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Showing posts from March, 2012

The Court Prepares to Deal Us Another Blow

I guess it's inevitable that I would seize an opportunity to shout out my own opinions about the three day dumb show that we were forced to endure this week at the Supreme Court.  I have heard so much nonsense about what happened there, even from normally brilliant commentators like Randi Rhodes, that I have to at least say what I think is really happening. First, I would like to deal with a bit of judicial precedent.  I'm not a lawyer, but I think anyone reading the following will get the point.  This involves the notion that the "individual mandate," i.e. the requirement that people buy insurance, is some sort of outrage to the Constitution and the founding fathers. Here is something that, I am positive, every Supreme Court Justice (well, except maybe for that jackass Clarence Thomas) is fully aware of: "In July, 1798, Congress passed, and President John Adams signed into law “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen,” authorizing the creation

A Hollywood History Lesson

From our friends at the Vanguard News Service (no link on this one): "Yes, the Jews Are the People of the Lawsuit, But They’re Also the people of plagiarism. (Back in the 1940s/1950s, Jewish composers wrote many popular songs. Some of those songs were used in Hollywood movies. They were good songs, which is exactly why you should question their origins. The Jewish “composers,” in all probability, stole the songs from gentiles and claimed them as their own, just as Jews have stolen the credit for so many other things in “the arts.” In fact, Hollywood was started by shifty Jews who illegally used gentile technology to create a film empire)." Just thought that you would like to know that:  A) Jews can't write good songs... all those guys from Irving Berlin and Al Jolson to Lieber and Stoller etc. etc. etc. stole their thousands of hits from...someone.  And we know that someone wasn't Jewish, since, well, Jews can't write good songs.  And we also know that a good C

Wingnut Wrapup

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Here we go: Dick Morris, Fox News:  "If Obama Is Re-Elected, Bush's "Legacy" Will Be Derailed" Forget it, Dick.  We're not that lucky.  We're going to be paying for Bush's legacy for a hundred years.  That's why a Republican has to be as stupid as Dick Morris to even mention the guy's name during a campaign. Chuck Norris, Town Hall:  "Not All Presidential Orders Are Created Equal" Only the ones by Republican presidents are legal.  And by the way, Chuck, shut up, already.  You're almost as annoying as Ted Nugent. John Ransom, Town Hall:  "The “Bi-Polar" Presidency...The truth is that while the mainstream media cabal treats each iteration of Obama Version 2-point-whatever as a brilliant political ploy, each iteration only fills Americans with more misgivings about him. If that weren’t the case we wouldn’t see Obama continually trying to reinvent himself every three months." No joke here- just a perfect

The Smartest Single Sentence About Trayvon Martin

That I have heard anywhere, from Captain Fogg at the Swash Zone: "A License to Carry a Concealed Weapon is not a License to use it." Pretty much says it all, in my opinion.

No Such Thing

An honest Republican, I mean.  Case in point today, the poster child for bipartisanship and darling of the Washington insiders, Senator Olympia Snowe: "Retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe has finished grading the president’s report card. President Obama gets an “F” in bipartisanship" Not one word from her, of course, about her Republican Senate colleagues, who made it clear from the day Obama was elected that their number one priority was to destroy him, and who have spent the last three and a half years damaging the country in an effort to make it impossible for him to win reelection. Here's a sample of Olympia Snowe's own "bipartisanship," as described by Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine: "The Obama administration, desperate to win her vote, wooed her with endless meetings and pleas, affording her a once-in-a-generation chance to not only help pass health care reform but make it smarter, more efficient, and more compassionate. Instead, Snowe tor

A Conspiracy Too Far?

I am afraid I have to report on one of the most spectacularly stupid conspiracy theories about Obama that I have ever heard.  Naturally, it comes from the execrable Jerome Corsi (who gave us the Swift Boat smears) and is being promoted at the global headquarters of anti-Obama idiocy, World Net Daily.  Here's the gist of it: "CHICAGO – Did the parents of former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers help finance Barack Obama’s Harvard education?...A retired U.S. Postal Service carrier who delivered mail to Tom and Mary Ayers in a Chicago suburb in the late 1980s and early 1990s and claims to have met Obama in front of the Ayers home emphatically says yes" Oh, my God in heaven above.  Did you ever hear anything so stupid in your life?  Well, hold on, the mere assertion that Bill Ayers' father paid for Obama's education, as absolutely insane as that is, is not by any means the height of Corsi's craziness. Who was Bill Ayers' father anyway?  I mean, who

About As Far Out Of Character

as I can get, but I loved this.  It's a Jesus metal band full of geezers: I found it when I was (needless to say) looking for something else.  I don't know why I'm posting it, but I got a kick out of them.

Cut My Taxes!

The only thing Conservatives care a damn about...today's episode: "The granddaddy of property tax revolts is now underway in North Dakota. The North Dakota group, Empower the Taxpayer  writes " On June 12, 2012, the voters of North Dakota will have the opportunity to make North Dakota truly 'Legendary', as the first to pass a state constitutional amendment that will abolish the property tax, prioritize spending by the legislature, and finally give local governments something they never had: true local control over spending. " Public unions and proponents of big government are now involved in a major wave of fearmongering because North Dakota counties get about 60 percent of their revenue from property tax. If the amendment passes, school districts will simply have to get funding from another source, or cut budgets." It's "fearmongering" to point out that these great patriots are working to cut the budget for schools, polic

Justified

"Larry Pratt, the executive director of Second Amendment group Gun Owners of America, offered a rare defense of the man who killed Trayvon Martin, saying George Zimmerman was acting in self defense when he shot the Florida teen." Don't you libtards get it yet?  A white man is always acting in self defense whenever he is in the presence of a black man. This wasn't the case in our country- before 1865.  No one asked all those black people to come over here and upset our white paradise, you know. Well, you know what to do.  A vote for Rick Santorum is a vote to bring back the happy days.

The Biggest Waste In Medical History

From TPM: "Report: Former VP Dick Cheney Received A Heart Transplant The Associated Press has learned that former Vice President Dick Cheney received a heart transplant Saturday and is recovering at a hospital in Virginia."

Wingnut Wrapup

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Let's just start out with a really reasonable suggestion: Monte Kugliowski, American Thinker:  "...there are too many oddities with Obama... the reasonable thing for Obama to do is end all doubt.  If he had nothing to hide, wouldn't Obama want to quickly remove doubts and restore confidence? The only way to end all doubt is complete transparency.  Complete transparency means actually releasing his birth certificate." Yeah, that's right...all Obama has to do is release his birth certificate and everyone will be satisfied!  The whole thing will be over!  Why hasn't anyone in the White House thought of that?  It's so simple when you think about it.  Monte continues: "It is necessary to highlight some of the unique Obama oddities.  For if the oddities did not exist, the protective response -- No other candidate or president released his birth certificate for authentication, so why should Obama? -- would make perfect sense.  But Obama is no ordinary Am

The Press- Helping the Republicans Avoid Oblivion

Today's example, this wretched piece of deliberate distortion from Robert Samuelson at the Washington Post, humorously entitled "Flunking the Medicare Debate:" "...many Democrats despise vouchers, which (they say) would “privatize Medicare” and “end Medicare.” The language is self-serving demagoguery intended to terrify seniors... Vouchers would not “end Medicare.” Listen, you unapologetic liar, Democrats say the Republican plan would “privatize Medicare” and “end Medicare”because it will.  They are telling the truth.  Everyone knows that the ultimate goal of the Republican party is to destroy Medicare, along with Social Security, the minimum wage, union rights and every single thing that Democrats have ever done for the American people. And yes, vouchers would end Medicare, if by "Medicare" you mean a program that allows people to afford health care.  You might as well say that replacing Social Security checks with a monthly kick in the ass woul

Republicans Work For Health Care Reform

Finally, the long promised Republican alternative to Obamacare!  Yesterday, the Republican-controlled House spent most of the day debating H.R.5- their self-named "HEALTH" bill! Well, to save you the trouble, Green Eagle read the text of the bill.  Here is what it features: 1.  Cutting the time patients have to file malpractice lawsuits. 2.  Limiting punitive damage to $250,000, an utterly meaningless amount when the defendant is a huge health care company or pharmaceutical manufacturer. 3.  "In particular, in any health care lawsuit in which the attorney for a party claims a financial stake in the outcome by virtue of a contingent fee, the court shall have the power to restrict the payment of a claimant’s damage recovery to such attorney" I.e. making it impossible for plaintiff's attorneys to take cases on a contingent fee basis, requiring plaintiffs to bear for years the often multimillion dollar costs of suing a corporation up front.  This has been

The Biggest Lie of the Decade

Mitt Romney: "I keep hearing the president say he's responsible for keeping the country out of a Great Depression," Romney said at a town hall in Arbutus, Maryland. "No, no, no, that was President George W. Bush" What a dick.

Raw Hatred Republican Style

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I almost hate to do this to people, but, courtesy of Little Green Footballs , and Randi Rhodes, where I first heard this, here is a "religious" person introducing Rick Santorum the other day.  If you can stand three minutes and forty one seconds of sheer evil, try listening to as much of this as you can take.  More than anything, I hope you will just listen to the tone of this disgusting man, filled with hatred and violence.  If this is Christianity, if this is Republicanism, no decent person will have anything to do with them: I repeat:  This man is evil; the people who applauded his hate are evil, and the candidate who  stood by without objection while this man introduced him is evil.  If you are so blind that you cannot see and hear the truth of this, you have been touched by evil too. Oh, and by the way,  the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not Jesus.  Stuff that up your piehole, jerk.

A Textbook Right Wing Lie...

Right here at Green Eagle.  Yesterday I wrote a post about my belief that Romney's run to be the Republican nominee was in fact little more than a business transaction on behalf of his backers, not really a political campaign in the traditional sense at all.  This is something that I have been thinking about for some time, but due to some pretty demanding work and family situations, I hadn't managed to put my thoughts down on paper.  What interested me is that, as far as I could tell, no one else was looking at Romney's attempt to capture the nomination this way, and yet it was really the only explanation I could see for his conduct.  I may be wrong about this, particularly given that I am the only person I know of who has said this, but it is my opinion. Well, my post garnered a comment from Anonymous, part of which I want to repeat here: " Anonymous said...is this he left's new strategy to go after the "enemy dujour",because i seems all the left w

The Buying of the Nomination...

In the age of Citizens United .  There has been so much oblivious nonsense uttered by our mainstream press (and many liberal blogs too) about Romney's supposed weak performance, as he squeaks by with two or three percent wins, or essential ties, in primary after primary.  What our unintrospective journalists seem to not have figured out is that Romney is not winning primaries, he is buying them- and when you buy things, you pay the lowest price you can.  Now that our corrupt Supreme Court has licensed the rich to spend as much as they want to sway elections, Romney has adopted the rich man's strategy:  No matter if the voters don't like him, as long as he can make them like the other guys a little bit less.  And thus, a campaign that depends totally on spending just enough on negative ads to give him a bare victory.  No need to pay for a resounding win when a squeaker accomplishes the same thing, and increases his backers' return on investment.  This is the new rea

Megalomania

Thy name is Newt.  This guy is one sick character: "Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says his ideas are so big that the news media can't cover them and his opponents can't comprehend them. "The level of effort it would take to change the system is beyond the imagination of most elected officials and beyond the imagination of most candidates," Gingrich remarked. "The thing I find most disheartening about this campaign is the difficulty of talking about positive ideas on a large scale. Because the news media can't cover it and, candidly, my opponents can't comprehend it." And what might those massive ideas be?  For a hint, I went back to look at Newt's greatest intellectual contribution to American culture, the Contract with America, from the 1990's,  Here is a pretty good selection of the brilliant, unprecedented thinking contained therein: "A balanced budget/tax limitation amendment cuts in social spending

Wingnut Wrapup

Time for another descent into the "thinking" that drives the Republican party these days: Gina Miller, Renew America:  "Last week, steam shot out of my head as I read an e-mail press release that came here to the radio station. It was followed a day later by a glowing story in our local newspaper. It was the proud announcement of an award from the U.S. Green Building Council being given to a housing development in our Mississippi Gulf Coast city of Ocean Springs. Apparently this new housing development has met all the criteria to be praised as "green" and "sustainable," and an example of so-called "smart growth." What's wrong with that? Well, just everything. What am I talking about? I am talking about the Constitution-busting theft of private property rights and heavy-handed control of our way of life." Giving someone an award...apparently, that's what passes for "Constitution-busting theft of private property right

What the Hell Is Wrong With This Country?

Or at least the Republican part of it.   Can you even think of anything sicker than this? "A proposed new law in Arizona would give employers the power to request that women being prescribed birth control pills provide proof that they're using it for non-sexual reasons. And because Arizona's an at-will employment state, that means that bosses critical of their female employees' sex lives could fire them as a result. Yesterday, a Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed Republican Debbie Lesko's HB2625 by a vote of 6-2 ...Lesko states, with a straight face, that this bill is necessary because "we live in America; we don't live in the Soviet Union." Where someone might be able to get birth control pills without being fired.  The Republican party has deliberately created a very ugly monster in this country, and I am afraid to even think what we are going to have to do to be rid of it.

Death of Another Republican Myth

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Here's a wonderful chart from Talking Points Memo this morning, showing a little of the truth about the Republican lie that they are the fiscally conservative party, and the Democrats are the big spenders: You can see two things from this chart.  First of all, the "out of control Democratic spenders" (as usual) actually kept government spending totally in line, despite a near-depression, while the "fiscally conservative" Republicans used massive government spending to combat the recession in the early years of the Reagan administration.  Second, you can see that the Republican party refused to use a proven recession-fighting strategy when it had the potential to help a Democratic president, regardless of the damage they were doing to the country. A political party run off the rails, and sunk deeply into unapologetic sedition- this is the explanation for the poor state of the country today.  And yet, the gigantic Republican lie lives on, eating away at our

Who is Really Responsible for Afghan Massacre?

A murder rampage by an American soldier, who killed sixteen, probably marks the end of all hope that anything good will come of our decade-long involvement in Afghanistan.  Now, everyone is screaming for the death penalty for this guy, but that may just be a convenient way of evading the real responsibility for this slaughter: "The U.S. Army staff sergeant who allegedly murdered 16 Afghan civilians in a dead-of-night spasm of shooting, stabbing and fire-setting is reported to have suffered a traumatic brain injury during a deployment to Iraq in 2010. That bit of medical history could prove significant in the promised investigation by U.S. military officials -- and potentially, in the soldier's criminal defense. Or not. Research on traumatic brain injury has established a clear link between brain trauma and irritable, aggressive behavior that can be explosive, often without apparent warning or provocation." President Obama, you have had three years to show so

South Carolina

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I'm so proud of the State where I currently reside.  You may have heard that our Republican Lieutenant Governor just had to resign over a few ethical slips.  Here's his replacement: Hint:  It's the guy in the middle, in the Confederate uniform.  Man, what a great place this is.

Hug Gate- The Anatomy of a Phony Conspiracy

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Well, I think it's useful to spend some time on the tremendous "scandal" that Andrew Breitbart was about to release- a piece of film from Obama's college days that Breitbart said would destroy Obama. Let's talk about the truth first.  In 1990, Derrick Bell, the first black tenured professor at Harvard University, held a protest.  He was angered that Harvard law school had denied tenure to a female black professor.  Unsurprisingly, the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review, one Barack Obama, was selected to introduce Professor Bell.  This demonstration was covered by Boston PBS station WGBH.  Here is the entire surviving footage (from WGBH) of Obama's introduction.  It is important that you take the one minute and seventeen seconds to watch this, as it shows how absolutely inoffensive Obama's remarks were: That's it!  And all in the service of a purported rabid black racist who is actually a Harvard law professor.  Oh, wait a minute, ther

A Little Good News From Ohio

About one of the most loathsome Republican house members (and boy is that a crowded field:) "In OH-02 , Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt, who first won office in a 2005 special election and has always had a rocky road to re-nomination, was knocked off by surgeon and Iraq war vet Brad Wenstrup, 49-43" Good riddance.

Here's The Most Unsurprising Surprise of the Day

Bain Capital owns half of Clear Channel, which employs Rush Limbaugh.

Pig

This just in: "Fox Business Network host Don Imus is calling Rush Limbaugh an "insincere pig" after the conservative icon begrudgingly apologized to a Georgetown University law student for calling her a "slut" and a "prostitute." Can you even conceive of what it takes for Don Imus to think you are an insincere pig?  The mind boggles.

What's Wrong with This Picture?

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From a site I stumbled across at work.  I'm not sure I'm falling for this particular dream come true:

Here We Go Again

A little polling news from Daily Kos , about Super Tuesday: "PPP Super Tuesday polling: Good news for Mitt Romney, as Rick Santorum slips ...The news is good for Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich and bad for Rick Santorum in PPP's final polls of the three biggest Super Tuesday states. Mitt Romney is consolidating his chances to put Rick Santorum away and gain traction tomorrow, in a series of Super Tuesday polls from Public Policy Polling" Once again, even the most astute political observers (and the people at Daily Kos are certainly that) fail to grasp what is going on here.  In Ohio, as in virtually every contest so far, Romney simply waits until a week or a week and a half before the primary, and then cuts the legs out from under whoever is ahead of him with an avalanche of negative ads paid for by his rich backers.  He eats into their support just enough to give himself a 2-3% victory- any more than that would be a waste of money.  And thus, step by miserable step

Stupefying Historical Ignorance

Or just jingoistic lying?  Rick Santorum the other day: "In the previous 2,000 years, life did not change," he said. "And then America came around and said, 'No, no more dictators, no more kings, no more classes, no more nobility.' We believe in limited government, not an all-powerful state. We believe that if we liberate people, we recognize the rights that God has given every person then the world will change." Yeah!  It's all about us!!!

Republicans Vote to Force Sharia Law on American Workers

Well, that's the headline that we should be using about the despicable Blunt amendment narrowly rejected by the Senate, because that is what it would allow Muslim business owners to do.  Funny, it's okay for the Republican party to spend years accusing Obama of bringing Sharia law to America when everyone knows that is a total lie, but when Republicans in Congress vote openly to do exactly that, there is no one with a public voice who will point it out.  I know I am harping about this lately, but how do Democrats expect American voters to see the truth when there is not a major person willing to say it out loud?

How Real Is The Republican Primary Process?

You know I have said all along that the rich guys always get their candidate in the Republican party, and the "base" are just suckers, over and over again.  Well, how about this for evidence: "Michigan’s two at-large delegates to the Republican National convention will be awarded to Michigan native Mitt Romney, following a vote last night by the state party’s credentials’ committee.  The vote came despite the party’s rules that the two at-large delegates are supposed to be awarded on a proportional basis based on the statewide popular vote. Romney won the statewide vote by a 41% to 38% margin over former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.  The rest of the state’s delegates will be split evenly between Romney and Santorum because each won seven congressional districts across the state.  As a result, Romney gets 16 delegates and Santorum 14." Democracy, Republican style. Everything is totally fair as long as the rich guys' choice wins.  Hey, nothing wr

Andrew Breitbart Dies

And thus we lose  a duplicitous bastard, a big ass motherfucker, a prick who was a special pile of human excrement. Oops, that wasn't Andrew Breitbart.  That's what Andrew Breitbart had to say about Ted Kennedy the day Kennedy died.

Wingnut Wrapup

 Well, while we've been watching the pathetic display of wankerdom that is Mitt, Green Eagle has been neglecting the little people- the rank and file that are working so hard to turn the Republican party into the new Stahlhelms.  Let's just take a few minutes to give them the attention they've earned, starting with this remark: "don’t worry, if obama wins you won’t have to worry about anything except how that brown shirt and those jack boots are gonna fit while you’re standing in that bread line , and bowing to the east on your little gov issued prayer rug." A random comment on a random PJ Media post.  Well, at least they are giving us jack boots to wear while we are standing and at the same time kneeling on our free prayer rug.  If we elect a Republican, we are going to have to pay for that pair of jack boots, and buy another pair for a rich person too. Sarah Palin:  "Newt Is Toughest Fighter in the Race" Good point, Sarah.  Makes me think, thou

Amazing What You Can Accomplish

When your foreign policy doesn't consist of screaming threats and abuses at any country that doesn't do exactly what our warmongers want: "North Korea agreed on Wednesday to stop nuclear tests, uranium enrichment and long-range missile launches, and to allow checks by nuclear inspectors, in an apparent policy shift that paves the way for resuming long-stalled disarmament talks. The surprise breakthrough, announced simultaneously by the U.S. State Department and North Korea, also includes U.S. food aid for the impoverished state and makes possible the resumption of six-nation nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang. The news followed bilateral diplomatic talks in Beijing last week. "These are concrete measures that we consider a positive first step toward complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in a peaceful manner," White House spokesman Jay Carney said." Eight years of mindless threats and abuse under Republicans produced nothi