Green Eagle

One of an endless series of such stories, sad to say.   So, driving to work the other day, I made the mistake of thinking that maybe that bastion of liberalism, NPR, might be less annoying than the mediocre music stations here in Charleston.  What I got was a story about the fight over keeping the interest rate on student loans at 3.4%, rather than doubling it. Now, let's be perfectly clear about this.  What's going on here is that Democrats are trying to keep the interest rate low in a minor effort to see to it that people other than the children of the very rich can afford college.  Republicans are trying to do the exact opposite, not by honestly advocating raising the interest rate, but by claiming they want to keep it low, but only if Democrats will agree to savage cuts to other programs for the not-rich.  Then, when Democrats won't accede to this sort of mean-spirited punishment of the poor, Republicans claim that it is really they who were on the side ...

I had been intending to write some more about the corrupt "Conservative" justices on the Supreme Court (who today issued another abominable mangling of the Constitution, by their usual 5-4 majority,) when I read the following up-is-down distortion of reality in a comment by Silverfiddle, who seems to have dedicated himself to defending the indefensible: "The author should be asking that of our congress, because they've been going rogue for a long time now. The progressive stretching of the commerce clause is what is rogue. Under liberal interpretation, there is nothing government may not do." By way of reply to this tendentious nonsense, I would like to quote from an article in the Los Angeles Times, titled  "Signs of Supreme Court activism worry Reagan administration lawyers." "If the court were to invalidate the healthcare law, "It would be more problematic than Bush v. Gore," (Reagan Solicitor General, and current Harvard L...

I guess it's inevitable that I would seize an opportunity to shout out my own opinions about the three day dumb show that we were forced to endure this week at the Supreme Court.  I have heard so much nonsense about what happened there, even from normally brilliant commentators like Randi Rhodes, that I have to at least say what I think is really happening. First, I would like to deal with a bit of judicial precedent.  I'm not a lawyer, but I think anyone reading the following will get the point.  This involves the notion that the "individual mandate," i.e. the requirement that people buy insurance, is some sort of outrage to the Constitution and the founding fathers. Here is something that, I am positive, every Supreme Court Justice (well, except maybe for that jackass Clarence Thomas) is fully aware of: "In July, 1798, Congress passed, and President John Adams signed into law “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen,” authorizing the creation ...

From Bloomberg Business News: " KBR Inc. was selected for a no-bid contract worth as much as $568 million through 2011 for military support services in Iraq, the Army said. The Army announced its decision yesterday only hours after the Justice Department said it will pursue a lawsuit accusing the Houston-based company of taking kickbacks from two subcontractors on Iraq-related work. " The decay that Bush and Cheney spread through our government continues. Here's a laugh for you: “Defense contractors cannot take advantage of the ongoing war effort by accepting unlawful kickbacks,” Assistant Attorney General Tony West said in a statement." They can't? Who knew? You sure would have never heard such an absurd sentiment from a Bush era Assistant Attorney General. They knew what war was for in that administration.

This news just in, from Town Hall: " Senate GOP Proposes Alternate Consumer Plan Senate GOP Proposes Alternate Consumer Plan Senate Republicans want to reduce the power of a proposed consumer protection bureau" What a surprise, huh? An alternate plan to reduce the power of the consumer protection bureau. Boy, they never stop, do they?

John Roberts, thanks to George W. Bush, our Supreme Court Chief Justice: "Speaking to a law school class today in Alabama, Roberts said while anyone is free to criticize the court, the sight of a president dressing down the justices in front of Congress was "very troubling." Well, deal with this, John: The sight of an ex-constitutional law professor stating the obvious truth about the fact that you are owned by corporations is very refreshing to the rest of us. Don't act corrupt and maybe nobody will call you corrupt. Of course, that never stopped Republicans from calling Democrats corrupt without a shred of evidence, but we are not the same kind of low life that you guys are. Like I said, John, deal with it.

This just in: "HOUSTON—Halliburton Co. said Monday that...fourth-quarter earnings fell 48% as revenue weakened." What a difference it makes when you don't have your corrupt CEO sitting in the vice president's chair, steering billions in no-bid contracts your way.