Green Eagle

No, I mean really: "I've often wondered how Christianists and the Tea Party crowd can cling to beliefs that defy logic and scientific fact. Now, we may have the answer: they're simply stupid. I mean literally dumb from an intelligence perspective. A new study done by researcher Gordon Hodson , a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, finds that those with low intelligence gravitate towards conservatism and are prone to embrace prejudice of things they don't understand or that are different." I suggest that you entertain yourselves with the above post and the Yahoo article that prompted it, which starts as follows: "There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy." While searching around for more about this study , I also found the following gem of information, from Live Science: "...people who believ...

The preposterous re-emergence of Newt Gingrich provides a perfect opportunity for me to revisit a primary theme of mine. How can it be that the supposedly religious, family-values obsessed Republican "base" can turn for salvation to a man who has led a spectacularly immoral life, both in public and in private?  How can they at the same time embrace their lofty pretensions and unashamedly cling to one of the most revoltingly disgraceful public figures of our time? This phenomenon reinforces a claim I have made for years:  that American Conservatism as it exists today is about one single thing and nothing else: Cut My Taxes.  Absolutely nothing motivates modern Conservatives but a desire to get their government services for free, and to not have to bear the intolerable thought that a single penny of their money is going to help anyone else- particularly you know who. Then why the religion?  The whole "Christian" thing is, I believe, nothing but a smoke screen, i...

This story from Daily Kos today perfectly illustrates something that I have been saying for years: "Republicans reluctant on Obama's aggressive deficit reduction goal Now that President Obama is pushing a larger-than-expected $4 trillion deficit reduction package, guess what: Republicans are suddenly becoming less enthusiastic about debt reduction. While John Boehner supports Obama's goal, support from his GOP leadership colleagues range from lukewarm at best to nonexistent at worst. The New York Times reported Eric Cantor and Jon Kyl opposed the $4 trillion target:     "Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, and Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the ranking Republican on      the Senate Finance Committee, favored the midrange $2 trillion, voicing doubts about how they could sell a $4      trillion deal to their rank and file, officials said, since it would involve tax increases." So, as always, the thing stopp...

In my post on the recent episode of right wing terrorism, I mentioned the "Sovereign Citizen" movement, of which the murderer Jerry Kane was an adherent. I think it is worthwhile to know something about them, so here are a few excerpts from a screed apparently written by Mr. Kane, which features the gist of their "thinking." If, for some unknown reason, you would like to torment yourself by reading the whole thing, you can find it in PDF format here. "Most people are not aware that there has been no lawful money since the bankruptcy of the United States in 1933." The bankruptcy of the United States in 1933. Funny, I never even heard of that, despite having read numerous books on the depression. Why do you think that might be? "Since House Joint Resolution 192 (HJR 192) (Public law 7310) was passed in 1933 we have only had debt, because all property and gold was seized by the government as collateral in the bankruptcy of the United States. Most peo...

I had thought of doing an entire Wingnut Wrapup today featuring right wing garbage about the apparently impending passage of health care legislation, which I could have easily done. You know what it would contain- you've heard it all before. In the process of doing this, however, I came across a single article, by Joseph Farah, at World Net Daily, which I think so completely expresses the conservative attitude towards health care and everything else, that I thought I should quote from it at some length, so you can see, right out in the open, what lies behind American conservatism today. Despite everything you have heard the last year, I think you should be prepared to be shocked: "Obama's desperate demagoguery Barack Obama says he's trying to push his government health-care bill through Congress because of people like Ohio resident Natoma Canfield. She's a victim of breast cancer whose insurance premiums soared as a result of her condition. She decided not to ren...

It's been a slow couple of days in the political world, so I would like to take the opportunity to write about three incidents that have occurred in the last few weeks: the murder by a professor in Alabama with a history of violence, of three of her fellows, a guy in Texas that flew his small plane into an IRS building, and a person with a 15 year history of mental illness driving across the country to attempt to shoot up the Pentagon. Naturally, the first instinct of Republicans is to blame all of this on liberals, and I have seen plenty of that on the wingnut blogs. I want to suggest a more truthful account of how these three people, all showing signs of mental unbalance, came to commit their violent acts. The history of "terrorism" at least back to 19th century Russian nihilism is very consistent. Inciters of the violence almost invariably manage to disconnect themselves from the actual perpetrators. Those responsible for causing the violence normally restrict them...

Here's an amusing example, from Confederate Yankee, of how far wingnuts will go to deny reality: "Our "Elite" Media: Anyone With a Gun is a Sniper" Anyon with a gun. I see. Mr. Yankee continues: "A wonderful example of selling fear is the story of the so-called "Berea Sniper." Someone has been shooting at cars in this Ohio town since this past August. No one has been injured by the shooter..." Of course, the underwear bomber didn't injure anyone but himself either. However, wingnuts have no problem calling him a terrorist, rather than a person with a very faulty undergarment. "The suspect, Paul Hausmann, has been tooling around this Cleveland suburb plinking at his fellow citizens with a .22-caliber replica of an old cowboy six-gun." "Plinking." I.e. hiding and shooting at them with a gun which is very well capable of killing them. I always pretty much thought that was what a sniper is, but I guess I was wrong:...

I must say that I am absolutely sickened by the right wing response to the earthquake in Haiti. We have all heard about the disgusting comments by the likes of Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh. Here are a couple of excerpts from a post at Town Hal l, by some thug named Steve Chapman, that seem to sum up a lot of the contemptible Republican line on Haiti: "we on average are more productive, disciplined, future-oriented and law-abiding than Haitians" Oh, of course we are. That's why we just averted sending ourselves into a depression by the worship of greed, the new Republican religion, also known as Reaganomics. How to lift Haitians out of misery is an enduring puzzle. U.S. intervention, undertaken periodically for nearly a century, hasn’t worked." Maybe that's because U. S. intervention has consisted of removing legally elected liberal governments and replacing them with corrupt right wing dictatorships. "Left-wing despots haven’t led the way to salvatio...

I can't believe I'm posting this. I can't even believe it happened. You wouldn't believe it either, if you didn't see it. From Town Hall: Did we Quit when the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor? I really don't know, to tell you the truth. Did We? Can anybody help me out there? My God, our connnection with reality is growing tenuous.

I love Talking Points Memo, but I am afraid I have to strongly disagree with the sentiment expressed in an article today by Nathan Newman: "By a 5-4 decision, the conservative judicial activists on the Supreme Court violated in the Ricci decision any reasonable notion of state sovereignty.... It is a remarkable thing that conservatives that supposedly object to (a) inflexible federal rules on civil rights; (b) telling states how to spend their own money, and (c) second-guessing elected officials with judicial opinion would violate all three principles in the Ricci firefighter case." Nathan, Nathan, Nathan....Are you trying to tell us that it is "remarkable" when conservatives turn out to not give a God damn about the sacred principles that they have blabbed on about for years? Are you trying to tell us that it is "remarkable" when it turns out that conservatives will do anything they want, regardless of those so-called principles? Come on guy, there'...

From Media Matters, this wonderful quote from Republican Michael Scheuer, on Glenn Beck's show: "Beck guest Scheuer: "The only chance we have as a country right now is" for bin Laden to "detonate a major weapon" in U.S." I know people are very sceptical when I suggest that the right is hoping and praying for another terrorist attack in this country, because assuaging their humiliation over what they've done to the country over the last eight years is worth any amount of American deaths. Most people can't yet accept that they could possible be this callous, America hating and downright evil. Maybe a few more people will accept the ugly truth when they hear things like this, spoken in the open, on national television, without any objection.