Green Eagle

You can find in the New York Times today, the story of Muqdad Salah, a Palestinian man whose life has much to tell us about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr. Salah was recently welcomed home after about twenty years in an Israeli prison.  Why did he end up there? "It has been seven months since Mr. Salah was welcomed before dawn by a cacophonous crowd in this village of 4,000 near the Palestinian financial hub of Nablus. It has been two decades since he killed Israel Tenenbaum, 72, a Holocaust survivor and security guard at a beach hotel 20 miles away in Netanya, hitting him on the side of the head with a metal rod.   Israeli court records show Mr. Tenenbaum was found about 7:30 a.m. on June 14, 1993, lying on his back in a bed near the hotel bar, a pillow covering his bloodied face. According to the 29-page verdict convicting him of murder, Mr. Salah told investigators that he and another man had gone to Netanya in search of a Palestinian suspected of collaborat...

Well, at this point, after over fifty useless votes to repeal Obamacare, the Republicans in the House of Representatives have finally turned their attention to other pressing matters. Jobs, jobs, jobs, as they have promised so many times to focus on like a laser?  No, this: Here are two bills passed on a virtual party-line vote last week, and one more that is coming up this week The ""Ensuring Public Involvement in the Creation of National Monuments Act,"  which takes away from President Obama the right which every President since Teddy Roosevelt has had, to create new national monuments.  A hundred years of very well established precedent was not enough to block this perverse measure, enacted because Obama actually used his power to create a new national monument in California, and of course, a black man has no right to do what white Presidents are allowed to do, particularly in the Liberal nightmare that is California, so his behavior is an outrage requiring puni...

Here's the latest news about Jahi McMath, who you may remember from the news a few weeks ago: "Jahi McMath spends much of her time like any other teenage girl: she sits cross-legged in bed, listens to Rihanna and Beyonce on her iPod, and gets a manicure and pedicure every Friday.   This according to mom Nailah Winkfield, who yesterday gave her first interviews since Jahi was moved out of Children's Hospital Oakland." She's just like any other teenage girl, except for one thing, of course:  She's dead. The people who encourage this sort of thing for their own political and religious reasons, and prevent her family from moving on with their lives, are among the most malicious human beings on this earth.  And the last major outbreak of this sort of thing, the Terry Schiavo disgrace, enlisted people ready to capitalize on her family's tragedy, who reached all the way up to the Republican President at the time, and many Republican members of Congress. ...

Cartoon from Daily Kos - it pretty much says it all:

So, Chris Christie's story about the George Washington bridge closings has evolved further.  It's now gone from "I never knew nuttin' about it" to "I never knew about it until after it started" and now to, "well, someone told me about it beforehand, but I forgot." What did people think when they voted a person who makes it onto the cover of Time magazine and his picture still looks like a mugshot?  I mean, I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but if the cover has pictures of half-naked, tied up women being beaten by guys in Nazi uniforms, I think you can pretty confidently guess that it's not about microbiology.

And it's what I have been insisting that he should have said the day after he was sworn in: "It's the government's job to provide you with the best defense possible.  Unfortunately, due to three trillion dollars lost in a Republican war of aggression, and countless more trillions squandered in Republican giveaways to the rich, we no longer have the money to provide Americans with the best defense, so you are going to have to accept a world in which you are in more danger, so that rich people can wallow in unheard of riches. The people of the United States allowed the Republicans to play on their greed and their xenophobia, and this is the price that we all are going to have to pay.  But do not forget, the number of Americans killed on 9-11 is dwarfed by the number of people killed by guns in this country, or the number killed because the government is unable to stop the killer drug tobacco from being openly sold.  It is Republicans, on behalf of the corporations th...

In the Republican paradise of Georgia, anyway, the following would be perfectly legal: A hundred or so Islamic men openly carrying firearms assemble at the Atlanta airport, and stand around directly in front of the security area leading to the planes. At this point, under a law just enacted by Georgia Republicans, of course with the intent that this privilege only applies to white Christians, these Islamic men would have done not one thing illegal.  The authorities would be barred from interfering with them in any way. It's likely, of course, that airport security would arrest or kill all of them, and none of them would ever see the outside of a prison (or a pine box) again.  This would be fine under the well-known Constitutional principle that white people can do whatever they damned please which, as Federal law, would obviously supersede any State law on those occasions when it benefits inferior races. So, thank heaven, we don't have to worry about it after all. ...

So now, Nate Silver, along with a whole lot of people, is predicting that the Republicans are going to take back the Senate.  I am not so sure and (of course) I am about to tell you why. First of all, let me remind you that polling has never been that predictive of electoral results before around September of an election year.  That is because the "swing voters" that decide every election are mostly so apathetic and ignorant that they don't even start putting in their minimal effort to figure out who to vote for until then. But that is not my real point.  Elections are about more than numbers.  Here is something which, of course, no one, including Nate Silver, is talking about:  The Republican need to pander to their base to keep them on board has, in the last few elections, inevitably resulted in regular outbreaks of lunacy and hatred from its candidates.  Do they think that this election will be any different?  Do they think that they can get thr...

Anyone who followed the utterly disingenuous behavior of the five right wing Justices on the Supreme Court yesterday must be painfully aware that they have absolutely no intention of deciding this case on its merits, and have predetermined to rule for the Republicans, regardless of the dishonesty it takes to do so. And even reliably left wing, intelligent blogs won't let themselves see the whole horrible truth: "Kagan Throws Scalia's Own Religious Liberty Arguments Back In His Face...During oral arguments Tuesday about the validity of Obamacare's birth control mandate, Justice Elena Kagan cleverly echoed Justice Antonin Scalia's past warning that religious-based exceptions to neutral laws could lead to "anarchy."   Kagan's remarks might sound familiar to the legally-trained ear. In a 1990 majority opinion in Employment Division v. Smith, Scalia alluded to the same examples of what might happen if religious entities are permitted to claim exemp...

Scientists continue to be completely baffled about what could have caused an entire mountainside to collapse in the State of Washington, resulting in numerous casualties. Who knows if this mystery will ever be solved.

The next step in the energy companies' rape of the American public is just around the corner.  Remember the incessant claims from Republicans and a few corrupt Democrats that the United States was so short of meeting its energy requirements that we needed to do away with regulation after regulation on the oil industry, or face economic disaster here at home?  How could you forget that, since it has been an almost daily fact of our political life for decades now.  So, bit by bit the government, bashed into submission, gave in, and let the oil companies do just about anything they wanted, all with the understanding that this was all about protecting our domestic supply of energy. Well, folks, the joke is on you.  Now that their billions in campaign donations have assured that they can do whatever they want to extract oil and gas from our land, the energy industry is ready to move on to the next inevitable step in their war of greed: "The energy industry is pushin...

The screaming crazy is reaching the upper echelons these days.  To start today, here are a few examples from our leaders on the right: First this scientific comment:   from Michael Peroutka, the founder of the “Institute on the Constitution” and a former presidential candidate of the Constitution Party: “...creation occurred about 6000 years ago. So the whole idea of evolution and that the Earth is…millions and millions of years old is absolutely antithetical to America …“What I am saying is that the promotion of evolution is an act of disloyalty to America… What I’m saying is that there is no way you could promote or believe in evolution and sing ‘God Bless America’ during the 7th inning stretch.” Let's just leave aside the fact that if you sung 'God Bless America' during the seventh inning stretch, you'd be rather at odds with the rest of us, who would be singing 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game."  In fact, let's just forget the whole damned thing, if w...

I want to bring to your attention a most disturbing post at Crooks and Liars regarding the recent activity of Everest Wilhelmson, who we saw a few months ago here at Green Eagle insisting that people had a legal right to assassinate President Obama.  Well, he seems to be doing everything he can to further this goal, including claiming to having raised over $80,000 as a "reward to whoever can carry out the task. Now, he is threatening to also kill all members of Congress who support Obama. I seem to remember that this guy actually lives in Germany, so he is sort of free to engage in this sort of vicious talk, but who knows how many lunatic crackers in this country are just eating up what he has to say.  I have said for several years now that this all is not going to end without some really bloody scenes, and this is a step in that direction.  I really recommend that you click on the link above and examine some of his writing- I couldn't give you much of a sample here ...

Listen, beating up on Sarah Palin is a cheap way to spend your time, but this ad for her new TV show really is amazing: What a mixture of cheesy jingoism, and rank inability to deliver a single line decently on Sarah's part.  Thanks again, John McCain, for bringing her into the world of national politics.

So, this is just for the record, but last weekend was the occasion of the mass breakout of "White Men's Marches" around the country, organized under the slogan "Diversity=White Genocide." As is typical, the maximum turnout in any one place seems to have been nine, in Birmingham, Alabama. Here's a typical crowd, illustrating both the quantity and nature of the participants, I think: I love the guy in blue.  Not afraid to show off his whiteness, I guess. This represents quite a comedown from the old days, when white men's marches used to draw so many more people: Now, that makes a statement. Readers of Green Eagle may know that I try to cover these events for the record as much as anything else- they are inevitably gigantic failures, but they never induce the mainstream press to ruminate on how large or small this intransigent population of white haters really is.  No, these people have to be given a loud voice in national affairs, no matter ...

A couple of things I learned doing airplane movies: First of all, the autopilot on a Boeing jet is so straightforward that you could teach someone to set it in 15 minutes.  If they had the heading, altitude and airspeed written down, anyone could do it. Second, I must admit that I do not have a clue about what it takes to turn the transponders off in mid-flight, but I do seem to remember that they are held in by a few screws, and that anyone with a screwdriver could remove them entirely. Here's a 777 cockpit, if you are interested, showing the autopilot in the center just below the windows, and the transponders aft of the throttles, between the seats. So much for the universally accepted theories that only a trained pilot could have done what we know at this point.  As usual, the mainstream press is too busy shouting for attention to manage to learn anything about the subject.

Ken Langone on attempts to question the disgusting transfer of wealth in this country to the rich: “I hope it’s not working,” Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot and major GOP donor, said of populist political appeals. “Because if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy.” First of all, that is a pile of crap, referring to a movement whose rise to power was financed by some of the richest people in Germany. But more to the point, if I was this jerk, I'd be a lot more worried about France in 1789 than Germany in 1933.

And all of the other belligerent right wing crackers that are demanding that the United States do all sorts of horrible things to Russia because of the situation in the Ukraine:  How would you have reacted if the Russians had sent missiles over here or tried to wreck our economy because Reagan financed an army of crazed drug dealers to try to overthrow the legally elected government of Nicaragua, or because Reagan sent armed troops into the tiny nation of Grenada to overthrow another government we didn't like? I guess that's a stupid question.  It's just fine when Republicans do it.

Translation courtesy of Green Eagle: The racist demagogue said exactly what he meant in front of an audience of his fellow white haters.  He is now claiming that he didn't mean what he obviously did, confident in the sure knowledge that our pathetic mainstream press will ignore the obvious and use the incident as an opportunity to tell us once again what a deep thinker, dedicated to the best interests of the country, he is. Paul Krugman, as usual, will buck this trend, but of course Krugman has forfeited his right to a seat at the pundit table, by committing the crime of being constantly right about things, instead of taking rich people's money to say what he is paid to say.

Or at least, they're all for that when the alternative is paying a little more in taxes.  Here's a map of child poverty in the United States for the year 2012: I'll leave it to you to figure out who "they" are, by observing where the orange and brown areas of the map are.  Of course, this data come from the Census Bureau, so they are probably a great big Obama lie- in reality, kids don't do better anywhere on earth than rural Alabama.

This is a story from yesterday that should easily have been the most important news of the day, but which is already being swallowed in the black hole that exists for any facts which threaten the beltway narrative paid for by the rich: "New figures show that the bonus bonanza of 2013 didn’t disappoint. According to the New York State Comptroller’s office, Wall Street firms handed out $26.7 billion in bonuses to their 165,200 employees last year, up 15 percent over the previous year. The $26.7 billion Wall Streeters pocketed in bonuses would cover the cost of more than doubling the paychecks for all of the 1,085,000 Americans who work full-time at the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour." Yes, you read that correctly.  The bonuses given to a pack of Wall Street vampires who contribute exactly nothing to our well-being except sucking it dry, added up last year to more than the entire amount paid to all full time minimum wage workers in the country. And yet,...

I've been sort of neglecting my menagerie of trained jackasses lately, and frankly, I've gotten a little tired of the same old lies.  Well, it's time to take another walk along this fetid stream, so here goes: John Ransom, Town Hall:  "Putin, Not Obama, is the Messiah" Well, here is where you end up when nothing on earth is more important than smearing liberals:  Russia's shiny new neo-Communist dictator is the right's new idol.   God in heaven above, these people are a waste of food and water. NRA-ILA, Town Hall:  "Un-Constitutional: 300,000 gun owners face jail time" Unfortunately for them, it appears to be perfectly Constitutional for the State of Connecticut to require people to register their firearms.  Maybe by "unconstitutional," they meant their mass refusal to follow a simple law, because of their deliberate misconstrual of the second amendment. The article continues: "Tell Congress to vote NO on Obama's...

Now here is a clearly well intentioned article from one John Ransom, a major contributor to Town Hall, and a prime specimen of conservative punditry.  Yes, here is the title: "Five Things Obama Could Do to be the Greatest President Ever, but Won’t" Five things that would make Obama, I guess, even greater than the current Greatest President Ever, Ronald Reagan.  Who would have ever thought that a Conservative would even consider the possibility, let alone that Obama could beat Reagan by doing five simple things.  I am sure that, like Green Eagle, you are enthusiastic about finding out what those five things are, so let's look at them: 1) Negotiate with Republicans on Obamacare—This signature piece of legislation is going down and it's taking Democrats with them. Obamacare is "going down."  Barack, take the well meaning advice of a wingnut pundit- "negotiate" with Republicans- i.e. do away with the whole thing, throw millions of people back...

No, we have to be lectured by one of the stupidest people on earth, Michelle Bachmann: "Michele Bachmann told CPAC attendees today that the conservative movement must fight back because it is "at its core is an intellectual movement" based "on the greatest ideas that have ever been conceived in the mind of man."​ Well, maybe she has a point there.  Like this great idea: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."   -John Kenneth Galbraith

I forgot to mention it a few days ago, but we passed a great milestone this week.  The Republicans in the House passed their fiftieth resolution to do away with Obamacare.  Good work, guys...glad you are so busy doing the people's work.

well, of course we know the answer to that question.  The only thing remaining in doubt is which of our country's Republican "leaders" can come up with the most idiotic explanation.  So far, here are the two leaders: Lindsay Graham:  "It started with Benghazi. When you kill Americans and nobody pays a price, you invite this type of aggression." John McCain:  "Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday drew from a new source in arguing that President Barack Obama has been too 'soft' on Russia: An article Obama wrote back when he was in college.   In a blistering speech on the Senate floor, McCain blamed Obama..."This is the same guy that the president of the United States pushed the reset button time and again with," McCain said of Putin.   He then shifted his attention to a 1983 article called "Breaking the War Mentality," which Obama penned for a campus magazine as a senior at Columbia University." Yes, Obama cause...

Here's a wonderful picture from Daily Kos of the minority outreach meeting at the current Conservative Political Action Committee convention: This is all you need to see to understand why the Republicans have now built their entire political stragegy on lies and cheating. 

I'm sure I will have something to actually say about the situation in the Ukraine soon (since when does Green Eagle not have something to say about everything?) but at this point I just want to make a domestic comment.  The Republicans are already whipping themselves into a fury over the situation, with the dumbass McCain screaming that we are all Ukranians (no we're not, Mr. McCain- Green Eagle for one was born in Ohio) and the usual right wing preparations to blame Obama for every single thing that happens there (unless like, with Syrians WMD's something good comes of it, in which case, of course, they will ignore it.) This is not an accident.  Republicans realize that they are riding a losing horse with their opposition to Obamacare, and they know that, with the budget deficit left to Obama by Republicans virtually cut in half, that standard Republican whine isn't showing any promise either.  So, they have to fall back on the only remaining Republican fantasy- the ...

You know who you are. http://crooksandliars.com/2014/02/study-shockingly-suggests-internet-trolls