Evans Medical Group are a Bunch of Greedy Bastards

Yesterday, my wife received a letter from Evans Medical Groups which consists of 5 money-grubbing doctors, including hers--Dr. Jordan. Actually, he's no longer her doctor--he's fired.

The doctors sent this letter to all of their patients informing them that unless they had a certain kind of insurance, they would refuse to see them.

I thought doctors were in this profession to help people, not to maximize their profits.

When I called the office to talk to someone about this, I discovered that it was impossible to talk to any doctor without paying a $10 "triage" fee. They actually charge money to talk to people on the phone.

These so-called doctors are inhuman money-making machines.

Dr. Jordan has Christian propaganda plastered all over his office. I think his attitude is hardly Christian. When push comes to shove he chose money over doing what's right. I'm pretty sure that's not what Jesus would do.

My wife only saw him a couple of times. Once we waited in his office for over an hour and he never showed up so we left. The son-of-a-bitch called her at home and gave her a lecture about why she should have spent the entire day waiting for him (I guess because he considers himself royalty).

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I'm letting my subscription to the Augusta Chronicle expire. There's no sense in subscribing to a paper with an editorial page that defends bigotry. I'll seldom read any of the plagaristic editorial any more so this blog is still on hiatus.

I think Jennifer Keeton is bisexual

I think Jennifer Keeton, the ASU student who is suing the school because she didn't like her homework assignment, is bisexual. Note that I'm not saying she is bi-sexual; I'm just writing that I think she is bisexual. I want to make that clear so turd-heads, like Austin Rhodes, can't make the bogus claim that I'm being libelous.

Here is why I suspect she's bisexual:

She claims homosexuality is a choice. Through careful studies, scientists have determined that a person's sexual preference is innate--we are born to be homo, hetero, or bi. Heterosexuals don't have a choice--we like members of the opposite sex. Homosexuals don't have a choice--they like members of the same sex. Only bisexuals have a choice--they like both sexes. Because she thinks there is a choice about the matter, she must be bisexual.

Moreover, people who condemn homosexual lifestyles the loudest, are those who frequently have been discovered to have secret homosexual tendencies. Consider the long list of televangelists and conservative republican politicians who scream against the sins of homosexuality and always vote against legislation favored by the gay community, but are eventually discovered to either have homosexual lovers, or are cruisers of the bathroom stalls.

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I'm suspending regular commentary on this blog, however, I will make irregular blog entries when the Augusta Chronicle refuses to publish one of my letters, or if they refuse to allow me to comment on their website. Currently, I'm posting comments about their editorials using an amagram of my name.

I posted this about Jennifer Keeton because it was one they erased and wouldn't allow in their comments section.

I'm more interested in posting on my other blog--http://markgelbart.wordpress.com/ This is my blog promoting my book--Georgia Before People: Land of the saber-tooths, mastodons, vampire bats, and other strange creatures. I'd rather spend my time discussing paleo-ecology than rehashing old arguments against conservative blather.

Michael Ryan joins the bandwagon of phony scandals

Re: "Ugly in any color," from the July 10th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Are there any stupid right wing talking points that Michael Ryan doesn't regurgitate?

In this column he repeats the debunked lies of J. Christian Adams who claims the Obama Department of Justice isn't pursuing a case of voter intimidation by the Black Panthers.

Racist conservative pundits are trying to stir this up into something that it's not. They want to make the ridiculous claim that Obama is protecting radical violent African-Americans.

What Adams claims is completely false.

First, it was the Bush administration that refused to persue this case.

Second, the Obama administration did get a default judgement against Samir Shabazz for carrying a weapon near a polling place.

Third, there are no witnesses in this case who claim to have been intimidate...in other words there is no case.

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Re: "A Telling 'tweet' on terror," from the July 11th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan's claim that CNN has low ratings because they're liberal is bologna. CNN's ratings are still good during the day but decline at night because CNN's programming is stale (See Larry King). Divisive opinionated news shows are more popular during prime time. MSNBC's ratings are growing with the liberal Olbermann and Maddow. How does Mr. Ryan explain that?

Michael Ryan's Tax Cut Constipation

Re: "A tailspin of spending" from the July 8th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan still stupidly advocates tax cuts as a cure all. He thinks tax cuts would stimulate the economy. We've had Bush's tax cuts for a decade. Bush's tax cuts were proven a dismal failure--the country went into a massive recession, following 7 years of his tax cuts.

He also complained that the economy is recovering slowly because Obama didn't cut taxes. This is a complete falsehood--Obama DID cut taxes. They've also failed to stimulate the economy.

Mr. Ryan advocates deregulation along with tax cuts as a policy to stimulate the economy. Deregulation of the financial and real estate markets was one of the causes of the recession.

Mr. Ryan and his demented conservatives have a philosophy that can be summed up in three words--Duh Tax Cuts.

What's their solution to spousal abuse?--tax cuts
Pollution?--tax cuts
World Hunger?--tax cuts
The expanding deficit?--tax cuts (Logically, tax increases would reduce the deficit, but logic isn't a strong suit of conservatives.
Crime?--tax cuts
Energy crisis?--tax cuts
Broken leg?--tax cuts
College football playoffs?--tax cuts

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Re: "An ill-fitting suit," from the July 9th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

This editorial is evidence that Mr. Ryan does no research at all. He claims that the federal government's case against the Arizona state immigration law has little chance of succeeding. Obviously, he didn't read any precedents. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the feds have exclusive power to regulate immigration. Any state laws regulating immigration would violate the supremacy clause of the constitution. BTW, the supremacy clause is Article VI, the second paragraph. Check out your copy of the constitution.

I don't understand why people are opposed to all of these Mexicans crossing the border anyway. I say the more the merrier. If they were suddenly deported, it would be an economic catastrophe. Clearly, opposition to illegal immigration is based entirely on racism. They're a bunch of cranky old white people saying, "get off my lawn."

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Crazy letters of the week award is a tie between Tom Hunter and Robert Smock.

Hunter writes an almost monthly letter claiming that the Associate Press has a liberal bias, yet in none of his letters has he ever given a good example. This month ("AP's bias running, ruining our nation") he claims AP showed bias when an AP article simply gave the other side of an issue.

That's not bias--that's good journalism. Good journalists always are supposed to give both sides of the issue.

Hey Robert Smock. Georgia Regional is ready for you. Last Sunday he wrote a letter suggesting that "ecoradicals" were responsible for the oil leak disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Maybe he just refuses to believe that the free market economy can lead to a disaster. Or maybe he's just a paranoid schizophrenic.

Michael Ryan is too Lazy to Look up the Name of a Supreme Court Case

Re: "There's no right to treason," from the June 27th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

This editorial is just so one-sided and extreme that I couldn't let it pass. Mr. Ryan accuses Supreme Court justices who dissented from the majority opinion in Holder, attorney general vs. Humanitarian Law Project of being treasonous. While I agree with the majority opinion in this case, accusing the justices in the minority of being traitors, simply because they hold a different viewpoint, is ridiculous and destroys Mr. Ryan's credibility.

This case is not as clear cut and black and white as Mr. Ryan leads the reader to believe. There is lots of gray area here.

The name of the case as I pointed out earlier is Holder, the attorney general vs. Humanitarian Law Project. Mr. Ryan was either too lazy to even look up the name of the case, so the reader could research it further and know what he was referring to, or he didn't want to give the name for other reasons that I can only guess at. Maybe he didn't want to admit being on the same side of the case as the Attorney General because he's called for his resignation or removal. Maybe he knows supporting a decision against an organization with the name "Humanitarian," looks bad.

In any case here's what this ruling is about: Some charities give non violent aid to organizations that the government has determined have ties to terrorists. In other words they send food and materials for housing, and medicine to poor people around the world. Some of these charities give this aid to organizations that support many different groups which may include some the government deems terrorists. It's difficult for charities to give this aid, if they have to weed out which members of these groups are terrorists and which are not. Most unfair of all is how the government defines terrorism. In this particular case the government declared that the Kurdistan Workers Party was a terrorist organization. The only reason the Kurdistan Workers Party was declared a terrorist organization was to placate Turkey for diplomatic reasons. The Kurdistan Workers Party favors an independent homeland for Kurds, an ethnic group that lives on the border of Iraq and Turkey. They aren't really even a terrorist group.

I agree that terrorists shouldn't be given any kind of aid, even humanitarian. But there are problems with the government defining which organizations are terrorists. And it is kind of an unfair burden on charities to expect them to try to discern exactly which poor people this food, medicine, and money for shelter goes to.

There's also a freedom of speech issue here where individuals may be prosecuted because of guilt by association. They know and politically support charities that are distantly related to organizations that are distantly related to terrorists. They may be afraid to support such causes for fear of being persecuted by the government.

It's a bad law that needs to be fixed legislatively. Mr. Ryan can't seriously consider the Jimmy Carter Foundation, and other charities that filed friends of the court briefs for the Humanitarian Law Project, terrorist support groups and traitors.

The Free Market's Not Fixing the Mess in the Gulf Either

Re: "Faith-based government," from the June 20th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Michael Ryan unfairly criticizes the concept (supposedly favored by President Obama) that government can help people and solve problems by noting some examples of government inefficiency in its efforts to clean up the oil spill mess in the gulf.

This criticism is asinine. I don't see the free market cleaning up this mess. There's no profit to be made by cleaning up the oil spill, demonstrating a clear example of free market failure.

In fact it was the free market that created this mess. The free market in America which demands lots of cheap energy created the need to drill for oil offshore--a disaster. The cost of the damage from this oil spill probably rivals or surpasses the profits made by all the offshore oil wells in America. Moreover, if it wasn't for the federal government, there would be no clean up effort at all. BP would not face any fines, and they would be doing nothing, other than trying to salvage the operation for their own profits. Even more oil than now would be destroying the environment.

So yes, the federal government may be inefficient, but without it there would be chaotic anarchy, and this kind of situation would be much worse. Without government regulations, the Gulf of Mexico would've become a toxic dead lake decades ago.

Mike Booth Writes in Defense of Greed

Mike Booth wrote a letter to the editor in today's Augusta Chronicle editorial page in rebuttal to the one I wrote that they published on May 30th.

I will respond to his rebuttal point by point.

In the opening paragraph, Mr. Booth wrote, "I think he has missed a couple of critical points."

Mr. Booth apparently missed the entire point of my letter as evidenced by the following paragraph.

"The utility companies have to go begging to government regulators for rate increases. This involves opening their books and operations to government bureaucrats who do not have a clue about how the utility industry works."

Does anybody besides Mr. Booth actually believe a person appointed to be a regulator for a certain industry has no clue as to how that industry works? The point of my letter that Mr. Booth completely missed was that, in most cases, government regulators of the coal and oil industry are now business cronies who formerly worked within the energy industry. Of course, they know how the industry works, and they help write regulations that are, in most cases, too lax.

Mr. Booth then makes an astonishingly stupid claim when he writes, "Few people are aware that they can purchase power from any other provider of the power, not just the local utility. That's called competition."

What world does this guy live in? He obviously flunks Economics 101. All utilities are monopolies. A monopoly means there is no competition. I get my power from Planters Electric. I can't just go and cancel my service from Planters Electric and ask for Georgia Power to be my utility server. On this point Mr. Booth demonstrates absolute and unbelievable ignorance.

Next, Mr. Booth shows that he misses another point of my letter. He writes, "So is Mr. Gelbart going to manufacture his own solar panels, not state-of-the-art ones from a "greedy corporation? I would hope that he would hire a "greedy" contractor to install his panels. I hope he has an engineering study done by a "greedy" corporation to design the system properly."

Here, Mr. Booth seems to be equating profit with greed. I never wrote that profit should be outlawed. Furthermore, I never wrote a word opposed to capitalism. What I wrote was that corporations should not be allowed to maximize profits by cutting corners that endanger consumers, workers, and the environment. I don't understand why this upset him enough to write his letter. Is Mr. Booth in favor of oil spills, coal mining disasters, and nuclear meltdowns? I looked in the Thesaurus: Greed is not a synonym for profit. Synonyms for greed include such words as avarice, selfishness, miserliness, gluttony, stinginess, and meanness. Apparently, Mr. Booth confuses greed and profit. Clearly, they are two different things, and most people would agree that greed is bad.

Mr. Booth writes "Corporations are not all greedy, and if he doesn't like them, he should buy someplace else. I would suggest buying two sticks to rub together to make a fire for his energy needs."

This kind of simplistic analogy reminds me of something Austin Rhodes would say. He's attempting to make his point by using an extreme, unrealistic example that doesn't really have anything to do with what I wrote. This proves that Mike Booth is just a stupid jerk.

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It was a slow week--Mr. Ryan didn't really write anything particularly stupid lately. I do disagree with his editorial "Let's go to the replay," from the June 5th edition.

I think instant replay is ruining sports. Half the time the officials uphold bad calls; the other half of the time they reverse good calls. Even with instant replay, they don't always get it right. Instead, they slow the action down, so that now I can hardly stand to watch an NFL game because the refs are constantly interrupting the action with stupid replays that take forever to resolve.

I also disagree with "A lack of book sense," from the June 6th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

For 13 years students are forced to go through the formality and rules of school. I think the Glenn Hills 2010 yearbook was hilarious.

Mr. Ryan and all those fuddy duds need to lighten up.

Archie Bunker Strikes Again

A couple of Michael Ryan's columns this week are reminiscent of Archie Bunker, that famous bigoted character from the old television series All In the Family.

Re: "Humanitarians? Really?" from the June 2nd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page, and "Behind the Mosque," from the May 31st edition of this same page.

The latter editorial demonstrates unbelievable bigotry. Conservatives are furious that a mosque will be built near the site of the 9-11 attacks. They make it sound like there's going to be a mosque there and nothing else. Actually, hundreds of other businesses are alreadly located there, including a strip joint. It's not a big deal; it's not a poke in the eye. The controversy just seems like an excuse for conservatives to show how prejudiced they are against the Islamic religion. They are equating all muslims with terrorism and it's disgusting.

In the former editorial I agree that the Israelis are justified in preventing aid from reaching a group of people dedicated to killing them. However, Mr. Ryan not so subtly reminds the reader of Barrack Obama's middle name of Hussein, in an attempt of subterfuge to make us think that the president is some nefarious pro-Islamic radical in favor of destroying Israel. I wonder how many of the Chronicle readers forget or refuse to acknowledge that Obama is a catholic, not a muslim? In any case Mr. Ryan falsely accuses the president of having an "acidic posture" toward Israel and also falsely accuses him of treating Netanyahu rudely. Of this the media is also to blame because that incident has been unfairly portrayed. I read an inside account in Time magazine about what happened. Obama and Netanyahu were busy hammering out an agreement, and they did have a two hour discussion. It's not like Obama ignored him. The bigoted part of this editorial is Mr. Ryan's statment that American Jews should be frightened about Obama's policy toward Israel.

Will the use of scare tactics never end? Mr. Ryan makes it sound as if American Jews are Israelis first, and Americans second. That we shouldn't back a president who favors America's interests over those of Israel. This is evidence once more of Mr. Ryan's bigotry...this time with inadvertent anti-semitism.

In any case I'm Jewish and I'm not worried. When push comes to shove, Obama will always back Israel over the Arabs because he knows where his bread is buttered.

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Re: "A little more dictatorial, please" also from the May 31st.

Mr. Ryan tells an outright lie when he claims Hugo Chavez is a dictator. Chavez has been democratically elected multiple times. I wish the U.S. government would seize a few corporations. There's nothing in the constitution that protects the rights of corporations. The constitution protects individual rights, not groups of criminal syndicates which is what most corporations are.

Mr. Ryan's also wrong when he places Chris Matthews on the left. Matthews is a centrist, not a left winger.

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Re: "Evidence can't be ignored: It's been a disaster," from the May 30th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan must have written this half page of horse shit because he has run out of new subjects to write and he wants to stay popular with all the stupid wingnuts who read his editorial page. I'm curious as to why he would write something so unfounded, yet hysterically partisan now, when we're not close to an election.

He doesn't bring up a single fact to support his case that Obama's presidency has been a failure.

Just because Obama's policies don't agree with Ryan's twisted right wing view of the world doesn't mean Obama's a failure.

To start off with, let's look at the economy. Childishly, Mr. Ryan gives Obama a C on the economy but an F on jobs. (It's childish in my opinion to give a complex job such as president a letter grade, but I digress.) Obama inherited this atrocious economy. All economists on the right and the left agree that unemployment will lag behind as the rest of the economy recovers. Eventually, the jobs will come back. What will Ryan's excuse be then?

Mr. Ryan attacks the health care reform act by cherry picking a Rasmussen poll (who knows how old this one is) that seems to show people are opposed to it by a large margin (63%-37%). However, a recent USA Today/Gallup poll shows now that it has passed, the public supports it by a 48%-40% margin. Oops!

The rest of the editorial mostly consists of Ryan's ideological differences with Obama. I can hardly see how this adds up to a disastrous presidency.

The biggest weakness with the Obama presidency in my opinion is his cowtowing to the right and his failure to reverse Bush's failed environmental and warmongering policies.

BTW, they did publish my letter in this edition--"Greedy energy industy hasn't changed." Check it out.
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RE: "Two Koreas, one big decision," from the June 1st edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

I take issue with the simplistic dichotomy Mr. Ryan creates in this editorial. He writes North Korea is a failed state because it's communist/socialist. South Korea is a successful state because it's capitalist.

This is entirely false. South Korea has a free market but it does have socialist programs, such as socialized medicine. North Korea is not communist nor socialist. In a true communist state every individual has equal political power. A true communist state has never existed in history. In North Korea all the political power resides in the hands of one man. I'd hardly call that communist.

In fact, the USA is far more communist than North Korea. Thomas Jefferson declared that all men were created equal. Sounds communistic doesn't it?

Michael Ryan Makes a Really Stupid Analogy About the War on Drugs

Re: "Casualties of the drug war," from the May 25th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Michael Ryan thinks the argument that laws against drugs cause violence is preposterous because that's like saying laws against rape cause rape.

This is one of the stupidest analogies I've ever read or heard. The illegality of rape doesn't cause rape. Rapists don't commit rape because it's against the law. They commit rape in spite of the law. But it is the illegality of drugs that causes violence. Drug dealers, the people responsible for a large share of the violence caused by the illegality of drugs, wouldn't even exist, if drugs were legalized. If rape was made legal, the incidence of rape would likely increase. If drugs were made legal, violence would greatly decline. Of this there is no doubt.

Like I pointed out last week, Mr. Ryan needs a lesson in common sense.

I still can't get over his editorial last week when he refused to make sense of an opinion opposite his own. He just wrote, "blah, blah, blah." That's like someone starting an argument, and when the other person states their point of view, he puts his fingers in his ears and sings, "la, la, la," so he doesn't have to hear it.

How immature.

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Re: "Two disasters, two responses," from the May 24th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan claims that the oil spill disaster was caused by people not doing their jobs. He wrote, "no amount of regulations would have changed that."

How ridiculous and ignorant to boot?

There were certain safety devices that would have prevented this disaster. The Bush administration allowed oil companies to write the government regulations. They wrote these regulations so that they were allowed to use inferior equipment, thus saving them money. It was the failure of this inferior equipment that caused the disaster.

Better regulations would have prevented this disaster. But we have the fox watching the chicken coop here.

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Re: "Everything, all the time: The era of unlimited government arrives," by Deroy Murdock.

This writer is a fellow of the Hoover Institution--a right wing think tank. Or as I prefer to call it, industry-funded shitheads.

How twisted is this?: He thinks the government spending money to save teacher's jobs is a bad thing.

Why do conservatives hate education? Why do they want poor people to starve to death.

All of the items he mentions as supposedly bad, I think are good.

He whines that regulations forcing an increase in gas mileage will make cars on average $926 more expensive. Yeah, but they will more than make up for that in gas savings. This is a good regulation that will save consumers money and it's good for the environment and the economy.

Sheesh, what a perverse idiot. And so is Mr. Ryan for running this garbage on his editorial page.

Michael Ryan writes "Blah, blah, blah."

Re: "On the tip of his tongue," from the May 22nd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan laments the supposed inability of the U.S. attorney general from saying the words, radical Islam.

To make his point, Mr. Ryan starts quoting what Holder said during one interview, then finishes it with substituting the words, "blah, blah, blah." He also refers to what Holder was saying as "gobbeledygook."

This is an admission that someone with a different point of view is too nuanced for him to understand. To put it bluntly, this is an example of Mr. Ryan's close-mindedness. He admits he doesn't bother to understand the other side's position. That kind of makes for an easy cheap rebuttal. By using this strategy, Mr. Ryan doesn't have to strain his brain to figure out what the other position is. He can just write, "blah, blah, blah."

BTW, his call for the resignation of Eric Holder is completely unfounded and ridiculous.

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Re: "Vote 'no' on school bond issue-for the kids" from the May 23rd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan expresses a Neanderthal attitude here. Somehow in his twisted mind he thinks we can't afford to spend money on kids' education. That somehow spending money on education is bad for the kids.

The taxes are tiny, but some greedy businessmen are complaining, and the Chronicle, as usual, sides with greed.

I really don't see how people can be opposed to funding education with such low levels of taxation.

One other note about this column. Mr. Ryan makes the unfair claim that European social democracies are failing. This is untrue. It's only Greece that's in trouble. Countries like Germany, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, and most others are doing well.

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Re: The bottom line from the above mentioned edition. Mr. Ryan falsely claims that Arizona's law expressly forbids racial profiling. I have read the law. What the law says is that race can't be the only criteria police use when they choose to harass somebody. But it can be a factor. Anyway, what other factor would they use? Mr. Ryan needs a lesson in common sense.

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The idiotic southern lost causers are writing daily letters to the editor condemning Eugene Robinson as a racist, simply because he correctly interpets Civil War history. These guys need to get over it. The facts are clear: The Civil War was strictly about slavery. (In a previous blog entry I've already explained how all other reasons for the war related directly to slavery .) And the South lost. It's not racist to point these FACTS out.

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Retarded letter of the week award goes to Helen Skinner. Here's the retarded part. She writes, "With only a small percentage of Americans paying taxes..."

What? Every working American pays social security taxes. The employment rate is over 90%. That means over 90% of workers are paying payroll taxes. Plus, all home-owners pay property taxes. And everytime we buy something at the store, we pay sales taxes.

Helen Skinner--what a shithead.

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Michael Ryan Allows Personal Attacks on His Editorial Page

Re: "Rap against conservatives was dishonest," by Ron Kazen from the May 10th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Not only did Mr. Ryan allow this letter on his editorial page, but it was the featured letter of the day.

Ron Kazen wrote a rebuttal to a letter published in the Chronicle about a week earlier that had been written by Kevin Palmer. Here is the quote that is nothing other than a personal attack.

"He (Kevin Palmer) needs to reflect on his diatribe and consider retaining friends of a higher social caliber than with whom he apparently associates."

What an outrage! Because he has a different political philosophy than Mr. Kazen, supposedly he associates with low lifes?

The rest of Kazen's letter falsely accuses Mr. Palmer of racism, Marxism, and promoting racial divisiveness.

It should not have been published, let alone featured.

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This was actually a slow week. Last week, I didn't comment on an editorial from that week in which Mr. Ryan accused those of opposing the new discriminatory anti-immigrant law of being emotional while those in favor of it being rational.

Oh yeah, that's right. If you disagree with me, you're being emotional.

I did actually read the law and it's pretty stupid. Obviously, it was written to oppress hispanics. But besides that, it's just a bad law. Arizona orders local law enforcement agents not to refrain from enforcing existing federal law. So the police are ordered to enforce an unenforceable law. If it's proven to be already unenforceable, how are they going to enforce it? Will passing a state law repeating a federal law make it more enforceable? I doubt it.

But that's not even the stupidest part of this law. Arizona invited private parties to sue government parties for not enforcing the unenforceable law. Considering how state's are already strapped for money, this sets an incredibly bad precedent that will lead to mountains of frivolous lawsuits. Plus the constitutionality of the law will be challenged in courts. Can anyone say bankruptcy caused by legal fees.

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Rick Mckee drew a couple of stupid cartoons this week.

On Friday May 14th a cartoon compared Obama's health care reform with the oil spill.

McKee has given the health care reform bill a whole month before calling it a disaster. What a race to judgement.

In today's (May 15th) cartoon he shows the media blaming Bush for the oil spill, as if that's some kind of joke.

A week of testimony at capital hill clearly illustrates that Halliburton cut corners, thus contributing to the oil spill disaster. In secret meetings with Dick Cheney the oil companies wrote rules later put in by the Bush administration so that standards were relaxed and shortcuts were allowed. Bush is at fault. Rational people don't need the media to inform us of this fact.

BTW, Obama is also at fault. It is his administration that is continuing the bad environmental policies of the Bush administration, and they're the ones who approved the permit for this ill-fated oil rig.

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Re: "First Grade? No, first rate!" from the May 15th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan needs to stick to English, not Yiddish. He misused the Yiddish word, chutzpah, in the subtitle, "Hephzibah teacher Kristi Davis shows chutzpah in protecting kids."

Chutzpah is not a synonym for courage. Chutzpah means gall. As in someone offering $250 for a car worth $10,000. Nobody would call that brave. The car dealer might say, "that guy has a lot of gall," but he would never call him courageous.

Misusing a foreign language shows embarrassing ignorance.

Michael Ryan's Xenophic Confusion

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This blog is becoming more of a weekly one than a near daily. If you follow this blog, check back on most Saturdays for a new entry. I'm just getting too busy promoting my book at http://markgelbart.wordpress.com/

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Re: "V-A-T spells disaster," from the Friday May 7th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan must have realized his opposition to a VAT was contradictory to his long-time support for the National Consumption Tax. He spells out the differences but is completely unconvincing. He points out that the European VATs tax items at every level of distribution. For this reason the National Sales Tax he supports is supposedly superior because it only taxes at the point of purchase. But what Mr. Ryan doesn't realize is that at least 21 western countries, including those in Europe, already tried taxing just at the point of purchase and every system failed because there were too many loopholes creating black markets. Taxing at just the point of purchase is a proven failed method of taxation. That's why European countries switched to the VAT.

He also points out another difference--that the National Sales Tax would supposedly replace income taxes, corporate taxes, and social security taxes. As I've demonstrated on previous posts, this is not at all realistic. A National Sales Tax is so regressive that even conservatives admit universal rebates would be needed to prevent mass starvation. Here's my simple chart debunking this stupid idea:
Income from National Sales Tax minus Universal Tax Rebates to make up for paying sales taxes=Zero revenue.

To make matters worse, Mr. Ryan adds a xenophobic criticism equating the VAT with "European" socialism. I think this is evidence of simple-minded bigotry.

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Re: "We've had enough--of this," from the May 2nd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan asks what income ceiling should there be as if it's so unfair for government to put limits on how obscenely wealthy a person can get in one year.

How about $300,000? I see no reason why any one individual needs to make more than $300 K a year. I can't imagine why any one individual needs to make more than that. If they are, they are hogging money.

Mr. Ryan's defense of the freedom to make obscene amounts of money is that to take the right away would ruin people's dreams. Oh wow! So we explode someone's ridiculous fantasies in order to eliminate poverty? The horrors!

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I didn't save this edition but in one of Mr. Ryan's recent columns he was whining about how the liberal media hopes terrorists are right wing rather than Arab. And he goes on to attack Muslims the same way Archie Bunker would. He asks when there is going to be a Timothy McVeigh II.

How about Jim Adkisson who in 2008 shot up a church in Tennessee, killing 2 and wounding 6, because they were two liberal. Or how about the Hutaree militia in Michigan whose plot was thwarted just in time.

Does Mr. Ryan actually read his own newspaper?

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Lee Herron wrote another idiotic defense of the Confederacy on May 3rd.

He brings up the those two old standbys that supposedly disprove slavery caused the Civil War: tariffs and states rights. Either he wears a lead helmet to prevent logic from entering his brain or he is just stupid because both issues were directly related to slavery. The south was taxed because they made their profits off the backs of slave. And the only states rights southerners cared about was the right to own slaves.

Mr. Herron tries to justify the Confederacy by pointing out the miniscule number of African-Americans who fought on the side of the Confederacy, and the even smaller number who owned slaves themselves. I don't see how that justifies such a holocaust.

To make himself even more ridiculous, he accuses people of criticizing the Confederacy of racism.

Man, he makes Augusta look so backwards.

Michael Ryan Admits Tea Baggers are Gullible/Stupid

Re: "Truth just isn't in the cards," from the April 30th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mary Schorsch very cleverly was handing out red, white, and blue cards at Augusta's latest tea party asking the tea baggers to fill out a form saying they want to discontinue their Social Security, Medicare, etc. because they were socialist programs.

One of the reasons Mr. Ryan takes issue with this is because the cards are in a patriotic color. As if only conservatives are allowed to use patriotic colors.

Mr. Ryan felt it necessary to warn Tea Baggers not to fill out the card. This is an inadvertent admission that Tea Baggers are gullible and stupid.

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Below the above mentioned mess, we have another column from Michelle Malkin, another reliable shithead.

She claims that the Mexican government bars foreigners if the "equilibrium of national demographics" is upset.

This is nonsense. The Mexican government happily welcomes any rich white people from the U.S. who want to retire there and spend money.

I can't believe any newspaper prints her ridiculous columns.

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Mr. Ryan won a homeboy award issued by the Augusta Rotary Club. Something named after some Augusta Chronicle editorialist who probably wrote anti-desegragation columns for 30 years.

I didn't know plagiarism wins awards.

On this blog I've documented 4 cases of Mr. Ryan's plagiarism.

See: 1. The Drudge Report
2. An anonymous chain email.
3. Kathryn Lopez of the National Review
4. Glenn Beck

Mr. Ryan is now an award winning plagiarist.

Michael Ryan was for the National Consumption Tax Before He was Against It

Re: "A huge step backward," from the April 25th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

I can't believe this one. For at least a decade the Augusta Chronicle editorial page has written strong opinion pieces in favor of a National Sales Tax. They come up with propaganda favoring a national consumption tax on average about once a month, so they've printed an estimated 120 unsigned editorials in favor of the National Sales Tax.

In this column Mr. Ryan opposes a Value Added Tax, or VAT, which is the same thing as a consumption tax, but with a realistic closure of black market loopholes.

I agree with Mr. Ryan that a VAT would "suffocate" the economy (as would the consumption tax he's been in favor of for years).

Why would he be in favor of a consumption tax but opposed to a VAT when they're virtually the same thing?

Because democrats are in charge, and some may be in favor of this. So he's pretty much against it now because democrats might favor it. This is just like the health care reform bill that recently passed. It consisted of mostly republican ideas, but conservatives and republicans were against it because democrats were for it.

In any case there's no way a VAT would pass now. President Obama would never support this piece of political suicide, and the Senate did some kind of straw poll that showed 84 of them opposed it.

There was no need to comment on this, but Mr. Ryan did--I guess so he can illustrate his hypocrisy again.

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Re: "Cue the outrage," from the April 27th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan likens the outrage over the passage of Arizona's new racist anti-immigration law with President Obama's defense of Henry Gates, when this African-American professor was arrested for no reason.

Supposedly, President Obama was somehow in error when he accused the policeman of stupidity.

Guess what--Obama was right. Gates was never convicted of any crime. The policeman was wrong.

And people are right to be outraged over Arizona's new law which legalizes racism. It gives police the right to harrass people because of their skin color. This is something that's unbelievable in this day and age.

But Mr. Ryan supports it.

His support for a racist law makes him a...racist.

Mr. Ryan brings up a poll that shows 70% of the people in the state support the law. So what? Even higher percentages of people in the south opposed desegregation back in the 1960's. That didn't make it right.

BTW, don't forget, Arizona was also the last state to make MLK day a holiday.

Michael Ryan Blunders over History

Re: "Pray this ruling is struck down," from the April 24th edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

Michael Ryan is whining about the supposed oppression of religion again. He complains about a court ruling that a national day of prayer is unconstitutional, despite the clearly worded passage of the first amendment--"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise therof..."

Having a national day of prayer obviously conflicts with the first amendment. It requires a law promoting a generic religion. It's not necessary to have a national day of prayer to pray. No one's stopping him. Go ahead and pray, Mr. Ryan.

Anyway, I thought Mr. Ryan was against government intrusion into our personal lives. Prayer is something that should be highly personal. How can he be in favor of the government calling for everyone to pray?

His big blunder over history is from the third to last paragraph when he states, "The people who formed this nation called for a national day of prayer back in 1775. Did they, too, act "unconstitutionally"?

The constitution wasn't adopted until 1787. Oops!

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Re: "Two big nuisances," from the April 22nd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Here, Mr. Ryan takes the side of the NIMBY Nazis who are campaigning against a charity and are harrassing people with different lifestyles that they disapprove of.

I'm just glad I don't have people like Lori Davis and Butch Palmer as neighbors.

If they don't like their neighborhood and the other people in it, why don't they move.

It seems to me they're messing their britches because they see other people having a good time and they can't stand it. I think they're a couple of religious nuts who see African-Americans having a party instead of slaving in the fields, and they think it's armageddon.

The controversy they're drumming up is totally based on racism.

I'd take drug dealers as neighbors over racist, nasty old white people any day.

In fact, when I used to work in that neighborhood for the Augusta Chronicle circulation department, I found those old white people that live in Harrisburg to be, by far, the nastiest people in all of Augusta (and this isn't a particularly friendly town compared to others I've lived in). They're a bunch of good ole boy, bad tempered, rednecks.

I hope Lori Davis and Butch Palmer lose every battle they start.

My New Book--Georgia Before People--is available for sale

I'm taking a time out on this blog from my usual criticisms of Michael Ryan's editorial page to promote my new book--Georgia Before People: Land of the Saber-tooths, Mastodons, Vampire Bats, and Other Strange Creatures.

My book doesn't have anything to do with politics, though there is a chapter about the science behind global warming, and another debunking Creationism.

For some reason the blog I use to promote my book doesn't directly show up on a google search, but The Michael Ryan Watch does, so that's why I'm cross-promoting it here.

Georgia Before People is about what the landscapes were like in southeastern North America before people (even Indians) colonized the land. The book thoroughly describes Georgia's flora, fauna, and climate before man had any influence on the ecosystem.

The book is now available at http://www.amazon.com/. Just type in the title of the book to find it.
It's also available through special order from most book stores.

It's available directly from the printer at http://stores.lulu.com/GeorgiaBeforePeople for $24. It only costs $3 to download.

Signed copies are available directly from me for $24 (this includes shipping). Send a check or money order to:
Mark Gelbart
1144 Piney Grove Road
Augusta, Georgia 30906

My blog about Pleistocene ecology is http://markgelbart.wordpress.com/

Michael Ryan Characterizes Rape as a Thrill

Re: The bottom line from the April 17th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

In this untitled column Mr. Ryan compared the actions of Tiger Woods with those of Ben Roethlisberger. In a patronizing fashion he criticized both.

The two are not really comparable. What Tiger Woods did was a symptom of a character flaw; what Roethlisberger did (probably raping two women with the help of his bodyguards) is monstrous.

Mr. Ryan's biggest boner in this column was this quote: "The 28-year old (Roethlisberger) seemed destined for a Hall of Fame career before these allegation. And though they're only allegations--he's not been criminally charged in either situation--they have forever tainted his image, and he joins a long and inglorious line, right behind Tiger Woods, of big money athletes who risk everything and lose much for reckless fleeting thrills.

There you have it: Mr. Ryan considers rape a thrill.

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The column above this one "It's the un-American way," is extremely hypocritical. Not long ago, Mr. Ryan was praising the angry townhall meetings about health care reform where the basic tactic of the Tea Baggers was to shout down intelligent debate.

In this column he criticizes leftist groups who heckle Tea Partiers and give them a dose of their own medicine.

I can't think of a better example of hypocrisy.

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Re: "A grand delusion," from the April 18th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan keeps writing over and over about how the Tea Party is not racist. Repeating the same lie 7,888 times does not turn it into truth.

Tea baggers carry pictures of President Obama depicted as a monkey and a witch doctor. According to Mr. Ryan's own paper, one Tea bagger in Augusta last week carried a sign saying "A village in Kenya is missing an idiot." This is undoubtedly racist as is the whole birther controversy. They want to believe Obama is an African not born in the U.S., so they can deny his legitimacy.

Mr. Ryan just has no credibility about this, unless he acknowledges the Tea Party movement is based on at least some racist element.

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Re: Today's bottom line.

Mr. Ryan wants to add words to the constitution. He wants to add "a particular" religion to the separation of church and state clause. He rails against judicial activism in other columns. Adding words to the constitution is without a doubt activist.

How hypocritical...yet again.

Michael Ryan Now Favors a Middle Class Tax Increase

Re: "Responsibility takes a holiday," from the April 15th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Not long ago as I noted on this blog, Mr. Ryan irresponsibly and incredibly called for an income tax moratorium.

He must have gotten his conservative talking points mixed up because in yesterday's column he whines about how 47% of people pay no federal income taxes. He quotes Curtis Dubay who said, "We have 50 % of the people getting somethingh for nothing."

So if this is bad, as Mr. Ryan suggests, he must therefore think there needs to be an increase in middle class taxes so more people will be paying income taxes. I know he would deny this, but what's his point. Usually, he's dead set against any taxes, but now conservative talking heads are complaining about the number of people who don't pay income taxes, and I guess he thinks he's got to follow suit, no matter how inconsistent this is with his other columns.

His point, however, is misleading because of one big fat factor that conservatives alway leave out when bringing up how much in federal income taxes the richest 1% pay.

Federal payroll taxes. Everyone who works a job pays federal payroll taxes. When this is factored into the statistics he touts, it totally changes the results.

Mr. Ryan noted that the richest 1% pay 40% of federal income taxes. What he doesn't say is that the richest 1% have 40% of the financial wealth in this country, so this is actually about right. Factor in payroll taxes though, and the richest 1% are paying only 22% of all federal taxes. So to be fair, they should actually either pay more than 40% of federal income taxes or their contributions to Social Security should be made higher.

In reality the tax burden is unfairly shifted on those with less money in this country. This began with Reaganomics and the now disproven supply side theory. In 1979 the richest 1% had 20% of the total net worth. By 2007 they had 34% of total net worth. Yet, their tax burden has decreased compared to the rest of us.

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Rick Mckee's cartoon of today, Friday 16th, is another idiotic one.

The U.S. has 14,000 nuclear warheads. Iran doesn't have any.

Which side would he rather be on, the one that carries a big stick and speaks softly, or the one that has no stick but has a big mouth?

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Kudos to Eugene Robinson's column today. Excellent. I'm surprised the rednecky Chronicle runs it.

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Check out the front page of the Chronicle today. The photo of the Tea Party chumps. Every single one has gray hair. What a bunch of old racist ignoramuses.

Michael Ryan Promotes Psychotic Tea Partiers

Re: "Don't miss this Party," from the April 14th edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

Mr. Ryan is promoting a local meeting of those psychotic tea partiers scheduled for the Augusta Commons.

Over the past week, he's desperately been trying to portray these extremist nuts and ignoramuses. He cited one Rasmussen poll that showed more Americans agreed with the Tea Partiers than with President Obama. However, he didn't say with what issues they agreed with them. In fact, according to mediamatters.org, a Fox poll showed that Obama is far more popular than the Tea Party. Obama has a 50% favorable rating compared to 36% for the Tea Partiers. I invite the Tea Party to field a presidential candidate. Wow, what a landslide victory for Obama that would be.

Here's some facts about the Tea Baggers:

28% think Obama is the anti-christ. There is no such thing as the anti-christ. People who believe in the anti-christ are irrational to say the least, and in my opinion borderline psychotic.

Most don't believe Obama was born in the U.S. despite obvious proof. This demonstrates close-mindedness to the truth.

90% don't know that for most people, Obama has lowered taxes or kept them the same. This is a movement about taxes whose members are almost entirely ignorant about current tax events.

How embarrassing for them?

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A lot of letters to the editor from people upset about the new Health Care Reform Law throw the word, socialist, around quite a bit. None of them demonstrate any understanding of what socialism is. The Health Care Reform Law is not socialist because it keeps private insurance alive.

A letter from Hardy Wylie, one the Chronicle features in April 11th, was laughably amusing. He opposes the new law. Then he wrote that meaningful health reform should have tort reform, insurance coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Medicare and Medicaid fraud reform, limitations on payments for illegal immigrants, and no abortion funding. All of this is covered in the Health Care Reform Law that he rails against.

What an ignorant moron.

Robert Shmuck, oops I mean Smock, wrote a bunch of ridiculous lies again. He claims opposition to health care reform was from a majority of the people. This is untrue--it was a plurality. Then he claims it was unread. What B.S. Congress wrote it so obviously at least some of them read it.

Randall Hatcher perhaps wrote one of the stupidest letters of the week. He called the Health Care Reform Law socialist which I explained it how it wasn't. Most of the Health Care Reform Law consisted of republican ideas. Republicans opposed it because democrats were for it, and the former had the goal of destroying Obama's presidency by blocking reform. Hatcher falsely claims Medicare and Medicaid are financial wrecks and will be broke by 2014. And he falsely claims that Europeans come to the U.S. for health care. Very few do so. Almost all European countries have higher rated health care than ours.

And of course yesterday, the Chronicle featured a homophobic letter from Denis Thomas. I wouldn't be surprised if Denis Thomas was a closet homosexual.

Mr. Ryan should be ashamed of himself.

What Fantasy World Does Michael Ryan Live In?

Re: "What is he doing in Congress?" from the April 5th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Michael Ryan makes a big deal about comments Congressman Phil Hare made which were obviously taken out of context. Here's the truth. Some Tea Partiers were harrassing him in a little meeting that is available on youtube. When asked about the constitutionality of the Health Care Refrom Law, he carelessly said, "I don't worry about the Constitution on this, to be honest."

Obviously, he meant he didn't worry that it was unconstitutional, but conservatives stupidly insisted he was saying he didn't care about the constitution. I hate people like this...they take a statement somebody misspeaks out of context and totally twist it around to mean something else.

All those tea partiers are a bunch of stupid assholes and so is Mr. Ryan.

To make matters worse, Hare stupidly didn't know where in the constitution a Health Care Reform Law was legal. The answer was easy--the Commerce Clause.

Hare screwed up, and conservative shitheads jumped all over it.

The stupidest thing about Mr. Ryan's column though was his ridiculous claim that "No one in America goes without health care..."

What fantasy world does he live in? According to the American Journal of Public Health, an estimated 45,000 Americans die every year because they have no health insurance. www.cnn.com/2009/Health?09/18/deaths.health.insurance/

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In another idiotic column below the one I commented on above entitled "Trawling for scapegoats," Mr. Ryan takes issue with Henry Waxman for wanting to know why big corporations are using the passage of the Health Care Reform Law as an excuse to cheat on their taxes.

I, for one, am a big fan of Henry Waxman. He's one of the few congressman who actually does his job.

Mr. Ryan thinks AT&T is going to be losing money because of changes due to the health care law. How stupid? AT&T is not going to lose money.

Mr. Ryan writes, "It's simply frightening what this country has come to."

Why? Because big corporations are going to have to give decent benefits to their workers?

Bush and Cheney Should be Arrested for War Crimes

Re: "Reality in bloom," from the March 30th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Michael Ryan's response to left wing criticism of conservative violence and threats in the wake of the passage of the health care law seems to be that radical liberals were even worse when Bush was president.

This seems a dubious claim to me. Mr. Ryan does produce some good examples of radical leftist protestors carrying signs advocating the assassination of Bush. BTW, I found all of these examples on a blog. Mr. Ryan never gave a source. I suspect he lifted these examples from this source but was ashamed to say he got them from a blog. Nevertheless, I accept these examples.

Mr. Ryan, however, expressed outrage that some liberals think Bush and Cheney should be arrested for combatting terrorism. Here, he completely mischaracterizes the argument. No one is saying Bush and Cheney should be prosecuted for conducting a war on terrorist. But there is a plausible case to be made that they committed hundreds of war crimes.

A book written by Michael Haas entitled George W. Bush, war criminal?: The Bush Administration's Liability for 269 war crimes makes a compelling case that the Bush administration is guilty of numerous war crimes, including the worst of all--telling lies in order to get this country in an unnecessary war of aggression against Iraq.

Mr. Ryan finishes this column with a pack of lies about what President Obama. Obama never suggested we quit in our war against terror. He did promise to withdraw troops from Iraq, and they are scheduled to withdraw.

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Letters to the editor this week prove that Augusta has its share of imbeciles.

A.C. Forgay told a bunch of anti-semitic lies about Israel which I debunked on the AC forum.

Mary Beth Seaha of Aiken compared the passage of the health care reform law with Marxist communism, even though most of the reform is based on conservative republican ideas. The only reason republicans opposed it now is because democrats were for it.

Kevin Palmer made the ridiculous claim that America is a Christian nation.

Bill Heaton wants to take our country back. I suppose when his side loses elections, the U.S. is not his country any more.

Arlene Candy thinks our country died, simply because poor people will now be able to get necessary health care.

Henry James fantasizes that republicans can legislatively overturn health care.

Imbeciles, all of them.

Michael Ryan Condemns, Then Understands Violent Threats Against Democrats

Re: "Violence is not the solution," from the March 28th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

From the title one would expect a vigorous criticism of the recent violent threats against the democrats coming in the wake of the Health Care Reform Act becoming law.

But no, Mr. Ryan states that he understands the anger behind these violent threats. Then he goes on to criticize the democrats for using this sore loser mentality to score political points.

So he's writing that all this anger is understandable and it's the democrats own fault.

Why is Mr. Ryan such a shmuck?

Michael Ryan Condemns, Then Understands Violent

Michael Ryan Doesn't Understand the Concept That Having Free Speech Has Consequences

Re: "Muzzling the First Amendment," from the March 26th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

As usual, Mr. Ryan writes total nonsense. No one is muzzling free speech. Idiots, such as Ann Coulter, have the right to say any stupid thing they want to say. However, if they say something outrageous, than they will have to face the consequences, and that's what happened in Canada.

What if someone wrote a letter to the Augusta Chronicle editorial page, claiming that Mr. Ryan's mother was a whore? I'm sure he would decline to publish it.

What would he think of claims that his refusal to publish this letter was "muzzling free speech"?

Hell, he even refuses to publish my letters when they merely point out his habit of plagiarism. I guess he is muzzling my free speech as well.

Justice John Roberts is not simply a conservative. He's a pro-corporate fascist, and no self respecting university would allow him to speak.

Note that in this column, Mr. Ryan made no mention of the brick throwing incidents into democatic political headquarters across the nation, nor did he mention Sarah Palin's face book page where she showed a map with democratic headquarters targetted by rifle sights. Clearly, these are cases of free speech intimidation, but because they happened to liberals, they aren't noteworthy 0f mention.
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Re: "In control--and out of control," from the March 23rd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Maybe Mr. Ryan should change the name of the opinion page to the "liar's digest."

What a pack of lies this column was.

First, he claims that "democrats voted to turn America into a European-style socialistic society" (as if that were a bad thing) "with unprecedented and likely unconstitutional federal power over both states and individuals."

Private health insurance companies remain in business, falsifying the claim that the dems voted in favor of socialized medicine. According to the front page of this edition of his own newspaper, most law experts on the right, the left, and in the middle say that the Health Care Reform Law is clearly not unconstitutional, thus falsifying the second part of this statement as well.

Second, he claims that this is "one of the biggest job-killing bills in the country's history..." This is total bullshit. He thinks "regulations should be lessened to spur an economic recovery." Lessened regulations are one of the causes of the severe recession we're living in. He provides no evidence that this will cause unemployment. This claim is a ridiculous lie.

Third, he claims that "Socialism has never worked for long as an economic model." Some of those socialist countries such as Sweden, Switzerland, France, Germany and Canada seem to have done quite well economically. It works here pretty well too. In fact further on in this editorial he opposes cuts in medicare. Medicare is a socialist program.

Fourth, he claims the law trashes the tenth amendment and states rights. This debate was solved during the Civil War--the federal government trumps the state governments. The U.S. is one nation, not fifty nations. Moreover, Article 1 section 8 of the constitution, aka the Commerce clause, clearly gives the federal government the right to do most of what's in the new law.

Fifth, he whines about Medicare cuts. Yet, conservatives have been clamoring for cuts in Medicare for years. Now, he's opposed? I think we can safely say, Mr. Ryan is a liar and a flip-flop.

Michael Ryan Doesn't Understand the Concept that

Michael Ryan's Lies of the Day

Re: "We never would have deemed this possible," from the March 19th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

In this editorial Michael Ryan tells two blazing, obvious lies.

1. He wrote that the deem and pass procedure democrats will probably use to pass the bill is "quite without precedent in the United States of America."

According to Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post, deem and pass was first used in 1933. Republicans used it in 1948 as soon as they regained power in congress. Republicans used it 36 times between 2005 and 2006. Democrats used it 49 times between 2007 and 2008. Obviously, it's not unprecedented. It is an act of political cowardice. Congressmen are avoiding attack ads that criticize them for voting for such and such unpopular bills.

2. Mr. Ryan also wrote that this is an "unprecedented power grab by the federal government."

Article 1 section 8 clearly allows for most of what's in the health care reform bill. It states "The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, excises; to pay debt, and provide for the common defence and general welfare, but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the U.S."

I think this allows for everything except some of the special deals like the Cornhusker exemption. That would clearly be ruled unconstitutional by a court, but this is a moot point because reconciliation will eliminate it anyway.

Mr. Ryan writes that people are going to protest in the streets over this. I doubt many Americans are going to protest in outrage over Congressional procedure. Mr. Ryan claims that voters will take this outrage to the voting polls. I also doubt that many Americans are going to base their vote on the health care reform debate. Much more important will be how the economy is doing. If the economy improves, democrats may not lose as much as Mr. Ryan hopes. In any case the state of the economy and jobs will be much more important to voters.

Mr. Ryan claims the health care reform will lessen choice. This is the opposite of what will happen for the uninsured, most of whom will finally have a choice.

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Re: "Barrow must stay true blue," from the same edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

I see this as the plutocrat, fascist Billy Morris, using his newspapers to put pressure on John Barrow to vote against reform that will help poor people.

This seems unnecessary to me...John Barrow has made it clear that he will vote against it. John Barrow is a democrat in name only. In my opinion he's the equivalent of a whacko right wing republican, aka a sorry sack of shit.

I live in his district, and I could care less who wins his seat. There's absolutely no difference between him and any republican who runs. I always write in a vote for Magnus Robot Fighter.

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Re: "Will Blue Dogs hunt for President Obama?" by Doyle McManus from this same editorial page.

I found this part interesting. A conservative democrat congressman from Pennsylvania was speaking to Tea Party jerks. He said, "Shouldn't the government help low income people afford basic health insurance?" They shouted a resounding, "No!"

This clearly illustrates what kind of people Tea Party creeps are. They are heartless pieces of trash who think that when poor people get sick they should drop dead.

They finally printed one of my letters again

After rejecting three of my letters, the Chronicle finally published one today. I didn't think they would, but I guess since I made no mention or hint of a plagiarism accusation, it slipped by.

I checked out the reader comments about my letter.

Not much in the way of intellectual banter there worth commenting on. Two guys got into a side argument about who voted in favor of Civil Rights in the 1960's. The conservative bashed democrats which was kind of disingenous because in the 1960's Southern democrats were conservative racists. The parties have changed over time, so that now the Republican party has opened their tent to racists.

A person calling herself Little Lamb told me to lighten up...it was a joke. Thus, she missed one of the main points of my letter. I was telling Mr. Ryan to lighten up by equating Bill Maher's tasteless but funny joke with Glenn Beck's tasteless but not funny joke.

Glenn Beck deserved the shot as I noted in last week's blog.

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Re: "God help the republic," also from today's Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan is whining about tricks the dems are trying to pull to get this health care thing passed. Differing versions of the bill have already passed by straight up and down votes.

This new tact the democrats might use though is a little odd. They might deem that the Senate bill already passed in the House. Admittedly, this new tact flunks the language test.

I just don't see this as being a big grab of executive power as this editorial claims. Mr. Ryan's opposition to expanded executive power flies in the face of his usual standards. He usually favors a strong president. If this was a republican, he would be in favor of this tactic big time. But it's Obama so "God help the republic."

The President isn't forcing Congress to do anything it doesn't have the power to do.

Michael Ryan Demonstrates his Lack of a Sense of Humor

Re: "The Left's pro-pollution stance," from the March 11th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

It's hard for me to believe the sanctimonious crap from this editorial. It's yet another unfounded whine about how leftist pundit rhetoric is somehow uglier than that spewed from the right. Within this editorial Mr. Ryan defends two of the dirtiest right wing pundits around--Glenn Beck and Matt Drudge, two sources that he regularly plagiarizes.

First, let's examine his criticism of something Sean Penn said. Mr. Penn has donated enormous amounts of his time and money helping out earthquake victims in Haiti. Some critics have suggested that he's doing this merely to make himself look good. His reply--he hopes they die of rectal cancer. Mr. Ryan took this quote out of context to unfairly knock Mr. Penn. In his editorial Mr. Ryan does not say why Mr. Penn said this. To just take this quote in mid-air and repeat it does make Mr. Penn look bad, but if one is aware of why he said it, it's more understandable. Moreover, it's obviously an over-the-top joke. I'm sure Mr. Penn doesn't wish rectal cancer on anyone, just because of their political beliefs.

Mr. Ryan may be stupid, but I doubt he's so stupid he can't understand the humor of exaggeration.

I would also like to point out that Mr. Penn is correct, and the U.S. mainstream media is wrong about Hugo Chavez. Chavez is not a dictator--he's been democratically elected several times.

Next, Mr. Ryan criticizes Bill Maher because Mr. Maher cracked this joke in his monologue referring to the Pentagon shooter--"When we see crazy, senseless deaths like this, we can only ask why, why, why couldn't it have been Glenn Beck?"

The joke was in his MONOLOGUE. It wasn't an editorial piece meant to be taken seriously. Nevertheless, Mr. Ryan writes sarcastically, "He's right comrades! Death to all who espouse traditional American values."

Oh yeah, and what are some of Mr. Beck's American values. Here's one: Within the last two months Mr. Beck suggested that he would like to slip poison into Nancy Pelosi's drink.

I'd like to ask Mr. Ryan one question about this editorial. Does he honestly think poisoning the speaker of the house is a traditional American value?

What Mr. Maher said was a joke--a well deserved shot at Glenn Beck.

Health care = Ice Cream? Charles Krauthammer is an idiot

Re: "Onward, he said, regardless," by Charles Krauthammer, published on Michael Ryans's editorial page in the Augusta Chronicle on March 7th.

Using a ridiculous analogy, Charles Krauthammer compared the health care reform plan to the federal government giving out free ice cream.

He admits that, sure people would be in favor of free ice cream, but they would be against it, if the government regulated the delivery of ice cream with over 100 new boards and commissions.

Health care is a very complex issue. To frivolously compare it to a government giveaway of free ice cream is just stupid. I'd like to see him try to explain this analogy, in person, to a sick individual in the process of dying because they can't afford adequate medical care. Mr. Krauthammer ought to be ashamed of himself.

Furthermore, he repeated the conservative talking point of how Obama is "ramming" this down people's throats. Health care reform already passed by majority vote in the House and supermajority vote in the Senate. That's democracy, not forcing something down the people's throats.

Another tired talking point is that health care is 1/6th of the economy. It's a number I'm sick of hearing about. So what? The government already regulates 100% of the economy. Who cares if they add more regulations to 15% of it.

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I mostly agree with Mr. Ryan's lead editorial from March 7th--"Washington in Wonderland, as 'doomsday cycle' looms. However, as I've noted before, Mr. Ryan has no credibility on this issue because he's suggested an income tax moratorium. He's not serious about the deficit, if he thinks a zero income tax period is a good idea.

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Re: "Rangeling with corruption," from the March 8th edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

Mr. Ryan is quite hypocritical in this editorial which is mostly a whine about how the liberal media fails to point out often enough that Charles Rangel and other democratic crooks are democrats.

Mr. Ryan rightly points out that Charles Rangel is a crook for taking a free vacation at corporate expense to the Carribean. However, John McCain took a free vacation to Hawaii on the dime of the crooked savings and loan businesses circa 1990.

Mr. Ryan endorsed John McCain for president in 2008. He's got no grounds to criticize Charles Rangel now.

Rick Mckee's Cartoon is a Lie...Again

Rick McKee's cartoon today (March 6th) shows a donkey, the symbol of the democratic party, saying that democrats used to call reconciliation the "nuclear option."

This is entirely false. Democrats never referred to the reconciliation process as the "nuclear option." The "nuclear option" is a term originating when republicans had the majority and they were considering doing away with the filibuster.

Using reconciliation (a process the republicans have used more than the democrats) is not the same as eliminating the filibuster. Reconciliation can only be used on budget-related items. No one has ever called it the nuclear option, until maybe now when conservative pundits on Fox News make ridiculous exaggerations about it. And it's not a parliamentary trick. It's simply a majority vote.

BTW, they should get rid of the antiquated filibuster rule. The filibuster is one of the roadblocks stopping the Senate from getting anything done.

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About two weeks ago, the Chronicle ran a news analysis in which the writer basically called Augusta Mayor Deke Copenhaver a pussy. A few days later, Michael Ryan regurgitated this opinion in his unsigned daily column.

I'm not particularly interested in local politics, but I found this kind of interesting.

Basically, the Chronicle news reporter and the editorial page writer were upset with the mayor because he didn't stand up and get all twisted like a pretzel because of a planned gay pride march in downtown Augusta.

Mr. Ryan suggested the major should meet with organizers of the gay pride event and convince them to have the march somewhere else because the march supposedly will hurt businesses.

What a bunch of bologna! One day's march isn't going to hurt businesses. No one's going to avoid going downtown because of a gay pride march that they may or may not have heard about. Don't gay people have money? I'm sure their dollars are just as good as straight people's money, and I'm sure they'll spend just as much as heterosexual customers.

In truth downtown Augusta has got nothing worthwhile in the first place besides a few old titty bars. The lack of good parking, a fact of everyday life for downtown businesses, hurts these establishments far more than a one day gay pride march.

Michael Ryan is Closed-Minded to the Facts

Re: "The closed-minded professor," from the February 27th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Once again, a conservative pundit knocks the president for being an intellectual by reminding everyone that he's a professor. The title of this editorial is ridiculous. As if republicans were open-minded. It may be true that the president rejected most republican ideas about health care, but it's at least equally true that republicans rejected his ideas.

Moreover, this column is hypocritical to the max. Countless letters to the editor have pointed out that the U.N. ranks the U.S. 37th in the world in quality of health care and JAMA ranks the U.S. 11th out of the 12 industrial nations in health care quality, yet in Mr. Ryan insisted that the U.S. has the best health care in the world. Surely, he's aware of the facts.

Instead, he ignores them and shouts out USA number 1 when in reality the richest country on earth ranks a disgraceful 37th.

Mr. Ryan is without a doubt far more close-minded than the president.

What a jerk!

In fact this entire editorial page is offensively one-sided and makes me want to cancel my subscription again. Unfortunately, I just renewed it. The only reason I take the Augusta Chronicle is for Georgia Bulldog football news. Otherwise, I would subscribe to USA Today.

Incredibly, Michael Ryan Denies Partisan attacks on the President

Re: "What partisan attacks?" from the February 25th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Michael Ryan, along with republicans and conservative pundits, has been making incessent partisan attacks on the president, yet in this column he asks "What partisan attacks?"

Does he read his own column?

He claims nobody is making personal attacks on the president, and even makes the laughable claim that republicans are taking it easy on Obama because he's the first black president.

Mr. Ryan, himself, has referred to the president as a cold fish (because of lack of emotion following the Texas shooting), arrogant, and stupid (because he mispoke and claimed there were 57 states). These are criticisms of Obama's personal traits, not his politics, so I think it's safe to say these were personal attacks as is his labeling of Obama as a radical leftist. Obama has cut taxes, increased troops in Afghanistan, and approved new nuclear power plants--hardly a far left agenda. Referring to him as a "radical leftist" is simply a mindless partisan attack.

Mr. Ryan is so stupid, he doesn't even realize his admission of racism. His suggestion that conservatives have been taking it easy on Obama because he's black (which is an outright falsehood) is an admission that they treated Obama differently because of his race.

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Star Parker lied her ass off again in her column "Time for a new generation."

She claimed "the black poverty rate, at twice the national average, has hardly budged since the late 1960's

I looked it up at www.census.gov. In 1965 the black poverty rate was 65%. In 1969 after Lyndon Johnson's great society program went into effect, it dropped to 39%. In 2001 (the latest year stats are available) it was 30%. That's a 9% point drop and it would probably be more, if not for the welfare reform of the 1990's. That's a lot more than the "hardly budged" she claims.

By comparison the national average poverty rate in 1969 was 13%. So in 1969, the black poverty rate was triple the national average. In 2006 the poverty rate was 16%. So today the black poverty rate is slightly less than twice the national average. Of course, there's still work to be done, but that's a huge improvement.

Michael Ryan regurgitates Conservative Bloggers' Lies about Global Warming

Re: "Today's forecast: Increased doubt," from the February 16th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

I can't find the original source of these lies. There are many conservative bloggers in addition to Fox News pundits who have been giving misleading interpetations of some comments made by Phil Jones, a British climate scientist. Nevertheless, this column is potentially another example of Mr. Ryan's plagiarism. I'm 100% sure he didn't come up with the idea to intentionally mislead people about what Dr. Jones said. Here are the facts:

Mr. Ryan (repeating what many other conservative bloggers and Fox News pundits said and wrote) claimed that Dr. Jones said that there has been no significant warming since 1995 and that the earth may have been warmer in medieval times.

According to www.realclimate.org, this is what Dr. Jones actually said. "While the globe has nominally warmed since 1995, it is difficult to establish the statistical significance of that warming given the short nature of the time interval (1995-present)."

That's a big difference from what conservative bloggers are claiming. In other words Dr. Jones is merely stating that the time interval wasn't long enough to determine whether the warming (which is occurring) is of statistical significance. Conservatives try to make it sound like no warming is occurring. Furthermore, Dr. Jones said there isn't enough data to determine whether the earth may have been warmer in medieval times, not as conservatives claim, he was saying it may have been warmer. BTW, that the earth was warmer during medieval times is fed into climate scientists' models, so this isn't some big gotcha point.

Mr. Ryan's column cites a poll showing that 29% of meteorologists think global warming is a scam, and he comes to the conclusion that the science is in doubt. This is another sample of Mr. Ryan's stupidity. Meteorologists are not climate scientists. Most are not even college graduates. Meteorologists are basically pretty people trained to forecast short term weather. Their main attribute is to look good in front of the camera.

Mr. Ryan notes, as further evidence casting doubt on global warming, some typos in the IPCC report. A few typos in a scientific report don't disprove greenhouse gas theory. This is a pretty asinine claim.

And finally, Mr. Ryan states, "Now that there is considerable doubt about the data being relied upon to push such policies (cap and trade, etc.)..."

This last statement is just wrong. There is no debate within the scientific community that man is contributing to global warming. The debate is entirely political with conservatives taking the anti-science side. The best proof of this is that Mr. Ryan's column is on the political opinion page--not a scientific journal.

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Re: "Don't cry for Bayh," from the February 18th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

I don't take issue with the main point of this editorial--that Bayh really quit because he was being more seriously challenged than the media reported. I take issue with Mr. Ryan's statement that "Bayh bows out after a year of consistent votes for the far left and wildly unpopular Obama agenda."

What far left agenda could that be? Does Mr. Ryan mean the tax cuts for 95% of Americans, the increase in troops sent to Afghanistan, or the approval of two nuclear power plants in Burke County that the Mr. Ryan supported in the column above this one. Oh yeah, that sounds like a real far-left agenda.

And if Obama's agenda is so unpopular, how did he get elected just last year?

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I guess Mr. Ryan thinks he needs support. The guest editorial written by James Sanderson is merely a regurgitation of Mr. Ryan's lies about cap and trade causing job losses. The biggest lie in this column is when Mr. Sanderson wrote that democrats are raising taxes on people. No they aren't. They reduced taxes on 95% of us.

I happen to disagree with tax cuts at the current time. I think taxes should be increased on everybody too, but especially the rich. I know that's unpopular, but taxes are always unpopular. That doesn't make them unnecessary.

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Star Parker's column ("Social Security reform cooking again after years on the back burner.")from February 16th is just stupid. In this column she demonstrates her ignorance over where payroll taxes go. She writes as if it goes into the Social Security fund. There is no Social Security fund--payroll taxes go into the general tax fund along with income taxes.

She remarks how Social Security and Medicare "reflects the inevitable failure of social engineering." She needs to study census statistics on poverty rates which have dropped decisively since these programs have been implemented.

Star Parker is just an idiot hypocrite as I've noted on earlier blogs. She's alive today, thanks to the social programs she's so critical of. Without them, she would've likely starved to death long ago.

Michael Ryan Stupidly Allows Libel on his Editorial Page

Re: "Requiem for a Corruptocrat," by Michelle Malkin from the February 15th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

I was never a fan of John Murtha.  Though he was a democrat, he always seemed like a crooked republican to me.  Ms. Malkin's invented word (corruptocrat) does apply to Murtha.  But he was right about the Haditha massacre so I disagree with the bulk of her essay. Nevertheless, this is all beside the point.

Ms. Malkin made a libelous charge in this column.  She wrote that Murtha died because of "botched gall bladder surgery."  No ma'am!

The news outlets reported that he died from complications due to gall bladder surgery.  There's a big difference.  Most likely, doctors performed the surgery correctly--it's a simple procedure.  It's more likely he died from an infection which can occur regardless of how well the surgery went.  It's quite possible Murtha waited too long to have surgery and he had jaundice and/or an infection that already spread before he was even operated on.  Jaundice can be caused when the gall bladder duct is blocked.

Creators syndicate should not have released this column without editing out Ms. Malkin's sloppy accusation.  Michael Ryan should not have run it.

But I've demonstrated how sloppy he is himself--he didn't even realize the mistake Malkin made.

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Re: "Lead by getting out of the way," from this same edition.

Mr. Ryan makes a confused statement in the column.  He writes "Most rational economists...would agree that the best way government could really help stimulate the economy in the long term is to get out of the way--through tax cuts, regulatory reform, spending cuts, and incentives for the free market to break back into a gallop."

This is what Obama is supporting.  It seems curious that Mr. Ryan would be attacking politicians who are trying to do the things that he writes are necessary.

But the worst thing about this column is Mr. Ryan's bad writing.   He uses a terrible simile.  Get this: "...this Congress, boasting an approval rating embarrassed by that of brussel sprouts, doesn't seem to know how jobs are created anyway."  Not only is this a terrible simile, but it should be Brussels sprouts.  Mr. Ryan's editor was asleep on this one.

Then, Mr. Ryan again feeds his readers the bullshit claim that a 3% increase in taxes on people making $250,000 a year is going to somehow bust the recovery.

As I've written before, those low taxes, when in effect, did not keep us out of a recession.  There's just no evidence that tax cuts stimulate the economy.

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Re: "Not their cup of tea," from the February 14th edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

Mr. Ryan makes a blind idiotic defense of the tea party, while whining about how the "left wing media" hates the Tea Party movement.

Mr. Ryan claims the Tea Party movement isn't racist.  Can he not see the signs these people carry?  The ones depicting President Obama as a monkey. 

Just the day before, he ran a column written by Bonnie Alba comparing Obama with Hitler.  The Tea Party idiots also are always carrying signs depicting Obama as a Marxist, and Nazi, and the comic book villain, the Joker. What a bunch of incoherent ignoramuses.

Speaking of comic books, Mr. Ryan whines about an anti-Tea Party comment in a recent issue of Captain America.  That's the purpose of his column--to gripe about the evils of the left wing media in the comic book business.  Hey, comic books were invented by liberal Jewish artists.  If conservatives don't like it, well, they have Fox News and all of AM talk radio.  They've got nothing to complain about here--they've got plenty of their own "hate" media.

Michael Ryan 's Ridiculous Conclusion

Re: "Meet you at the food court!" from the February 12th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

One can be for or against the government's help when it comes to solving America's obesity problem, but to say the U.S. is well on the way to becoming a "police state," just because the government wants to kick junk food vending machines out of school and educate people about a healthy diet is ridiculous hyperbole.

One thing is certain--the increasing number of fat people in this country is an obvious failure of the free market.

Unhealthy processed foods are cheap and profitable; healthy foods cost more.  Poor people tend to reach for these cheap boxes of shit (I wouldn't even call most of it real food), and that's why we are facing this disastrous health crisis.

This is one time where the government does need to step in with an education program.  There are too many people who are completely ignorant of nutrition, and I don't see the free market advertising fresh fruits and vegetables on an equal billing with chips, candy, and empty calorie soft drinks.

Educating people on how to eat is not something akin to a police state.  Once more, Mr. Ryan just exposes how utterly stupid he is.

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Re: "Inefficient by nature," from the February 13th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

This column is laughable.  Mr. Ryan is telling us how inefficient the government is compared to free market businesses, when he's taking a paycheck from a bankrupt company.

Does anybody else see the humor in this? 

The notion that private businesses are more efficient than the government is a total myth.

The examples Mr. Ryan uses are weak.  First he notes how most of the stimulus money intended for wind farms went to foreign countries.  So what?  If the U.S. government stimulates the world economy that still helps us because the world economy is connected to ours.  It's not the U.S. government's fault that American businesses were too incompetent to take advantage of the deal.  Clearly, the free market is to blame, if Mr. Ryan thinks there's something wrong with this.  

The problem at the local sheriff's office is  not enough money.  The city government is too cheap (or doesn't have its priorities straight) to spend enough on the upkeep of the law enforcement building.  It's got nothing to do with government inefficiency.

Contrary to Mr. Ryan's theme, throwing money at problems generally does fix them eventually.  There's no evidence that private industry is more efficient than the government.

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Re: "For Tea Party participants, it's simply the 'American Cause.'" by Bonnie Alba from the same edition.

This idiot nut compared President Obama with Adolf Hitler.  Mr. Ryan's a stupid ass for letting this guest column appear on his editorial page.

Anyone who compares our democratically elected president with a dictator responsible for the deaths of millions just has no credibility whatsoever and should not be published in any respectable medium.

Michael Ryan Tells a Big Fat Lie

Re: "Not Without a Fight," from the February 8th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Michael Ryan makes the false claim that the Obama administration wants to end secret ballots in workplace elections over whether to unionize.  

President Obama supports H.R. 1409--The Employee Free Choice Act.  This document is available as a link at www.americanpregressaction.org/issues/2009/03/efca101.html

There is nothing in this act that outlaws secret ballots.  It merely makes it easier for new unions to organize by giving workers the option of forming a new union if the majority of workers sign an authorization card.

The real reason businesses don't like this proposed law is because it would prevent them from delaying the recognition of newly formed unions.  The law simply states that once a new union is formed by majority vote within an industry, the business must meet and begin negotiating with them within 10 days, and if no agreement is made within 90 days, they go to a federal mediator.

Tightwad business crooks like Billy Morris don't like unions because they might have to pay their workers a decent wage and have them work in safe environments.  I worked for the Augusta Chronicle--it was low pay and dangerous work.  I know for a fact that circulation department workers definitely need a union.

Moreover, contrary to Mr. Ryan's bogus claims, the cause of the recent recession was due to there being too many underpaid workers.  Paying workers a better wage would improve the economy.  Increasing pay has never killed jobs as the chamber of commerce falsely claims will happen.

Michael Ryan Wonders if Common Sense will Prevail when He Has None Himself

Re: "Will common sense prevail?" from the February 7th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Once again, Mr. Ryan is freaked out about the budget deficit.  Yet, a few weeks ago, he suggested an income tax moratorium.  As I've written before, he has no credibility on this issue because he actually thinks eliminating taxes would be a viable policy.

It's true the U.S. government needs to reign in spending, but it's necessary to increase taxes as well to help balance the budget. Increasing taxes is politically unpopular, virtually dooming any political party that supports this as a method of reducing the deficit.  Until we get politicians with the guts to increase taxes and cut government spending, the budget will continue to spiral out of control.  

Note that Mr. Ryan mentions Social Security and Medicare as programs that cost too much, but he makes no mention of the illegal, immoral, and unnecessary war in Iraq.

Conservatives just have no integrity.  Helping out our fellow man is a waste of money, but blowing him to smithereens is untouchable spending and not even included in the official budget.  How obscene.  

The related editorial below Mr. Ryan's, written by Charles Krauthammer is entitled "The Great Peasant Revolt."  This is in reference to the Tea Party movement.  The Tea Party just paid Sarah Palin $100,000 to make a speech.  I doubt peasants can afford to pay that much just to hear a nervous schoolgirl criticize our president for having a good education which is what she did when she said, "We need a commander and chief, not a Harvard Lawyer."  The statement was received with cheers.

This quote and the positive response proves that Tea Party nuts think intelligence and education are bad things.

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Re: "Greedy union fat cats are behind first lady's anti-obesity campaign," by Michelle Malkin from the February 5th edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

Ms. Malkin writes about the "evils" of school lunches in this column.  She's critical of the SEIU, an organization that represents school cafeteria workers.  What's she afraid of--that a school cafeteria worker might make a dollar?

Ms. Malkin has no credibility whatsoever.  Mr. Ryan should be ashamed of himself for letting this ridiculous woman spew her stupid opinions on his page.

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Mr. Ryan has yet to retract his factually challenged column which I noted in my last blog entry. BTW, I contacted Alan English the managing editor of the news department.  He informed me that he has nothing to do with the editorial page, so I retract my statement suggesting he approves of Mr. Ryan's plagiarisms.

There.  I admitted I was wrong about something.

Will Michael Ryan?