Will Michael Ryan Issue a Retraction?

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

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

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

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.

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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.

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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

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

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

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.