Green Eagle

Only two weeks or so after the strongest hurricane ever recorded hit the Pacific coast of Mexico, a tropical cyclone (a.k.a. hurricane) is about to hit the coast of Yemen.  This storm, the strongest ever recorded this far south in the Indian Ocean, and the second strongest overall, is about to dump eight years of rainfall on the coast of Yemen in two days. And let's not forget Hurricane Joaquin, which turned out to sea, but could have been another Hurricane Sandy striking the East coast, just a few weeks ago, and a couple of "supertyphoons" that have hit Asia. Nothing to notice here, folks.  These things come and go without reason.  And don't forget that, after Noah's flood, God promised us that he would never do that sort of thing again. Meanwhile, the nation's richest family is spending millions to stop the spread of solar energy, and we won't even start in on the Koch brothers and their ilk, or the treacherous, lying Exxon Mobil. Global warming...

Well, now that the dust has cleared from the most recent Republican excuse for a debate, it is becoming more clear what they accomplished.  Here's a short list: 1.  Managing to define the totally business-controlled CNBC as a dastardly part of the "liberal press," out to do them harm by asking any question they don't find it convenient to answer. 2.  Finally make it totally legitimate to deal with any question that challenges them in any way, by ignoring it and simply going off on a tirade against the press, accompanied by thunderous applause from their hand-picked audience of ignorant savages. This method of dealing with things was, of course, raised from an occasional dodge to SOP by Sarah Palin. This is one of the legacies that she left us:  utterly misplaced anger is now a substitute to answering a question. 3.  By canceling the upcoming debate that was to have been run by NBC, they have established that they do not need to have even the pretense tha...

The conventional wisdom today, as stated by Digby: "He’ll almost certainly trudge on for a while, but it’s clear his heart is not in it anymore, if it ever was." Not that I wish to pick on Digby, because everyone is saying the same thing.  But does anyone think that, after years of preparation and work, Bush suddenly decided he didn't care about being President? Particularly when you consider that all it would have taken was a marginally passable performance; all the big money guys were ready to fall in line behind him, virtually guaranteeing him the Republican nomination. No, the reason for his failure is not that he suddenly sat down on the side of the road like the hare in the fable, and let all the tortoises pass him by.  The real answer, I suspect, is that this is who he really is- a stodgy, vapid man who felt his family's position entitled him to the Republican nomination; a man who wanted it plenty badly, but didn't really bother to prepare to get i...

Opening night.  The Lakers at home were up by 16 points in the third quarter.  Then they took Kobe out of the game.  And that was that- Good bye Charlie. The Republicans tonight were just like the Lakers.  Except they didn't have Kobe.  So they were a pack of losers from start to finish. Maybe it was something astrological.

Remember Martin Shkreli, the miserable excuse for a human being who bought the rights to make a pharmaceutical and raised its price from $13.50 a dose to $750?  Well, here is what happened: "Imprimis Pharmaceuticals is offering a “customizable compounded formulations” of the two main ingredients in Turing Pharmaceuticals’ Daraprim, which is typically used to treat toxoplasmosis, an infection caused by a parasite. The drug is particularly critical for pregnant women and those infected with immunodeficiency disorders like HIV/AIDS. Their version of the pill will be available for less than a dollar per capsule, according to a press release. A 100-pill bottle will sell for as low at $99, the company said." Live by the sword, etc.  I have to say that this is one time that the free market system dealt one greedy bastard just what he deserved.  I hope his investment is looking good to him now.

Here's a graphic of some poll results about why people in Iowa like Ben Carson, from MSNBC, via Crooks and Liars.   If you are still not quite sure how utterly deranged the Republican base is, this should pretty well answer the question: 1.  He is ignorant 2.  He is a racist religious fanatic 3.  He is willing to tell any monstrous lie that pops into his head 4.  He is willing to prostitute his own race, and deny healthcare to tens of millions of people, to help large corporations make profits. That is certainly a list of recommendations, isn't it?  This is how far the Republicans have gone in recent decades to breed a hate-filled, irrational, greedy, ignorant base.  With one of our two parties depending on people like this, we are sunk.  And yet there seems to be no way to break through the impervious barrier of smug, self-satisfied stupidity which allows them to continue to exist. Well, it's Saturday.  Have a nice day.

Benghazi is over?  Not likely.  The Republicans cannot leave it at this point, with Hillary having stomped them into the ground and made them look like the dishonest demagogues they are, on national TV for eleven hours.  They were reeling a bit after the end of the hearings, but they have to begin the task of rewriting history to blot out this colossal humiliation. And remember something I have said before:  the number of people who saw any part of these hearings, or any other political event, is very small compared to the number that will be told by the right wing media what happened.  In the end, their constituency will jump at any chance to believe the worst about Hillary; obviously, without that being true, the Benghazi frenzy could have never existed at all. So, on the day after the hearings, here's how things stand: Caleb Howe, Red State:  "Back To The Past: Dems Still Blame A Video For Benghazi" No they don't.  They stopped doing that a...

People keep asking, "why are the Republicans so obsessed with Sidney Blumenthal, who had absolutely nothing to do with Benghazi?' Well, here's the reason, I think:  Blumenthal is a Jewish name.  The miserable, disgusting Republicans, by constantly harping on Blumenthal's advice to Hillary, are sending a dog-whistle message to their hate filled supporters that Hillary Clinton is controlled by the Jews. Like I said, call me crazy, but that is what I think is going on.

Or else they are the most cynical pack of liars in the world today.  I guess the latter is more likely. Let's consider how things have been going there.  We know that Israel has been plagued by a seemingly endless round of knife attacks on Jews, people mowed down by Palestinians driving cars, and on and on.  The stated justification for this, from both the street thugs and the Palestinian leaders, is the utterly baseless claim that Israel is up to some sort of plot to change the agreement under which Muslims have set the rules for the Temple Mount since the 1967 war: "The wave of violence comes in the wake of tensions related to the Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary in Jerusalem. For years, there have been accusations among Palestinians and across the region of a conspiracy by Israel to “Judaize” Jerusalem, particularly when it comes to this shared holy site... The widespread conspiracy theories about nefarious efforts for Jews to remove Muslims from the site have be...

Suggested by my son.  He wondered how many people can tell who this is: Care to take a guess?

After seven years of playing nice old uncle Joe, just about everyone seems to have forgotten that Biden was part of a sort of triumvirate consisting of himself, Dick Gephart and Tom Daschle, who were the effective Senate leaders of the business friendly wing of the Democratic party, and who constantly frustrated efforts to turn the party in a progressive direction. So, here is my theory about the great hoopla over Biden's now non-existent candidacy for President.  I have to admit that it is just based on my experience of how things work, and not on any smoking gun evidence, but I am pretty confident about this.  The DLC type sellouts in the Democratic party must have been watching in horror as Bernie Sanders' success has pulled Hillary to the left.  Biden would have been a force pulling her back in the pro-business direction they wanted, so they put tremendous pressure on him to run, not to win, but just to neutralize the effect of Bernie. Well, here's the thing- I do...

Here's something I have been worrying about the last few days:  We see the Republicans doing nothing to avert a government shutdown a few days from now.  I have begun to suspect that they don't want to prevent a shutdown, because they actually want to send the economy into a tailspin.  They have demonstrated that they are willing to damage the country to get what they want, and what I am afraid of now, is that they know it will be a lot easier for them to win the White House if the economy is terrible heading into the election.  In fact, given the pathetic collection of potential candidates they have, it may be their only chance.  So, I'm very afraid that they will be willing to cause any damage they have to in order to win. Maybe this is just paranoia, but having watched their destructive behavior for so many years, I can't help but suspect that this is what they are up to.  I hope I am wrong, because we've seen how much malicious damage their tampering...

The press, of course.  If you have any doubts about what kind of treatment Hillary Clinton is going to get from the mainstream press between now and the election, this article, published yesterday in the Washington Post, supposedly one of our most respectable newspapers should disabuse you: "Gowdy’s pleas to keep Benghazi probe above politics have gone unheeded   Almost from the moment he was named chairman of the House investigation into the 2012 attacks on U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) has been insisting that he would keep the probe above the political fray.   “There are certain things in our culture that have to transcend politics, and I don’t mean to sound naive, but the murder of four fellow Americans and an attack on a facility that is emblematic of our country should transcend politics,” Gowdy said on Fox News Channel the day after he was tapped to lead the Select Committee on Benghazi.   In the 17 months since, his pl...

Well, between Trump and Jeb over whether Jeb's brother was President on 9-11, and the Benghazi committee self-destructing in one of the greatest specimens of Republican idiocy in recent times, it's hard for the wingnuts to outdo their leaders, but they are still trying. Let's just start off with a little wingnut reaction to the Democratic debate that took place on another planet than the one that was on CNN recently: Jay Caruso, Red State:  "The Democrat Debate: As Horrible As You Think It Was...There were plenty of things that came out of the first Democrat debate last night. One of them was the conclusion that I would rather have flaming skewers shoved into my eyes and Mr. Blonde from the ‘Reservoir Dogs’ cut off my ears with a straight razor than have to sit through another one of these spectacles ever again. Forget waterboarding. “Watching Democrats debate” should be listed by the United Nations as one of the most extreme forms of torture ever devised...The even...

If you haven't seen this, I think you will be amused by Judd Legum's fact checking article about this question, at Think Progress.

We learn the following, which anyone could have predicted: "If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) wants to impeach her on day one. "In my judgement, with respect to Hillary Clinton, she will be a unique president if she is elected by the public next November," he added. "Because the day she's sworn in is the day that she's subject to impeachment because she has committed high crimes and misdemeanors." I truly believe that Obama had a chance, when he was first elected, to crush the Republican party out of existence, but he didn't do it because of his delusion that they were a decent bunch of people who cared about the welfare of the country.  And this is the result. I think it is pretty clear at this point that the United States has exactly zero chance of avoiding complete collapse as long as the Republican party continues to exist.  Otherwise, we will never see an end to this evil, disloyal, traitorous behavior.

Or just one more Republican abomination that the mainstream press will simply ignore? The following stunning news from Daily Kos: "Rep Cummings: Gowdy altered documents in order to make false allegations against Clinton... "Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), the ranking member of the Benhazi committee,, makes a startling charge against Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Chairman of the Benghazi committee: "To further inflate your claim, you placed your own redactions over the name of the individual with the words, “redacted due to sources and methods.”  To be clear, these redactions were not made, and these words were not added, by any agency of the federal government responsible for enforcing classification guidelines. Contrary to your claims, the CIA yesterday informed both the Republican and Democratic staffs of the Select Committee that they do not consider the information you highlighted in your letter to be classified.  Specifically, the CIA confirmed that “the Sta...

Here is some very depressing, but unfortunately all too predictable information about what has happened to the middle class in this country, since we have allowed voodoo economics to rule us.  It's from a piece at Daily Kos, based on an article at the Washington Post.  I'll quote Kos rather than the Post because, in true mainstream press fashion, the post shies away from the truly horrible conclusions of its own data: "The United States has the world's poorest middle class...The Washington Post is out with some important charts incorporating data from the Credit Suisse Research Institute, which releases an annual report on global wealth.   First, the United States has a lot of very rich people.  At the same time, it has a large middle class that likes to think its the most prosperous in the world.   But, well, this isn't true...not only is the U.S. middle class -- in relative terms -- quite poor, but also that it benefits from almost zero public goods...

They gave a party in Washington, and nobody came.  The House "Benghazi" committee interviewed Huma Abedin, an assistant to Hillary Clinton who had essentially nothing to do with Benghazi, today.  It was to be a proud moment, giving the Republicans another great chance to pound their lying narrative about Benghazi down the throats of the American people.  But a funny thing happened: practically all of the Republicans, including ringmaster Trey Gowdy, didn't bother to show up! Well, the Benghazi hearings have turned from a walk in the park for the Republicans to something like the Battle of Passchendaele, where one wrong step sends you sinking eternally into a sea of mud and dead bodies.  Evidence of their perfidy and disloyalty to the nation has become so clear that even our miserable excuse for a mainstream press can't cover it up.  So, instead of waiting breathlessly for the latest "revelations" of the horrible behavior of Hillary, people are now waitin...

I really try not to waste people's time by saying things that everybody else is saying too, but I guess I agree with most of the opinions about last night's debate.  The reality-based opinions, anyway- the others I will leave for the next Wingnut Wrapup.  Hillary did exactly what she had to do- present herself as a reasonable, pleasant person well-versed on the issues and with a massive amount of relevant experience; that is to say, exactly what she is, despite twenty years of Republican smears to the contrary.  Bernie was exactly the person I have heard every week on the Thom Hartmann show- a serious, if a little humorless, politician, who tells the truth and who advocates policies which would help the vast majority of Americans.  The other three were window dressing, although Martin O'Malley did come off like a good Vice President. And of course, this is the moment that everyone will remember from the debate; an act of decency showing that candidates do not have ...

Yeah!

Usually, Green Eagle would never enter a contest, but this one sounded too good to pass up. If Green Eagle wins, that will be a really special occasion, don't you think?

So Ben Carson, who is proving himself to be a thoroughly nauseating excuse for a human being, has now taken to repeating the idiotic right wing mantra that Germany's Jews would have saved themselves if only they were heavily armed. Well, here's a thought for you, Ben?  How about if neither the Jews nor the Nazis had been allowed to have weapons?  How much of a holocaust would there have been then? If you really want to prevent right wing monsters from taking over a country and running a regime of terror, which would work better- arming their potential victims, or not letting the monsters have guns themselves? The logical conclusion of Ben's position is that we are really only safe if no one has guns.  After all, you have to go back to before Oda Nobunaga or so to find someone winning a war with knives and axes. So I'm going with Ben's argument here and suggesting that any civilian caught with a gun outside of his or her own house be thrown in prison for a real...

Or just plain old fascism?  From the New York Times: "Just 158 families have provided nearly half of the early money for efforts to capture the White House.   They are overwhelmingly white, rich, older and male, in a nation that is being remade by the young, by women, and by black and brown voters. Across a sprawling country, they reside in an archipelago of wealth, exclusive neighborhoods dotting a handful of cities and towns. And in an economy that has minted billionaires in a dizzying array of industries, most made their fortunes in just two: finance and energy.   Now they are deploying their vast wealth in the political arena, providing almost half of all the seed money raised to support Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign, a New York Times investigation found." And note that 87% of this money goes to Republicans. This may ...

Paul Ryan.  Now, they are supposedly begging Paul Ryan to become the third highest official in the United States government, a position which he claims he doesn't want. Remember three years ago when Paul Ryan was revealed to be not the great conservative intellectual that the country was yearning for, but just one more dishonest, mean spirited Republican lackey of the rich?  By the end of the 2012 election, the Republicans were having to hide him in a closet to try to salvage their doomed Presidential campaign, because everybody could see what a vicious jerk he was, in spite of the mainstream press doing everything they could to pretend he was the nation's savior. Well, all that is forgotten again, and the press is back to pretending that this miserable excuse for a human being can ever do anything but dig the country's hole deeper.  It looks like we are going to get him, two heartbeats away from being the President, whether we like it or not.  There is not one s...

I think it is fair to say that, at the present time there is no such country as Syria any more.  I thought it would be interesting to look back at a very long history and see where this country came from, and how much of a country it ever was.  It's hard to even give a sense of this in a blog post, but I was so interested in Syria's five thousand year record of violence and disruption that I thought I would at least try to skim over the main points.  Sorry, it's long and pretty repetitive, but I hope some people will find it interesting. For convenience, I have included a map of the early Middle East, showing a number of the important cities from the period before 1000 BC. Let's start with Ebla, a civilization that grew up in the area of Aleppo, around 3,000 BC.  It didn't exist long in peace; around 2700 it began a hundred years war with Mari, another city-state in the area.  Mari won, but was soon defeated itself by a king whose rule proved very short l...

Sentenced to death, for the one unforgivable sin a Republican can commit- telling the truth.

Today's Wingnut Wrapup is respectfully dedicated to Jim Hoft, the famous Stupidest Man On The Internet, for the following post, which has since been deleted without comment (the image capture from Little Green Footballs.) Is it even necessary to say that CNN never did any such thing?  Jim seemingly found this picture on some sort of neo-Nazi website, and just took it for granted that it was real.  He took it down, but not before numerous other wingnuts picked it up and sent it out into the ether, where it will remain to snag the gullible forever. Now, to demonstrate how afraid wingnuts and their rich paymasters are of the tide turning on guns in our society, I'd like to show how many opinion pieces one website, Town Hall featured, in one day recently.  And don't forget, this isn't just about gun control.  Once people win a battle with gun companies, they might just get a taste for regulation, and then all bets are off.  And recent victories on gay right...