Fact-free insults for all!

Tom McNeil of Healdton hates President Obama-- he's told us before. So it's not surprise that he'd write yet another anti-Obama screed filled with easily-debunked right wing talking points about him. And because he wrote an anti-Obama screed filled with easily-debunked right wing talking points, it's no surprise that the Oklahoman would run his letter. It begins:

The law, along with public opinion, differentiates between accidental and intentional deeds. Is the Obama administration just inept, or is there malice aforethought in making so many blunders? There is some of both.

Oh, really? "So many blunders"? Obviously no administration is blunder-free-- so how is Mr McNeil quantifying them here to suggest that Obama's are more than George Bush or Ronald Reagan? He doesn't say.

First, we elected as president a man with no experience in running an organization of any kind.

Not this again. It's a tired line, and not really even true. Granted, doing things like setting up job training and education programs for the poor, or running the country's most prestigious law journal isn't the same as setting up an oil exploration company with the help of Daddy's friends, but whatever. You can't say he as "no experience" when, in fact, he does. Well, unless you're an idiot and some newspaper is just a propaganda piece, and then you can say whatever you want.

He had no military experience, no foreign policy knowledge and no managerial skills. That accounts for the inept part such as the VA scandal.

Jesus. There's a lot to decompress from this. Military experience? I guess being assigned to the First Motion Picture Unit in Culver City, CA during WWII counts as "military experience" as does defending Texas and Alabama skies during 'Nam. Clinton didn't serve in the military at all, while George H. W. Bush actually, you know, saw combat in WWII. Given these disparate levels of "military experience" and understanding the various blunders all these administrations had, it's hard to correlate in any way the idea that military experience is truly a factor in limiting blunders of any kind. And give me a break on "foreign policy knowledge" please. I'm pretty sure this guy voted for a presidential ticket that included Sarah Palin. So just stop.

In any case, all of this leads Mr McNeil to conclude that somehow, Obama's "lack" of certain experiences is directly responsible for the VA blunder. Obviously, the VA issue is supremely complex-- we're talking about an organization that's quite large and when you see things like, "An audit from the Secretary of Veterans Affairs said that 'some front-line, middle, and senior managers felt compelled to manipulate' records to meet performance goals," you realize how deep the problem runs. But that also makes one wonder how any of that would have changed had Obama been a five-star general, a past CEO of General Electric, and former governor of California. Obama probably isn't going over the numbers of some VA middle man in Phoenix, AZ and thinking hmmmmm my military experience and organizational skills are telling me that something isn't right here.

Interestingly, when actual experts weighed in, they noted among other things that "the VA poorly designed its performance management system." Now, we all know that Obama didn't go in and radically alter things at the VA once in office. The VA has a long history, and was elevated to cabinet-status under the saint guy who was stationed in Culver City, CA during WWII.

To engage in a bit of rhetoric that I truly loathe: Is the VA scandal a shame? Yes. Should the government have been doing much more for much longer to help people coming back from war? Yes. Were these failures somehow related in any way to Obama's military or organizational experience? Give me a fucking break.

But wait! There's More! Read on:

The intentional efforts are in the decisions that Barack Obama makes in fulfilling his promise to basically change America.

I'm not even sure what this means. Is Mr McNeil imagining that Obama blundered "intentionally" by fulfilling campaign promises? Don't all presidential candidates promise to improve things? What president is like "If elected, I'll just keep things the same!"??? So then, what's a blunder here? Oh-- is he talking healthcare? If Mr McNeil thinks that's a blunder, he's an ill-informed idiot. 'Cause no. So what else? Dow is at historic highs. Inflation is low. It's unclear where the "intentional" blunders are here.

The IRS scandal was an effort to thwart the vote of conservative groups.

Oh, that. Well, if Mr McNeil bothered to pay attention to anything other than Fox News and this shitty newspaper, he'd know that this is a myth. This isn't to say that there was no wrong-doing; there certainly was. But the reality is that A) There were and are "Tea Party" groups who sought non-profit status even though they were engaging in overt political activity, and B) This activity wasn't something that was directed from Obama as some sort of political action. And no, Mr McNeil, no votes of "conservative groups" were thwarted (whatever that means).

The most far reaching, and the most damaging to America, however, are the foreign policy debacles. They’re based upon his worldview that the U.S. should be more equal in power with the other countries of the world.

Oooh! I'd love to have this explained in more detail. Like, where is this actually stated by the administration? Not something like "we should stop being unilateral dicks all the time" but seriously "we should be more equal in power" with, like, China and Brazil. Of course, this doesn't exist. I mean, it's hard to imagine that when he says stuff like this:

BARACK OBAMA: You see, American influence is always stronger when we lead by example. We cannot exempt ourselves from the rules that apply to everyone else. We can’t call on others to make commitments to combat climate change if so many of our political leaders deny that it is taking place. It’s a lot harder to call on China to resolve its maritime disputes under the Law of the Sea Convention when the United States Senate has refused to ratify it – despite the repeated insistence of our top military leaders that the treaty advances our national security. That’s not leadership; that’s retreat. That’s not strength; that’s weakness. And it would be utterly foreign to leaders like Roosevelt and Truman; Eisenhower and Kennedy. 

I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it’s our willingness to affirm them through our actions.

Got that? This is a perfectly rational, sound, and reasoned approach to anything. It's not "more equal in power" it's "let's not be dicks all the time"-- which is probably a good thing.

Anyhow, Mr. McNiel goes on:

His worldview was formed over a lifetime of association with his primary mentors. 

These include Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, Bill Ayres, an unrepentant terrorist, and Jeremiah Wright, a black supremacist preacher.

Jesus Christ. It's hard to imagine how any of these people related to the previous statement about the US being more equal in power with other countries.

It's also clear that these guys weren't really "primary mentors" in any sense. A real newspaper would have seen all these red flags and tossed this letter. But the Oklahoman sees OBAMA AND BILL AYRES! and thinks FUCKING RUN THIS LETTER! It's pathetic.

More pathetic is this conclusion:

Uninformed voters fell for 'Hope and Change' speeches without even looking at the applicant’s resume. The manager of the local McDonald’s pays more attention to the qualifications in hiring a burger cook.

WOW. So, "uninformed voters" just "fell for" a political slogan and somehow didn't know about Obama's background?!? The assertion is preposterous and no reasonable person could imagine that Obama's "resume" wasn't a constant source of scrutiny for both his campaigns. And please: to dismiss a majority of voters (Obama did win a majority of votes) as paying less attention to the person they are voting in to the office of President as a fast food manager does to a hire is so insulting that it's hard to imagine that any newspaper would run it. Fortunately, the Oklahoman isn't an actual newspaper and so here we are.

Hey you kids!

There's not much to say about the letter written by part-time columnist Richard Day of Nichols Hills. In the past, the Oklahoman's favorite retired OG&E executive has ranted about "liberal elitists," taxes, and government regulation, often peppered with history lessons-- a key feature of most of the Oklahoman's right wing letter-writing contingent.

Honestly, this letter is sort of boring, filled with character assassinations, sarcastic comments, and contempt for things that are different. He concludes:

All political movements mutate over time. Rampant activism has morphed into the infinitely more sophisticated tactic of cultivating divisive issues that feed the dogma of a regulation for every occasion. 

A partial list of domestic issues includes race, the environment, gun possession, health care, water rights, religious expression, fracking, global warming, surveillance, income redistribution, political contributions, taxes, abortion and, most recently, immigration and amnesty. If the new activists are intent on preserving these issues as issues, then prolonged conflict has become an objective unto itself. 

If the only acceptable solution is more government, then it’s about power. Just like always.

Jesus. In the end, after ranting about the 60's, Jane Fonda, and anti-war protesters, it all comes down to an screed against government regulations disguised as a Hey-you-kids-get-off-my-lawn rant. It's sort of embarrassing. The questions is-- as is often with the Oklahoman-- who should be more embarrassed? The bitter old man, or the ridiculous newspaper that runs his letter?

Zero to crazy in no time

Today's letter from Ken Moore of Oklahoma City starts of in pretty typical (for the Oklahoman) fashion: attacking the EPA and shilling for the fossil fuel energy producers (like OG&E).

Incidentally, Mr Moore is yet another of the paper's part-time columnists, regularly writing right-wing screeds about the "liberal" media, the financial burden brown people impose on us whites, fake Republicans who help Obama, more whining about the "liberal" media, more whining about the "liberal" media (did I say that already?), and on and on and on. Seriously: something like half of all letters published in the Oklahoman must come from just a handful of people who write apropos of nothing to whine about the same five or six things (socialist Democrats! Too much spending, not enough tax cuts! Liberal media! We need to be more Christian! Brown people are frightening!). Would any real newspaper do this?

But back to the letter, Mr Moore begins:

The EPA has said that electricity rates would increase by 10.3 percent by 2020 largely due to its forced dismantling of coal generation plants. A 10 percent increase is only 1.5 percent per year, which doesn't even keep up with present inflation. It seems insane to say with confidence that electricity rates will increase by only 10.3 percent in six years.

It would be awesome if the Oklahoman actually linked to the things people are referring to. If they did, then a person could go to that source and read up on it, perhaps then going further back and investigating for themselves what was said and, more importantly, its context. Then again, one of the missions of the Oklahoman is to have an ill-informed public and doing such things runs counter to that mission.

In this case, though, I think the Oklahoman didn't link to anything because it never really happened. You can search the Oklahoman on-line and not find ANYWHERE where the EPA ever says "10.3 percent" (or even "10.3%"!). Moreover, you can go on Google and read scores of articles and not see the EPA saying anything about 10.3 percent of whatever in 2020. Like, I think this guy heard something on Rush, got really mad, and just shot off this screed. It's completely baseless-- but since it attacks the EPA, the editors were just "hey, let's run this guy's letter again!" and that was it.

Given this, it's impossible to comment more about this guy's statement. Is it "insane" to talk about a 10.3% increase in six years? Maybe. But without context it's impossible to know if Mr Moore is even correctly representing the facts. (It's not like we haven't seen it before!)

So where do we go from here? Well, let's see:

I’d bet that the forecasters aren’t even considering how much more demand there will be for natural gas for electricity generation and hugely increased use of natural gas in trucks and cars between now and 2020. Electricity has to really skyrocket at some point after we destroy our coal plants, never to use coal generation again.

Wait. So Ken Moore of Oklahoma City knows more then EPA analysts?! Like, HE thought of this "supply and demand" thing with natural gas but no one working for the EPA did? It's the height of narcissistic delusion to imagine that YOU are out-thinking the experts on something. Also, like read this report from the US Energy Information Administration. It's just a summary, but when talking about energy prices in their forecasts, they state right there:

In the AEO2014 Reference case, electricity prices are higher throughout the projection than they were in the AEO2013 Reference case. Natural gas prices for electricity generators are higher than those in AEO2013 in the first few years but fairly similar in the long term. Reliance on natural gas-fired generation remains strong, as a result of additional near-term retirements of coal-fired and nuclear capacity, and natural gas prices continue to influence electricity prices. In the long term, both natural gas prices and electricity prices rise.

No need to get into the details about this, except to note that the EIA says RIGHT THERE: "Reliance on natural gas-fired generation remains strong, as a result of additional near-term retirements of coal-fired and nuclear capacity." Let's make the bold assumption that SOMEONE in the EPA MAY HAVE CONSULTED THE EIA when it comes to forecasting such things. (And this is making the even BOLDER assumption that EPA analysts couldn't figure this out on their own.)

So, at this point, it's clear that Mr Moore is an idiot. Any real newspaper would have just tossed this letter in the trash right now because it's worthless. But this is the Oklahoman and so instead, we get to read this:

This is obviously all a manufactured, unneeded environmentalist trick that includes pricing hated automobile fuel out of the market. This in turn would gradually make living in a large city too expensive unless you live in cramped high-rise apartments or condos close to downtown. Long term, this would cause the value of mid- to large-sized homes located away from the city center to plummet, perhaps to near worthlessness.

ZOMFG!!! Wait. This is awesome. So in an instant, we have gone from just factually-challenged idiot to tinfoil hat black helicopter conspiracy guy!! Like, an "environmentalist trick" to make gasoline so expensive that everyone will have to move into dense urban areas?!?! For real?!?! And big homes out in the 'burbs will then become worthless?!? What's next? This guy may as well have said AGENDA 21 IS REAL AND AMERICA IS DOOMED!

It's NUTS!!! And yet some editor at the Oklahoman read it and thought Wow, this Ken Moore guy is really onto something-- let's go with this one! Here is your state's biggest newspaper, Oklahomans. Absolutely crazy.