Green Eagle

By which, of course, I mean to destroy democracy in this country once and for all.  I urgently recommend that you read this short piece at Mother Jones, which I found via Digby.  The following chart is a sample of what you will find there: I repeat that it has been the intent of the five corrupt Republican justices to accomplish just this.  It is, in fact, the intent of all Republicans (except of course the really stupid ones who think that, if they just elect a Republican president, they too will be worth billions real soon) to see to it that 2,000 families or so run this country, and that all of the rest of us are reduced to the status of helpless peons who are forced to live with whatever scraps they care to throw our way, or else starve to death in a ditch somewhere.  Maybe we'll win this election.  Maybe we'll win the next one.  But these people know perfectly well that in the end we cannot stand up in the face of this mockery of a democratic sy...

The arguments presented by Democrats, the #Occupy movement and others on the left for raising taxes on the rich are based on notions of fairness- the gross inappropriateness of someone like Mitt Romney, making hundreds of millions in an economically useless "job" which no one outside of the children of the very wealthy could ever hope to have, and yet paying a far lower tax rate than the average teacher or industrial worker.  This argument is perfectly valid, so far as it goes, but it does not deal with the real reason that this country faces endless brushes with economic doom if it doesn't massively raise taxes on the rich. The true damage done by the combination of low taxes for rich people and little or no regulation occurs as follows:  The economic world is governed immutably by the law of supply and demand.  Accordingly, the prices of commodities, be they real estate, stocks and bonds, manufactured goods, antique furniture, or anything else, are a reflection of t...

Well, I think it's useful to spend some time on the tremendous "scandal" that Andrew Breitbart was about to release- a piece of film from Obama's college days that Breitbart said would destroy Obama. Let's talk about the truth first.  In 1990, Derrick Bell, the first black tenured professor at Harvard University, held a protest.  He was angered that Harvard law school had denied tenure to a female black professor.  Unsurprisingly, the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review, one Barack Obama, was selected to introduce Professor Bell.  This demonstration was covered by Boston PBS station WGBH.  Here is the entire surviving footage (from WGBH) of Obama's introduction.  It is important that you take the one minute and seventeen seconds to watch this, as it shows how absolutely inoffensive Obama's remarks were: That's it!  And all in the service of a purported rabid black racist who is actually a Harvard law professor.  Oh, wait a minute,...

I think the whole story of South Carolina comes down to this , as so succinctly put at Daily Kos: "Gingrich won by being mean... His win is based on that. And the SC Republicans (and a large part of the Republican base) want mean." That's it.  The Republican "base" is tired of having people suggest that race hatred and greed are less than honorable characteristics, and they are angry about it.  So they are ready to openly abandon any pretense that they give a damn about all of their religious cant and family values hooey, and get in line behind the meanest motherfucker they can find, even if he is an openly corrupt, grossly immoral son of a bitch who would steal his granny's coffin if it made him a nickel (and probably marry her too, if he thought it would advance his political career,) and who makes fools of them every time he opens his mouth and utters another preposterous lie. Well, at least here in South Carolina, the first State to go to war to ...

One of the most consistent right wing responses to Obama's success in helping drive Moammar Gaddafi from power, to be found from a nasty piece of work like Pam Geller, all the way to the Republican presidential hopefuls, was that Obama was a total failure when he removed Gaddafi, because he had just turned Libya over to a pack of Islamist radicals.  Not so true, I guess: "Prime minister Abdurrahim el-Keib has sent Libya on a bumpy road towards democracy by naming a cabinet of secularists and thereby snubbing prominent Islamists. The biggest surprise on the list was Osama al-Juwali, chief of the Zintan military council, who was appointed defence minister at the expense of Islamist Hakim Bilhaj." Once again, the Republicans, still reeling from the utter failure of their dream administration to accomplish anything but disaster on every front, tries to find similar failures in everything Obama does- this time in the ludicrous notion that Obama is as dreadful at foreign p...

Here is another way that the middle class is being forced to bear the costs of the economic disaster foisted on us by the greed of the rich.  I have been surprised to never hear this spelled out directly, so finally I'm going to try to do it myself. We constantly hear about people's responsibility to prepare for their own retirement.  In fact, a large part of Republican cant involve the constant claim that we should bear far more of that burden.  Let's consider what is happening to people who spent their lives following this advice: Imagine a working class couple who, responsibly, saved carefully for their retirement, and over their working lives managed to save $500,000. Before the Bush economic disaster, that money might have earned, say, 5% interest, or $25,000 a year.  That would be enough to more than double the money they get from Social Security, and if they don't have a mortgage, it would be a substantial contribution to their living an independent and ...

 In case you haven't seen this ad, please take a moment to look at it.  It is a Republican political spot attacking Janice Hahn, an absolutely decent L.A. politician who is running for an open Congressional seat.  You should really see it. I have mentioned  my expectation that the Republicans, enabled by the corrupt right wing justices on the Supreme Court, are about to launch the most nauseating electoral campaign any of us have ever seen.  Well, here's an early view of what to expect in the next year and a half.

Here's an excellent article about the current batch of Republican traitors which our oh-so-wise electorate has seen fit to send to Washington, via a link at Daily Kos: "The Republican Party that Honest Abe helped to found - that is, in its current Limbaughian form -- does not give a hoot about American global security.  All it wants to do is remove Barack Obama from the White House, and it does not care if its actions - that is, its inactions - wreck the painstakingly constructed goodwill between the U.S. and Russia and push the entire world back toward the shadow of possible nuclear annihilation." Unfortunately, they also do not care if they push the country into economic annihilation either.  We are facing a real test here in this country, which we have never faced before- whether we can survive a major political party which is willing to destroy us all so they can claim ownership of the shattered remains.  Republicans have entitled themselves to engage in the mos...

Richard Burt, Ronald Reagan's chief arms control negotiator, about the Obama START treaty with Russia: “there are only two governments in the world that wouldn’t like to see this treaty ratified, the government in Tehran and the government in North Korea.” Well, three countries, actually.  Iran, North Korea, and the one the Republican party intends to give us as soon as possible. In the last few weeks, we have seen the Republican party sell out the economic interests of the United States in order to collaborate with the Chinese Communists.  Now, after years of accusing the Democrats of not taking the supposed nuclear threat from Iran and North Korea seriously, the Republicans are collaborating to make it easier for these two countries to get nuclear materials and technology. We are dealing with massive subversion and treason from within our country, being carried out by one of the two major political parties.  Anyone who can't see that at this point is really livi...

In case you haven't noticed (lucky you) Glenn Beck has been engaged in a week long contemptible attack on George Soros, accusing him of having collaborated with the Nazis (when he was a child) and indulging himself in a host of other classic antisemitic attacks on Soros. If you are interested, here is an excellent article from Media Matters about the subject, by Simon Malloy.  A couple of remarks from the article: "As close as I've heard on mainstream television to fascism...This isn't a country where people go on TV and national radio and talk up bigots who blame Jews for collapsing economies or fomenting communism in the United States....Nothing like it has ever been on American television before."  Well, that's America, 2010 style.  If the rich can't get the right to loot the entire economy through fair means, then I guess this is an acceptable alternate strategy.  And of course, the "liberal" press is content to just look the other way w...

As worthless as the task may seem, I like to think of myself as maintaining a sort of public record of the colossal misinformation spewed out endlessly by the American right. One of the most persistent of these is the nonexistent "climategate" scandal, based on the deliberate misinterpretation of a couple of e-mails, which propounded the preposterous theory that the entire global warming movement was some sort of vicious conspiracy by thousands of scientists, to delude the world for reasons which no one could explain. One of the main targets of malicious, lying right wing accusations was Michael Mann, the original source of the "hockey stick graph" showing how the rise in global temperatures has taken off frighteningly in the last few decades. Mann, who was accused of all sorts of cynical manipulation by the right, was recently totally exonerated by a committee of experts convened by his university. I was most interested to see what the reaction to this turn of ev...

If you've been following the news from the right lately, you will have heard stories like this, from Gateway Pundit: "Governor Jan Brewer (R-AZ) met with President Obama on June 3rd to discuss our broken border with Mexico. President Obama promised he’d get back with her in two weeks. He didn’t. He blew her off. But, she did find out from Ecuadorean TV that his administration planned to sue her state. In the meantime, the federal government has ceded three southern Arizona counties to the Mexican drug cartel due to violence and smuggling." The horror! Of course, what has happened that the Federal Government has declared off limits the border area of something called the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge (I bet you have never heard of that- I sure never did) because of violence related, apparently, to drug smuggling. Now, what are we talking about here? Below is a map from Fox news: The area that is closed is the little part colored in yellow, at the bottom of the...

You might be interested in this article from Media Matters in which Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and two more Fox News regulars all have suddenly decided to push the idea that critics of Arizona's stupid immigration law are pushing the United States toward another civil war. It should be clear at this point, that if it doesn't happen, it won't be because these people aren't perfectly willing to commit mass treason.

Via Atrios, this new example of their utter insanity: "There seems to be a strong sentiment in Congress that the only constitutional right suspected terrorists have is the right to bear arms. “I think you’re going too far here,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday. He was speaking in opposition to a bill that would keep people on the F.B.I. terrorist watch list from buying guns and explosives. Say what? Yes, if you are on the terrorist watch list, the authorities can keep you from getting on a plane but not from purchasing an AK-47. This makes sense to Congress because, as Graham accurately pointed out, “when the founders sat down and wrote the Constitution, they didn’t consider flying.” They also didn't consider being attacked by Islamic extremists, so I guess the Federal government should leave the states to deal with that too. "Graham wanted to make it clear that just ...

From McClatchey, seemingly the only news service left in the country with a shred of regard for the truth, this story. It's well worth your time to click on the link and read the whole thing: "Not satisfied with U.S. history, some conservatives are rewriting it" And this doesn't extend only to the moronic Texas Board of Education, either. Here are a few of the lies, which are being spread by a concerted right wing effort: Jamestown: "Jamestown colony, when it was first founded as a socialist venture, dang near failed with everybody dead and dying in the snow," he said in a speech March 15 at the National Press Club. It was a good, strong story, helping Dick Armey, a former economics professor, illustrate the dangers of socialism...It was not, however, true. The Jamestown settlement was a capitalist venture financed by the Virginia Company of London — a joint stock corporation — to make a profit." Alexander Hamilton "A member of the audien...

Michael Steele spent $1900.00 at "Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex." There just is no end to the sexual deviance of Republican officials, is there? No words on earth could make this guy and his party bigger jokes than they already are.

I can't resist posting this picture of a Republican press conference this morning, which comes from AP, and I have already seen on a couple of other websites: I guess people just don't really care that much about their belligerent posturing over the health care bill. Who could have ever thought that Americans would actually not rise up in fury, demanding vengeance because the Democrats gave them health insurance protection?

From ABC News: "Bunning’s obstruction, however, continues on another front: Democrats say he has put a hold on all pending presidential nominations, effectively blocking “several dozen” of President Obama’s nominations. As you may recall, Senator Richard Shelby moved to block all nominations last month, but eventually relented in the face intense pressure from fellow Republicans." Relented in this case, meaning continuing as long as possible with this jackass behavior, until the dormant press finally stirred to life and began to report some stories mildly critical of the infantile behavior of Senate Republicans. Now, they have Bunning, a man who will not run for reelection, doing their dirty work. Does anyone on earth really believe he is doing this without the tacit approval of all of the rest of the Republican party? This is the way they work now. There is not a shred of honesty or decency left in any of them. They will continue doing whatever they can to advance the ...

Republican Senator John Kyl on the issue of unemployment compensation: "Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting "because people are being paid even though they're not working." Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," Kyl said... " Listen, you stupid, lying dick: The reason these people are on unemployment is not because they don't want to work. They all were working, or they couldn't get unemployment payments. The reason they don't have jobs is because the corporations who employed them, and who pay to keep people like you in congress, sent all their jobs to China. There are no jobs for them, thanks to you. So don't try to lie your way out of it as usual, by blaming the victims of your corruption.

I have something more to say about a remark from the late 1940's that I quoted in a post below, about a speech made by that great Republican, Herbert Hoover: "Former President Herbert Hoover said last night the "gigantic" increase in government spending could end only in socialism or fascism...A splendid storehouse of integrity and freedom has been bequeathed to us by our forefathers. In this day of confusion, of peril to liberty, our high duty is to see that this storehouse is not robbed of its contents." I originally mentioned this remark to indicate how little has really changed in the Republican party line over the last century or so. There is a strong perception among liberals that the current Republican lunacy dates from the Reagan era, or maybe as far back as Nixon. The truth is that the last Republican president who subscribed to rational beliefs was Teddy Roosevelt, and he left the Republican party when he saw what it was becoming. Here we have, from...