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Showing posts from 2022

Bye Bye Benny

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  I'm comfortable saying that the world is a better place today, following the death of Pope Benedict, the only Pope in the church's long history to be kicked out of his position. It is, I think, fair to say that his forced "retirement," in the middle of a public eruption of the centuries long scandal of priestly sexual abuse of children, was directly related to his part in that horror; and I do not think that his enabling this monstrosity was enough to drive him into hiding; if so, many others would have suffered the same fate.  I am confident that, when the whole truth is known, he was a direct participant in this abuse, which to this day renders the Catholic Church an unfit place for any decent person. So good riddance to a malignant human being.

Washington Post: Let My Criminals Go Free!

Here's another specimen in the Washington Post's incomprehensible crusade to help Donald Trump and his criminal lackeys escape the consequences of his attempt to overthrow the US government.  Note that the Post is hardly the only promoter of this idiotic attempt to license criminality; I am sure that that paper is even worse, but we do not regard it as news when they do it. This piece of disingenuous trash is written by Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman, along with some chump I won't even bother to name from Indiana, and just goes to show how little honor there is left on the right in this country, even among its most supposedly distinguished academics. "Opinion:  Criminal prosecution is the wrong idea. Use the 14th Amendment on Trump." Because right wingers really are above the law. "Apart from a relatively brief mention in its 800-page report, the Jan. 6 committee missed the Constitution’s preferred punishment for former high officials turned insurrectio

Palestine Wins the World Cup

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 No, really...even though Palestine wasn't in the World Cup, and in fact is not even a real place. Because I have lived in the Middle East, I get a lot of Facebook posts from there, including an amazing amount of Arab propaganda.  I have seen hundreds of posts proclaiming the victory that "Palestine" achieved in an event they didn't even participate in.  Much of it was in the form of cartoons, like this: or many more malicious ones: Here is an idiotic one of a "Palestinian" kicking a ball hitting an Israeli in the head, while he is cheered on by cartoon supporters. Here's one showing noble Palestinians playing a match against Israeli soldiers with guns.  This one is particularly ironic because of the torrent of abuse currently directed at Israeli troops for killing a Palestinian "footballer" who was actually a member of Hamas, who in a video of his death is shown shooting an automatic weapon toward Israeli civilians. Here's one of many cele

BDKS

 I want to suggest a newly discovered mental defect to be included in psychiatric texts in the future:  BDKS, or Billionaires' Dunning Kruger Syndrome, an easily identifiable condition where having, say being born to parents who owned an emerald mine, or into a family rich with the profits from whorehouses and slum apartments, causes someone to think that they know more about everything than anyone else on earth.  Really, in terms of the damage caused by mental illness, I can hardly think of any disorder that results in more damage these days.

Press Fairness, Washington Post Style

Just in case you have any illusion about how much of an effect the massive corruption and criminality of Donald Trump and the Republican party are going to have on the mainstream press, I would like you to consider the following long excerpt from an article published today in the Washington Post, allegedly a bastion of liberal journalism.  It is written by Hugh Hewitt, someone who is a regular contributor to the Washington Post, and as you, I and the editors of the Post know perfectly well, has spent years as a lying right wing propagandist and conspirator with the miserable Trump.  I suppose this would be defended by the Post as a fair balance to the distinguished writing of Post regulars like Eugene Robinson.  What follows is far more than might normally be considered a fair excerpt of this article, but given the grotesque unfairness of balancing Democratic truths with this kind of malignant, hate filled lies, I just don't give a damn.  Judge it for yourself. "I’ve been

Green Eagle Makes a Colossal, Earth Shaking Announcement

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Now, at last, Green Eagle is able to announce the availability of one of the most valuable collectible items in history- Green Eagle Cards, showing great events in the life of Green Eagle! Here are a couple of previews of these items, which will be on sale to tremendous demand, in the very near future! The top one illustrating Green Eagle's magnificent parrot physique, which allows him to screech all opponents into a state of stunned compliance, and the second revealing Green Eagle's immense mental capacity, clearly beyond anything known in the human world.  Green Eagle's uncle was, you know, an experimental subject at MIT. Many more delightful images will be available soon, showing Green Eagle owning the libs by defecating on them from above, Green Eagle cuddling up to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, Green Eagle biting the head off of Nancy Pelosi, and other unforgettable moments in the history of our country.   Stay tuned for pricing details- these are expected to sell ou

Wingnut Wrapup

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It's hard to get excited about the lunatic ravings of hundreds of paid right wing propagandists when the ex_President of the United States and the richest man in the world are pushing the same vicious lies.  Here is a sample of the insanity from our ex-President in recent days (capitals courtesy of the loser himself:) “WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE FBI & ‘JUSTICE’ DEPARTMENT? THEY SEEM TO BE TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL! THERE IS, RIGHT NOW, A ‘WEAPONIZATION’ OF JUSTICE THE LIKES OF WHICH OUR COUNTRY HAS NEVER SEEN BEFORE. THE TWITTER AND FACEBOOK SCANDAL HAS ALREADY PROVEN TO BE, WITH THE POSSIBLE EXCEPTION OF SPYING ON MY CAMPAIGN,THEIR MOST SINISTER ACT IN HISTORY. EVEN THE RINOS & THE WEAK ARE OPENLY ADMITTING THAT THE 2020 ELECTION WAS RIGGED, BUT IN A DARKER WAY THAN EVER THOUGHT POSSIBLE. SO MANY LIVES DESTROYED!” The "most sinister act in history" not being, say, the Spanish Inquisition or the holocaust, or Trump's own ongoing attempt to destroy our government a

Herschel, We Hardly Knew You.

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  Yeah, I know all the bad things about Herschel Walker.  He was a violent, dishonest, unintelligent man who knew damned well he had no business in the Senate, and was willing to collaborate with the worst sort of racists to get something he didn't deserve.  The whole nation dodged a bullet when the Republican party fell just short of finding enough malicious, hate filled honkies in Georgia to put him in the Senate. And yet, as soon as he conceded, I found myself feeling what I never expected to: sympathy for this poor guy, who was mesmerized by the Republicans, and Trump in particular, into serving as their unwitting tool. This is a guy who never had any political experience or, apparently, interest, and let's face it: he was not intelligent or informed enough to understand how he was being used.  He was induced to put a black face on the worst outbreak of white race hatred this country has known since the Civil War.  In the prospect, he has had his life damaged forever.  Inst

Coup Attempt in Germany?

 This story has broken into the news today, at least a little, as reported at Daily Kos: "German authorities have arrested right wing and ex-military plotters who were planning a violent attempt to overthrow the German government...The group of far-right and ex-military figures are said to have prepared for a "Day X" to storm the Reichstag parliament building and seize power." Here are some details about this group, as detailed in a BBC report linked to in the Daily Kos story: "The plotters are said to include members of the extremist Reichsbürger [Citizens of the Reich] movement...(which) plotted to overthrow the republic and replace it with a new state modelled on the Germany of 1871 - an empire called the Second Reich.  The Reichsbürger were, for years, a source of national derision, dismissed as crackpots. Members don't recognise the post-war German state and reject the authority of its government. Despite the name, this is no organised national move

Slightly Wrong There, Kanye

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 We have this rather remarkable statement from Kanye West today: “I see good things about Hitler also” Ye said. “I love everyone. Jewish people are not going to tell me you can love us, and you can love what we’re doing to you with the contracts, and you can love what we’re pushing with the pornography. But this guy that invented highways, invented the very microphone that I use as a musician, you can’t say out loud that this person ever did anything good, and I’m done with that.” Let's just leave aside the gratuitous anti-Semitism there, and deal with Kanye's factual claims, because this statement is so outrageous that nobody except Green Eagle is going to concern himself  with the truth of Kanye's claims about Hitler's alleged inventive brilliance. First of all, Hitler did not invent highways, which date back at least to Roman times.  Here is  picture of a Roman one that predates Hitler by about 1800 years, still with its original pavement: Kanye's claim is probab

Has The Red Wave Crested?

It took me a day or so to start thinking this, but I am now wondering if the recent election does not represent a far greater blow to the Republicans than most people yet realize. Consider how everything seemed to be aligned to favor their plan: A relatively unpopular President, whose manifest accomplishments have been totally obscured by Republican smear campaigns, aided by a mainstream press largely owned by, and only responsive to the demands of, the rich. An off year election which normally produces a strong showing for the opposition party, including typically a loss of 30+ seats in the House and several in the Senate. Decades of gerrymandering that had built secure Republican districts all across the country. The judiciary had been so packed with corrupt fascists, that it was considered acceptable to have masked people with assault rifles at polling places, wherever they could intimidate Democratic voters. Election officials across the country that have been threatened  into resi

Tuition

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  Well, for anyone out there who does not believe that there is something vastly wrong with our current system of charging for higher education, or who went to college some time ago and thinks that student loan forgiveness is some sort of free ride, here is something to take a look at. I was going through some old papers today, and found this term bill for one semester at Harvard graduate school in the early 1980's. Total bill: $4800.25

The Republicans Are Not Crazy

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Listening to our nation's "political discourse" the last few years, it is tempting to see everything as a struggle between one party that, however flawed, is still in some sort of contact with reality and moral decency, and one that has entirely spun off into a delusional universe of insane conspiracy theories and lies.  This leaves Democrats wondering what could have caused 30% of our population to have taken leave of their senses, and subscribed to a program that is destroying their lives.   In fact, that is not what is going on at all in the Republican party.  I rashly propose here to explain what is in fact happening. I guess it was back in the 1980's or so that I, and a pretty large number of other people, realized that white people were losing the death grip on American politics that they had had since the founding of our country, and that demographics were in the process of destroying their majority status.  In a democracy, that meant that, within decades, they

I Wonder Why That Could Be?

 The headline at the Washington Post today: "U.S. economy likely grew a lot last quarter. Most people didn’t notice." Say, I wonder why that might be, O Reporters from the Washington Post?  Isn't it sort of your job to let people know what is really happening in the country, regardless of the endless lies that Republicans tell?  Isn't it sort of the job of someone- I can't quite remember who- to make sure that Americans know the truth?  Oh yeah, it's the job of the press, a segment of society which is graced by your paper as a shining light of honorable practice. Or is it your job to enrich your owners by putting more Republicans in office regardless of what you know the result will be?  Is it your job to only report the lying side?   Maybe if you did your fucking job for a while, people might understand which party really has their interest at heart.  But, I guess that is just too much to ask. Oh, here is an opinion piece at the Washington Post today: "

Durham Schadenfreude

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How could anyone believe a thing from a lunatic who looks like this, anyway? I think it is appropriate, at what is likely the inglorious end of the great John Durham investigation, to remind people what a colossal failure it was, and how it has joined such miserable Republican misuses of their investigative power as Benghazi and Her E-Mails in succeeding at nothing except stirring up endless wingnut rage, and raising a hell of a lot of money for Donald Trump et. al.  So here are some of my recollections of this nonsense as well as a small selection of right wing responses to Durham's latest humiliation in court. It is unlikely that many Democrats are aware of just how much the Republicans were counting on Durham to produce results damning to the left.  As a specimen of their expectations, here is an excerpt from a Daily Kos report from last February, discussing the matter: "Late on Friday, special counsel John Durham filed a shocking document with the court in which he indict