Green Eagle

I've seen the following graphic a couple of places lately, but I think it reveals a fact that should be made clear to every American, so I'm posting it here, too. I have often heard that right wingers commit more acts of political violence than any other group in this country, but I had no idea how one sided this was.  These people are monsters, and the President and leaders of his party are monsters too.  Today, Trump announced his intent to abrogate the Constitution by an "executive order." And with the Supreme Court now fully packed with corrupt Republican appointed Justices, who can say that he will be stopped if he tries?  Meanwhile, more and more criminal thugs with guns are out there to destroy anyone who gets in his way.  In a sane country, this man would be impeached in one day if he tried to do this.  But we don't live in a sane country any more.  We live in a country where some destitute people fleeing terror a thousand miles from the Unite...

And on a massive scale.  We've seen this guy repeatedly make decisions that hurt the security of the United States and our allies while favoring the interests of Vladimir Putin, over and over again.  Now, here is a gigantic one which has received almost no coverage in the mainstream press, and what coverage it has received has missed the point entirely.  In fact, even left wing sources seem not to have recognized the real significance of this action. What I am talking about is Trump's stated intention to abrogate the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiated by Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980's.  This treaty forbade either country from deploying any land based missiles with ranges between 500 and 5500 kilometers. The United States did in fact destroy about 1,000 nuclear missiles after this treaty was signed (the Soviet Union destroyed about 2,000.)  But other than the financial loss, the treaty meant little to us because our supposed enem...

Sorry, people, Wingnut Wrapup seems to be back, at least for a little while.  I just feel that most of us in the rational world are still only vaguely aware of the hatred and lies that make up the steady diet of right wingers.  Not that I feel happy about exposing you to it all, but we need to be aware of the massive amount of stuff like this that is out there.  I know these Wingnut Wrapups tend to be long, but let me assure you that I could make any one of them on any day four times as long and not come even close to including all of the massive amount of this garbage that is out there.  What follows is nothing but a representative sample. Now, a little coverage of the Republican party writhing in agony as it attempts to blot out the truth that the MAGA bomber and the Pittsburgh terrorist are a product of their own actions.  I just want to note first, that it is only a couple of hours as I write a good part of this since the latest right wing mass shooting, ...

In a previous post, I paid some attention to the graphics on the recent right wing terrorist's van.  I would like to focus on a single one of these graphics because it so fully displays the fictional looking glass world that Republicans live in.  Here it is: I would like to list the claims made in this illustration, and discuss them briefly.  And these are the claims made in this one illustration: (Democratic) Refusal to recognize radical Islamic terrorism  This is, of course, simply a total lie. The criticism of law enforcement As if it is an act of subversion to comment on the obvious out of control behavior of the nation's police forces. Fast & Furious  Gunrunning operation Blamed on Democrats, even though it was started by Republicans, and of course an almost nonexistent problem outside the fevered minds of rage-drunk Republicans. IRS scandal Again, it simply never existed, except as a Republican lie Race Baiting Yes, the Democrats...

Remember when violence in the runup to a national election was something that happened in Bolivia or Uganda or Pakistan?

I really don't have much to contribute to the discussion about the MAGAbomber at this point, for obvious reasons, but I thought people might like to see this.  Unfortunately, the original photo is not of very high resolution, so a lot of this is hard to read, but I opened the best picture of the bomber van in Photoshop, corrected the perspective and used the sharpen tools as well as I could.  As I say, not so successful, but here it is: Update:  Here, from the Washington Post, are much better images of all the van windows, with commentary on where these images come from.

Or specifically, those fifteen "tourists" who murdered Mr. Khashoggi.  I am labeling this a guess because I have absolutely no evidence to support my conclusion except a lifetime of experience watching people like this. Mohammed bin Salman obviously never had the slightest thought that he wouldn't get away with this brazen crime without anyone really giving a damn.  Well, things didn't work out that way; it turns out that to journalists, the death of one journalist is more important than the massacre of thousands of Yemenis or hundreds of thousands of Syrians.  So he got himself into a little bit of a jam.  What to do now? We hear that bin Salman has had eighteen people arrested in connection with this crime.  Not himself of course, but I will bet that the fifteen Saudi "tourists" in the Istanbul consulate are among the arrestees. Now, Green Eagle's big guess:  I will be stunned if it turns out that a single one of them is still alive.  I am virt...

Most of the time these days I am too sickened by what is on the right wing internet, but here's a little of the more fun stuff, with a couple of non-internet things here too, starting off with an opinion piece from the allegedly liberal Washington Post: Marc A. Theissen, Washington Post:  "Khashoggi’s disappearance is...a betrayal of President Trump. Really?  How so?  Is he disappointed he didn't have a chance to get in there with the bone saw?  No, he never does his own dirty work, he always uses some discardable sucker. "Many Democrats taking shots at the president as he tries to figure out a path forward need to check their hypocrisy. As my American Enterprise Institute colleague Danielle Pletka pointed out, “if you can’t restrain yourself from blaming Trump, spare a moment to blame [President Barack] Obama for the war in Syria" And for everything else on earth that right wingers don't like. I'm still blaming FDR for the Cleveland Indians los...

So, let me see if I have the facts right, now.  A middle aged reporter, successful enough in his career to write for the Washington Post and the Guardian, needs a piece of Saudi paperwork so he can marry his fiancee.  He is told that the paperwork is ready and can be picked up at the Saudi consulate in Ankara, Turkey, where he is currently staying.  He goes to the consulate with his fiancee, who he leaves outside, and enters to pick up this routine document. Meanwhile, fifteen Saudi men, who the Saudis describe as "tourists" fly to Ankara in a private jet apparently owned by the Saudi royal family (nice way to travel, I guess,) travelling with equipment designed to dismember a dead body (never seen that in a Brookstone next to the travel chargers, have you?)  They go immediately from the airport to the consulate.  Then, a few hours later, apparently satisfied with their experience of foreign culture, they return to the airport, carrying several black garbage b...

Just in case you are planning to fly somewhere with one, Green Eagle's shopping guide has found this for you, available online for the low price of $76.02. You just never know when one might come in handy on your foreign travels.

Once again, we are about to suffer another round of one of the biggest lies in history:  the notion that Democrats and their social programs are responsible for the deficits that have plagued the country since Reagan took office.  Since that time, it has been the deliberate attempt of Republicans to destroy social spending, and thieve the money to give to their sociopathic rich backers, thus accomplishing two purposes: enriching their billionaires enough to keep them providing the money to flood the country with propaganda which keeps the Republicans in office, and also to achieve a long time goal of Republicans, deliberately destroying Social Security and Medicare, the two greatest Democratic contributions to the well-being of the American people.  Here is the hideously evil Mitch McConnell, being blunt about his intentions: " McConnell eyes cuts to Medicare, Social Security to address deficit Nearly a year ago, as the debate over Republican tax breaks for the weal...

I know I promised to stop annoying you with these, but I thought it would be fun to see how the Republicans are lying their way out of the abysmal performance of Brett Kavanaugh in his recent Senate hearing.  So, here we go: Matt Vespa, Town Hall:  "After Ex-Boyfriend Nuked Her Testimony, Did Christine Blasey Ford Lie Before Congress?" No, everyone could see she was sincere, even Trump.  But now a few days have passed so it's time for the Republicans to get back to smearing her.  What else did you expect? Katie Pavlich, Town Hall:  "Grassley Slams Ford's Attorneys For Lack Of Candor, Again Requests Documentation on Her Polygraph and Therapy Notes" Of course, Grassley refused to allow all the witnesses to testify at the the Senate hearing, but he feels free to slander Dr. Blasey Ford with absolutely groundless accusations that there is some sinister evil hidden in this material that she has absolutely no responsibility to release.  This is a sort o...

A headline in the Washington Post today: "Supreme Court contemplates whether man who cannot remember crime may be executed" Or whether they should just take him out of prison and give him the appeals court judgeship that Kavanaugh formerly held.

Another simple rule of human decency trampled under the feet of Donald Trump. Here's an episode in Presidential history that many of you may not remember. From a 1970 story in the New York Times: "Nixon Calls Manson Guilty, Later Withdraws Remark... WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 (1970)— President Nixon asserted today that Charles Manson, a hippie cultist now on trial in California, “was guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders without reason.” But, faced with criticism that he had prejudged the outcome of the Manson trial, Mr. Nixon, issued a statement on his arrival here tonight saying that “the last thing I would do is prejudice the legal ‘rights of any person, in any circumstances.” This remark caused a furor around the country, and very nearly resulted in a mistrial in the Manson case.  To Nixon's credit, he realized before the day was out that he had made a big mistake, and seemingly sincerely apologized for what he said. This case set a standard that...

Or just one more poison pill that the Republicans are happy to force down our throats? From Daily Kos, reporting on a story at NBC News: "NBC News: Kavanaugh contacted witnesses prior to publication of Ramirez assault claims...NBC News reports that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was apparently in personal contact with potential witnesses he believed would cast doubt on the allegations that he exposed himself to a female student during a drunken Yale party. It would seem to be a very odd move for a Supreme Court nominee to be personally involved in speaking to witnesses in a preemptive attempt to discredit testimony against him" Let's just be clear about this.  It is not "a very odd move." It is witness tampering.  It is subornation of perjury, a major felony.   And is there a person on earth, even one as big a liar as Lindsey Graham, or Trump himself, that would claim that this Yale law school graduate, this man who has been a judge for over...