The Michael Ryan Watch

Evans Medical Group are a Bunch of Greedy Bastards

2010-10-31T07:14:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-01T06:21:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-09T06:59:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-22T08:58:00.001-07:00

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

2010-06-09T11:42:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

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."

2010-05-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-15T06:42:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

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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

2010-04-30T06:31:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-27T06:05:00.001-07:00

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

2010-04-24T06:20:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-21T05:12:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-19T07:22:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-16T06:12:00.000-07:00

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.

*********************************************************************************

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?

*******************************************************************************

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

*********************************************************************************

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

2010-04-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

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?

2010-04-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

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/

**********************************************************************************
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

2010-04-01T07:16:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-29T05:58:00.001-07:00

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

2010-03-29T05:58:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-26T05:51:00.002-07:00

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.
********************************************************************************

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

2010-03-26T05:51:00.001-07:00

Michael Ryan's Lies of the Day

2010-03-19T06:01:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-16T07:32:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-11T09:03:00.000-08:00

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

2010-03-08T06:46:00.000-08:00

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

2010-03-06T07:20:00.001-08:00

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

2010-02-28T06:55:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-25T10:42:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-18T05:00:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-15T07:31:00.001-08:00

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

2010-02-13T07:17:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-08T07:27:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-07T07:43:00.000-08:00

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?

Will Michael Ryan Issue a Retraction?

2010-02-03T06:52:00.000-08:00

Re: "Is American pre-eminence ending?" from the February 3rd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Michael Ryan quotes Washington Post pundit, Richard Cohen, who wrote that the Christmas Day bomber was given his Miranda rights and since then his "subsequent silence is a scream that something went wrong." Of course, Mr. Ryan agrees with this ignorant fiction and uses it to criticize the Obama administration for being lax on security issues.

Mr. Ryan didn't read page 5 A of his own newspaper. To be fair, he probably didn't know about it and wrote this editorial before the associated press article was released. Nevertheless, he should write a retraction.

The article I'm referring to is entitled "Nigerian offers intelligence on terror planning," from page 5 of this same edition of the newspaper. Apparently, this news has been leaked. The Christmas Day bomber has cooperated with the FBI and has been giving good information. The Obama administration had been trying to keep this valuable cooperation secret so they can follow leads. Nevertheless, the news debunks critics who claimed that the terrorist would clam up, just because he had been read his rights.

Will Mr. Ryan issue a retraction tomorrow? I wouldn't hold my breath.

Further on in this editorial, which is nothing more than a hodgepodge of his usual baseless criticism of the president, Mr. Ryan writes that the administration wants to levy "more and more taxes on those people and entities that create jobs and which will be key to growth and progress." This is just a lie. Obama is merely letting Bush's unsuccessful, temporary tax cuts for the rich expire. The top rate will go from 36% back to 39% which is the same as it was ten years ago. Big deal.

Hey, those tax cuts were in place for ten years. How did that work out? Didn't we just go into a severe recession? That should be evidence enough that tax cuts do not stimulate the economy, but conservatives will never learn.

Mr. Ryan cries about the big deficit, but he has no credibility on this issue--not since he suggested a moratorium on all income taxes in an earlier column which I discussed in a previous blog entry.

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I've noted before that Cal Thomas is always a day late and a dollar short. In his column "Obama and the republicans," he writes that "the 26 page booklet containing Republican ideas on the economy, jobs, energy and national security...should put to rest the fiction that Republicans have presented no ideas on these and other subjects."

He should have watched the Daily Show with Jon Stewart the other day. Mr. Stewart made fun of the document. He showed that when all the crap, such as the Table of Contents, blank pages, and self-aggrandizing pages, were removed it only contained 4 pages...and the whole thing proved to be obsolete. At the end of the paper, the document claimed that if enacted, these republican policies would solve all our problems by December...of 2009.

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Psychotic letter of the week award goes to Dan Duncan of Aiken. His solution to welfare and foreign aid is to send all of America's poor people to third world countries where they can live like kings because of the lower standard of living in these countries.

Georgia Regional, where are you?

Michael Ryan didn't Think it was Dumb when Bush Did It

2010-02-02T07:10:00.000-08:00

Re: "Terrorists don't deserve it," from the February 2nd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Michael Ryan calls the Obama administration's decision to try terrorists in civilian court one of the dumbest moves by any presidential administration in memory.

He's got a short memory. The Bush administration tried and convicted the shoe bomber and the 20th hijacker just a few years ago. Mr. Ryan didn't think those trials were stupid.

However, if a democratic president does the exact same thing that a republican president did, all of a sudden, he thinks it's "galactically stupid."

Can anyone say blind partisanship? Can anyone say there's no such word as "galactically?" Can anyone say using a made up word is stupid in itself?

I'm really disgusted with America's pathetic and cowardly not-in-my-backyard attitude.

The sky is not going to fall just because we bring terrorists to justice in civilian courts.

Michael Ryan's Imagined Double Standard in the Media

2010-02-01T06:43:00.000-08:00

Re: The section called the bottom line from the January 31st edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan complains that the media ignored James O'Keefe's so-called expose` of ACORN but have been all over the story of his attempted bugging of Senator Landrieu's telephones.

In my opinion the media's coverage of O'Keefe's slander of a worthwhile organization such as ACORN was way overblown. O'Keefe has lied before. He said that none of the ACORN offices turned him away, when in fact, a police report proves that at least one office even called the cops on him. Mr. Ryan claims that O'Keefe "embarrassed" the media "with his takedown of ACORN." I wouldn't call slandering and lying about a worthy charitable organization embarrassing the media.

Mr. Ryan writes "Oh puhleeze," in exasperation when some compare this to Watergate and he makes the absurd claim that it's not clear O'Keefe was attempting to tap the phone lines.

It's obvious to anyone with common sense what O'Keefe was up to--he was using dishonest tactics to dig up dirt on a democrat.

Incidentally, I think it's girly to use the term "puhleeze." Mr. Ryan uses unprofessional, girlish, and cliche`d phrases in his writing. Maybe Alex English, or whoever his boss is, won't fire him for plagiarism, but at the very least, they should fire him for using "puhleeze" in an editorial.

Yuck!

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Re: "Heaping helpings of hate," from the February 1st edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Here, Mr. Ryan is just whining. He lists five samples of over-the-top commentary by liberal pundits as examples of a lack of civility. I agree that some of these are over-the-top, especially the one made by Keith Olbermann which Jon Stewart parodied on the Daily Show. I disagree though that Bill Maher's comment should be included in this list. As noted in an earlier blog entry about Mr. Ryan's taking offense to an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mr. Ryan has little sense of humor. Mr. Maher was joking, and the joke is funny, because it's true. Glenn Beck is a psycho--the guy sees ridiculous conspiracies in everything. Mr. Ryan doesn't like it because Glenn Beck is one of the sources he frequently plagiarizes.

Mr. Ryan came up with a list of five. Check out www.mediamatters.org for hundreds of examples of over-the-top comments made by conservative pundits.

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Re: "Even critics should wish the Chronicle owner well in reorganization effort," by Paul Simon also from the January 31st edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

Ah, where to begin? I used to work for the Augusta Chronicle in the circulation department. I have so many stories I could tell about their sorry management. Billy Morris broke every labor law in the book. The working conditions were dangerous, and the demands upper management made on the little guys were outrageous.

I think I'll start by recounting an example of Chronicle stupidity at its finest.

One Sunday, I was scheduled to be off. I was awoken by a call at 2:00 am ordering me to report downtown immediately to the circulation department because the press broke down and the papers wouldn't be ready until 12:00 pm. So they literally ordered me to come in early on my day off to sit and wait and do nothing for ten hours. Logically, they should have let everybody sleep in so we would be well rested to throw all the paper routes the carriers wouldn't be able to throw because the papers were going to be out so late. But logic was not their strong suit.

Maybe Billy Morris should have invested some of his capital on a working printing press instead of his stupid museum of art. That's another thing that always pissed me off when I worked there. The pay and the benefits were so meager, and this fascist asshole is blowing money on art.

Another time I got in big, big trouble because I was honest with a carrier. The management decided to terminate a carrier's contract. So I was supposed to lie to the carrier (by making some excuse as to why I needed to ride with him) and make a tape recording of the route thereby preparing myself to run the route after they cut him loose. I told the guy the truth and still made the tape , thus executing my job successfully.

Ooh man! You would have thought I'd stolen $10,000 from them. Three supervisors grilled me for being honest. The carrier had sent a letter to the Vice President, praising me for telling the truth and condemning the higher ups. It was well-meaning on his part, but bad for me, because he didn't realize the Vice President would come down on the side of the dishonest business practice. The supervisors told me lying was justified because "this is a business." That was their sole reasoning.

The last time I got in trouble while working in the circulation department didn't bother me too much but illustrates how poorly run that business is. In the wee hours of the morning the papers for about 50 routes were dropped at a warehouse on Reynolds Street--a high crime neighborhood. Nobody had a key so we always had to leave the warehouse unlocked. This went on for 6 months. The accounting department didn't like it because they had a computer and other equipment in there that could have easily been stolen. So finally one day, they had a meeting and passed keys out to the circulation managers. I missed that meeting because my wife had a stroke that day and almost died. No one told me about the keys. A few days later, I was the last person to leave the drop and I left the warehouse unlocked. The next day, a homeless wino slept in the warehouse, and he was there when the papers were delivered in the wee hours.

Oh, they were furious. Who left the door unlocked? They figured out I was the last one at the drop and they came down on me. I was in trouble because the door was unlocked...but it had been unlocked for 6 months!

Anyway, I explained why I didn't have a key, and they gave me one.

I was polite enough not to tell them to take the key and shove it.

It's no surprise to me that the Chronicle is bankrupt.

Michael Ryan's criticism of abortion killer is hypocritical

2010-01-30T08:13:00.000-08:00

Re: "Witless for the defense," from the January 30th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Did Mr. Ryan not approve of Rick Mckee's cartoon of the previous day's edition of his own editorial page--the one that equated aborted fetuses with babies being buried in a graveyard?

This is the kind of propaganda that conservative pundits have been spewing to egg on crazy nuts like Scott Roeder. To then write criticism of behavior inspired by his own inflammatory rhetoric is incredibly hypocritical. Every time Mr. Ryan writes an editorial about abortion, he illogically exaggerates this medical procedure with the phrase "killing babies." This makes him and other conservative pundits complicit in violent acts against doctors.

He should be ashamed of his radical rhetoric. But it's clear from is editorials that he is a man of little ethical standards.

********

BTW,

Mckee's cartoon was just stupid. Aborted fetuses are never given funerals as he so falsely portrayed. They are disposed as medical waste. An aborted embryo is little more than menstrual slough. To compare an embryo to a live baby is hysteria.

*****

Re: Short-changing the country" from the January 9th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan refers to Obama's "string of election defeats." Obama won the last election he was in--it was for the presidency. Placing the blame on Obama for the democrats loss in a small handful of local election is ridiculous hyperbole. In his editorial Mr. Ryan also repeats the lie that cap and trade will cripple the economy. Factcheck.org recently debunked this lie.

Mr. Ryan joins conservative pundits in refering to the president as arrogant. As Keith Olbermann rightly notes this is codeword or calling the president an uppity Negro. Having a differing political view does not mke one arrogant. Once again Mr. Ryan is guilty of a baseless criticism of thepresident, and this one smells racist.

Tebow Super Bowl Ad Blows a Big Hole in the "Liberal Media" Myth

2010-01-28T05:33:00.000-08:00

Re: "Birth Denouncement," from the January 28th edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

A year or two ago the network that had the Super Bowl refused to run an ad from the liberal group, Moveon.org. This year they're allowing an ad from the conservative group, Focus on the Family.

Hey, according to Michael Ryan and all those conservatives out there, I thought the media was supposed to be liberal. This kind of blows a big hole in that theory.

I don't like Focus on the Family, but they have the right to run this silly ad and CBS has the right to show it. It's a silly ad because no one is saying the birth of children isn't a wonderful thing. Everyone knows, however, that conservative groups such as Focus on the Family are hypocrites. They are so against abortion, but once children are born, they support candidates who think poor people's children are the equivalent of stray animals that shouldn't be fed (see my previous blog entry).

Focus on the Family and other conservative Christian groups believe men should be the head of the household and women should be subservient to men. That's exactly what Baptist doctrine teaches--I know, my wife is a member Baptist Church. Of course, I'm agnostic and believe all religions are stupid and archaic.

I can see why women's groups are upset about this.

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I listened to Austin Rhodes for about ten minutes two days ago. I wanted to hear some breaking news about a violent shooting involving Richmond County students. As usual, Mr. Rhodes got it all wrong and reported it as gang retaliation between S. Richmond County and Barton Chapel. Nobody involved in the shooting lived anywhere near Barton Chapel. I know where Barton Chapel is...I got mugged there trying to buy pot in 1984.

About ten minutes was all I could stand of his show. After the commercial Mr. Rhodes went on a rant in which he called feminists, "snot-nosed," and then he made reference to Rachel Maddow's lesbian sexual prowess which he admitted probably surpassed his own. What a bore!

This is what goes for conservative intellectual thought (an oxymoron). And to think this obnoxious bore gets good ratings. Doesn't say much for Augusta's intellect either.

In Principle Michael Ryan Agrees--Welfare Recipients=Stray Animals

2010-01-26T05:29:00.000-08:00

Re: "Murphy Brown Gives Birth Again," from the January 26th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Michael Ryan writes that S.C. Lt. Governor, Andre Bauer, in principle is right--welfare recipients are the equivalent of stray animals. Mr. Ryan only laments Mr. Bauer's wording of the issue. I don't know how many diplomatic ways there are to say that poor people=stray dogs and cats, but the truth came out and that's what conservatives think of less fortunate human beings.

If there is any issue which clearly demonstrates the lack of logic in conservative thought, this is it. Conservatives falsely believe welfare causes a cycle of dependency. How can this be? There is a 5 year lifetime limit on federal welfare. It's therefore impossible for a woman to live on welfare her entire life as many conservatives believe. Moreover, men without children are not even eligible for federal welfare. There is no evidence that children of welfare mothers are more likely to turn to welfare themselves when they grow up. The mother of Sarah Jessica Parker, the actress from Sex and the City, was on welfare. Yet, her daughter became a successful actress.

What do conservatives think? That poor women get pregnant out of wedlock on purpose so they can collect welfare and food stamps and live in public housing. Those aren't exactly get rich schemes. Conservatives must think poor women say, "Oh yeah, I'm going to get knocked up so I can barely scrape by on welfare."

Conservatives are stooges because they think people want to be poor on purpose so they can live off the government. Nobody wants to be poor.

The reality is this: If you are going to have a free market, capitalist society, there are going to be poor people. You can be humane and have a government that takes care of the have-nots, or you can have armed revolution when poor people get fed up with starvation. I vote for the former and lots of it--we should have greater welfare benefits (including generous job training and education) than we have now.

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Re: "A gaping blindspot," from the January 23rd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

This one is laughable. Mr. Ryan claims the media turns a blind eye to the Tea Party movement and the John Edwards' scandal. If so, how do we even know about it. His claim just doesn't make sense. If the media ignored it, as he claims, we wouldn't know about these things.

Re: "Running out of options," from the same edition.

Mr. Ryan is correct when he notes polls show people are overwhelmingly against the health care plan. But I was listening to NPR the other day and the radio announcer cited a poll (I don't know which one) that showed the health care plan with just 40% support compared to 51% opposition. But when people were told what was actually in the plan, support jumped up to 73%.

This demonstrates that much of the opposition to the plan is based on ignorance.

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Re: "A seismic correction from the January 21st edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Conservative pundits and panicky democrats are making far too much out of Scott Brown's victory in the Massachusetts senatorial election. He was a handsome man who looked like a Kennedy, and he ran a clever advertisement comparing himself to J.F.K. He satisfied the Kennedy fetish that Massachusetts voters seem to have. (Remember they re-elected Ted after Chappaquidick, an event that would have wiped out any other politician's career.)

I know this is cynical, and there are many people who do vote based on ideology, but just as many vote on looks and personality, and that's the main reason why Brown won. I can't think of a single good looking candidate who ever lost to a non-incumbent ugly candidate in any race. I know there are some. Maybe somebody can give some examples in response to this blog, but I just can't think of any.

This does hurt the democrats. Though they still have big majorities in both houses of congress, they act as if they're in the minority. What a bunch of wimps. They should simply do away with that silly antiquated filibuster rule, but this would require guts--something democrats have absolutely none of.

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In the above mentioned edition we have crazy nut of the week letter from Paul Rosenthal who states that Obama wants the economy to fail on purpose so he can install a Marxist system. Someone forgot to give this guy his thorazine.

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Re: "Nancy Antoinette," from the January 18th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

It's really galling when conservatives such as Mr. Ryan claim the republicans are the party of the common man. This criticism of Nancy Pelosi is not fair. Congressmen have the right to go on junkets to obtain information about the world. Mr. Ryan criticizes her for not revealing how much her trip cost. She probably doesn't know. Some secretary handles it. Mr. Ryan cites Jack Cafferty who also criticizes Ms. Pelosi for this. Jack Cafferty is a stupid populist ass who wants to get people fired up about nothing.

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Note: I again submitted a letter to the Augusta Chronicle. It was about an issue I discussed in my last blog--Mr. Ryan's plagiarism of an article written by Ms. Lopez in which she misquoted Martha Coakley and came up with the dubious conclusion that Ms. Coakley stated catholics were unfit to work in emergency rooms. In my letter I didn't use the word plagiarism. I simply wrote it was an astonishing coincidence that he came up with the same misquote and same dubious conclusion.

Nevertheless, they didn't publish my letter (after 8 days, so I assume they won't). This proves that they're aware of Mr. Ryan's plagiarisms and evidentally approve of them.

More Plagiarism from Michael Ryan

2010-01-17T07:30:00.000-08:00

Re: "Then the race got kookier," from the January 16th addition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

We can add Kathryn Lopez, a columnist for the National Review, as another source that Michael Ryan plagiarizes.

Ms. Lopez deliberately misquoted Massachusetts senatorial candidate, Martha Coakley, to make it sound as if she was prejudiced against catholics.

Ms. Coakley was being interviewed by radio host, Ken Pittman. They were discussing a Massachusetts state law that provides emergency contraception for rape victims in emergency rooms. Because catholics are against birth control of any kind, this could pose a moral dilemma for them. Martha Coakley's opponent, Scott Brown, sponsored an amendment to this law that would have the state pay for transfers to hospitals where medical workers who don't oppose birth control would provide the treatment.

Ms. Lopez misquoted what Ms. Coakley said when discussing this issue. She wrote that Ms. Coakley said "The law says people are allowed to have that (referring to religious freedom). You can have religious freedom, but you probably shouldn't work in an emergency room." Then she made the leap that Ms. Coakley claimed that catholics shouldn't work in emergency rooms.

This is the part Ms. Lopez left out, according to Jamison Foser (www.mediamatters.org/blog/201001150015), "If you refuse to provide legal medical services to rape victims, you probably shouldn't work in an emergency room."

In Michael Ryan's column, he repeated the same misquotation and also claimed, as Ms. Lopez did, that Ms. Coakley saw catholics as unqualified to work in emergency rooms.

So unless, Mr. Ryan independently thought to deliberately misquote Ms. Coakley and to use the misquotation to smear her with being anti-catholic, than he is guilty of plagiarism.

Anybody out there think he thought of this smear independently?

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Today's editorial, "Obama's freshmen failure," was predictably unfair.

I think it's too early for history to judge whether Obama's first year was a failure or a success, and the whole idea of giving a letter grade to a president is a little silly. Nevertheless, most of the criticisms in this editorial are rehashed accounts of Mr. Ryan's hysterical opposition to political points of view he disagrees with.

I'm not going to discuss each and every one. Instead, I'd like to point out the most unfair criticism in this column. Mr. Ryan writes, "he (Obama) has failed to pass any major legislation, amazingly despite solid Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress."

There are two reasons for this and they have nothing to do with Obama.

1. Republican obstructionism
2. Conservative democrats who are also on the take from big corporations and oppose even minor reforms.

Considering the control big corporations have over Congress, it's amazing an reform beneficial to the people ever passes, but it looks likely at least some form of weak health care reform will pass soon.

Rick Mckee Draws another Ridiculous Cartoon

2010-01-16T07:46:00.000-08:00

On January 13th a political cartoon drawn by Rick Mckee comparing Harry Reid to a member of the KKK appeared on the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Comparing Harry Reid to a member of the KKK is just ridiculous. I addressed this stupid controversy in my last blog entry, but in the last few days I've learned more information that makes the comparison between Harry Reid's comments and Trent Lott's even more absurd. According to the hot political gossip book, Game Change, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, it was Harry Reid who encouraged President Obama to take on the Clintons. If it wasn't for Senator Reid, there would be no Barrack Obama presidency. And obviously, if Senator Reid was in any way comparable to the KKK, he wouldn't encourage an African-American to run for the presidency. Rick McKee is a moron.

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Also on this date, the Augusta Chronicle ran a really ignorant editorial written by Walter Williams, who I always jokingly refer to as Rush Limbaugh doing a minstral show. In the column, "Global Warming is a religion," Mr. Williams wrote two obvious lies and made three points that reveal a stunning ignorance of basic science.

Mr. Williams claimed that some scientists "fraudulently manipulated data and engaged in criminal activity revealed in what has been called 'Climate gate.'" Not only is this a lie, but it is a libelous lie. No scientist has been criminally charged in this case. www.factcheck.org posted an article explaining that they didn't fraudulently manipulate data either.

The other lie in this column was Mr. Williams' bizarre claim that CO2 is not correlated with temperature. Temperatures are without a doubt tied to CO2 levels. See www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-temperature-correlation.htm for a good layman's explanation.

Then he listed several points that supposedly debunk the alarmism over rising CO2 levels. These points only reveal how ignorant he is of science. He wrote that humans contribute 3.4 percent of annual CO2 levels while nature contributes 96.6 %. Nobody is disputing that. What scientists say is that this unnatural addition of CO2 may tip the scales and upset the natural balance in detrimental ways.

Mr. Williams wrote that the Cambrian explosion 550 million years ago occurred when CO2 levels were 18 times higher than today. Yeah, and humans could not have survived in that atmosphere. All life forms during this time period were aquatic.

And he wrote that when dinosaurs roamed the earth, CO2 levels were 9 times higher than today. Yeah, and earth was a miserable hot place to live where temperatures seldom fell below 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and there were no seasons. Oceans covered 85% of earth's surface during this time period because there were no polar ice caps.

Mr. Williams was so ignorant about science, he didn't even realize his facts were actually contrary to the point he was trying to make. I emailed him and informed him of his ignorance. His response was one word--"Amen." I'm sure that was a pre-planned response to expected criticism of his column, implying that anyone disagreeing with him was worshipping at an altar of global warming. Nevertheless, his column proved him an ignoramous.

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On January 14th Lee Benedict regaled us with yet another one of his incoherent, right wing rants in his letter, "Actions show where Obama's heart lies." In this letter it seems evident that Mr. Benedict doesn't know what a Zionist is. He also told a whopper of a lie when he said President Obama goes mum when terrorists attack the U.S. I'm not even going to look up a source to debunk this falsehood. Anybody who follows the news knows this is not true. Why would Michael Ryan run something this blatantly false? He won't run my letters accurately documenting his plagiarism because supposedly "they can't verify the accuracy of the content," but he will run ridiculous lies such as this.

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Re: "Huge test of Democratic rule," from the January 16th addition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Conservatives are making a lot of hay about the senatorial election in Massachusetts. Mr. Ryan claims the republican candidate is within striking distance. Actually, that's only according to one poll. All other polls have the democratic candidate safely ahead. The Boston Globe has her 18 points ahead. In any case voter turnout is much lower in off year, special elections. So I believe conservatives are making too much over the so-claimed closeness of this race. We'll see on Tuesday. I predict Coakley wins handily, even considering the low turnout which always hurts democrats.

Mr. Ryan took issue with one statement she made. Ms. Coakley said there were no terrorists left in Afghanistan. Mr. Ryan considered this a large gaffe. Actually, Ms. Coakley is correct. Al Qaida has been routed in Afghanistan, and there are few terrorists left there. The U.S. is fighting the taliban, and they're not the same entity as the terrorists our troops were originally sent there to fight. So what she said was not at all outrageous as Mr. Ryan falsely claims.

Michael Ryan Jumps on the Bandwagon of Conservative Stupidity

2010-01-12T06:58:00.000-08:00

Re: "Hypocrisy over Harry," from the January 12th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

It seems as if Mr. Ryan has to regurgitate every conservative criticism of the democrats and the media no matter how stupid it is.

The latest charge is that democrats are hypocrites because they demanded Trent Lott be censured following his musing that we would be better off if we had elected a segregationist president, but are not censuring Harry Reid's goofy but honest statements about race.

The comparison is ridiculous. Trent Lott expressed support for segregation. Harry Reid merely said some things about race that are true but a little insulting. At worst, they were undiplomatic. But at least he was expressing enthusiasm for electing a black president. Trent Lott was saying we should have kept Jim Crow institutions.

That's a gigantic difference. Anyone who can't see the difference is either just obtuse or wants to make stuff up as an excuse to generate artificial controversy.

Michael Ryan makes an Impractical Suggestion

2010-01-11T06:05:00.000-08:00

Re: "Talk is cheap: lives are not," from the January 10th edition of the Augusta Chronicle."

This column is more evidence Mr. Ryan doesn't read his own newspaper because he makes a ridiculous, impractical suggestion. He states his outrage that every passenger on an airline is going to be scanned and writes, "Rather than assume everyone (sic) a terrorist , why don't we take some practical steps to protect ourselves? Such as: Put everyone on the terrorism 'watch list' on the 'no fly' list. If they're suspected of having terrorist sympathies, why let them fly?"

On page 4A of this same newspaper there's an article entitled, "Experts say Watch Lists a Flawed Tool." The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of people on its watch list, and according to this article, the British have a million people on their watch list. Of these, 99.99% have nothing to do with terrorism and most of the balance have never been convicted of any terrorist related activity. Most are on the list because they're muslim and have similar sounding names as terrorist suspects. Some politicians have even accidentally been put on watch lists. Imagine the chaos and lawsuits that would result, if these innocent people were prevented from getting on a passenger jet. Moreover, these violates the principle Mr. Ryan seems so outraged about--the inconvenience to innocent passengers. Apparently, Mr. Ryan also forgets that in America people are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Not only is this evidence that Mr. Ryan doesn't read his own newspaper, but other comments suggest he doesn't even read the syndicated editorials that appear next to his unsigned ones. Mr. Ryan wrote, "Rather than accept the obvious reality that we're at war with radical Muslims, the vast majority of them young males, we will continue scanning grandma for explosives. Fact is, grandma might want to update her unmentionables: Soon she'll be subject to even more privacy invasions with full-body scanners that strip her bare." Mr. Ryan obviously didn't read Charles Krauthammer's column--the one right next to his own--because Mr. Krauthammer writes, "...Obama did get somewhat serious about the Christmas Day attack. First, he instituted high-level special screening for passengers from 14 countries, the vast majority of which are Muslim with significant Islamist elements. This is the first rational step away from today's idiotic random screening..."

So Mr. Ryan proves his ignorance again. The U.S. is moving more toward a focused profiling of potential terrorists, according to Mr. Krauthammer (no fan of Obama).

The first paragraph of Mr. Ryan's column is more evidence he doesn't read other pundits that appear on his own editorial page. Mr. Ryan wrote that President Obama "finally" admitted we're at war with terrorists. As I noted a few blog entries ago, www.politifact.com rated this claim that Obama wouldn't admit we were at war with terrorists as a "pants on fire lie," but it wasn't necessary for Mr. Ryan to read this website to recognize this lie--Eugene Robinson wrote a column debunking this falsehood last week...a few days before Mr. Ryan plagiarized Dick Cheney by repeating this lie.

Mr. Ryan also joined the chorus of conservative critics demanding that President Obama find a scapegoat for the nearly disastrous Christmas Day attempted attack. President Obama is right not to make the politically convenient decision to blame some individual within the U.S. government unfairly for a mistake made by authorities in the Netherlands.

Michael Ryan defends Brit Hume's ignorant bigotry

2010-01-08T06:25:00.000-08:00

Re: "A good-faith attempt to help," from the January 8th edition of the Augusta Chronicle."

Michael Ryan's defense of Brit Hume's insulting comments about Buddhism completely misses the point of the criticism. Instead, Mr. Ryan focuses his commentary on some over-the-top statements Keith Olbermann made. Normally, I agree with Mr. Olbermann, but his comments comparing Mr. Hume to a jihadist were hysterical, and they obscure reasoned criticism of Mr. Hume.

Mr. Ryan ignores the reasoned criticism. Mr. Hume said that Buddhism doesn't offer the redemption and forgiveness found in the Christian faith. According to Robert Thurman, a professor of Tibetan studies at Columbia University, "adultery is considered an ethical sin in Buddhism..." and "Believers have to look to themselves and turn to an ethical way of life for redemption."

Buddhism actually makes more sense than Christianity which depends upon the belief in an omnipotent God (who also happens to be an invisible Jewish man) for redemption. True redemption does come from within. People claiming they find God are simply making an excuse to turn their lives around.

Mr. Hume demonstrated complete ignorance of a religion foreign to him. His attempt at proselytizing Tiger Woods was just stupid and insensitive. It's like something Archie Bunker would've said. Because he's the former anchor of Fox's main news show, maybe Fox News should be renamed the Archie Bunker News.

Today's Big Lie

2010-01-05T06:59:00.000-08:00

Re: "One by one, targeting the West," from the January 5th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan writes the Obama administration has "refused to concede that we're even engaged in a war on terror."

This is a gigantic falsehood for which Mr. Ryan should be ashamed.

See www.politifact.com in an article entitled "Cheney says Obama 'doesn't want to admit we're ate war."

Politifact rated this claim a "pants on fire" lie. President Obama has talked about our war against terrorist activities many times. He's simply changed the term from war on terror to war on terrorist activities.

Looks like Dick Cheney is another source for Mr. Ryan's plagiarisms.

More Hysteria from Michael Ryan

2010-01-04T07:10:00.001-08:00

Re: "Killing us with Kindness," from the December 28th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Michael Ryan hysterically assails the health care bill yet again with some ridiculous hyperbole. He claims the government is "immorally using our descendents' money," to kill us with kindness. This is just perverse. I think one can make the case that the government is immorally using our descendents' money, but it's not by providing universal health care. It's by wasting money on two immoral, unnecessary occupations of third world countries.

Mr. Ryan makes the wild unsupported claim that "leftists ...have utter disdain for this country's freedoms." Here, he gives no examples. I've got news for Mr. Ryan. Just because people disagree with his political opinions doesn't mean they have disdain for freedom. What a jerk!

Then he writes dependency on the government is the equivalent of "an addiction to crack cocaine." I suspect there is a little racist reference in this metaphor. Nevertheless, dependency on the government isn't like a drug addiction. Mr. Ryan depends on the U.S. armed forces for protection. He depends on the police, and firemen to keep him safe. Does that make him the equivalent of a crack addict. What an idiot!

And as in a previous blog entry, he's inventing stuff in the constitution that's not there. He writes the government is out of control and refers the reader to Article V without an explanation. Article V is merely the process by which new amendments are added to the constitution. I see no support for his argument here. You would think he would bother to explain himself instead of blindly hiding behind the flag, the Declaration of Independence, and an Article of the constitution. This is a frequent tactic of conservatives when they have no real point to make. They must think the majority of readers don't know what's in it.

His final two paragraphs are just a mystery to me. He claims that we're about to lose our liberty without explaining how or why. Then he writes, "What is so sad is that this great country could find ways to make health insurance more affordable and available without turning the entire system...on its head." He doesn't say how either, nor does he ever give support to his argument that the health care reform plan is going to cause "irreparable injury to the U.S. constitution."

Sounds like sour grapes to me. All of these conservative governors threatening to take legal action against the health care reform plan are a bunch of sore losers. When conservatives had control of the White House and Congress they did nothing, they had no solutions. Now that the democrats have passed something, they want to take their ball and go home.

If what they claimed democrats did to get the bill passed was unconstitutional, than none of the bills that ever get passed are constitutional.

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Racist letter of the week award goes to Donald Davis in the January 2nd edition of the Augusta Chronicle. He actually wrote that the U.S. does poorly in health care statistics compared to other countries because we have too many black people and Mexicans whose health care problems are their own fault. He wrote "Fortunately, or unfortunately, our diversity includes racial and ethnic groups prone to abuse their own health..." So in other words, he saying brown-skinned people deserve to suffer because they can't afford good health care.

I wish I could meet this jerk in person and tell them how stupid he is. Mr. Ryan shouldn't allow such embarrassing racist letters on his page, but he wouldn't recognize racism because he is a racist as well.

More Cherry Picking polls

2009-12-27T06:01:00.000-08:00

I was out of town for Christmas break. Yesterday, I returned and caught up on some of the editorials. Once again, I found Michael Ryan cherry picking polls--this time to the point of absurdity.

He was trying to establish how unpopular the new health care plan is. So he mentioned the Rasmussen poll which shows President Obama with a negative approval rating.

But what he doesn't mention is that the Rasmussen poll is the only one that gives President Obama a negative approval rating--44%-56%. All 7 of the other major polls give President Obama a positive approval rating including CNN (54%-44%), Fox (50%-44%), AP (56%-42%), and Pew (49%-40%). CNN's approval rating jumped 6 points just after the Senate resolution passed. Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

Polls showing the public's disapproval of the the health care plan don't break down the opposition. Much of it is from progressives upset that it doesn't include a public option. In any case, it's never a good idea to administer a government based on polls. Mr. Ryan's point in this editorial was simply irrelevant. He's still unaware of who won the 2008 election.

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Re: "Unleash power of the people," from the December 23rd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

I did agree with one point made in this editorial. I think a crash Manhattan style program to establish green energy is a good idea.

However, this editorial contained some twisted hyperbole that was particularly outrageous.

Here is the offending quote: "Scientists promoting the man-made theory are now being investigated for massive fraud and junk science."

There are so many things wrong with this statement it's difficult to know where to begin. First, he's referring to the anthropogenic influence on greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. Sheesh! He can't even write it correctly, demonstrating that he just doesn't know what he's talking about. Second, there are only a few scientists being investigated--out of the thousands of climate scientists worldwide who are convinced man's activities are influencing the climate. Third, these scientists are not being investigated for massive fraud and junk science. They're being investigated to see if they did anything academically unsavory. According to www.factcheck.org , it doesn't look like they did. Fourth, scientists are not promoting this theory. Using the word, promote, makes it sound like they're making money from it. They are no more promoting this theory than a mathmatician promotes the fact that 2 + 2 = 4.

Further on in the editorial, Mr. Ryan advocates nuclear energy writing, "...It releases none of the greenhouse gases the left-wing alarmists are worried about."

True. Instead it releases radiation that can poison the environment for tens of thousands of years.

What an idiot shmuck, Mr. Ryan is.

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I wish the Augusta Chronicle would run Paul Krugman's column. I read the Chattanooga paper while I was out of town and they print it. Paul Krugman is an intelligent progressive, like Eugene Robinson. The Chronicle prints Mr. Robinson, why not Krugman.

Michael Ryan's Imaginary Additions to the Bill of Rights

2009-12-22T12:52:00.000-08:00

My phone line was out of order for over a week, but I'm back.

Re: "Rights worth fighting for," from the December 13th edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

Michael Ryan thinks the Bill of Rights has some amendments that don't exist. There's nothing in the Bill of Rights that says we can't have government run health care. I'd like to ask Mr. Ryan which part of the Bill of Rights declares that the "Government can not run health care."

This column also contains some other misconceptions he has about the Bill of Rights. He writes "Liberals have long wanted to squelch freedom of speech by clamping down on talk radio." This is such an obvious lie. Liberals have never wanted to clamp down on talk radio. Forcing radio stations to give equal time to opposing viewpoints doesn't squelch free speech. In reality, it's commercial radio that squelches free speech because liberal points of view are usually not commercially successful and therefore not heard.

He's wrong about the Second amendment too. The Second amendment is poorly written and ambigous so that it's impossible to tell whether the founding fathers meant the people had the right to bear firearms as individuals or as a group. Thus the continuing argument.

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Re: "Get healthy attitude toward reform," from the December 19th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan is still not clear on who won the election. The democrats did. When the republicans won office, they didn't exactly reach across the aisle for bipartisan agreement.

We know what the republicans goal is in this health care debate. Their leader, Rush Limbaugh, said he wants Obama to fail. If this health care legislation passes, it will be a political victory for Obama. That's what Mr. Ryan and all of the conservative jerks out there are afraid of.

Oh and btw, the Congressional Budget Office determined that the republican plan put forth would not reduce the deficit but it would leave even more people without insurance. The republican plan was a worthless, heartless piece of garbage.

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Re: "It's a health care disgrace," from the December 22nd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

This column was a typical, hysterical knee jerk reaction. Mr. Ryan criticizes Senators for voting for a bill they haven't read. Yet, Mr. Ryan hasn't read it either. How can he be so against it, if he doesn't know what's in it either.

He begins the column off by crying about the debt. Just a month ago he wrote a column suggesting we should have a moratorium on all income taxes. His credibility on this point, therefore, is nil.

Then he whines about how Bill Nelson got a special deal. Well, if Georgia's stupid republican senators would have thought of it, they could have sat on the fence too, and gotten a special deal for Georgia. But no, they had to stick with the republican party line--they want to see Obama fail.

Mr. Ryan tells an outright lie when he states cap and trade will lead to "job killing." Likely, there will be little loss of jobs because old, industrial positions will be almost equally replaced with green jobs according to www.factcheck.org.

Mr. Ryan states, "The federal government is now being run by people with alarmingly scant private sector experience..."

Under Bush, we had the government being run by people with lots of private sector experience. How did that work out?

For his final lie he states, "Remarkably, polls show most Americans doen't even want this reform."On the front page of his own paper in this same addition it says, "Overall, 82% (of Americans) say an overhaul of the nation's health care system is important for recharging the economy,according to an averageof monthly polls conducted since April by the nonpartisan Robert Woods Foundation."

Once again, Mr. Ryan fails to read his own newspaper.

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More evidence that conservatives have a serious problem with math and science comes from Kathleen Parker's column that appeared in the December 20th edition of the Augusta Chronicle. The article was entitled "Merely mortal: Health-care fight teaching Obama a powerful lesson."

In this editorial Ms. Parker states, "that (according to a Rasmussen poll) only 28 % of the nation's voters strongly approve of Obama's performance, while 42% strongly disapprove. Overall, 44% 'somewhat approve' of the president's performance."

28 + 42 + 44 = 114

Ms. Parker doesn't understand percentages. That's greater than 100.

What a dumb-dumb.

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There've been too many stupid letters published on Mr. Ryan's editorial page over the last week for me to comment on them all but I can't resist this one. John Gasko of Martinez wrote an ugly bigoted letter critical of Islam. Mr. Ryan shouldn't run stuff like this, but he's bigoted too so he probably agrees with it. Mr. Gasko doesn't say what religion he is, but I assume he's Christian. He wrote, "My religion does not advocate killing people as I do. Does his (referring to a muslim)?

I found this quote from the Christian new testament. Luke 19: 27 says, "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."

So Mr. Gasko's wrong. His religion does say anyone who doesn't believe as he does should be killed.

Michael Ryan's Mindless Opposition to New EPA Regulations

2009-12-10T05:28:00.000-08:00

Here are some images that show the extent of global warming. The top picture is of Barrow, Alaska. The one on the left is from July 2006; the one on the right is from July 2007. The Bush administration classified this picture because it gave such obvious evidence of global warming. The Obama administration declassified it, and it's now part of the public domain. The bottom images are from NASA's earth observatory. Note that during the summer of 2008, the arctic ice cap almost completely melted and is much smaller than it was in the summer of 1999.

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Re: "Scary, suffocating regulation," from the December 10th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan mindlessly claims that the constitution forbids the government from regulating pollution, yet he cites no part of this document nor any court case that supports his argument. To put it bluntly, he is full of shit once more. If he was correct, there would be no Clean Air Act, no Clean Water Act, and no Environmental Protection Agency. For good measure, Mr. Ryan throws in the Declaration of Independence as another document that somehow outlaws government regulation of pollution. How ridiculous. The Declaration of Independence merely states the U.S. declaration of independence from England and has nothing to do with the rule of law.

Mr. Ryan is mindlessly closing his eyes, shutting down his brain, and pronouncing loyalty to the constitution and the Declaration of Independence. This is an incredibly weak rhetorical method of avoiding debate about a subject he's completely ignorant of.

He calls the EPA's move to regulate greenhouse gases as a "weapon to be used to advance what amounts to a socialist agenda..." There's that word again. Socialist. This is a clear example of more mindless namecalling.

He quotes an anonymous Obama administration source who stated that the move would be used to as a "gun against the head of Congress to exact global warming legislation favorable to the administration's left wing point of view." This is nonsense. There is no political point of view in science. Scientists urge that steps be taken to reduce global warming. This isn't based on political philosophy...it's based on what the science says.

And as usual, Mr. Ryan naively thinks that industry can solve the problem of global warming with "ingenuity, innovation, and entrepreneurship..." As if industry would ever voluntarily reduce pollution. What hogwash. If it wasn't for government regulations strictly enforced, our planet would be uninhabitable from pollution created by unchecked greedy businessmen.

More Lies and Ugly Bigotry from Michael Ryan

2009-12-09T07:09:00.000-08:00

Re: "Godspeed, Mr. President," from the December 3rd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Here's the bigoted quote. "Radical Islam is a global cancer caused not by any policy or actions of the West, but by the insane hatred for infidels and the utter disdain for God-given life that makes radical Muslims one of history's most insidious maladies."

What about radical Christians in America? Isn't it mostly Christians in the U.S. military who have actually participated in an invasion and occupation of two muslim countries--actions that have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians? Christians in the U.S. army went all the way around the world, invaded, and occupied two countries that were no threat to us. The U.S. did have a reason to temporarily raid Afghanistan, but that reason has vanished, since the terrorists escaped to Pakistan. Nevertheless, American Christians are still occupying that country. He refers to radical muslim terrorists as a sickness. It's no more sick than American mainstream support for U.S. government ventures whose sole purpose is to enrich the military-industrial complex.

Everytime Mr. Ryan ties a religion to terrorism, he is revealing his ugly bigotry. Moreover, the next day, he featured yet another ugly bigoted letter, this one by J.F. Rodgers of Clearwater, S.C. who stated, "Patriotic Americans should no longer be the silent majority concerning those who want such so-called 'religious practices' to be acceptable in America."

He's referring to some reprehensible practices among a minority of muslims. But his point is ridiculous. No one is saying abuse and murder should be tolerated. The rest of his letter is just totally incoherent. For example he writes we have "plenty of oil and natural gas under our soil. We are idiots to buy from those who like our dollars but hate us. Al Gore's manmade global warming is a big lie." What do these sentences have to do with each other? If we did have plenty of gas and oil, we wouldn't be importing these fossil fuels. Then he writes, "I resent everything I buy having 'Made in China' stamped on it. If he resents it, why does he buy it? Mr. Ryan won't print my letters but features this one. Go figure.

Below this letter there was another redneck gem. Lee Herron, a sons of the confederate, condemned the defacing of a confederate monument downtown. He compares this to what if someone defaced a statue of MLK and asked why there was no outrage, why the double standard? I'll tell him why. Confederate soldiers were defending the existence of slavery and were traitors to the U.S. MLK was a hero, a real man of peace.

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Re: "Global warming, or hot air?" from the December 7th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Are conservatives just stupid and ignorant about every single subject under the sun?

The only scandal worth focusing on here is this: the scientists' emails were illegally hacked and stolen. Mr. Ryan doesn't even mention or point out that these emails were made available publicly by someone who BROKE THE LAW. And the scientists' privacy was violated. Just a day earlier Mr. Ryan was defending Tiger Woods's right to privacy. But he must think that scientists, whose findings he doesn't like, have no right to privacy.

Political hacks who know nothing about climate science have misinterpeted and taken out of context some things the scientists wrote in the emails to make it sound like they were fudging the data. Yet, Mr. Ryan has the chutzpah to call the scientists "disengenous." Most people would logically agree that anyone who stole private emails and misinterpeted them should be considered the disengenous ones.

Mr. Ryan called the scientists' explanation for the word trick as disengenous, but when Mr. Ryan wrote this, he clearly showed that he didn't take the time to understand what the scientists meant. In other words, Mr. Ryan is being an ignoramous. An explanation for the word trick can be found in an article from today's Augusta Chronicle on page 8C--"Penn State scientist at center of storm over hacked emails."

Here's the explanation which makes perfect sense, but is obviously too nuanced for the conservative-clogged brains of right wing media pundits.

"By trick Mr. Mann (the scientist in question) said he meant only a technique for highlighting data on a graph. ...It's just a way of showing two kinds of data together. Mr. Mann said his method of combining proxy data has withstood numerous statistical tests--lining up neatly with thermometer readings during the 150 years where they overlap."

Here's the explanation for what scientists meant by "hiding the decline." Note, they were not hiding decline in temperatures. They were referring to "a decline reflected in a certain kind of tree-ring measurement on wood density. For reasons researchers can't explain, those wood measurements track neatly with temperatures from the late 1800's to the 1960's. After that, they show temperatures going down as thermometers show the opposite."

Mr. Ryan also falsely claims the mainstream media is ignoring this story. NBC recently ran an unfair criticism of scientists based on these illegally obtained emails, and CNN plans a prominently advertised documentary (that also sounds unfair from the previews) within the next few days.

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Cal Thomas is a conservative media pundit who is always a day late and a dollar short in my opinion, if you'll excuse the tired cliche`.

In today's Augusta Chronicle editorial page he also wrote a column about Global Warming entitled "The flathead society? The debate is far from over on global warming."

His sole source is Leonard Weinstein, an engineer, not a climate scientist. Mr. Thomas quotes liberally from a blog posting by Dr. Weinstein. Dr. Weinstein, of course, debunks anthropogenic global warming with misleading arguments and blatant lies. He claims the short term trend in temperatures is down, defying scientists predictions. This is bullshit. According to an AP article, also on page 8C of today's Augusta Chronicle, 5 of the past 10 years, have been the hottest in recorded history. Dr. Weinstein makes many false claims but the easiest to debunk is his claim that the arctic ice cap is cooling rather than warming.

NASA takes pictures of the arctic all the time. They clearly show that the ice is melting. I'll upload these images on this blog tomorrow.

Michael Ryan should Stick with Plagiarism

2009-12-02T06:59:00.000-08:00

Re: "Right Idea, wrong deadline," from the December 1st edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

I forgot to bring this up yesterday.

Mr. Ryan finally came up with a fresh idea, I think, unless he stole it from Austin Rhodes who I haven't been monitoring lately. He thinks the Olin Corporation should be allowed to continue poisoning our water indefinitely.

Mr. Ryan wrote, "It occurs to us--why not concentrate on when the plant operators commit to a conversion, rather than when they complete it."

This statement clearly shows that Mr. Ryan is a naive idiot. Olin corporation could commit to a conversion, then never complete it. Without a definite date, an order to clean up their act would have no teeth at all.

So Mr. Ryan finally came up with an original idea, but he should've stuck with plagiarizing other people's lies, because this one reveals his incredible naivete`.

In my opinion the plant should be shut down immediately and the company executives imprisoned for poisoning Georgia's water with mercury. If these were foreign Arabs adding poison to our water, Mr. Ryan would be all for hunting them down and jailing them. But apparently, it's ok, for American businessmen to terrorize us as long as they're making a buck.

Michael Ryan parrots America's Mentally Ill Attitude Toward Sex

2009-12-01T06:57:00.000-08:00

Re: "Society in the Sewer," from the November 27th editorial page of the Augusta Chronicle.

The U.S. leads the industrial world in teenage and out of wedlock pregnancies. Yet, Mr. Ryan laments the inability of some prudes in Iowa to keep a sex education magazine for teenagers from being displayed prominently in the local library. The parents wanted the magazine hidden from sight. How absurd? The whole point of subscribing to a sex education magazine for teenagers is for teenagers to read it and learn, not for it to be hidden away, where it would serve no purpose.

Americans have always had a mentally ill attitude toward sex. Too many Americans think sex is something dirty that shouldn't be discussed in public. The reason we have high rates of teenage pregnancies is because of the conservative philosophy that opposes sex education.

Oh and btw, Mr. Ryan must be too lazy to get the remote and change the television channel. He described Adam Lambert's raunchy performance at the American Music Awards in more graphic detail than I wanted to read about. Hey, Mr. Ryan, there are 500 channels on tv now days. Nobody is forcing you to watch this stuff.

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On November 25th Mr. Ryan featured a disgusting bigoted letter written by Lawrence Smith who equated the Muslim religion with terrorism. No Mr. Smith, the U.S. is not at war with a religion. Mr. Ryan should be ashamed for printing this bigoted garbage, let alone featuring it.

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Re: "A disaster--of out own making," from the November 28th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Once again, Mr. Ryan writes of his concerns with the expanding federal deficit. He's running out of subject matter because this has been the topic of one of his editorials at least once a week since Obama's taken office. I don't remember him ever writing one about this topic when Bush was president.

His editorial is laughable and has no credibility because of a column he wrote the week before suggesting there should be a moratorium on income taxes which would lead to an even bigger deficit.

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Re; "Afghan push: Is it in time?" from the November 30th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Here's more unfounded criticism of the president. He writes, "it's hard to argue that the Afghan war effort and the goal of destroying the terrorist platform from which to launch attacks on America hasn't been dealt a severe blow by the indecision of the White House."

First of all, the U.S. has already destroyed the terrorist platform in Afghanistan. According to news reports, there are fewer than 100 Al Qaida left in that country. Second, it's no longer a war, it's an occupation--and an unnecessary one in my opinion. Third, Mr. Ryan provides no evidence for his belief that the delay in Obama's decision has hurt American efforts there.

Mr. Ryan writes that it's hard to argue the delay hasn't hurt, yet he provides not a single fact to support his argument. His criticism is just baseless political bashing completely without ties to reality.

Michael Ryan Caught Writing Many Lies...Again

2009-11-24T06:38:00.000-08:00

Re: "Healthy Debate," from the November 24th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

In this editorial Mr. Ryan does more than just mislead the reader when he ties the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force report to the Senate Health Care bill. He writes "Democratic health care "reforms" include giving the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations essentially the weight of law. Remember, that's the task force that last week decided--apparently as a cost-saving measure--that women don't need to get routine mammograms until age 50, rather than 40."

False! The task force's recommendations about mammograms are not even mentioned in the bill. Mr. Ryan should be ashamed of himself for making this entirely false claim. He should also be ashamed for plagiarizing this falsehood from other conservative pundits.

Mr. Ryan also complained about a 60 minutes episode segment about wasteful spending on the elderly. He fears that this will lead to government rationing of health care. But insurance companies already ration health care. I trust the government more than businessmen motivated by profit, and so should Mr. Ryan.

One more lie from this editorial: Mr. Ryan falsely claims the bill will lead to a massive shift in resources from senior citizens to young people. This is a completely baseless charge and he supports it with no facts whatsoever.

Mr. Ryan lives in a fantasy world where he just makes stuff up, or copies stuff the Glenn Becks of the world just make up.

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Re: "Dogpiling on Palin," from the November 23rd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan is full of dogshit. Here, he whines about the Newsweek cover that shows Palin dressed for running. I don't understand what the big deal is about this. Palin complained that the photo was undignified. She is an uptight, constipated, celebrity. That's how I dress everyday.

Mr. Ryan repeats (for about the millionth time) how he thinks the media treats Obama with kid gloves, yet was brutal to Palin.

This is so untrue. The media unfairly hyped Obama's connection to Ayers and the hot-headed reverend. As if he can help what other people say or do. But Palin endorsed a radical Alaskan group that wanted to secede from the nation, and the mainstream media virtually ignored it.

It's not the mainstream media's fault that Palin comes across as a babbling buffoon.

Mr. Ryan complains that the media focused on Palin's family because her teenaged daughter became pregnant. Of course they did because she actually did something scandalous. Getting pregnant out of wedlock, and getting drunk on the town (as Bush's daughters did) is worthy of tabloid scrutiny. Obama's daughters stay in school and get good grades. If one of them ever steps out of line, the media will jump all over it. Until that happens, Mr. Ryan has no case to make on this point.

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Re: "We're building off the foundation," from the November 22nd edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan brings up the tired old argument about how the federal government is abusing the 10th amendment.

This is an argument that can be settled politically rather than judicially. If these right wing nuts, think states should have more power than the federal government, they can try to elect crazy conservatives who want to outlaw federal programs like social security, medicare, the national park system, food stamps, welfare, corporate welfare, etc.

Good Luck!

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Re: "Close your eyes, pray and hold on," from the November 21st edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

In this editorial Mr. Ryan notes that some business leaders think health care reform will be bad for the economy. Who cares? All businessmen care about is profit, not what's best for the country.

Mr. Ryan also tells a couple of lies in this column too. He writes, "In an effort to provide health insurance to less than 5 percent of the population..."

He doesn't cite a source for this number. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that he either just pulled that number out of his ass or he's being purposefully murky. The health care reform bill will make sure that 95% of people will have insurance, according to news sources I've read.

Another lie is this: Mr. Ryan says the left got its way. If the left had its way, we would have gotten a single payer, socialized system. This was not even on the table for discussion.

Mr. Liean, I mean Ryan also uses statistics to lie. Without citing a source, he states that Americans feel strongly about this issue oppose the plans by a nearly 40%-25% margin.

I googled this number and can't find it anywhere. Most of the polls I've seen show the public is evenly split on this issue. And who is to say how strongly a person feels about it. That would be totally subjective.

Are Michael Ryan and Conservatives Capable of Rational Thought?

2009-11-20T06:31:00.000-08:00

Re: "Obama's Dangerous Show Trial," from the November 17th edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

The decision to try criminal terrorists in New York has caused the latest conservative outrage and, of course, Michael Ryan jumped on the bandwagon this week. Their arguments prove they are incapable of rational thought.

It's a lie for conservatives to say that trying the case will give terrorists "as of yet undetermined access to valuable and sensitive national security intelligence." First of all, if the information is yet to be determined, how do conservatives know that terrorists will get access to it? Second of all, the U.S. government's not going to give terrorists information they can use to hurt us. That's just a ridiculous naive assumption.

It's a lie for conservatives to say the trial will give "terrorists a pedestal to spew anti-American propaganda." Nonsense. No judge is going to let that happen in a trial they precide upon.

And there's no way, these guys are going to be acquitted, as Mr. Ryan fears. The federal government has lots of evidence against these criminals. The feds are not like local prosecutors, such as in the OJ case Mr. Ryan uses as an example. When the feds get an indictment, they get a conviction 90% of the time, and in this case I'm confident they will nail these guys. They wouldn't put them on trial unless they had lots of convincing evidence.

The case will not become a circus. The U.S. government already convicted a 9-11 terrorist in a trial in New York and it never became a circus. Why should this one?

Mr. Ryan claims that the decision to put these terrorists on trial is "an abomination...and a most dangerous and regrettable precedent." It's not a precendent--the Bush administration put a 9-11 terrorist on trial already. And to say that it's dangerous is completely unfounded.

Here's the real reason conservatives don't want these trials: It will look good for the Obama administration when these terrorists are finally brought to justice, and it's likely the convictions will come just in time for the 2012 elections.

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The Augusta Chronicle runs Star Parker's column . This is the woman who supports the legal loan shark industry. She's absolutely opposed to abortion and government welfare, yet she's had 4 abortions and survived poverty, thanks to the grace of welfare and foodstamps. Can anyone say, hypocrite?

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RE: "The White House numbers racket," from the November 19th edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

Here, Mr. Ryan is making far too much of a real Obama administration gaffe. In fact, his column is a hysterical overreaction to it.

Mr. Ryan accuses the Obama administration of being guilty of deliberate fraud or outright stupidity when reporting the number of jobs created by the stimulus package.

I'm sure the Obama administration didn't deliberately inflate numbers because they're aware the media can easily keep track and debunk them. The whole problem is due to a data collecting glitch. The Obama administration made a big mistake because they decided to rely on outside reporting sources.

However, there is no doubt the stimulus package did save jobs--just not as many jobs as the Obama administration is claiming.

Mr. Ryan is just outright lying when he claims the stimulus package is a massive failure. It has helped a little, but was never meant to completely turn the economy around. The natural business cycle will right the economy no matter what the government does. The stimulus package was more of a band-aid and was about all the government could do in the short term.

Here's the real reason Mr. Ryan want to label the stimulus package a massive failure: He wants Obama to fail.

What Kind of Fantasy World does Michael Ryan Live in?

2009-11-16T07:20:00.000-08:00

Re; "Is government-centric approach hurting economy?" from the November 15th editorial page of the Augusta Chronicle.

In this editorial Michael Ryan proposes a "moratorium on the collection of income taxes," as a way to stimulate the economy. It's hard to believe he's serious, and it's kind of scary that such a stupid idea would actually be published in a newspaper of any circulation.

Mr. Ryan has been preaching constantly for the past few months about the conservative movement's fear of the increasing national debt. So what does he think will happen to that debt, if the government stops collecting revenue? The debt will increase astronomically. Moreover, the government will be forced to shut down because it needs money to run it. That's why we have taxes: to run the government. But, of course, Mr. Ryan has stated that he doesn't believe in government, so naturally, stopping collection of income taxes would be the easiest way to end government as we know it.

Where does he think the government gets the money to fight the war on those "Islamic Terrorists" he's so frightened of?

It's been proven many times over that lowering taxes doesn't stimulate the economy. It's a tired, ineffective gimmick. But to suggest a moratorium on collecting taxes is extreme and absurd and shows a complete lack of a sense of reality.

Earlier in this editorial, Mr. Ryan denied hating the president, and referred to charges that he hates the president as "cockamamie." If he doesn't hate the president, why did he call him a cold fish last week? Why does he still accuse him of being unpatriotic (see the flag pin label post on this blog)? Why does he cherry pick polls to show that his policies are unpopular? Why does he consistently bear false witness against President Obama as I've noted on many blog entries here?

Last year, Mr. Ryan blamed Obama for the falling stock market. Now that the stock market's up, he gives Obama no credit for its rise. Instead, in this editorial, he's blaming Obama for next year's unemployment rate which according to one study will be 13%. I predict the unemployment rate will decline next year, and Mr. Ryan won't give Obama credit for that good news.

Mr. Ryan points out that the current unemployment rate is higher than the Obama administration predicted. Supposedly, this means the government stimulus package didn't work, but this is not true at all. Without the stimulus package the unemployment rate would've been even higher. According to the November 15th edition of the Augusta Chronicle on page 1 of the Metro section in an article entitled "Stimulus saves teachers for now," the stimulus saved 400 jobs for two years in Augusta, and 16,000 jobs statewide.

Once again, Mr. Ryan fails to read his own paper.

It's likely we'll need an even more government centric approach to help right the economy.

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RE; "Will they try to fine us for this too?" also from this same editorial page.

I agree with Mr. Ryan on this one. The SEC shouldn't have the power to fine coaches for telling the truth when the referees stink up the field and make bad calls. There's no way, no matter what the Urban's Meyer's contract says, that this fine would hold up in a court of law.

More Hysteria from Michael Ryan

2009-11-13T06:29:00.000-08:00

Re: "If anyone's ill, it's apologists," from the November 12th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

The whole premise of Mr. Ryan's opinion piece is false. Nobody is apologizing for Nidal Hasan, the man who allegedly shot 30 people at Fort Hood, killing 13. Mr. Ryan uses the tragic shooting as an excuse to hysterically attack what he thinks is political correctness. Mr. Ryan flatly denies the possiblity that Hasan was mentally ill and tells us with absolute certainty that it was a "pre-meditated, cold, calculated, and carefully executed act of Islamic terrorism on American soil."

There are a couple of points I find disgusting with his statement. First of all, Mr. Ryan knows nothing about mental illness. He's not a doctor and he's not an academic who has studied mental illness. Some of Hasan's colleagues did express their concerns that Hasan may have been mentally ill. Second of all, there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism. To stick the adjective of Islamic on the noun, terrorism, is simply bigoted rhetoric and has no place in a public newspaper. When a Christian man beats his wife to death, we don't call it an act of Christian terrorism. Why should a person's religion be attached to his behavior? There have been other mass shootings in the military committed by Christians. Nobody referred to these acts as "Christian terrorism."

Mr. Ryan also shows once again that he needs to read his own newspaper because he wrote that "Reports say Hasan had 10 to 20 contacts with a top al-Qaida recruiter..." No, he didn't. AP reports published by the Augusta Chronicle say there's no evidence the radical cleric Hasan sent emails to was a member of al-Qaida. To make that claim is slanderous. According to the FBI, the emails did not give any indication that Hasan was going to go on a shooting spree.

There's no way anyone could've predicted that an army psychiatrist would go psycho. For conservatives to claim that failure to prevent this was due to political correctness is a ridiculous stretch.

Mr. Ryan wrote that Hasan gave a lecture in which he said, "if you don't believe (in Islam) you're condemned to hell..."

I'm agnostic but take my wife to a Christian church because she's disabled and can't attend without my help. More than one person who goes to that church has told me I'm going to hell because I don't believe in Christianity. Does that make them a terrorist threat?

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Today, Mr. Ryan ran a column by Charles Krauthammer, a regular Fox News contributor whose ideas Mr. Ryan frequently rips off. Recently, conservatives have been claiming a big victory in the off year elections because they won two governorships. But they fell further behind in the House of Representatives. I wouldn't call falling further behind in the House a victory.

In "They myth of 2008--demolished," Mr. Krauthammer claims the election was an aberration, not a big FDR re-alignment. It's too early to know for sure, but I wouldn't rush to judgement over one off year election when nobody votes. If we had high voter turn out, republicans would lose big time in every election everywhere. The only reason they won two governorships this time, was because nobody shows up for off year elections.

He also repeats the oft-cited poll that shows conservatives outnumber liberals by 2-1. This poll is B.S. When push comes to shove, the U.S. is a liberal socialist country. Even when republicans had control of all three branches of government, they didn't dare take away Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and food stamps--all liberal socialist programs.

Michael Ryan Repeats Debunked Flag Pin Lie

2009-11-10T06:43:00.001-08:00

Re: "Giving Freedom a Miss" from the November 10th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Michael Ryan repeated the debunked lie that Obama resisted wearing a pin of the American flag on his suit. This is a lie originating with Fox News, and during the presidential campaign conservatives made a big deal about whether or not Obama was wearing a flag pin, even though most of them never wear a flag pin. I bet Mr. Ryan's never worn one. Gee, how un-American. Maybe Billy Morris should fire him for being so unpatriotic.

Nevertheless, the above picture proves that Obama doesn't resist wearing a flag pin.

Obama has also never made a speech in a foreign land, or in America, bashing America as Mr. Ryan falsely claims.

It's quite obvious that Mr. Ryan is an unabashed liar.

Mr. Ryan criticizes President Obama for not traveling to Europe and making a speech at the ceremonies commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall. He did send a videotaped message which, I think is good enough.

Yesterday, on NPR, a historian was reading from President H.W. Bush's diary. The diary entry from 1989 shows that Bush was trying to find a way to slow down events leading to the end of the Cold War. Republicans were against ending the Cold War because they knew it would decrease defense profits. Mostly, Bush didn't like the fall of the Berlin Wall because Gorbachev was making him look bad. Gorbachev did more to end the Cold War than any American.

As usual, Mr. Ryan is simply full of shit.

It's not personal? Bologna!

2009-11-09T06:42:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

He claims it's not personal. Bologna!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Michael Ryan is a hysterical ignoramus

2009-11-06T06:49:00.000-08:00

Re: "The Worst Bill Ever," from the November 6th editorial page of the Augusta Chronicle.

Michael Ryan calls the new health care reform plan the worst bill ever. I can guarantee he's never read one word of it. So how would he know? Rejecting something without studying means he's rejecting it out of ignorance, making him an ignoramus.

Of course, he bases his opinion on what other conservative pundits are saying. For example he cites the Wall Street Journal which called it the "worst bill ever." It's a good bet nobody on the Wall Street Journal editorial board has read one bit of it either. That paper is a right wing, pro-business publication, and their opposition to any democratic bill is knee-jerk and not to be unexpected.

Basing an opinion on what Michele Bachman, a nutty ditz from Minnesota, says doesn't strengthen Mr. Ryan's case either. Ms. Bachman led a demonstration in front of capitol hill yesterday, opposing the bill. Mr. Ryan writes "thousands of tea party activists converged upon the hill." This is a little misleading--it was only 4,000 people (the ugliest group of fat white people a person will ever see)--less than the average attendance of a Richmond County high school football game. They carried ridiculous, racist signs targetting President Obama. The lead, most prominent sign, equated the health care plan with the holocaust. The sign had the words National Socialist Health Care Plan over a picture of dead bodies piled up at Dachau concentration camp. Anybody who thinks improving health care reform is in any way comparable to mass murder is a stupid ass.

Ms. Bachman falsely referred to the health care reform bill as socialized medicine. It's not socialized medicine, not even close, because private insurance companies will still exist and remain the predominate source of funding for health care.

Mr. Ryan writes that eventually "all medicine will be rationed by politics." Logically, most people would rather have government rationing health care than profit-minded, greedy business executives.

I have one other criticism of this editorial. Mr. Ryan noted that "One economist has estimated the federal government is now in control of 30 percent of the U.S. economy. Adding health care would increase its control to about 48 percent." He doesn't cite his source. What economist says this? An anonymous economist can just make up numbers. I would like to know what economist based on what study came up with these numbers.

Michael Ryan's misleading commentary about Obama mopping up Bush's mess

2009-11-02T07:22:00.000-08:00

Re: "Now it's his responsibility," from the November 2nd editorial page of the Augusta Chronicle.

Today, Michael Ryan was misleading readers again. After rehashing Dick Cheney's use of the word "dither" (See a previous entry on this blog for my commentary on this ridiculous point), Mr. Ryan wrote, "Obama and his minions continue to laugh off the lingering economic crisis as somebody else's mess--even pretending to mop it up last week."

Nobody in the Obama administration is laughing off the economic mess, and President Obama never said it wasn't his responsibility. Here's the actual quote--the video is on www.youtube.com

"Another way of putting it is when I'm busy and Nancy (Pelosi) is busy with our mop cleaning up somebody else's mess--we don't want somebody saying you're not holding that mop right. Why don't you grab a mop? Why don't you help clean up?"

This is more of an accurate analogy than a joke. President Obama IS taking responsibility, he's grabbing the mop to clean up the mess.

I doubt Mr. Ryan actually saw the video or he might've actually understood what President Obama was saying. Instead, Mr. Ryan most likely heard about it second hand from Charles Krauthammer or read something at www.newsbusters.com

In the middle of this editorial Mr. Ryan continues to repeat the lie that President Obama's continuing to slide in the polls. As I noted in a previous blog entry, he cherry-picked one poll out of eight to show this.

Mr. Ryan then wrote, "...President Bush stood on the rubble of a disaster (9-11) he didn't cause and took ownership fixing it..."

Obviously, by using the analogy of the mop, President Obama is taking ownership also, but Mr. Ryan is too dumb or uninformed to understand this.

Moreover, President Bush is at least partially to blame for 9-11, but that's an item to discuss on another entry.

Michael Ryan has no sense of humor

2009-10-30T06:34:00.000-07:00

Re: "What Now-Curb Your Outrage," from the October 29th Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

As I showed on a previous blog entry, Michael Ryan allows Rick Mckee's anti-semitic caricatures on his editorial page. Yet in this editorial, he whines about a recent episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which the lead character, Larry David, accidentally urinates on a painting of Jesus. Clearly, Mr. Ryan is a hypocrite.

Larry David was not inciting hatred of a religion or group of people, like Rick McKee's political cartoons do on a regular basis. Mr. David was taking a satirical look at those nutty people who sometimes see Jesus in such mundane items as a French fry. I find this kind of humor quite clever.

Leave it to Mr. Ryan, and a few Catholics to be offended. Mr. Ryan complains that to "cynically mock an entire religious faith's belief in miracles is an insult overlaying an insult."

Any people who believe in religious miracles or any other superstitious nonsense deserve all the mockery they get.

Mr. Ryan further complains that comedy writers would never think of mocking the Muslim faith. Evidentally, Mr. Ryan hasn't seen many episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Mr. David devoted one entire episode to making fun of a Muslim woman wearing a burkha, and he's made fun of his own religion (Judiasm) more often than any other.

Mr. Ryan's whine that Christianity is the only religion to be mocked by comics is just not true, and the occasional theme in his unsigned columns of the persecution of Christianity is based on his own imagination rather than facts.

Larry David is a genius; Michael Ryan is a mentally-retarded plagiarizer. The latter has no business criticizing the former.

BTW, the funniest part of this Curb Your Enthusiasm episode is the sight gag in the final scene.

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RE: "Obama Stews, We Lose" from the October 30th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Once more, Mr. Ryan claims he's not being personal when he attacks President Obama. Don't believe it. He's trying to stick our president with the labels of weak and indecisive, but he has no basis for this criticism. In this editorial Mr. Ryan thinks President Obama is taking too long to decide upon a strategy for Afghanistan.

To support his argument, he quotes ex-VP, Dick Cheney who recently said President Obama was dithering. Dick Cheney has no credibility at all with the American people. This is the man who lied to us about WMD's, torture, and Saddam's role in 9-11. The American people wished the administration he was in would have taken the time to make better decisions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars that have cost billions in dollars, tens of thousands of innocent civilian lives, and thousands of U.S. soldiers lives.

Perhaps conservatives are hoping to rush President Obama into making a bad decision that they can later use against him.

There's no reason to rush. Actually, the best strategy would be to withdraw completely. The terrorists who attacked us are in Pakistan. There are very few left in Afghanistan. Our presence there, no matter how many troops we put in, is little better than a "whack the mole" strategy. The U.S. should withdraw, and if terrorists try to re-establish camps, destroy them with missiles and raids.

Mr. Ryan wrote, "Bloggers and internet posters across the nation are demanding a decision..."

So what? The U.S. government is not based on mob rule?

Whatever decision Obama makes will most likely be far superior to any made by the Bush administration because he will actually be using something unknown to conservatives--brain power.

Michael Ryan Knows Nothing about Climate Science

2009-10-28T07:25:00.000-07:00

Re: "Skepticism is Warming Up," from the October 26th editorial page of the Augusta Chronicle.

Once again, Mr. Ryan is cherry picking polls, finding one that shows that only 36% of people think anthropogenic activities are causing global warming. I'm sure there are many polls out there that differ, but public opinion polls about this subject are completely irrelevant. The vast majority of people are scientifically ignorant.

What really matters is what climate scientists think. 97% of climate scientists who have published peer reviewed studies do believe that anthropogenic activities are causing the earth's climate to warm. These are people who actually study the science and know what they're talking about.

So the first part of the underheading of Mr. Ryan's title, "Like the science itself, public views on global warming are unsettled," is a total lie. The science is not unsettled, at least among scientists who actually study climate.

Source: http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

Mr. Ryan stated, "Thus, if global warming is indeed influenced by humans, we've then taken the necessary steps to reverse it..."

This is a strange comment. The U.S. government or the "we" he's referring to have done very little about climate change.

Furthermore, Mr. Ryan falsely claims that cap and trade will cripple the economy. There's no evidence that cap and trade will cripple the economy. Again, Mr. Ryan is making an unsupported allegation.

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On today's editorial page, Mr. Ryan published yet another column, this one by E. Thomas McClanahan that cherry picked polls. The title of this editorial is "More Voters are Souring on Health Reform."

Mr. McClanahan used a recent Rasmussen poll, but ignored an AP poll that shows support for health care reform is on the rise.

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One more thing worth noting from today's editorial page, Re: "They're making opting out looking good."

Mr. Ryan writes, "The truth is, this country was founded on the notion that a central government would be convened to do the states' collective bidding--not the other way around."

This is not true at all. The debate between whether the U.S. should have a strong centralized government or one based on a weak form of federalism was the biggest controversy the framers of the constitution had. The constitution is full of plenty of examples that show federal supremacy over the states, including minting money and making treaties. The tenth amendment was merely a bone to be tossed to states righters when the constitution was being written. There's nothing in any of the health care reform plans that conflicts with the tenth amendment because judicial precedent has clearly allowed the federal government to take precedence over the states when it comes to issues like these.

Michael Ryan Cherry Picks Poll Results to Mislead About President Obama's Approval Rating

2009-10-25T07:53:00.001-07:00

Re: "Nothing Personal," from the October 24th edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

Here's a classic case of cherry picking poll results. Of the 8 major polls, only 1 (The Rasmussen, the only one Mr. Ryan mentioned) shows President Obama having a negative job approval rating. Even the Fox News Poll has President Obama with a positive job approval rating (49%-45%). The average of the 8 polls shows President Obama's job approval rating is 52.1%-43.6%.

The Gallup Poll, which Mr. Ryan cites incomprehensively as "More sobering for Obama, Gallup reports that Obama's latest quarterly average ranks 144th, or in the 44th percentile, for all post-war presidents during any quarter," has Obama with a 55%-39% job approval rating. So it's evident Mr. Ryan is aware of the other polls.

Considering that the economy is likely to improve as the recession ends, President Obama's job approval ratings are in good shape.

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

Moreover, Mr. Ryan must not read his own newspaper. Recently, the Augusta Chronicle ran an article about how President Obama's stimulus saved thousands of local teacher's jobs. Yet, Mr. Ryan writes, "...others point to the huge economic stimulus package the president insisted would help earlier this year--but which appears has not."

Mr. Ryan needs to spend more time reading his own paper, instead of plagiarizing other conservative pundits.

This editorial is another example of how Mr. Ryan is attempting to smear President Obama with the labels of weak and unpopular--both of which are unfounded. Of course, he also condescends to write that it's nothing personal, that Obama's a nice guy.

If Mr. Ryan genuinely think Obama's a nice guy, than why is he continually smearing him with lies?

Rick McKee uses anti-semitic caricatures

2009-10-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

I'm posting Rick McKee's political cartoon to illustrate three points.

First, he's using an anti-semitic caricature. The bad guy looks like an Arab (or Jew) with the exaggerated semitic nose and a long beard required by some muslim fundamentalists. Rick Mckee is equating semitic Arabs with terrorism. I attached the photos of actual alleged terrorists recently foiled and arrested by law enforcement. Note, they look nothing like McKee's anti-semitic caricature. One is even blonde and blue-eyed and looks Anglo-Saxon.

Second, Mr. McKee makes the terrorist look so menacing, yet the actual terrorists look like the guys next door. It's misleading to make terroists look like menacing monsters. The most reprehensible crimes in history have been committed by rather ordinary-looking people. Nazis in charge of the holocaust, and those guilty of the Rwandan genocide looked just like normal people.

Third, the captioned dialogue is a complete lie. The Obama administration hasn't "outlawed the use of the phrase--war on terror." They simply chose not to use the propaganda-laden words.

The Augusta Chronicle editorial page Consists of Just a Pack of Lies

2009-10-22T05:38:00.000-07:00

Re: "Obama's Flawed Fox Hunt," from the October 22nd edition of the Augusta Chronicle.

Michael Ryan wrote that the Obama administration..."wants to silence dissent and destroy dissenters at home. Ground zero is Fox News."

This statement is a ridiculous lie. The Obama administration is rightfully pointing out that Fox news is little more than a propaganda arm of the republican party. They aren't out to crush dissent.

In this editorial Mr. Ryan once again brings out the tired old whine about how the rest of the mainstream media is liberal. This is mostly untrue as well. The mainstream media is owned by big corporations with pro-conservative agendas. Therefore, journalists are constrained to report in a way that's limited to stay within conservative and centrist ideologies. The mainstream media cites conservative think tanks much more often than liberal think tanks. And although journalists tend to be liberal on social issues, when it comes to economic issues most of them are conservative.

Later in this editorial, Mr. Ryan redundantly repeats the charge he makes in his first paragraph when he writes, "it is highly unusual for a U.S. administration to launch an authoritarian vendetta against an individual news station." This is utter nonsense. The Obama administration has not outlawed Fox news, they've not arrested Fox News employees, they've not even sent the IRS to audit them.

It's apparent that Mr. Ryan just likes making things up. Moreover his claim that the mainstream news has a "left of center oligopoly that has not reflected public opinion" is completely unsupported. He gives no examples of liberal media bias and ignores a recent Washington Post poll that shows that only 20% of Americans identify themselves as republicans. When push comes to shove on such issues as health care, social security, and the environment, the public is overwhelmingly liberal.

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Mr. Ryan's lies are not the only ones appearing on his editorial page. Today, Robert Smock (a regular, contributing, conservative shmuck) adds his lies to those of the editorial page editor. He wrote that Obama took a fairly mild recession and worsened it with taxing the rich. That's just a stupid lie. Obama reduced most people's taxes. The recession was already severe when Obama took office, and the vast majority of Americans understand this. Mr. Smock claims that voters have buyers remorse, but this is just not true either. Obama currently has a 55% approval rating. It's republicans who are sinking in the polls right now, probably due to their irrational and corrupt opposition to health care reform.

On yesterday's editorial page two columnists that regularly run on this page, Cal Thomas and Walter Williams, began both of their columns with ridiculous lies.

Mr. Thomas wrote that "the greatest generation lived within their means." Actually, the biggest national debt in U.S. history occurred during the "greatest generation," due to World War II. To begin a column with such a lie destroys his credibility, but it's been evident to me for a long time that Mr. Thomas is not a very smart man and has little credibility to begin with. He believes fairy tales should be taught in science class.

Mr. Williams is a free market fanatic. In his column yesterday he listed "anti-government" as a good quality for an American to have. Conservatives claim to hate government so much that they don't seem to believe in it at all. Maybe they should stay out of trying to run it then. Mr. Ryan once wrote when criticizing the democrats, "most alarmingly, they believe in government." So if conservatives don't believe in government, what do they belive in? Anarchy?

Mr. Williams falsely claimed that the U.S. is the "most prosperous nation in mankind's entire history." There are about ten nations on earth that have higher standards of living than the U.S. I pointed this out to Mr. Williams once, and he admitted I was right, and he was wrong, yet he's still telling this lie.

Michael Ryan Plagiarizes Glen Beck, The Drudge Report Yet Again

2009-10-20T06:48:00.000-07:00

Re: "A Rotten Role Model," from the October 20th edition of The Augusta Chronicle.

Once again, Michael Ryan plagiarized the latest paranoid invention of Glen Beck and The Drudge Report, that Obama Communications Director, Anita Dunn, admires the late Chairman Mao.

What Anita Dunn said in front of a high school class was that she liked one particular philosophical point shared by both Mother Theresa and Chairman Mao. She didn't say she supported the atrocities or ideology of Mao.

Mr. Ryan also copied Glen Beck's mischaracterization of a statement Ms. Dunn made about controlling the media. She didn't say the Obama administration was controlling the media. She was telling how during the campaign for the office of president they tried to control the message which makes perfect sense--all politicians running for office certainly want a consistent message.

This consistent plagiarization of the most insane conservative pundits in the media is more evidence that Mr. Ryan is an idiotic, lazy editorial page editor.

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Re: "Adored and Ignored," from the October 19th editorial page of The Augusta Chronicle.

This was a particularly weak editorial. Here, Mr. Ryan is trying to give the impression that President Obama is a weak leader. But he gives not a single concrete example. Instead, he cherry picks quotes from other pundits.

Talk about lazy.

Michael Ryan Whines again about Leftist Pundits Giving Tit for Tat

2009-10-16T07:03:00.000-07:00

Re: "Attacking with Acid," from the Augusta Chronicle editorial page of October 16th.

Just 12 days ago, in an unsigned column I commented on here, Mr. Ryan was complaining that the left was guilty of name-calling. The left is only guilty of giving the right some of its own medicine, and apparently, this causes Mr. Ryan to whine regularly about it, because here again is another column crying about how vicious left wing pundits are. Mr. Ryan must be running out of ideas, if he so frequently returns to this subject.

Today, Mr. Ryan took issue with Keith Olbermann when he made Michelle Malkin one of his "Worst Persons in the World." He called Ms. Malkin a "mindless, morally bankrupt, knee-jerk, fascisitic, without which Michelle Malkin would just be a big mashed up bag of meat with lip-stick on it."

Of course, Mr. Ryan completely leaves out the reason why Mr. Olbermann attacked her. Ms. Malkin falsely accused Ms. Carney-Nunez of writing and directing the "Obama Song," that elementary school children sang in New Jersey. You know, the one that's got conservatives so hot under the collar about indoctrination, that they're sending protestors to the school to frighten the children. It turns out Ms. Carney-Nunez had nothing to do with the song, but as a result of Ms. Malkin's false accusation, she's received death threats and hundreds of pieces of hate mail.

Taken in context, Mr. Olbermann's criticism of Ms. Malkin is justifiable. Mr. Ryan's a Christian who has attended his fair share of Sunday school classes. I'm sure he's aware of the evils of bearing false witness.

Mr. Ryan then blames liberals for derailing Rush Limbaugh's bid to become part owner of the Rams. This is entirely false. It's the conservative owners of the other NFL teams who didn't want to have such a polarizing individual causing controversy for their milk-toast product.

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Oh and Mr. Ryan just happened to run Ms. Malkin's column today--"Who's Behind the White House War on Fox News? Corruptocrats."

Once again, her column is full of outright falsehoods. She claims Fox is the one news outlet not in President Obama's pocket. To support this ridiculous, unfounded argument, she cites the example of CNN fact-checking a Saturday Night Live skit that was critical of the President. She obviously didn't watch the segment--her source must have been some other conservative pundit. I did watch that segment. CNN sided with the Saturday Night Live skit, not President Obama.

Furthermore, she claims the "press gurus" keep Obama from looking thuggish. Thuggish? There's nothing thuggish at all about the Obama administration, except for maybe in her own paranoid dreams that she shares with the Glenn Becks of the world.

Her case that the Obama administration is full of corruptocrats because a few worked on a failed re-election bid for ex-Senator Daschle is also weak and generally unfounded.

She finishes off with another false claim--that "conservatives are reveling in the left's hysteria over Fox News Channel's dominance." Fox News hardly dominates the media. Compared to the combined ratings of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC, its ratings are minuscule. And its demographic is pretty much limited to old, white conservatives.

Michael Ryan thinks "Washington should start over" on health care

2009-10-14T06:21:00.000-07:00

Re: "Ship of state appears rudderless," from the October 13th editorial of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

It's taken democrats nearly a year to get a health care reform plan passed in just one Senate committee. And Mr. Ryan thinks "Washington should start over." I've got news for him-- Washington already started over, when the democrats won the election in 2008. So basically, Mr. Ryan thinks "Washington should start over," because he doesn't like the health care reform plan.

I wonder what his response would've been, if when President George W. Bush rammed his initial tax cuts through Congress, a liberal pundit suggested that Washington should start over.

He probably would've considered it laughable.

The excuse Mr. Ryan uses to suggest we need to start from scratch on the health care reform plan is the completely faux propaganda concocted by the PricewaterhouseCoopers report--an insurance company misinformation group. Mr. Ryan admits that "an insurance industry report must be taken with a grain of salt." But he thinks it may have merit anyway. Why? Because he's obviously on the side of businesses profiting, while millions suffer in sickness and bankruptcy. In other words he's in favor of sick people dying quickly, as are all business-crook, conservatives.

His editorial includes the fantasy that government should get out of the way and let the free market solve our health care problems. "Let folks buy insurance across state lines," is their idiotic solution. But it's the free market that has caused the current health care mess. Letting people buy insurance across state lines would reduce competition, not increase it, because big insurance company monopolies would dominate the market, collude, and wipe out smaller insurance companies.

It's obvious, Mr. Ryan thinks we should start over, because he wants no insurance reform. If there's no insurance reform, it will make President Obama look like a failure, and Mr. Ryan, along with all other conservatives, want the president to fail.

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That Mr. Ryan would allow Star Parker's column on his editorial page proves he has no integrity.

In her column "Consumers need protection all right--but from their government," she espouses support for the legalized loan shark industry, the payday loan companies which are criminal business enterprises.

I address her column in my article at www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/09oct/news014.html

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I found the original source for Mr. Ryan's plagarized idea that Obama should "politely decline," the Nobel Prize. It's Doug Heye, a blogger for USA Today who on October 9th, a day before Mr. Ryan's column came out, wrote that President Obama should "politely decline," the award. Of course, all the conservative pundits, including Glen Beck and Michelle Malkin jumped on this silly idea.

In today's Chronicle editorial page Cal Thomas too expresses his jealousy that Obama won the award, while his hero, Ronald Reagan didn't. Mr. Thomas subscribes to the myth that it was Reagan who liberated Europe from the "totalitarian hand of Soviet communism."

I think Gorbachev had a lot more to do with that than Reagan. He's the one who actually tore down that wall.

Michael Ryan Encourages our President to have Bad Manners

2009-10-12T06:29:00.000-07:00

Re: "And the Nobel for Good Intentions goes to..." from the October 10th editorial page of the Augusta Chronicle.

Conservatives sure demonstrate their jealousy of President Obama's influence. Admittedly, he's done nothing to deserve the Nobel peace prize, which is basically an irrelevant award, ever since they gave one to the likes of Yasser Arafat.

Nevertheless, it is an honor for a sitting U.S. president. Incredibly, Mr. Ryan suggests that the president should decline the award. Just within the last few weeks, Mr. Ryan wrote a column lamenting the lack of civility in this modern world, and here he is encouraging bad manners. What a diplomatic faux pas that would be, if the President declined the Nobel Prize.

Mr. Ryan thinks awarding the Nobel peace prize will encourage the president to be an appeaser, and he cites the example of how fighting World War II promoted peace. It is true that sometimes war is the answer, but more often than not, war creates more problems than it solves.

In any case, suggesting President Obama decline the award is another example of the ridiculous jealousy that right wing pundits have for him. This point is not Mr. Ryan's original idea. It's yet another example of a plagiarized conservative talking point that he put very little thought into.

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Re: "Danger: Radioactive," from the October 12th editorial of the Augusta Chronicle.

Mr. Ryan rightly condemns Nathan Deal's reference to "ghetto grandmothers."

I guess the racism wasn't subtle enough for him. Mr. Ryan demonstrated a subtle form of racism in yesterday's editorial, "Free Markets, Free People," when he falsely blamed last year's economic collapse on "government presssure to load Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with bad loans in order to puff up home ownership statistics."

He didn't use the word, minority, but every reader knows what he meant was the government was giving out too many loans to poor black people who couldn't afford to pay the mortgages. This is completely false. Minority loan programs have a higher rate of successfully paid mortgages than average. The collapse of the real estate market was caused by rich people (mostly white) who used real estate as an investment, rather than as a place to live. The speculation caused the value of the properties to skyrocket far past their value, and when the values declined to realistic numbers, lots of people lost their shirts. It had nothing to do with what Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac were doing.

So in one column, Mr. Ryan was scapegoating black people, and the very next day he criticized a conservative politician who was not subtle enough about his scapegoating. However, they are on the same side of the fence.

There is also one laughable line from this column. Mr. Ryan's all for the free market and against salary caps, even though it is the unequal distribution of wealth that causes all recessions and depressions. He wrote "And think of what kind of world we'd have...if all compensation were capped at $500,000. Where would human ambition and striving go to breathe?"

I think 99.99% of the population would be motivated, if they knew it was possible to make $500,000. I don't think capping salaries at $500,000 would discourage very many people.

Another example of Michael Ryan's poor research

2009-10-09T07:17:00.000-07:00

Re: "Give us Substance, not Stagecraft," from the October 9th editorial page of the Augusta Chronicle.

Mr. Ryan writes, "Do you even know, after all these months, where the president stands on the so-called "public option"? Or what 4 or 5 principles he wants represented in a final bill?"

This quote makes Mr. Ryan seem uninformed, and in fact his entire column seems rushed. He must have been too busy to put much thought or research into it.

President Obama's made it quite clear that he's in favor of a public option but would be willing to sign a health care reform bill without it.

He's also clearly listed more than 5 principles he want represented in a final bill.

See www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

It's all pretty clear and simple. He wants 1) an end to discrimination on pre-existing conditions, age, and gender, 2) the prevention of insurance companies' policies of dropping sick people, 3) caps on out of pocket expenses, 4) an elimination of limits to preventive care, and 5) tax credits for people buying insurance. These principles among many others are listed on his website.

Once again, here's evidence that Mr. Ryan does little research, other than the plagarization of conservative talking points from the likes of Glen Beck.

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I do think, however, the contrived press event, where some Obama administration official handed out white coats for all the doctors to wear was an insult to the American people's intelligence.

Rick McKee's Cartoon about Letterman is Libelous

2009-10-07T05:51:00.000-07:00

There is no evidence that David Letterman threatened to fire or promote any women based on sexual favors. There is no evidence that this is a case of classic work place sexual harrassment.
Mr. Letterman is a celebrity. It's more likely that these women were like groupies attempting to seduce him all the time, so they could get a part in his show or become his wife--a lucrative situation. Rick Mckee's cartoon is just libelous.

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Mr. Ryan felt it necessary to weigh in on the bad excessive celebration call against the Georgia Bulldogs in last week's game. He doesn't mention, however, that the rule itself is racist.

The rule was Vince Dooley's idea. The rule was put in place exactly the same time that African-American athletes began to dominate college football. Southern white men just could not stand to see African-Americans enjoying their excellence on the field.

The rule is also completely subjective and should be eliminated.

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Gil Ward is a regular contributor to the Augusta Chronicle editorial page. Today, he wrote this preposterous line--"There is a no reason for a normal healthy person to be poor in America unless they want to be--or unless their leaders and the government want them to be."

What world does this guy live in? First of all, most unemployed people are not lazy or crazy. At times, especially now during a recession, it can be tough to find a job. Moreover, many jobs pay meager salaries. So even if a person works two jobs, they can still be poor. To suggest that the government wants people to be poor is absurd, though conservatives do push policies that keep wages low.

I'm sure Mr. Ward meant to blame democrats and the "cycle of welfare" myth. He doesn't realize that, if any group keeps people poor, it's conservative republicans who are always against minimum wage increases.

The existence of poor people proves the free market doesn't work. I think that's why conservatives hate poor people. Their existence proves they're wrong.

Michael Ryan's Unfounded Accusation that Liberals Weaken America

2009-10-06T07:25:00.000-07:00

Re: "Does the Left Want a Weakened America," from the October 6th Editorial Page of the Augusta Chronicle.

The very first sentence of Mr. Ryan's unsigned editorial is a rather obvious lie I've debunked on a previous entry on this blog. The claim that President Obama was indoctrinating children received the full ridicule of Jon Stewart and deservedly so. The Obama administration was not behind this spontaneous gesture of support. School children sang the praises of President Bush too, and conservatives didn't cry "indoctrination." Conservatives look silly telling this lie, and as we all know, telling the same lie over and over again doesn't convert it to truth.

A second lie in this editorial is Mr. Ryan's claim that President Obama's health care proposal is more unpopular the more he talks about it. It's not Obama's proposal--the bills and resolutions considered originated in the halls of Congress. Perhaps Mr. Ryan needs a refresher course in constitutional law.

Then, Mr. Ryan quotes some unfair criticism coming from George Will who ticks off a list of foreign policy goals that President Obama has failed to accomplish. But these are the same issues that previous presidents, republican and democrat, have failed to solve or in the case of Bush even address.

Finally, Mr. Ryan writes that Obama "springs from a wing of the democratic party that's ashamed of America and its power." What unfounded nonsense. Mr. Ryan doesn't cite a single fact to support this blanket statement.

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On today's editorial page Lee Benedict regales us with another incoherent, rambling letter. This one was about an argument he had with a protestor at Joe Wilson's rally. It's apparent from his version of the debate that Mr. Benedict doesn't understand historical change. Yes, at one time there was a wing of the democratic party that opposed civil rights. They were conservative democrats who have since evolved into conservative republicans. All the racists who used to vote for this wing of the democratic party (the southerners), now vote republican.

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Star Parker's column was another example of her hypocrisy. She's against planned parenthood, yet in other columns she's demonstrated her opposition to welfare. In her world women should be forced to bear unwanted children, but after they're born the children can all starve as far as she's concerned because she's against the government programs that would feed them. She only cares about children when they're microscopic specks of goo in the uterus. After they're born, well, they can "die quickly," so to speak.

Michael Ryan should drop Michelle Malkin

2009-10-05T07:28:00.000-07:00

Michelle Malkin's column today was mean-spirited, pointless, and unfounded.

When Ms. Obama commented about how hard people have been working to bring the olympics to Chicago, the little voices in Ms. Malkin's head translated that into a case of self-absorption. Her statement's was completely unfounded.

Ms. Malkin's been accusing the Obama's of a big scandal of cronyism because they know some people who might've made money, if the olympics had been given to the city of Chicago.

So the Obamas know somebody who might've made money on a sports deal. Big deal. I'd hardly call that cronyism, expecially compared to when George W. Bush put coal mining and oil drilling executives into the Interior department and the office of the Vice-president. Moreover, the accusation is just unfounded.

Ms. Malkin's criticisms of the first lady are petty and pointless and not worth printing in any newspaper.

How this Asian-American woman (who thinks the Japanese internment during World War II was justified) can have a nationally syndicated column is a wonder.

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I didn't disagree with Mr. Ryan's editorial today about second hand smoke, but I did find a couple of the letters appearing on his editorial page kind of amusing. Brian Martin was rebutting a pro-abortion letter. He believed he was falsifying the pro-abortion letter writer's statement that the government can't tell a woman what to do with her body by citing anti-prostitution laws. That's not a real strong point. Sure, the government can make prostitution illegal, but they can't even come close to enforcing the laws. It's the same with abortion.

Catherine Minor's letter was even funnier. She too was writing to rebut the pro-abortion letter. She wrote that Ms. Waller (the pro-abortion rights letter writer) should google opinions that falsify her position.

Maybe the Chronicle would publish one of my letters again, if I wrote "do a google search to see how wrong conservatives are."

Michael Ryan Accuses Left of Name-calling, having no ideas. What?

2009-10-04T07:13:00.000-07:00

Re: "Stop Name-Calling and Come Up with some Ideas" from the October 4th editorial page of The Augusta Chronicle.

I hate to use such a tired cliche' but isn't the pot calling the kettle black here when it comes to name-calling. For years the likes of Rush Limbaugh have called liberals such dehumanizing names as femi-Nazis, welfare queens, environmentalist wackos, etc. The Chronicle used to run a column by Mona Charen who wrote a book calling liberals "useful idiots." They also used to run Ann Coulter's column. Ms. Coulter calls liberals "traitors. In recent years it's gotten even worse with Glen Beck referring to President Obama as a Nazi, marxist, and racist. Tea bag protestors carry signs depicting President Obama as batman's nemesis, the Joker, and others showing him with a Hitler mustache, or as a monkey, or as a jungle bunny.

For Mr. Ryan to claim that the left is using name-calling to a greater degree than the right is outrageous and completely untrue.

To say they're out of ideas is even more ridiculous. It's liberals who, like it or not, are pushing for real health care reform, stimulus plans that do help the economy, and the cap and trade solution to global warming.

These problems that democrats are trying to address festered under conservative rule for decades, and conservatives offered no solutions whatsoever. Now, Mr. Ryan is accusing liberals of having no ideas? Who is he kidding?

Mr. Ryan defends conservatives from being called "wingnuts" by citing the number of advance copies of Sarah Palin's new book that have been sold. He wrote that, "there must be a lot of them (nuts) around." It wasn't his intent, but he admitted it--there are a lot of nutty people around. There is a market for conservative zombies who like to read books that support their pre-conceived notion of how things should be. Once again he also accuses the media of assassinating Ms. Palin's character. The media didn't assasinate her charactre--it's not their fault that she was clearly unqualified and unprepared.

In the tenth paragraph we finally see what has Mr. Ryan so riled up. Bill Maher called republicans lunatics, religious fanatics, flat-earthers, Civil War re-enactors, and bimbos."

Much of what Mr. Maher (a political satirist) said is true. A good chunk of republican support today comes from religious fundamentalists who want to teach fairy tales in science class. Republicans deny the possiblity of anthropogenic global warming, despite the near unanimity of opinion among climate scientists. And there's been more than one republican politician who has made statements in favor of secession from the United States.

And I can see from paragraph 14 why Mr. Ryan is so upset with Mr. Maher. Mr. Maher made fun of Glen Beck, saying he would some day be caught in a dress and playing with feces or something. As I demonstrated on previous entries in this blog, Mr. Beck is the source of the conservative talking points that Mr. Ryan plagiarizes. Mr. Maher dared to make fun of the republicans current, favorite sacred cow.

As I predicted in an earlier blog entry, Mr. Ryan weighs in on congressman Alan Grayson's recent comments on the house floor. Mr. Ryan wrote that it was much worse than what Joe Wilson said.

What Alan Grayson said was so true and not at all comparable to what Joe Wilson said. Here's the difference: Grayson had the floor and was telling the truth; Wilson did not have the floor and was not telling the truth. Grayson did not violate protocol, but Wilson did.

Republicans (and conservative democrats) are opposed to health care reform because they take bribes to protect insurance company profits. Insurance companies do profit when sick people die quickly. What Alan Grayson said was a refreshing (though calculated) burst of fresh air.

Michael Ryan is Right About Roman Polanski

2009-10-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

I almost never agree with Michael Ryan about anything, but he is right about Roman Polanski. The list of Hollywood artists supporting this child rapist should be ashamed of themselves.

Mr. Polanski drugged a 13 year old girl and forced her to have sex with him.

He ended up serving only a little more than a month in jail, then he left the country after a judge was about to renege on a plea bargain deal.

Hollywood stars claim that he's served his time and all should be forgiven.

No, he hasn't served his time, and the constitution forbids the punishment he does deserve--castration.

Whoopi Goldberg made the outrageous claim that it wasn't rape-rape, as if the thirteen year old girl in question was a willing participant which she was not. Let me repeat:

Mr. Polanski drugged and forced a 13 year old girl to have sex with him. That without a doubt is rape-rape.

One of the people signing a petition supporting Polanski is Woody Allen. Woody Allen married his own daughter. No one really knows for sure but it's probable he's brainwashed her and took advantage of her before she came of age. Technically, what he did to his daughter isn't incest because she was adopted, but he was supposed to be a father figure, not a husband.

Woody Allen is a freak, just like Roman Polanski. They are great film-makers, but that will never excuse their actions. I would never let freakos like this inside my household.

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Because this isn't a negative entry, I might as well praise Mr. Ryan for running Eugene Robinson's column. I know many arch-conservative readers of the Chronicle are irate over this, but at least one liberal pundit occasionally gets published on his editorial page.

Michael Ryan Mischaracterizes the Summer of Conservative Temper Tantrums

2009-10-02T07:07:00.000-07:00

Within the last few weeks Michael Ryan wrote an editorial that completely mischaracterized this past summer's rowdy town hall meetings. He actually wrote that "liberals went ballistic when older citizens peacefully expressed their concerns about health care reform plans." Everybody that follows the news knows that's not what happened. Mr. Ryan's comment is not even revisionist history--it's revisionist current events.

People were disrupting congressmen who were trying to explain the various health care reforms being considered. They were hardly peaceful protests, and the admitted goal of the insurance company lobbyists financing and organizing these protests was to "shout down intelligent debate."

In a separate editorial Mr. Ryan suggested using these noisy, brainless tactics to protest House Resolution 2190, which would force chemical companies to reduce mercury contamination of our waters, because it might make Olin Corporation (a local factory that poisons the Savannah River) to lay off a few workers, if they can't comply in time. So in one column Mr. Ryan was egging on ballistic behavior among conservatives that in another column he falsely claimed liberals were engaging in.

Demonstrating this kind of chutzpah shows that Mr. Ryan is just, to put it bluntly, a stupid jerk.

Glen Beck's indoctrination fear/ACORN

2009-10-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

Re: The September 27th unsigned editorial on the Augusta Chronicle editorial page entitled "Hooray Mr. President, you are No.1"

The crazy conspiracy theory that President Obama is somehow planning on indoctrinating children originates with Glen Beck. Mr. Beck is mean-spirited, foolish, and ignorant. Yet, apparently he is now the source of conservative republican talking points.

Both in Michael Ryan's column and in Michelle Malkin's column, which Mr. Ryan redundantly placed next to his, they plaigiarize Mr. Beck's idea that the Obama administration is bent on indoctrinating children with propaganda. The facts easily dispute these ridiculous allegations.

In Mr. Ryan's column he falsely claims that the National Endowment for the Arts held a conference where the director of communications, Yosi Sergeant, asked artists to consider creating works of art to further President Obama's agenda. Actually, he asked them to work with Michelle Obama to create works that would assist groups sponsoring public service projects--something that obviously has nothing to do with the President's legislative agenda.

Mr. Ryan also repeats some senators' false claim that this might be a violation of the Hatch Act. If Mr. Ryan would have done the slightest bit of research, he would've known the list of government agencies falling under Hatch Act jurisdiction doesn't even include the NEA. (See www.osc.gov for the list of government agencies that do fall under this law's jurisdiction.)

Mr. Ryan also implies that Mr. Sergeant was forced to resign as communications director. This isn't exactly true either, but the controversy, generated by the Glen Beck Show, did lead him to take another position within the NEA.

But perhaps the most ridiculous point of Mr. Ryan's editorial was his claim that a song some students sang in an elementary school in New Jersey was some kind of nefarious indoctrination. The Obama administration had nothing to do with this. I think conservatives are just jealous because democrats have a charismatic leader capable of inspiring spontaneous gestures of support. They know they looked silly when they had a temper tantrum last month about President Obama's address to schoolchildren, and they're just looking for some reason to justify their silly opposition. Jon Stewart puts the whole controversy in context in this clip-- http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200909290003

Note: The clip also shows schoolchildren singing the praises of George W. Bush's handling of Katrina.

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Re: The September 28th unsigned editorial on the Augusta Chronicle Opinion page entitled "ACORN who?"

ACORN is a worthwhile organization that helps poor and working class people find jobs, finance housing, and register to vote. Conservatives hate poor people, and they've been out to get this organization for a long time. The recent dishonest documentary produced by James O'Keefe and funded by business lobbyists does do a great deal of damage to ACORN. The documentary is dishonest because Mr. O'Keefe claims that no ACORN offices turned him down when he was baiting illicit counseling. In fact police records prove that some ACORN employees did reject and report him. It's a shame ACORN, which does so much good, now has an unfairly tarnished reputation.

In his editorial Mr. Ryan quotes a Wall Street Pundit, John Fund, in an attempt to tie President Obama with ACORN, as if that would be a bad thing. Here is the misleading quote:

"He (Obama) became a top trainer for ACORN's Chicago conference. In 1995, he became ACORN's attorney, participating in a landmark case to force the state of Illinois to implement the federal Motor Voter Law. That law's loose voter registration requirements would later be exploited by ACORN employees in an effort to flood voter rolls with fake names."

President Obama was never a paid employee of ACORN, though it is true he worked alongside U.S. Justice Department lawyers on one case--that's not much of a connection. ACORN reported irregularities with voter applications they paid for. Lazy workers defrauded ACORN--that's the truth of this matter. There is no evidence whatsoever that any of these phony names ever made it on to voter rolls or were counted as votes.

Shame on the pathetic cowards in the democratic party, and the crooked pro-business republicans for defunding ACORN, a violation of the constitution's Bill of Attainder provision, as pointed out by Rachel Maddow.

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I predict Mr. Ryan will weigh in on Alan Grayson's comments on the house floor, and he will, as usual, copy conservative talking points. Just wait and see.

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Local radio talk show host, Austin Rhodes, has suggested my blog is slanderous. There's nothing slanderous about it, and I challenge anyone to find slander on any blog I've written.

This blog is a critical review of the Augusta Chronicle Editorial Page

2009-09-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

The Augusta Chronicle newspaper in Augusta, Georgia has banned me from their message boards and will not publish my letters critical of their editorial page. Michael Ryan is the editorial page editor of the Augusta Chronicle, thus this blog is named after him because he's ultimately responsible for all of the ridiculous lies and plagiarized conservative talking points that appear on the unsigned commentary of his editorial page.

I begin this blog with the subject of a letter I sent that the Augusta Chronicle refused to publish. The subject was an Augusta 16th unsigned editorial on the Augusta Chronicle editorial page that repeated a lie about an ABC news interview Charlie Gibson conducted with President Obama at a public forum. According to Mr. Ryan, Mr. Gibson asked the president whether he would give up his health insurance plan for one of the plans being considered by Congress, and the president ignored the question. Mr. Ryan never attributed the source of this lie--a chain e-mail, probably being spread by insurance company lobbyists. Brooks Jackson of www.factcheck.org examined this lie.

A physician asked a similar question and President Obama did give a long and thoughtful answer. The transcript is available on the above mentioned website. The title of the article is "A Question not left unanswered." Mr. Ryan needs to find better sources of information than chain e-mails.

Moreover, Mr. Jackson wrote that the notion Congressmen will be exempt from any plan they put forth is entirely false.

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I started The Michael Ryan Watch on townhall blogs, but they took my blog down and won't recognize my e-mail address, so they've blocked me. Townhall is for conservative blogs; mine was a liberal slant. I was curious how long my liberal blog would last there. It lasted only for three days. Evidentally, since President Obama's been elected, it seems to me that conservatives are less and less tolerant of other viewpoints. In any case, the subjects of the other two blogs entires I wrote on the townhall version The Michael Ryan Watch (ACORN, Mr. Ryan's plagiarism of Glen Beck) will be discussed here tomorrow.