In case you haven’t seen it yet, Jon Stewart has brilliantly and hilariously demonstrated the phenomenon I alluded to in Sowell Sedition regarding how right-wingers make wild charges, report the charges as genuine news, then use that “news” to demolish President Obama:

In a story about the “regional and national political debate” related to the slow dispersal of the H1N1 flu vaccine, the St. Louis Beacon reveals more hypocrisy from our own Roy Blunt:

 “The onerous regulatory and legal environment in the United States has placed America’s most vulnerable in danger,” Blunt said. “The federal government has clearly failed to meet a basic responsibility to move quickly to ensure the availability of H1N1 vaccines.”

“Congress needs to be asking serious questions about why the vaccine isn’t yet widely available, even though we’ve known for six months that we needed to be fully prepared,” Blunt said.

The state Democratic Party swiftly shot back by noting that Blunt voted in June against a federal spending bill that included close to $8 billion to address the H1N1 vaccine issue. Blunt said at the time — and again this week through a spokesman — that his “no” vote was over other items in the bill.

When your response to any of our nation’s problems is always “no,” followed by a lecture on the virtues of deregulation, then it’s clear you haven’t learned anything from the past year. 

And it’s a bitch that those “no” votes sometimes come back to negate your criticism of people who are trying to solve a thorny problem, particularly one that involves producing and distributing a vaccine in a relatively short period of time. 

Come to think of it, the swine flu threat is one of the only problems not passed down from the previous administration.

Wait.  Where was Dick Cheney when this swine flu thing started?

Republicans have ruled Missouri’s legislature for years now, and Republican Matt Blunt was governor from 2005 through 2008.  Given Republican dominance in the state, The Erstwhile Conservative thought it worthwhile to look at a few “fast facts,” provided by the Missouri Budget Project.  Most of the data are prior to the economic collapse last fall.  And remember, I report, you decide (however, the emphasis provided is mine):

• Between 2007 and 2008, 761,000 Missourians were living in poverty – an increase of 15 percent and 102,000 people over 2006.
• In 2007/2008 the Median Income in Missouri was $46,906, $6,424 less than it was in 2001 when adjusted for inflation. This was the third largest decline in the nation in median income.
• 1,071,194 Missourians (372,365 Families) received Food Stamps in June of 2009, an increase of 257 percent since 2000 when 417,000 Missourians (178,465 Families) received Food Stamps.
• In 2007/2008, at least 734,000 Missourians, one in every eight people, were uninsured.
• The cost of insurance premiums in Missouri is growing 4.4 times faster than wages.

Hmmmmm.  Since Governor Nixon has been forced to make substantial spending cuts, because of a drop in state revenue, we should look at just where Missouri—largely because of Republican dominance—ranks nationally in per capita revenue and taxes:

State Taxes

• Missouri ranked 47th lowest in the nation for per capita (per person) state taxes collected at $2,475 in 2006. The National Average was $3,245 per capita.
• In 2007, Missouri ranked 27th lowest for individual income tax at $822 per capita compared to the national average of $1,003 per capita.
• In 2007, Missouri ranked 46th lowest for corporate income tax at $66 per capita compared to the national average of $201 per capita.
• In 2007, Missouri ranked 40th lowest for general revenue sales tax at $557 per capita compared to the national average of $891. 

Notice the ranking for corporate income tax.  Missouri’s rate is a meager 33% that of the national average ($66 to $201). So, if the Republican philosophy of lowering corporate taxes to attract business to the state were valid, we would have businesses and industries occupying every vacant lot in the state.  So, why isn’t that working? 

Hmmmmm. Let us look at the level of investment Missouri makes in education: 

State Spending on Services in 2006

• Missouri ranked 37th lowest in the nation on per capita state and local investment in Elementary & Secondary Education.
• Missouri ranked 45th lowest in the nation on per capita state and local investments in Higher Education.

As I say,  I report, you decide.

Thomas Sowell, a national columnist whose corrosive columns are regular features in the Joplin Globe, presented evidence in his column today that his bona fides as a prominent thinker on the right have all but disintegrated.  He is now nothing more than a pseudo-intellectual apologist for the Fox “News” Channel.

The column, titled “Obama is tearing down America,” was a collection of half-truths, quarter-truths, and falsehoods, disguised as a defense of “American values.”

Just one example of the utter dishonesty of this rhetorical assassination of President Obama’s character:

Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called “experts” deciding who could and could not get lifesaving medical treatments?

To present such a question as though it is in any way connected with reality is an example of the truth-defying tactics widely employed by people on the right wing who are out to destroy the presidency of Barack Obama, if not Obama himself.  

It was conservative extremists (that term is fast becoming a redundancy) who did all the talking about “death panels,” in an attempt to scare senior citizens away from supporting health care reform legislation.  And to start such talk and then later use it as the basis for asking, “Does any of this sound like America,” is not just a slippery, sophistical trick, but a shameless appeal to the worst angels of human nature.

It’s as if I began a rumor that Thomas Sowell and Rush Limbaugh were homosexual lovers, and then lamented in print, “Did you imagine a year ago that you would see Thomas and Rush at the gay pride parade dressed as Barney Frank?  Does any of that sound like conservatism?”

Mr. Sowell asks his readers, “How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path?”  And later says,

What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brown shirts of dictators than like anything American.

He follows that inflammatory rhetoric with this:

How far the president will go depends, of course, on how much resistance he meets.

It is only fair to ask, after all of this sizzling propaganda, just what kind of resistance is Mr. Sowell advocating?  What kind of subtle message is he sending to people who buy into the ongoing narrative that Obama is not just insufficiently American, but that he is anti-American?

Sowell ends his hate-piece by telling us that President Obama has “contempt for American values,” and wonders whether “enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece…” 

Wake up and do what, Mr. Sowell?

Another example of why Shep Smith is the only tolerable mug on Fox “News”: