Green Eagle

Because apparently not one single person on either side of the political divide is willing to speak the truth: Yes, Trump and McConnell are letting Susan Collins and probably one other Republican Senator vote to hear witnesses.  This is not, as everyone claims, to help them get re-elected in relatively moderate districts.  Real (i.e. crooked) Republicans don't give a damn about Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski or any other potential defector; if one does cross the party, they will be primaried by someone much more extreme than they are, and the result will just be an even more united Republican party. What is actually going on here is a plan to see to it that the Democrats can't portray this as a party line vote, because two unneccessary Republicans were let to agree to witnesses. It is all about the 2020 election, despite the fact that it will be consistently presented across the mainstream media exactly the way the Republicans want it- See, there are still Republican mode...

This news reaches us today from our nation's Southern Border: "A section of Donald Trump’s much-vaunted border wall between the United States and Mexico has blown over onto the Mexican side in high winds, US border patrol officers have been reported as saying. The steel panels, more than 30ft (nine metres) high, began to lean at a sharp angle on the border between the Californian town of Calexico and Mexicali in Mexico amid gusts on Wednesday...“Luckily, Mexican authorities responded quickly and were able to divert traffic from the nearby street,” said border patrol agent Carlos Pitones, according to the Los Angeles Times." Luckily, Mexican authorities managed to divert traffic!  Good thing that responsibility didn't fall on US authorities, because they would have screwed that up too.  And here it is! This is the sort of thing that people are talking about when they say that Trump is killing satire.  It'd be a good laugh if he weren't killing democ...

I learn from an article at the Washington Post today, the following useful information: "Trump’s impeachment team argues that anything he does to win reelection isn’t impeachable...Over the course of two responses to those questions, Trump’s legal team made a remarkable claim. First, that if an action includes any element of public interest, it can’t be impeachable under the terms set by the House. And, second, if Trump thinks that his own reelection is in the public interest — which he certainly does — that’s a valid claim." Well, that certainly sets things straight.  So, if Trump thinks it's a good idea for him to remain in office, what with being the greatest genius in history and knowing more about everything than anybody, he can just murder his Democratic opponents one after the other, as they move to the front in the polls, and that would be way outside of what the founding fathers were thinking about when they added the clause about impeachment to the Consti...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whTb96zr9_w

Occasionally, I will recommend an article without having a great deal to say about it, because I think it makes its case so well, that there is not much I can add.  Well, here is one, by Isaac Stanley Baker, at the Washington Post. It tells the story of the stunningly, frighteningly, fast work with which the Republican party has mobilized a masssive character assassination campaign of John Bolton, who for years was a favorite right wing figure, but now must be destroyed for daring to stand up to their golden idol, Donald Trump. Really, this is the kind of malignant hatred that we are up against today, as horrible to see it in action.  Give the article a read.

One of the right wing's all time favorite warmongers, John Bolton, now says that Trump told him directly that the withholding of Ukraine aid was absolutely about hurting Joe Biden and the Democrats, utterly destroying Trump's defense. If Bolton is allowed to testify. So now we are going to see the Senate Republicans agree to gratefully hear what Bolton has to say, or at least four of them will, which is all we need. Ha ha ha, Democrats, fooled you again.

I've said this before, but I think it needs to be repeated at this point.  The Republican party learned the only lesson they were ever going to learn from Nixon, but they definitely learned that one.  It only took a handful of Republicans in Congress who were halfway honest to drive Nixon from the White House, and the Republicans sure made sure that that never happened again. As the years went by, and we saw one Republican after another destroyed by horrible skeletons in their closets, my wife used to say that they didn't let anyone run as a Republican unless they were corrupt or criminal enough that they could be destroyed at any time, if they bucked the party.  What at one point seemed like a joke has come to appear more and more like reality as time has gone by.  And here we are- A President of massive criminality, whose treason is clear for all to see, and yet still it is unlikely in the extreme that the Republican party will do a thing about it. Oh yeah, I...

Today's Republican impeachment presentation was over before I got out of bed.  Thank the lord for small things.

I don't want to make too much of a point of this at present, but am I totally off base in seeing signs that Bernie is starting to act the same way he did in 2016, when he saw the Democratic nomination slipping away from him, reverting to angry and unfair attacks on his opponents that, last time around, proved horribly destructive to the Democrats and the country?  As a former strong Bernie supporter, I more or less gave him a pass on his role in the "Bernie brother" phenomenon, but as George W. Bush once so succinctly put it, "Won't get fooled again."  A couple more incidents like we have recently seen and he is off my bus forever.  It may be that, despite my agreeing with almost all of his positions, he just doesn't have the character to be President.

Best to not just forget about what is happening there.  From the Washington Post, the following: Our nation's gift to the people of Venezuela "The least noticed but most striking failure of maximum pressure has come in Venezuela, a country just three hours by air from Miami that for decades was deeply dependent on the United States for oil revenue. Trump cut off that income stream, confident it would cause the collapse of a socialist dictatorship already in economic and political free fall. Instead, a year later, the regime of Nicolás Maduro appears to have stabilized. The lights are back on in Caracas, once-empty stores are full of goods, and the U.S.-backed opposition has been ousted — at least physically — from the National Assembly. Trump’s demand — that Maduro leave office and make way for fresh elections — won’t be realized anytime soon." "Trump cut off that income stream..."  Let us be clear about this: the United States sabotaged the economy...

I know I like to say that I have no interest in commenting on things unless I have something new that I think I can add, which is why, with so many people now finally admitting what we have backed ourselves into by allowing the Republican party to become more and more criminal, that isn't much these days.  Well, there certainly have been a lot of people writing about the new revelations regarding Donald Trump's "dopes and babies" tantrum, that you'd think that the book excerpts containing this sickening episode would be pretty much milked dry, but as usual, Green Eagle still has a few more things to spout off about. The first one is a comment that has been noticed, but which has not received anywhere near enough attention.  Maybe it's because as I write this, I am living and working only a couple of miles from Pearl Harbor, but this really struck me: "Trump seemed to know next to nothing about the events of Dec. 7, 1941 when he visited Pearl Harbor...

So the Republicans are shrieking in fury at anyone who suspected that Donald Trump might have been involved in the recent shooting down of a passenger plane leaving Tehran (as opposed, of course, to the one that took place in 1988, which we know was carried out by the United States,) to which I reply as follows: When the Republicans admit that the Benghazi scandal was a lie When the Republicans admit that the Hillary e-mail scandal was a lie When the Republicans admit that Obama, Hillary and the rest of the Democrats are not Satanic pedophiles who kill children for fun When they admit that the "Uranium one scandal" was another lying smear When the Republicans admit that they knew all along that Obama is not from Kenya When they admit that Michelle is not an ex-football player who had a sex change operation When they admit that they knew that the Swift Boat story about John Kerry was a vicious, lying smear. When they admit that wanting to help poor people is n...

So, the U.S. and Iran are on the brink of war, and an airliner is shot down leaving Tehran.  Not just any airliner, mind you, but a Ukranian one.  What virtually nonexistent percentage of world airline flights are on Ukranian airplanes leaving Tehran, I wonder. Well, here is what I think.  I have seen not a single thing, ever, in the news, about Iran and Ukraine being on the outs in any way.  I do know, however, that the government of Ukraine's refusal to collaborate in Donald Trump's criminal scheme to fabricate charges against his number one Democratic opponent has recently reduced him to apoplectic rage.  Say, what about killing two birds with one stone?  Punish Ukraine for standing up to his extortion, and at the same time make Iran look like terrorist maniacs to the world.  A brilliant twofer, and one that would obviously appeal to a thug like Trump. And all at the cost of a mere couple hundred innocent lives. Well, if motive is an element i...

Just Green Eagle's probably stupid opinion, but I think the military guys realized that Trump had failed to gain any support both among our allies, and with the American people.  I am sure that Trump himself, living in his usual fog of megalomaniac delusion is still expecting his popularity rating to go up to 90% like it did for that idiot George W. Bush, but the truth is that nobody here or abroad, except for his usual brain dead supporters, believes a thing he says.  They will just ignore him about most of it, but not when it comes to war.  So the generals took it into their own hands to essentially cut a deal which allowed Iran to make a largely symbolic response to Trump's war crimes, and move on. And thus, with a little bit of luck, Trump's main strategy to avoid any penalty for his criminality and win the next election, namely starting a war, has dissolved in the mist.  Too bad, Donny.

In connection with the "imminent threat" posed by leaving an Iranian general alive, we have the following remark this morning, from Mike Pompeo, about Trump's destruction of the Iran nuclear deal:   “(Iran was) on a pathway that had been provided by the nuclear deal, that clearly gave them the opportunity to have those nuclear weapons.” Translation into the English language:  "We don't have a single shred of evidence that Iran was doing a thing to violate the treaty, so we are going to just lie about it." If this world escapes a war (and it is preposterous to have to say this) it is because the leaders of Iran act rationally, not the leaders of our own country.

Attacks on an invading army are not terrorism.

This news from Daily Kos this morning: "Soleimani assassination was planned for days, but Congress was not briefed before or after...The operation to strike and kill Soleimani was planned days in advance." And coverage in a similar tone from the normally perceptive Talking Points Memo: "We now have apparent confirmation that the U.S. mounted a retaliatory raid on a convoy in Iraq (unclear whether it’s a drone attack or missiles) that killed a leader of the Iraqi militia that menaced the U.S. Embassy and critically also killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps."   The Daily Kos article centers around Trump's having failed to notify Congress, as required, before taking this action, another potentially impeachable offense, but even at Kos they seem to have missed the main takeaway from the story:  If the assassination was planned days in advance, it could not have been a response to the demonstrations at the U.S. embassy in...

Our "President: " To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH." Consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before...We are no longer a country that will stand for demented words of violence & death. Will there ever be a point where Republicans decided that enough is enough? Just wondering, by the way...I hear all sorts of speculation about what spectacular acts of terrorism the Iranians will now commit, as if they think just like Trump.  Seems to me that they can pretty easily contrive to block the Persian Gulf to all shipping traffic, creating an oil crisis like we have never seen before.  Let's see then how many countries around the world side with the United States.  Of course, that may actually be ...

Here we go!!!

Looking at the Washington Post this morning, I  notice that coverage of the humiliating attack on our Baghdad embassy, and Trump's reliance on the Iraqi government to put a stop to it, has now vanished from their coverage. This gives the story shorter legs that the tale of Carlos Ghosn's escape from the law in Japan, which the Post is still covering on a daily basis, let alone their allowing the nonexistent "scandal" of Benghazi to dominate the news for a year before a Presidential election.  Tell me again how the press is liberal.  Tell me again how the press even pretends to be even-handed in its treatment of Republicans and Democrats.  Tell me that, and I will tell you that you are lying.

As Trump laughingly called the attack on our embassy in Baghdad today.  The Washington Post reports the following: "Supporters of Iranian-backed militia end siege of U.S. Embassy in Baghdad... Kataib Hezbollah agreed to end the siege after Iraq’s prime minister guaranteed he would support efforts to pass a law calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops" They end their siege! Hurray! Of course, it was in return for Iraq demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops, which stands to benefit nobody in the world except for guess who? Just a hint of whom I'm talking about here, in case you didn't figure it out for yourself. It's a win-win situation, in the sense of heads, Putin wins, tails, Putin wins.  One more military obstacle to Putin's domination of the Middle East eliminated, without him having to get his fingerprints anywhere near the crime scene, or fire a shot. And of course, a giant win for this previously virtually unknown group, which forced t...