It's not personal? Bologna!

Re: "Surprise Attack," from the November 7th editorial page of the Augusta Chronicle.

Michael Ryan consistently makes the claim that he criticizes the president based on disagreements with policy, not personal attacks. This editorial is evidence that his claim is false.

Mr. Ryan calls President Obama a "cold fish," because in Mr. Ryan's opinion, the president's words about the mass shooting at Fort Hood were not "heartfelt, respectful, and reassuring."

I don't get it. What was the president supposed to do? Have a nervous breakdown and cry? Would that have satisifed Mr. Ryan?

He claims it's not personal. Bologna!

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Re: "Get Serious? Seriously?" from the November 9th editorial page of the Augusta Chronicle.

Mr. Ryan writes a bunch of falsehoods based on conservative, economic, philosophical fantasies in this commentary.

First off, he writes the oft-repeated conservative nonsense that government doesn't produce wealth. This is not true at all. Governments are founded by funding wars that take natural resources from other countries or governments. Governments then create a monetary system, regulate it, and print money. Without the government there would be no money, and therefore no wealth. The fastest rates of economic growth in U.S. history occurred at times when the U.S. government has had the most control over the economy. See World War II, the greatest public works project of all time.

Mr. Ryan criticizes the Obama administration for a massive budget deficit that began to occur under George W. Bush and the republicans when they funded two unnecessary wars of occupation. Mr. Ryan never wrote one column criticizing this wasteful spedning.

A second conservative fantasy Mr. Ryan regurgitates in this editorial is that "reducing taxes and cutting government spending" stimulates the economy. There is no evidence whatsoever that this works. It failed under Reagan and George W. Bush. Both presidents cut taxes, and under both presidents we went into immediate recessions, followed by cyclical recessions ten years later. George W. Bush cut taxes like crazy, yet the economy still plunged into a recession. This is proof beyond a doubt that supply side economics is just a fantasy.

Finally, Mr. Ryan makes the false claim that cap and trade limits on greenhouse gases will weaken the recovery. There is no evidence for this so once again he's making an unsupported claim. The long term effects of doing nothing about greenhouse gases will likely be even worse for the economy.