Category Archive

Welcome to kindergarten…

• John “Poopy Head” Ruskin compares a journalist — Rich Miller — who covers Springfield and other Illinois political matters to Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. Why? Because Miller posted a few facts that put the lie to the spin being promoted by a comrade of Ruskin’s. In his role as a reporter, Miller has gone after Dems, GOPs and even Greens with equal aplomb when they fib, flop or go flakey, as Sen. Steve Rauschenberger has been doing of late in his anti-Obama zeal. This isn’t the first time the pseudonymous Ruskin has flailed around spewing crap instead of keeping his bizarre inanities to himself… (What’s that? There’s a financial stake for the denizens of Illinois Review to prop up the head of the United Republican Fund, an organization that so many of them also help operate? Go figure…)
• Jill “Likes Sex Ed” Stanek once compared an incumbent, duly elected State Senator to a porn star and, when called out for her depravity, upped the ante by continuing to make a fool of herself. Why? Because said State Senator was advocating for a vaccine that former nurse Stanek didn’t like. Instead of rational debate, are porn references really how Jill would rather get her jollies?
• Lee “Wets His Pants” Newcom recently claimed a Democratic candidate for Congress was “aiding terrorists” even though she’s not even in Congress. Why? Because he has nothing better to do at his day job working for the citizens of McLean County, apparently. Or perhaps it’s because he has no valid explanation for why he would choose to trample on our Constitution instead of upholding our rights.

And an honorable dunce cap mention must go to ilgopnet.com’s Warner Todd “Has a Problem Alright” Huston, for comparing a duly elected, incumbent Congresswoman to a brutal African dictator simply because she wants folks to be able to eat their dinner in peace.

Someone calling out your comrades on their lies? Call ‘em a Unabomber!

Upset that a legislator is advocating potentially life-saving medicine? Compare her to a porn star and ask about her sex life.

A legislator running for Congress from the party you oppose? Squeal like a stuck pig that they’re “aiding terrorists” even though they’re not even in office (yet) and they don’t even know any terrorists in the first place … all while trying to hide from the fact that you want to literally rip out parts of the Bill of Rights.

Crabby because a Democratic Congresswoman is sitting in a seat you thought should go to a Republican? Claim that some innocuous legislative proposal is akin to the dictatorial policies of a madman.

Congrats conservative partisans, with each passing day you seem wont to gleefully dig your own vacuous holes of irrelevance that much deeper. It used to be that the conservative philosophy had some meaning. Now that Pres. Bush has implemented many conservative policies and they’re failing miseable, those scales are falling from people’s eyes and all the con partisans have left are their insults and self-pity.

At least you guys are good at comedy, even if unintentionally so.

(And, Ruskin, if it’s Miller time it’s MGD for me — though lately I’ve been reaching for a nice cold Berghoff. …Woof.)

Update: “A Republican Committeeman in Aurora, IL” makes the same points in a much more forgiving manner…

If we spent a lot less time on this sort of stuff and more time on facts and logical arguments I think we would be in better shape. You don’t save too many people preaching the same message to choir.

If you think his facts or analysis is wrong provide reasons not cute little things about ’secret locations’.

By spending “a lot less time on this sort of stuff” I take it to mean OneMan isn’t a fan of calling people “poodles”. I tend to find that sort of dysfunctionally juvenile crap hysterically funny, however, and (obviously) enjoy going toe to toe with that sticks-and-stones crowd. Somebody’s gotta do it or “Ruskin” might get an ego as big as his (poopy) head.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the thin-skinned “Ruskin” up and calls OneMan a Nazi just for pointing out the obvious.

The curiously named poster “John Ruskin” has another nonsensical post up over at Illinois Review completely distorting several of Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s sensible foreign policy positions. (You may recall, Mr. Ruskin is the one who has taken to calling Sen. Obama by such sandbox epithets as “Sen. Big Ears” and “Sen. Poopy Head” … It gives regular folks a pretty good idea of the level of logic coming from this Illinois Review contributor.)

Mr. Ruskin opens with this bizarrely mixed-up query:

So, let me get this straight. If Obama becomes President, his foreign policy will be to immediately invite every third-world dictator to tea and a night in the Lincoln bedroom, pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq, and invade Pakistan?

As commenters to that post noted, Mr. Ruskin is the one who is not getting anything straight.

First, when did Sen. Obama over claim he would “have tea” with the foreign leaders that Mr. Ruskin hates, let alone invite them to the White House?

He didn’t.

As point of fact, Sen. Obama specifically said “it’s not like he would have tea with them” and that he would only talk with such people if and when terms could be met by aides for each side.

Such hyperbole from Mr. Ruskin, master of exaggeration and kindergarten name-caller extraordinaire… Then again, Mr. Ruskin is simply parroting Sen. Hillary Clinton on this malignant talking point — an oddity in and of itself.

Now, Mr. Ruskin may think that simply ignoring our enemies is a wise course (as Pres. Bush has done in refusing to talk with international opponents). Unfortunately, this is the same malfunctioning ‘conventional Beltway “wisdom”‘ which led to the mess Pres. Bush has made and which then-Senators such as Hillary Clinton and others enabled.

To be honest, Sen. Obama’s philosophy is more in line with Pres. Ronald Reagan’s willingness to sit down with the Soviets and other enemies than anything. Perhaps Mr. Ruskin also thinks Pres. Reagan was in the wrong to “have tea” with Gorbachev in Reykjavík. As Sen. Obama put it:

“We need a president who’ll have the strength and courage to go toe to toe with the leaders of rogue nations, because that’s what it takes to protect our security.

“That’s what I’ll do as your next commander in chief

“I was called irresponsible and naive because I believe that there is nobody we can’t talk to. We’ve got nothing to fear as long as know who we are and what we stand for and our values.”

We Americans ought to have nothing to fear but fear itself, yet Mr. Ruskin is quite happy to criticize someone for having the courage that Mr. Ruskin so clearly lacks — and perhaps that is why he would rather America’s commander-in-chief act afraid of dictators.

Second, while Sen. Obama has advocated strategic redeployment out of Iraq he has never even suggested a complete and immediate withdrawal. In fact, he has specifically called for a common sense-based phased withdrawal, a position which earned catcalls from ardant peace activists.

Interestingly, we’re constantly told we’re making progress in Iraq yet when one looks at the facts no progress seems really to be being made — witness the entire shutdown of the Iraqi government for vacation, with much unfinished business left on the table. Recently, the conservative partisans were oddly giddy over an op-ed from two “progressives” who claimed that they saw trememndous amounts of progress on a recent visit to Iraq. Keep in mind these two originally supported the war in the first place, and have made excuses for the poor handling and strategic lapses since. And, seeing as how Gen. Petraeus’ report is due next month in September (yet the Bush Administration is saying it needs more time), it’s clear that all those “turned corners” and “last throes” will again make an appearance, this time with as many synonyms for “progress” the Bush team can muster.

Third, how is a strategic operation any sort of an “invasion” of Pakistan? What Sen. Obama actually said was:

If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will. (emphasis added)

Perhaps Mr. Ruskin doesn’t care about taking out the mastermind behind 9/11, but Sen. Obama clearly does. (Whatever happened to Pres. Bush’s claim to get Osama bin Forgotten “dead or alive”?)

We know Pakistan is where Osama bin Forgotten is located precisely because the Pakistani government allows him to remain in their “semi-autonomous” Waziristan region. (Whatever happened to “you’re with us or you’re against us”?)

We also know that Pres. Bush has basically kowtowed to “that General guy“, Pakistani Pres. Musharraf, rather than demand operational abilities in exchange for the large amounts of monetary and weapons aid we provide to Pakistan — as Sen. Obama stated quite clearly in his speech today.

The sorts of covert operations Sen. Obama is discussing are precisely the type that Pres. Bush has had opportunities to pursue, but has neglected to undertake because he was too scared to do so. (That’s right, the Bush Administration knew of an al Qaida leadership meeting inside Pakistan and didn’t pull the trigger because they were afraid of what might happen.)

…To be sure, the folks among the conservative partisanry who have simply glossed over Sen. Obama’s record and statements regarding foreign affairs are going to not just jump to conclusions but, quite obviously, lie about the guy in their efforts to at best turn him into their cartoon version of him and at worst tar and feather him with their malicious vitriol.

They think because he is against lying America into an ill-conceived war that he is somehow “anti-war”. No, he’s anti-stupid war.

They think because he had the courage to speak out against an Iraqi invasion while his Democratic counterparts who were already in the Senate (and while the nation cautiously supported such a war after the Bush Pentagon’s marketing blitz) that he is somehow incapable of smartly defending our nation. No, he’s proving to have foresight on the need for a balance between diplomacy and firepower.

What Sen. Obama is saying is that clearly the old Washington ways — which both the entrenched Republicans and Democrats have been blindly following — are failing our nation. In its place, he is telling us we need a new (though still common sense) path to lead us back to that Shining City on a Hill.

This election, even moreso than 2004, is shaping up in both the primary and general to be a genuine debate about America’s future, at home and abroad. And Sen. Obama is offering us a chance for positive change.

What Mr. Ruskin and his fellow conservative partisans are offering us, other than deliberate distortions, remains unclear.

(h/t to Geekesque, who has much more in-depth coverage of Sen. Obama’s thought-provoking speech.)

Way back on May 17th I noted that given the vitriol, hatred and childishness the cons like John Ruskin display regarding Sen. Barack Obama I was surprised they didn’t just call him Sen. Poopy Head instead of Sen. Big Ears like the kindergarteners they are.

At least we now know “John (likes poopy talk) Ruskin” reads Illinois Reason because he has continued to show just what an immature goof he is by picking up the sandbox epithet.

John “Potty Mouth” Ruskin even continued his lying ways by trying to attribute the title to me without bothering to actually link to the post, implying that this is a title liberals call Sen. Obama.

No “Ruskin”, that sentiment is all yours. At least have the stones to own up to your loathing and pettiness (but given how often you delete comments, “Ruskin”, we know you’re nothing but a yellow-bellied coward).

There’s a reason the word “conservative” starts with “con” and Ruskin proves it every time he/she/it types.

What do you do when your own fellow conservatives have had enough of your bullshit that they constantly take you to task for your own over-the-top ineptitude and fear-mongering (here and here)?

If you’re Illinois Reviewer John Ruskin … you imply they’re Nazis … twice.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

While most of the rest of us have nothing to fear but fear itself, Mr. Ruskin chooses to routinely find new chicken little fears to fret over even if he has to make them up. And apparently he feels picked on when folks call him out on it.

Poor-a, poor-a John Ruskin. Must be tough having his little never-never-land bubble burst over and over.

Anyone else think it sounds like John Ruskin is borderline paranoid and wants the Illinois prison authority to open a Gitmo style concentration camp in the Prairie State? Just read his over-the-top, pernicious number-crunching: Illinois’ Domestic Terrorism: Part II

(But remember, it’s ok for terrorists to get guns according to the partisan conservatives. Hypocrisy, thy name is “conservative”.)

Update: “Truthful James” (aka Pete Speer, Peter Dee) in comments at Illinois Review points out numerous errors in Mr. Ruskin’s post…

John –

Certain of your numbers do not jibe. For instance the summary of the Pew Study reads

“…That sentiment is strongest among those younger than 30. Two percent of them say it can often be justified, 13 percent say sometimes and 11 percent say rarely…”

That would men the percentages within the age group younger than 30. You extrapolate that those percentages against the total population of Muslims within Illinois.

At the same time you refer to ["]strongly believe["] as a category. I can not find it

Since the Pew Study focused that question on “attacks on their religion” I am surprised that the total is so low.

The most interesting part of the Pew Study — not mentioned by you– is the following:

“…Even so, U.S. Muslims are far less accepting of suicide attacks than Muslims in many other nations. In surveys Pew conducted last year, support in some Muslim countries exceeded 50 percent, while it was considered justifiable by about one in four Muslims in Britain and Spain, and one in three in France…”

So there ya go. Here’s to conservatives who choose to be honest rather than partisan and xenophobic.

“Truthful James” (aka, Pete Speer, Peter Dee) takes one of Illinois Review’s most goofy, John Ruskin, to task in response to Mr. Ruskin’s out of the blue slur of “terrorism” against a doctor.

Posteth “Truthful James”:

John, stop eith [sic] the polemic.

“purposefully allowed to die” That is a damn serious charge, which raises the possibility of a slander suit against you and against the IR [Illinois Review].

Your source has its own axe to grind.

I have been to emergency rooms twice since Thanksgiving. The triage process is quite complicated and on several levels/

We lack in the article and from the bereaved and suing son any sort of a medical history wirg [sic] diagnosis at any level of triage.

Come back to earth

Couldn’t have said it better myself. The original post by Mr. Ruskin was based on a Front Page Magazine article about an alleged wrongful death case. Front Page is, sure enough, a partisan conservative magazine which is why “James” says they have their own axe to grind.

As for the doctor being Muslim or not, perhaps this is another case of the conservatives actually being all in favor of medical malpractice lawsuits (at least, when it suits their partisan agenda to denigrate Muslims with slurs of “domestic terrorism” and charges of “purposefully” allowing a patient to die without submitting any evidence to back up the claim).

One wonders why Illinois Civil Justice Leaguer Ed Murnane continues to post at Illinois Review given their constant promotion of his archnemesis, the ambiguous “frivolous” (supposedly) lawsuit.

Oh no! Not “Obama Youth Camps“! What are we going to do about this political training of young voters?!?!

Hilariously, John Ruskin concludes his alarmist post about an everyday campaign activity with this open-ended, Jerry Fletcherism:

Nothing like a little re-education for the kids. Other’s [sic] have used the same tactic in the past. You know. (emphasis added, y’know)

Yes, Mr. Ruskin, others have used the same tactic in the past (complete with “a little re-education for the kids”). Hmm, I wonder why Mr. Ruskin didn’t sound the alarm about those kids who were bussed into Illinois from other states and put to work furthering a political agenda during the middle of their school week.

Oh, the hypocrisy, y’know?

John Ruskin was up to his silly lying ways yet again this weekend. Like many partisan conservatives he seems to have this problem with the truth in that, to them, it appears to be somehow “liberal”. This means when news reports cover reality (y’know, the truth), conservatives from Richard Nixon to the present flail their arms yelping “Liberal bias” in the media, which is hogwash.

So in his silly little post, Mr. Ruskin starts off by claiming that the Democratic Party somehow “owns” NPR as a propaganda arm. Of course, many liberals (and independents) feel the same way about Republicans and their Fox News which often seems to be so much agitprop for the red party.

Neither, of course, is true. Democrats don’t “own” NPR (or CNN, or ABC, etc) any more than Republicans “own” Fox News.

But there is a difference here. Mr. Ruskin claims that because NPR is government-funded it must be a Democratic Party tool. This ignores two points. First, NPR receives about 90% of its funding from donations and private grants. The other 10 or so per cent come in the form of government subsidies from all levels of government. Second, those government subsidies also happened while Republicans ran the show in Washington so claiming Democrats wielded some power over NPR during that time is, of course, ludicrous.

There are also some specific differences between the Democrats/NPR allusion, which is demonstrably false as I just indicated, and the Republicans/Fox News allusion, for which there is actually quite a bit of evidence.

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It’s well-known that the partisan conservatives over at Illinois Review despise Sen. Barack Obama. They’ve made up silly sandbox epithets for him like “big ears” and “donkey ears” and “he who walks on water.” I’m surprised they don’t just call him “Sen. Poopy Head”.

So it’s clear that when it comes to the Senator, they don’t have much maturity but do have a bunch o’ hate.

Enter John Ruskin. Mr. Ruskin wants to paint Sen. Obama as a liar. He’s using every little flub and, indeed, every little word to do so — whether they’re actually lies or not. (”Not” being the operative word there.)

I’ve pointed out before where other conservatives have used the same rhetorical technique — take whatever words they can to create what looks to them like a lie rather than actually calling out a real lie — just so they can jump on their trampoline of partisanship and yell “Liar … Liar … Liar … Liar” every time they bounce up and down.

I’ve also pointed out where the Republicans were found to have pre-determined that, no matter who the 2004 Democratic candidate would be, the RNC strategy was going to be to paint them as a flip-flopper — just add the name of whoever got the nomination (John Kerry in that case).

To an extent, Gov. Blagojevich did the same thing against Judy Baar Topinka last year with “What is she thinking?” — everything she did, no matter how innocent, was plugged into that mold and hammered over and over (and over).

Mr. Ruskin is certainly no Rod Blagojevich or Karl Rove. Yet he continues to lie about Senator Obama today with his latest post in which he picks a nit so tiny that a gnat would have a hard time seeing it.

Mr. Ruskin, a condo ain’t a house. You might own everything inside the four walls of a condo, but there’s no yard for the little ones and any maintenance on that hole in the roof or the matted down carpeting in the hallway is shared. But just so long as Mr. Ruskin can lie in the process of calling someone he hates a liar, he’s apparently happy as a clam.

Why Illinois Review continues to give that clam any space is not clear.

John “likes big ears” Ruskin is having a field day playing with pull-quotes from the recent Obama-Stephanopoulos interview. Earlier in the day he talked about how Obama was caught red-handed in a lie except that the lie wasn’t a lie. I subsequently pointed out how it wasn’t even really an exaggeration (but that’s what fit the bill for Mr. Ruskin, so he ran with it — anything to be able to say “Obama Lied”).

Mr. Ruskin’s back at it. This time, he digs up what he thinks is a contradiction except that … well, it’s really not. It’s just a different mindset. Mr. Ruskin quotes the National Journal’s transcript of that ABC interview:

Stephanopoulos: You’ve also said that with Social Security, everything should be on the table.Obama: Yes.

Stephanopoulos: Raising the retirement age?

Obama: Everything should be on the table.

Stephanopoulos: Raising payroll taxes?

Obama: Everything should be on the table. I think we should approach it the same way Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan did back in 1983. They came together. I don’t want to lay out my preferences beforehand, but what I know is that Social Security is solvable. It is not as difficult a problem as we’re going to have with Medicaid and Medicare.

And now here’s the bit where Mr. Ruskin’s eyes light up and he trumpets “Gotcha”…

Stephanopoulos: Partial privatization?

Obama: Privatization is not something that I would consider . . .

At this point, Mr. Ruskin throws his bag of popcorn in the air as if it were fireworks going off:

So let’s get this straight…when “big ears” Obama says that “everything should be on the table,” what he really means is, “Not everything should be on the table.”

Now I can see where someone who is overly partisan and conservatively so would be dancing with glee at the thought of being able to do the gotcha jig — as Mr. Ruskin clearly is in his post.

Problem is, ABC pundit George Stephanopoulos was asking Presidential candidate Obama about Social Security and then, at the end of that interview segment, he throws in a question about Wall Street Windfall Strategies.

That’s right, for progressives like Sen. Obama (and myself) who want to save Social Security instead of destroying it Social Security and Privatization are two separate ideas. Of course, being conservative and partisan, Mr. Ruskin sees privatization as some sort of solution to Social Security rather than a radical shift in fundamental concept. For some reason, Mr. Ruskin and others fail to recognize that America already has privatized retirement plans — they’re called 401ks, IRAs, Roth IRAs, etc. Wall Street makes a pretty penny managing those private retirement plans; there’s no reason to take one of the absolutely most efficient governmeent agencies and dump it into Wall Street’s pockets (yes, Social Security has an overhead ratio well below even the most well-run Wall Street firms).

I give Mr. Ruskin (and his source, Opinon Journal) and other conservatives credit for constantly trying to find flaws in the armor of the Democratic candidates. If only the media had been this nitpicky about our current president our nation might not find itself in the morass that passes for Bush foreign “policy”.

What do you do when a political opponent you despise has what you think is a too-clean record? Make stuff up.

John Ruskin is running around Illinois Review saying Presdential candidate Barack Obama lied in his recent “This Week” interview on ABC.

But wait… Mr. Ruskin is actually instead lying about the lie. By the end of his post he says Sen. Obama was exagerating and that “exagerations are lies”. While I agree that knowingly overstating the case is a lie (see, Iraq War: Reasons to Invade by the Bush Administration) … Sen. Obama didn’t even do that.

So what part of that interview really got Mr. Ruskin’s goat?

 “It’s not just talking tough, because the truth is nobody’s talked tougher than George Bush over the last six years. Being tough means, first of all, not having to talk about it all the time,” Obama said. . . .

Without going into any specifics, Obama cited his testing in Chicago politics as a sign that he had an inner toughness.

“Somebody who has arrived where I am out of Chicago politics has to have a little bit of steel in them,” he said. “I have the capacity, I think, to make strong decisions even if they’re unpopular, even if they’re uncomfortable, even if sometimes I lose some friends.”

To which Mr. Ruskin eloquently exclaims:

LOL: Obama says the first test of toughness is “not having to talk about it” — and he then proceeds to talk about how tough he is.

And what tough “Chicago politics” is Obama referring too? His ‘96, ‘98 and ‘02 Illinois Senate elections were cakewalks. Like his claim of 10,000 dead in the Kansas tornado (actual dead: 12), I guess this is just more Obama exaggeration (read: lie).

Does Mr. Ruskin actually have a point here? Sadly, no. If he thinks it’s easy enough to win elections in big city politics he ought to try it himself. And, giving one answer about steely resolve to a specific question in a single interview hardly compares to the example Sen. Obama gave of Pres. Bush “talkin’ tough” nearly every day over the past 7 years.

Of course, it’s a free country and Mr. Ruskin is more than welcome to lie about someone else lying. Other conservatives have done it too against other candidates so apparently it’s nothing new for the cons.

The kicker in all this? Mr. Ruskin lovingly calls a sitting United State Senator and Presidential Contender “Sen. Big Ears” (just look at the URL). Guess that’s better than Teri O’Brien’s bizarrely promotional “man-god” and “he who walks on water”.

When ya got nothing left to say, start talking like a kindergartener, eh?

Conservatives are up in arms that a class of Chicago 8th graders were shown the movie “Brokeback Mountain.” Among others, both the Petey LaBarbera (the guy who spies on gay folks) at the oddly named Americans for “Truth” and, of course, our good buddy Johnny Ruskin of Illinois Review have written on the matter to exfoliate all that rage and horror at the evil homo-educratic agenda from their pretty little selves.

But what they seem to be most pleased about is that one of those 8th graders is now suing the Chicago Public Schools for half a million dollars … for psychological distress. I guess she (or her grandparents) think seeing cowboys kiss has now scarred her for life and perhaps even given her a lifelong disgust for people who play cowboys for the screen, such as Presidents Reagan and Bush 43. We’ll have to wait to see what their rationale is when they go to court to waste the judge’s time… What’s that? “Waste the judge’s time…” Where have we heard this before?

Strangely enough, folks who support “tort reform” with exclamations of “End frivolous lawsuits!” have yet to weigh in on this matter of great, national importance. I wonder what Petey and Johnny’s conservative allies Ed Murnane, Curt Mercadente and the rest of the superheros at the Illinois Civil Justice League have to say about this frivolous lawsuit. (Then again, maybe it comes down to everybody hating lawyers til a kid sees a movie they don’t like.)

John Ruskin gives us another little bit of alarmism this morning with a brief link to a Jerusalem Post opinion column about the recent Burlington, NJ school terrorism drill.

I’ve written before about the routine practice of self-fulfilling martyrdom among conservative Christianists (a sort of modern day, pop-media inspired self-flagellation). They think they’re being persecuted therefore they run around ranting about the burden of being persecuted. Elwood McQuaid, the essayist who wrote that J-Post column, even provides the appropriate New Testament passage:

“For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Phil. 1:29)

These folks create scenarios in which they either set themselves up to be victims of their own minority viewpoint (”Woe is me for no one agrees that we should ban books”) or, as in this case, they ignore the facts in order to paint themselves as victims. That’s not actually suffering “for His sake” … but to them it clearly feels like it is.

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Illinois Reviewer John Ruskin pokes fun at Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (aka, thorn in conservatives’ collective side) over his recent Kansas flub and the subsequent explanation from the campaign.

But I wonder, what does Mr. Ruskin think the current President’s excuse has been for his gaffe-a-day administration? Lack of oxygen after that pretzel incident years back?

Unlike Mr. Ruskin and his fellow conservative partisan jesters I realize Sen. Obama is human just like the rest of us. He’s going to say the wrong word or transpose thoughts every now and then just like Mr. Ruskin and I both do. Stuff happens.

But then again, maybe the reason Mr. Ruskin is so concerned about this is because conservatives think Sen. Obama is a man-god and as such should be immune to errors.

Seeing as how today sort of turned into John Ruskin Day here at Illinois Reason (hey, we can’t help it that most of his comments are beyond goofy)… 

Not sure if this means John Ruskin agrees with the rest of his fellow Americans, but he at least does everyone the honor of repeating a recent Gallup poll on the war with little editorial/partisan comments on the findings.

The 10 points Mr. Ruskin echoes from that poll are all things I and a good many other mainstreamers have been saying for some time as proof that conservative partisans are now outliers on the war (yet it continuously seems to fall on deaf partisan conservative ears).

Mr. Ruskin says it well simply by reiterating his fellow citizens’ ideas:

1. The Iraq war is an extremely high priority for Americans
2. A majority of Americans feel it was a mistake for us to get involved in Iraq
3. Americans perceive that the war is not going well
4. Americans do not believe the troop surge is having a positive effect
5. Americans perceive that the benefits of winning the war do not outweigh the costs involved
6. Most Americans support a timetable for removing troops from Iraq within the next year, but not immediate withdrawal
7. A majority of Americans are against cutting funding for the war
8. Democrats are better positioned than Republicans on handling the issue of Iraq
9. Views on the war are highly partisan
10. A gender gap exists concerning views on the Iraq war

Mr. Ruskin reaches a valid conclusion. He says: “It would seem that now is a time for leadership on the part of the Administration. But I wouldn’t hold out too much hope for that folks.”

And this is why folks are attracted to the Democratic candidates — their ideas are aligned. To date, the Republican candidates are still supporting the Bush strategy of never-ending battle in Iraq. Sen. McCain even goes several degrees further by one-upping the president’s current surge plan (Sen. McCain doesn’t really explain from whence these extra troops will magically appear to round out his hyper-surge strategy).

In all honesty, the Republican candidates are stuck. The clear majority of Americans are both highly concerned about Iraq and want our brave troops home, yet (as Mr. Ruskin notes above) desires on the Iraq War are highly partisan and the Republican/conservative base wants the war to continue.

(Delving deeper, McCain’s promotion of a hyper-surge is, IMHO, another half-measure. If the strategy is a surge, make it an actual surge instead of just a bump. Pentagon wargames demonstrated a need for roughly half a million troops. While this is unsustainable without a draft or a significant increase in allies, instead of the current continuous decrease, it is what is required to meet the president’s currently stated goal of stability in Iraq.)

And apparently we now know its name.

So John Ruskin finds a photo of the Democratic presidential contenders’ debate (which shows a few spouses’ rear views) and says “Nice Ass-es” (yes, I get the lame double-entendre about the butt-shot and the Democratic donkey). Is it just another laughless Illinois Review joke or something else?

Pantsuit profiles notwithstanding, perhaps the truth behind the post is that Mr. Ruskin must be envious that Democrats have (from their perspective at least) a pleasantly difficult choice between very reasonable candidates who reflect the values of not just their party and its current spate of rationality but also our nation which has clearly grown weary of Bush- and Ruskin-style uberpartisanship and wants to head back to the mainstream.

Or perhaps Mr. Ruskin, who doesn’t seem to like Illinois’ front-runner* for GOP nomination Sen. McCain (*-according to the recent Rich Miller poll), is envious that the Democratic candidates have been attracting audiences upwards of 10x the size of their Republican equivalents.

Pure class, Ruskin style.

John Ruskin had a busy weekend of trying to find things to write that make no sense, even in his bizarro world of hypocrisy and made-up malarkey…

On Saturday he made up stuff about the Trib’s article on a Gilead Center study which found there are a growing number of uninsured citizens in Illinois.

Guess what Mr. Ruskin — neither the Trib nor the Gilead Center made anything up in their reports on the matter.

To follow Mr. Ruskin’s format…

First: There are more people who lack health insurance in Illinois, just like throughout America. How’s that the fault of a governor who is trying to solve the problem? Businesses, the main provider of such a benefit, are slowly but surely peeling away layer after layer of health care insurance (if not dropping it altogether). This is an effect of ever-spiralling costs and waste systemic to the current healthcare, pharmaceutical and payment coverage (HMOs, insurance, etc) systems.

You may not like the governor’s solution or the organizations which support his solution (it’s clear that you do not — that is your right), but that does not give you the magical right to make stuff up in a weak effort to boost your side of things.

Second: Anti-choice solutions? Sure, that’s why others on the opposite end of the political spectrum are complaining (not quite as ridiculously as Mr. Ruskin) that the governor’s plan is market-based and does not eliminate built-in corporate waste.

Third: Any person can walk into a hospital and, so long as they need care, the hospital must give them care. Doesn’t matter if their great-great-great-great-grandfather rowed across the Delaware with Washington or if they came here illegally last week… It also doesn’t matter if they are a millionaire or out-of-work homeless person with nary a penny… hospitals by law must give them care.

It’s only logical that the Gilead Center study would include all people eligible for care in Illinois (everyone in Illinois). Your hyperbole sounds like quite the whine.

Fourth: What part of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness does Mr. Ruskin not understand? Yes, health care is considered a right in these United States. This is why, by law, we as a society say that anyone who walks into a hospital and needs help must be given that help. We don’t leave our people to just die in the streets. We are not that country, no matter how much whining partisan conservatives do to promote the notion that we should be.

Kind of strange for an anti-abortion conservative to now speak out of both sides of his mouth by railing against health care, eh?

Yet more hypocrisy from partisan John Ruskin.

We know John Ruskin hate-hate-hates liberals, but is he really this desperate to throw another slab o’ hate on the barby?

Racial Profiling - Liberal Style

by John Ruskin

Notice anything similar between Virginia Tech murderer Seung-Hui Cho and Cary-Grove High School senior Allen Lee? …

The Illinois educrats did. Seems they’ve been doing a little racial profiling — and ruining a kid’s life in the process.

(It actually gets worse, as Mr. Ruskin compares progressives to the Klan… Yes, really, he did go there.)

Teri O’Brien, well, she was as Teri O’Brien as she could be, saying basically the same thing (sans the racial profiling angle) as Mr. Ruskin in her slightly earlier post on the topic at Illinois Review. And Cal Skinner complained that the Tribune gave this issue front-page coverage a few times over the course 3 days — which is interesting since Illinois Review has now covered the Allen Lee story 3 times in 24 hours.

Back to Mr. Ruskin. What sort of goofball looks at what Mr. Lee wrote in the days after the Virginia Tech massacre and then thinks that his school administrators and the police are committing racial profiling?!? Read the text, Mr. Ruskin.

While yes it was for a creative writing class and, by all appearances, Cary-Grove Trojan Allen Lee appears to be a very well-rounded, upstanding student and citizen, the text of his essay is disturbing and should give anyone pause. And while I think the police overreacted certainly some sort of consequences were appropriate (the area’s police are known for that — don’t drive 31mph in a 30mph zone…. I’m just sayin’). My preference, though I don’t know all the facts — only the text of the essay, would have been for a detention or two.

It may have been a creative writing class, but restraint is also an important lesson.

Given that the school turned the matter over to the police and it is the police who brought the charges (and thus are hampering Mr. Lee’s plans to join the Marines) it would seem to be the police, not the teachers, with whom Mr. Ruskin ought to take up his complaints of racial profiling.

Obviously, none of this explains where Mr. Ruskin came up with this kooky theory of his … especially seeing as how he himself is a profiler. (Mr. Ruskin was all too happy to promote the conservative Christianists’ idea that the VaTech killer was Muslim.)

The only logical explanation? John Ruskin hates public school teachers and/or the unions that support them (ie, them thar “educrats” as Mr. Ruskin puts it).

Here’s a wee li’l crack at creative writing of my own:

Hypocrisy: Thy name be John Ruskin
and thee be blinded by partisan hate.
Hope you drop those scales from your eyes
‘fore the hour grows too late.

Another John Ruskin post, another baseless claim. Today Ruskin copies and pastes an email apparently sent out by Gary Bauer’s Campaign for Working Families in which CFW sensationally claims:

“Cho Seung Hui’s videotape, made during an “intermission” in his murder spree, is filled with hatred toward American culture, wealthy people, and Christians. At one point the killer says, “Jesus loved crucifying me…he loved inducing cancer in my head, terrorizing my heart and ripping my soul…”

He signed his written letter and had written on his arm “Ishmael Ax,” [sic] a Muslim spelling, many believe, for the son of Abraham. Moreover, he also referred to the “martyrs like Eric and Dylan.” That would be Columbine murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 students and a teacher this same week in 1999. Only one faith embraces this perverted view of “martyrdom” whereby the murderers are celebrated as martyrs, and it’s not Christianity.

(Clarification: CFW spells it wrong. According the Chicago Tribune, the words were spelled “Ismail Ax”. More on that in a bit.)

This is a bizarre, needlessly partisan reaction to Monday’s massacre — claiming this was all the act of a radical Muslim — but it falls directly in line with the groupthink of a great many other conservative partisans like Jerry Bowyer and more who apparently look for any excuse to do a little hatin’ on Muslims.

But there are several issues with this baseless theory.

Read the rest of this entry »

Illinois Review contributor John Ruskin (not the dead English guy) joins fellow Illinois Review contributor Bruno Behrend (who posted about it at his own blog, Extreme “Wisdom”) in promoting Mark Steyn, jackass.

Why is Steyn a jackass? He feels a need to turn a 32-person massacre into a debate over whose balls have more brass — instead of a soapbox to promote his partisan conservative agenda, he climbs on their dead bodies (some of whose families have yet to bury their loved ones).

The truly funny thing? They’re all grown men whining about what they think is some sort of a “loss of manhood” in this country. To be honest, they sound just like my pre-schooler when she can’t find her dolly. Seriously. (Though, in all fairness, my girl has yet to quote Shakespeare, let alone esoteric pundit Kathy Shaidle, while searching for Cinderella).

Guys, it’s ok. You don’t need to worry about the rest of us — we are fine. But really, this continuing questioning of others’ manhood … well, it’s starting to look like maybe the problem is with the guy staring back at you in the mirror. Steyn, and his parrots Behrend and Ruskin (among others), seem to want to join the league of those like Petey LaBarbera who is so uncomfortable with his own manliness he had to keep his son home from school lest he get ideas about “the gays”.

If you’re not comfortable with the status of your own manhood, fine. Figure out a way to deal with it on your own. Leave us out of it because, as for all us regular guys over here in the real world, we’re jim-dandy with the level of testosterone flowing in our own red-blooded, flag-waving manly man selves.

You want evidence of America’s manliness (ie, bravery)? Don’t look to the partisan conservatives in the 101st Fighting Keyboardists. Look to these guys and gals instead:

• Heroes in uniform
• NY City hero, saved a man’s life by protecting him from oncoming subway train … then dusted himself off and went to work
• And, of course, the hero professor who sacrificed himself to protect his students and the heroes in Room 207 who at first protected themselves and then blockaded the door to prevent the gunner’s return (including the guy who had already been shot)

And there are plenty more right here in these United States, so quit whining like girly-men.

John Ruskin has another wacky post up at Illinois Review lamenting some war protest in Portland, Oregon. While many others have noted that a great many war protesters are actually grandparents and parents, Mr. Ruskin ignores all that to highlight a relatively rare but sensational snippet — Americans displaying their first amendment rights.

He then goes on to complain — in that wacky, reality-ignoring way of his — that Illinois’ Democrats  (with Illinois’ Republicans sitting idly by) somehow voted for Oregonians to use their first amendment rights 2100 miles away.

No, Mr. Ruskin, that’d be the ratifiers of our U.S. Constitution who voted to give our fellow Americans the right to do these things. It happened in 1787 which may be why you don’t remember it.

No matter how much it may turn our stomachs (and I agree with Mr. Ruskin’s premise that this burning is simply not right), their ability to burn our flag is what our soldiers fight and die for and what our Constitution’s ratifiers, our nation’s Founding Fathers, gave us.

If you don’t like America, Mr. Ruskin, you are free to go and live under some other Constitutional authority in which freedom of speech may only be an idea to be squashed rather than the penultimate law of the land.