Edwards, on the other hand, is fair game for endless press abuse. And don't tell me that it's because all the American people care about is sex.  If that were the case, we'd still be having nasty articles about David Vitter and that wide stance guy.  But they were Republicans, so it's okay. This sick game has been ...

Here's what I found.  These are some random shots of Italian real estate for sale, mostly in Tuscany and Umbria, with one in Lazio a little south of Rome.  The internet asking prices were all in the range of $700-750,000.  Given the current state of the Italian economy, I'm sure that a cash offer of $625,000 would get any of them. Time to start planning an escape strategy before the goose stepping really gets started.

I'm out of here.  What's the point?

I happened to be lying in bed a couple of nights ago, and looking for some light bedtime reading, I picked up a copy of of Ian Kershaw's biography of Adolf Hitler.  I was reading the part about Hitler's seizing of the Reichchancellorship in January of 1933, where Kershaw spent some time ruminating about how this colossal political disaster could have been deliberately created.  I'd like to present some of Kershaw's thoughts here, along with my own (grossly inferior, I'm sure) comments. Sorry, but I can't provide a link to this material- it comes from an actual book, which as far as I know is not available online.  The quotes that follow start on page 424 of volume 1. Before getting on with it, I want to make it clear that I am not comparing any current American Conservative leader to Hitler.  All I am interested in here is the combination of malfeasance and corrupt intentions that result in a modern industrial nation turning itself over to the far right. I...