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.
Showing posts with label Alan Grayson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alan Grayson. Show all posts
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Glen Beck's indoctrination fear/ACORN
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.
**********************************************************************************
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.
**********************************************************************************
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.
*********************************************************************************
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.
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.
**********************************************************************************
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.
**********************************************************************************
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.
*********************************************************************************
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)