More predictable replies

A few days ago, the Oklahoman ran a letter lamenting yet another State Senate bill trying to introduce the teaching of creationism in our schools. I wrote that following this, we "can therefore count on a new barrage of 'evolution is false!' letters in the coming days and weeks" from the paper. Obviously, I was right, as the other day we heard from David Wallace from Warr Acres.


It's not worth getting into Mr Wallace's "letter" (see what I did there?), since it just rehashes the same arguments that have been covered several times already. Never mind that Mr Wallace misquotes things, and never mind that Mr Wallace doesn't know hat science is-- once you drop the "evolution cannot be scientifically verified" line, you have proven yourself to be an idiot.


But the Oklahoman is all too happy to run letters by idiots-- letters that say idiotic things-- as long as they push their theocratic agenda. And thus we get this drivel. It is an embarrassment, but to be expected. 

PATHETIC interlude

While the creationism "debate" is in full swing, I wanted to highlight a letter that I was stunned to read. Michael Bollinger of Blanchard writes:

I've seen articles and ads by "citizens" who want more spent for education, bridges and prisons. They're trying to persuade Oklahomans to allow the state to keep the current tax rates verses giving everyone a tax cut. The assumption is the state can provide more dollars to invest in education, bridges and prisons. If these issues are so important and worthy, why don't all the "citizens" who don’t need tax cuts donate the amount that would be cut to universities or to the state for bridges and prisons? This is especially for those in the top 5 percent who earn over $242,000.

Before getting to the nuts and bolts of this letter: what's with the shitty "citzens" in quotes? Oh yeah-- cheap rhetorical ploy. I guess I can say that Mr Bollinger has written a "letter" and feel OK about that. Now...


THIS IS THE MOST PATHETIC ARGUMENT OF ALL TIME. It's a classic-- if X is so important to you, then why don't you pay extra and let me have my tax cut. (Here is a hint on how that goes: everyone plays the selfish card and opts to pay for nothing assuming that the Next Guy will pay for whatever and then we delve into anarchy-- GREAT IDEA!!)


HERE IS AN AWESOME IDEA: Fine. Those of us who care about roads and bridges will pay for them. BUT THEN YOU CANNOT USE THEM. And moreover, you ALSO can't use businessesor services that use them. You can grow your own food, and somehow get gasoline pumped into your cars, and fabricate your own TV and radio. But that's it.


ACTUALLY, that's NOT it. Because some educated American-- who at some point benefitted from some public education-- at some point played a role in whatever technology you use. So you can't have that either. SO LIVE LIKE A CAVE MAN.


This clown goes on:

We should support and invest in education, bridges and prisons, especially those in the top 5 percent. I just don’t see it as the state's obligation (let's not overtax everyone for these causes). Everyone should pay a fair tax. Instead of being overtaxed, let everyone choose what to do with the money they earn.

Holy shit. So... the state isn't obligated to fund education?!? Or infrastructure? What fucking Hobbesian world does he think we live in?!? Jesus Christ.


This guy is the dumbest person who has ever written into the Oklahoman-- and that is an amazing accomplishment.


But more stunning is that the editors let this letter run. Ooops-- this "letter"!! Would a real newspaper run a letter like this?!? Someone has to stop this. It is an embarrassment!!

Creationism is back!

Every few months-- seemingly out of the blue-- the Oklahoman runs a series of letters discussing evolution and the faux-controversies of its being taught in schools. We have seen this before. Usually, the opening salvo comes from the creationists who throw out nonsensical numbers and pledge personal incredulity. This is followed by a reasoned letter from someone who rightly notes that it is important that our students know facts about reality and that teaching creationism in schools is not what we need to be doing. This is usually followed by yet more creationist drivel, and the debate dies for a few months.

Sometimes, though, the opposite happens, and this seems to be the case with today's letter from David Grow of Edmond, OK. Now, we have heard from Mr Grow before, and on the same topic of evolution. Today, he writes:

State Senate Bill 1765 is a poorly disguised political ploy designed to compromise the teaching of solid, vetted science, particularly evolutionary science. The bill was copied, almost verbatim, from a model bill floated annually in many states and written by the Discovery Institute, a creationist intelligent design propaganda organization. This bill would protect religiously motivated teachers from disciplinary action for presenting objectively false, unscientific claims in public school science classes. Supplementary materials addressing the 'controversial topics' in science addressed in this bill are produced by political propaganda organizations and aren’t the product of rigorous scientific inquiry.

Indeed! And anyone who looks at SB 1765 (a link to a download to a MS Word document) can see this in section C:

Neither the State Board of Education, nor any school district board of education, school district superintendent or school principal shall prohibit any teacher in a public school district in this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.

Hmmm. Sounds pretty harmless-- unless you recognize that the whole "critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories" bit is code for "tell students that evolution is wrong and that creationism is right" and then you begin to understand.

This is clear in section B:

The State Board of Education, school district boards of education, school district superintendents and school principals shall endeavor to assist teachers to find effective ways to present the science curriculum as it addresses scientific controversies. (My emphasis)

The "scientific controversies" is just "evolution vs. intelligent design" which, as we all know, is just code for creationism.

 And what is this is this in section D:

This section only protects the teaching of scientific information and shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs or non-beliefs or promote discrimination for or against religion or non-religion. (My emphasis)

Got that? So it's written that the law is not written to "promote the discrimination for or against . . . religious beliefs or non-beliefs" or for "religion or non-religion." This is awkward phrasing. Given that things are either religions or not religious, then it sounds like this law can't do anything. The phrase: I will not be for or against anything that eats Triscuits or doesn't eat Triscuits is nonsensical. So the whole thing is stupid.

In any case, Mr Grow rightly concludes that

This bill doesn't promote academic freedom or critical thinking. It's a dishonest attempt to permit a narrow sectarian religious agenda to be presented in public school science classes. Such bills aren't business friendly and have a perfect history of failing in federal court. Let’s not do this to our children.

 We can hope (though, don't have too much) that state legislators will heed Mr Grow's words. Unfortunately, we know one group who definitely won't: The countless theocrat goons who read the Oklahoman. We can therefore count on a new barrage of "evolution is false!" letters in the coming days and weeks as the paper engages in its classic point/counter-point strategy.

Right writing

Refreshingly, the Oklahoman does run well-written, topical letters. It is perhaps not a coincidence that those letters tend to espouse more progressive views. For instance, just the other day we saw this letter from Novice McCarthick-Boyd of Tishomingo. Titled "human nature complex," it reads:

Alan Keyes' 'Don’t be tricked by libertarian proposal' (Point of View, Feb. 1) is as unrealistic as Nancy Reagan's 'Just Say No' agenda. His whole premise is erroneous: 'Marriage is an inalienable right'? He claims that the 'recent judicial rulings in Utah and Oklahoma rejected the voters' wishes regarding the definition of marriage.' One of his absurd statements was that 'government exists to secure God-endowed unalienable rights.' I hope the day never arrives in this country when we allow the government to decide rights on the basis of how 'God' endows them!

Again, the editors lazily fail to use hyperlinks-- a basic of web editing-- and so we are forced to go on our own to find the column that is being referred to. But before getting into that, note how Mr McCarthick-Boyd's letter is written: He avoids the use of clichés and tired sports analogies. There is no sarcasm. He doesn't try at using folksy witticisms. It doesn't begin with "Four score and...."

Instead, it does what a letter should do: it refers to a recent column and voices some opinion on it in a succinct way. 

The letter concludes:

He presumes that the 'right' to define marriage as being between a man and a woman is a 'God endowed natural right.' The 'natural family' is defined as a man and a woman and their children. Human nature is much more complex. There’s no proof that man is even monogamous. Keyes quotes Scripture: 'Be fruitful and multiply.' He expects us to overlook the biological fact that the species can do that without the 'benefit of clergy.'

There isn't much more to say here. Regardless of what you think about Mr McCarthick-Boyd's position (though, he is obviously right), it is the sort of letter the Oklahoman should run. Instead, we get random whining about how we are turning into Nazi Germany, or failed attempts at humor directed toward things like climate change.

Ridiculous writing

A common feature in the letters of right-wing nut jobs published in the Oklahoman is that they engage in the worst sorts of rhetorical tools to express the points they want to make. Thus, we have clowns likening the interaction of politics and the press to a basketball game with slanted officials. And another idiot whines that Republicans are too often portrayed negatively in books and film.

And now we get an even worse letter, where B. A. Bauer of Oklahoma City begins:

Sadly, the state of our nation can be described by three fiction novels and a movie

No, no, Mr Bauer. What's sad is that you've opted to spin a narrative using a few fiction novels and a movie.

Seriously: THIS IS PATHETIC.

Wait-- no, what is really pathetic is the choice of novels and a movie he uses to get his point across:

•“1984” (George Orwell, 1949): Big Brother is watching; think NSA and drones.

Wow! Using 1984-- a novel about the dangers of a totalitarian society in an age of hyper-advanced technology-- to complain that you think our country has become a totalitarian society in an age of hyper-advanced technology! How thought provoking!! I'm so happy this guy was able to express such keen and insightful views!!

•“Atlas Shrugged” (Ayn Rand, 1957): What happens to global society when the 'takers' outnumber the 'makers' and social engineering prevails; think political correctness and the increasing number on food stamps and unemployment and/or welfare, 'free' health care.

Oooh! Citing one of the worst novels ever written-- with trite, childish, and one-dimensional characters acting in a world that bears no resemblance to reality at all. But it allows Mr Bauer-- who clearly hasn't bothered to think for himself for years-- to parrot lines like "takers and makers" as though there is any sense to such mantras in the real world. And seriously: you have to be utterly stupid to imagine that the "increasing number on food stamps..." is an example of anything but a consequence of a major economic downturn. Here is the chart:

 

 

It may be too small to read, but if you look, you see 1969, and then 200, and then 2008. You'll see that the numbers go up during hard economic times (like the early 80's and then the early 90's) and then go down as the economy improves. Note, for instance, how towards the end of the Clinton years as things were humming along, the need for Foodstamps dropped. And then, see again that shortly after Bush took over-- after the 9/11 disaster, and then the collapse of the housing market-- those numbers rise.

 

This has nothing to do with some truly idiotic Randian notion of "takers" emerging because everyone became lazy and decided that not working and getting $125 a month for food is way better than just working and getting many times that.

But wait!

•“Captains and the Kings” (Taylor Caldwell, 1972) features a cabal of faceless ultra-rich individuals who owe no allegiance to any country but get together to manipulate world events to acquire more wealth for themselves. Think George Soros and like individuals. 

If there were any wonder about the age of Mr Bauer, there shouldn't be now. To be sure: Captains and the Kings, while a popular book in 1972-- popular enough to have been made into a miniseries in 1976 (back when people 4 TV channels to watch, and no VCRs, let alone DVRs or Netflix)-- has absolutely no resonance or cultural significance to anyone under 65. None. Zero.

Of course, the point it makes is clear enough and does resonate: we should be worried about the fabulously wealthy as they try harder and harder to get more and more wealth. Indeed! But... his example is George Soros? Ah yes-- George Soros spends his money on supporting a progressive agenda. And that's bad. So... somehow he is the best example of wanting to acquire more wealth for themselves?? Wait. I'm confused. Because as a progressive, hasn't Soros said he should pay more in taxes? In an interview, didn't he say "if you have better distribution of income, the average American will be better off"??? BECAUSE THAT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE SOMEONE WANTING TO ACQUIRE MORE WEALTH.

No, super rich people who want to get richer tend to be-- tend to be-- from the right. People like the Koch brothers think that lowering taxes and getting rid of the minimum wage are good things. (For them.) Or people like that billionaire who think that talking about income inequality is just like the Germans attacking the Jews in Nazi Germany.

No allegiance to any country? You mean like the countless megacorporations that pay no US taxes because they are technically headquartered on some Caribbean island?!? Yes, but our problem is really George Soros.

Anyhow, so after three lame attempts to somehow show how America is heading towards "socialism" via book titles, he turns to movies. And, boy, does he:

•“Demolition Man” (starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes, 1993): A criminal and renegade cop, who were thawed after being cryogenically frozen (incarcerated), wake to a society that controls what individuals can eat, say and do (because “that's what's good for you”). Think former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's edicts and controls of soft drinks sizes, salt and fat consumption.

 HOLY CRAP. So, he is turning to a so-so film loosely based on Brave New World to complain about what he imagines is America's dystopian future? And his best example is a guy who is no longer mayor of a US city and his ideas to improve health in and increasingly unhealthy world by trying to limit in some ways the amount of sugar and salt people consume?

Seriously. And let's not forget that Bloomberg's rules were struck down by the courts and thus a non-issue. Sure, one could say "well he tried, and that's proof of whatever nefarious conspiracy that I want to hype in my stupid letter..." but we could say that about anything, then, couldn't we?

And what harm is there in an elected official trying to enact rules to make us healthier? We already have laws in the books prohibiting companies from using lead in various products, no? Like, there is a reason that we don't use lead pipes to carry water. Is this, too, some sort of "Demolition Man" future??

Point is, Mr Bauer's letter is one of the worst this paper could run. It uses a cheap and ineffective rhetorical tool to say something quite banal: the author hates things like (his reactionary, caricatured idea of) liberals, George Soros, and Michael Bloomberg and imagines that people like them are ruining the country. Boom. That's all. That is his letter.

Would a real newspaper run such a totally lame letter expression such a slanted view of society past and present? No. But the Oklahoman isn't a real newspaper and so as a propaganda machine is all too happy to run such drivel as noteworthy opinion. Nothing could be more pathetic-- or expected.

Massaging the statistics

The Oklahoman often publishes factually-challenged letters. Rarely, if ever, are those letters corrected-- either by the editors themselves, or by subsequent letter-writers. This is because, of course, most of the factually-challenged letters are ones espousing right-wing views and it would go against the paper's propagandistic agenda to start challenging such things.

Thus, we get today's letter from Joe Moore of Oklahoma City. This is one of the paper's "Letters of the Month" so one would hope that it is well-written, intellectually sound, and makes some trenchant observations. Unfortunately, it fails in most regards.

Mr Moore begins:

Tyler Schwartz (Your Views, Dec. 29) wrote that 31,000 Americans are annually 'gunned down' in private homes and backyards. This is a misleading distortion. Of the U.S. firearms-related deaths in 2011, the latest year for which full statistics are available from the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control, 17,000 were suicides — not innocent citizens criminally gunned down. Another 9,000 involved only inter-gang and intra-gang warfare — not innocent citizens criminally gunned down.

About 4,000 more were criminals, who, while in the commission of a felony, were killed by police and armed private citizens. Fewer than 2,000 innocent citizens were actually 'gunned down' that year.  

Whoa. First off, this letter originally ran back on January 12th. Why not announce it as the "winner" of the special "Letter of the Month" award back then? Perhaps they wanted to wait until the end of the month? But then, it is half way into February! Do the editors really put any thought into this meaningless "award" at all?!?

As noted already, the Oklahoman is famous for running letters that say whatever, even if the "facts" stated therein are completely baseless. So red flags should immediately come up when someone starts putting out gun "facts" in their letters.

Moreover, it is sort of pathetic the editors are "rewarding" a letter that attacks another letter (editors: there are these things called hyperlinks where you can direct readers to articles and letters previously published!!!) that critiques one of your own editorials. It's the whole point/counter-point on steroids. Classless, but perhaps expected.

Anyhow, Mr Schwartz originally notes that "the 100 or so yearly deaths from mass killings shouldn't serve as the primary impetus for discourse on preventing firearm-related violence. The 31,000 Americans gunned down annually in our backyards and private homes should serve as that impetus." Mr Moore disagrees with these numbers-- and claims that facts are being distorted.

So what are the facts? To be sure, Mr Moore is right that ca. 19,000 (he says 17,000; my figures are different-- but I have linked mine so they are, unless proven different-- superior) of those 31,000 deaths are due to suicide. But it isn't clear why those should be discounted in the larger discussion of what guns bring to the table in terms of  the danger of guns in society. While it is difficult to arrive at solid numbers, it is easy to see how guns facilitate suicide-- it is much quicker and easier to grab a weapon and pull a trigger than it is to engage in some of the other more common methods of suicide-- like jumping off a high edifice, or taking drugs, or whatever. Indeed, just over half of all suicides come via firearm. But one imagines that some people would probably be alive right now if their access to firearms were limited when it came to wanting to off themselves.

Nevertheless, Mr Moore dismisses these 19,000 firearm deaths as not worth considering and moves on. Amazingly, he then goes on to say that some 9,000 firearm deaths are gang-related and thus also not worth considering in the gun debate. Unfortunately, it is impossible to know where he gets this number. A blog posts the same thing (8,880 to be exact), but the link that the blog uses to back up its number provides no such support. Indeed, neither the number 8,880 nor the word "gang" shows up in the report.

Assuming this is true (a bold assumption, and one must even wonder who is in charge of determining if something is "gang-related" in the first place), let us wonder if we need to just dismiss those numbers out of hand. Read through some of these murder blotters for a moment. Even though none of these specifically say "gang-related" (definitions, definitions...), if we posit that some significant number of handgun-related murders are gang-related (as Mr Moore does), then at least some of those listed in the above link no doubt fit in that category. And yet, do we imagine that we should just dismiss those deaths as unimportant in a discussion of handguns and their role in American society?

If a 19-year-old kid is shot to death in the middle of the afternoon on your block, should you comfort yourself and just think, well, it was probably gang-related so I am perfectly safe? Does Mr Moore know that stray "gang-related" bullets can kill people??? It seems callous and cold to imagine that if some teen-aged boy gets involved in some bad things as a kid that his death is somehow OK or deserved.

Going on, Mr Moore dismisses another 4,000 deaths as being OK because it was by the police or "armed private citizens." No doubt with this last bit, Mr Moore is imagining the largely fictional (but for people like him, totally ejaculation-worthy) scenario where some crazed murderer breaks into Mr & Mrs Whitebread's home, only to be gunned down at the last minute by Mr Whitebread and his arsenal of weapons. And while we can imagine that sometimes there are justified reasons for killing someone who is in the act of committing a robbery, there are certainly plenty of others were there is scant justification-- of when it is completely accidental!

So we are left with only 2,000 people, according to Mr Moore, who didn't deserve to be "gunned down" in 2011. As I have shown, though, Mr Moore's own interpretation of the data he presents is slanted in its own way. He imagines that if a brown kid is gunned down in Urban America because of "gang-related" activities, it has no impact on anyone-- not the kid's family, or his neighbors, or friends. He just dies because he deserved it. Likewise, if a person with depression issues takes his own life with an easily-obtained handgun, that is also OK. Because-- obviously-- if a gun weren't available, he would have done it another way (even if there is evidence to the contrary).

While there is certainly plenty of room for honest discussion about guns in society, letters like Mr Moore's hardly fit the bill. His statistics-- and his logic for using certain numbers-- are pathetic and sad. And yet the Oklahoman-- as a sop to the gun-toting god-fearers-- runs this sort of discussion to further its right-wing agenda. A real newspaper would never consider Mr Moore's letter at all, let alone award it as a "Letter of the Month". But the Oklahoman isn't a real newspaper and so things like this are printed-- and praised.

Sad.

Our monotonous ride to socialism

Another day, another incredibly stupid letter from some right-wing nut job that the Oklahoman nevertheless sees fit to run. This time, it is a letter by Dennis Gronquist, who writes:

Four score and seven years ago (1927) Charles Lindbergh made the first nonstop solo transatlantic flight. The event overshadowed the crash of the German economy, which led to the rise of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi) to power in 1933. For a dozen years America struggled with economic depression and tried with earnest to ignore the rising tide of socialism in Germany and how corrupt its utopian dream had become.

HOLY CRAP. What's with the "four score" thing? What a tired and useless rhetorical trick. And why bring up Lindbergh at all? Is it really the case that a singular event would overshadow years of economic woe in Europe?? And why the hell are we getting yet another history lesson?!? Why do right-wingers write letters with stupid-- and always factually challenged-- history lessons designed to tell us that we are this close to Communist Russia and/or Nazi Germany??? Here is ol' Ronald Bouwman telling us that

The communists and the Nazis (national socialists) killed more innocent people than died in all the wars in all the world history that preceded them. America must recognize the potential disasters that now threaten her.

Nazis and commies. All the time. And note that he-- just like Gronquist in today's letter-- includes "national socialists" to get that in there-- so basically Nazis were socialists. Except, of course, they weren't. At least, not how it is typically imagined. Indeed, from Wikipedia on the book Preussentum und Sozialismus by Oswald Spengler:

Spengler responded to the claim that socialism's rise in Germany had not begun with the Marxist rebellions of 1918 to 1919, but rather in 1914 when Germany waged war, uniting the German nation in a national struggle that he claimed was based on socialistic Prussian characteristics, including creativity, discipline, concern for the greater good, productivity, and self-sacrifice. Spengler claimed that these socialistic Prussian qualities were present across Germany and stated that the merger of German nationalism with this form of socialism while resisting Marxist and internationalist socialism would be in the interests of Germany.

Spengler's Prussian socialism was popular amongst the German political right, especially the revolutionary right who had distanced themselves from traditional conservatism. His notions of Prussian socialism influenced Nazism and the Conservative Revolutionary movement. [Emphasis mine]

Indeed, when you read what Spengler says, it is quite interesting in how totally unlike the conventional definition of socialism (as used by right-wingers as an anti-Democratic boogeyman buzz word) it is. Indeed, it seems that the whole "socialist" aspect of the party was really just a "demagogic gambit designed to attract support from the working class."

People like Dennis Gronquist, too stupid to actually know what the Nazi party was really about, just see the word "socialism" and imagine that, well, it must have been socialist. Boo!

This makes the rest of his letter quite pointless: Gronquist is worried that

We’re giving it to the labor unions, private and public, just as the Germans once did. Politicians promote hate of opposition. We’re falling for that socialist utopian dream that is doomed to fail.

Unfortunately, we aren't doing anything "just as the Germans did" because Gronquist doesn't know his history very well. A real newspaper wouldn't run letters like this. They are inaccurate, and express a view based on a totally made-up understanding of history. But the Oklahoman isn't a real newspaper and letters like this-- socialism is doomed to fail, just like it did in Nazi Germany!-- are exactly what the editors want its readers to see, even if it is factually inaccurate.

PS: Again, do the editors even do any editing? Note the headline:

"Socialist utopian dream doome to fail"

 Doome? Just add a "d" for crying out loud!

Not our fault!!

The Ronald Bouwman hit-parade doesn't stop. Of course, we have talked about him before-- every few months, the Oklahoman decides to run a rant-filled letter spouting off right wing talking points, usually peppered with history lessons about Communism and whining about the "liberal" media.

His most recent letter is no different:

Too many in our 'ignorantia' blindly rate that lump of the U.S. House and Senate as a monolithic group. In 2006, Democrats were handed control of both houses, and our current failures embarked. After a shameless leftist slander campaign against exiting President George W. Bush, Barack Obama was elected in 2008; Democrats gained control of the entire government.

Sounds like something we have heard before:

National deterioration began to develop with the elections in 2006, when Democrats gained control of the U.S. House and Senate. It escalated after Barack Obama's 2008 election.

Indeed, even his hilarious "ignorantia" line is something he has used before.

Let's hold off on asking if Mr Bouwman's assessment is true for a second and just ask this: would any real newspaper run two letters a few months apart from the same guy saying essentially the same thing?

In any case, it is clear that Mr Bouwman has brainwashed himself. Somehow, for him, everything was fine in the United States until 2006, and only then did things go downhill. This, even though the housing crisis and its aftermath (I assume that is what he is referring to when he says things like "our current failures" and "national deterioration") have roots that go back much further, and with plenty of blame to go around for all political stripes.

And let's be real here. Was there really a "leftists slander campaign" against the exiting President Bush? I mean, 9/11, the fake "weapons of mass destruction" thing and the invasion of Iraq, massive tax cuts for the rich leading to soaring debt, the failed attempt to privatize Social Security, the ineptitude with Katrina-- it is hard to imagine that anyone would have to engage in slander to tarnish Bush's reputation.

Anyhow, Bouwman rants on:

The Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – passed the Democratic House on Nov. 7, 2009, and the Senate on Dec. 24, 2009. Too many in both Democrat-controlled houses didn’t even know what was in the bill. In advance of final passage in March 2010, Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said Congress needed to pass it 'so you can find out what is in it away from the fog of the controversy.'

The only reason Pelosi's statement is "famous" is because right-wing media keep trotting it out as though it were actually controversial. Of course, it isn't. But since Bouwman surely limits his media intake to outlets like Fox News and, of course, the Oklahoman, he really has no idea of what is real and what is sheer echo-chamber fabrication.

Bouwman concludes his summary of recent policics:

Republicans regained control of the House in 2010, and held it in 2012, but they could accomplish nothing because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., blocked nearly all things passed by the House from any consideration. It’s incredible that so many still blame Republicans for the terrible mess made by the left.

At least he admits that the House hasn't done anything. But is it really Harry Reid's fault? To be sure, Reid has used various procedures to block certain votes. But is it really the case that "nearly all things passed by the House" since 2010 has been blocked by Reid? Not really, though Congress is on pace to pass the fewest laws in a long, long time:

The number of bills passed in the first session of the 112th Congress, the lowest ever, is about one-third of the average number of bills passed in first sessions of Congresses and less than half of the median number passed in the first sessions of Congresses since 1947.

The Senate has passed the fewest percentage of House bills (32.4 percent) of any Senate during that time period. The House has passed 40.4 percent of Senate bills, which is the fourth-lowest percentage for the same time period.

Without doing more significant research it is hard to know if this is really a Harry Reid issue, but it seems clear that the not-passing-laws thing is one that both sides of the aisle are engaging in, and not just something that Democrats do alone.

Moreover, it is unclear would have been passed to "clear up the mess" that "the left" has made, but those details are no doubt not important to Mr Bouwman. For him, it is all about the left being the problem and Republicans as the heroes-- if only they could just do their job.

It is a lame sentiment, but one that this paper loves to run in its letters section-- time, and time again, unfortunately.