Michael Ryan Allows Personal Attacks on His Editorial Page

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

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

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

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

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

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

It should not have been published, let alone featured.

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

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

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

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

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Rick Mckee drew a couple of stupid cartoons this week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Misusing a foreign language shows embarrassing ignorance.

Rick Mckee Draws another Ridiculous Cartoon

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.

Rick McKee uses anti-semitic caricatures

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.

Rick McKee's Cartoon about Letterman is Libelous

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.