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GOP's fear-mongering doesn’t make Trump better; Thomas M. Finch; Beaver County Times; August 25, 2016.
The BCT has published at least 40 letters from Mr. Finch since December 2004. At least 31 of these letters were anti-Bush and/or anti-Republican and they never disappoint. Here is one example. You can find the remaining Finch letters I critiqued in the critique archives. As usual, this letter is little more than a string of leftist talking points. I wish he could get a regular column in the BCT. I also wish he could get at least five minutes per day on a local radio and/or TV station. The most recent letter I reviewed was “Cruz campaign full of half-truths and lies.”
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“I’m always amazed when people decide to parade their personal opinions based solely on the right-wing lies told by ‘Faux’ News.”
[RWC] How does TMF know the sources of info Mr. O’Hara uses to form his positions? Mr. O’Hara didn’t mention FNC. TMF didn’t identify his own sources.
Mr. Finch should probably avoid the topic of “fear-mongering.”
According to a 2014 New York Times (NYT) article,
“In the final days before the election, Democrats in the closest Senate races across the South are turning to racially charged messages — invoking Trayvon Martin’s death, the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., and Jim Crow-era segregation — to jolt African-Americans into voting and stop a Republican takeover in Washington.
“The images and words they are using are striking for how overtly they play on fears of intimidation and repression. And their source is surprising. The effort is being led by national Democrats and their state party organizations — not, in most instances, by the shadowy and often untraceable political action committees that typically employ such provocative messages. …
“The messages are coursing through the campaigns like a riptide, powerful and under the surface, largely avoiding television and out of view of white voters.”
Regarding a 2014 Senate race in North Carolina, the NYT article reported, “at a black church in Fayetteville, leaflets with a grainy image of a lynching have appeared, warning voters that if Ms. Hagan loses, President Obama will be impeached.” Sen. Hagan was the Democrat incumbent; she lost to Thom Tillis (R).
According to a 2004 Los Angeles Times piece,
“America Coming Together recently distributed more than 100,000 fliers in black neighborhoods featuring a civil rights-era photograph of a fireman blasting a black man with a fire hose. ‘This is what they used to do to keep us from voting,’ the caption said. On the back, the flier said Republicans were still seeking to block the black vote by breaking the rules, ‘like they did in Florida and St. Louis’ in 2000.”
The LA Times article failed to mention those in charge of firemen blasting black men with fire hoses and those who used attack dogs on civil rights advocates were Democrats, not Republicans. FYI, there are some who would have us believe disenchanted segregationist rank-and-file Democrats and their leaders en masse became Republicans and “good” Democrats stayed Democrats. I’m sure Democrats would like to believe this fairy tale, but if segregationist Democrats became Republicans in hopes of furthering racist policies, the strategy was a horrible failure for them. If you ask for an example of a Republican policy that was remotely racist – real, not imagined, expect silence or another fairy tale. Expect a similar reply if you ask for an explanation of former U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-FL), former U.S. Rep. and Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC), U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Lynn Swann, Michael Steele, Ken Blackwell, Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, U.S. Rep. Mia Love (R-UT), Gov. Susana Martinez (R-NM), Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC, the first black senator elected in the South since Reconstruction), and on and on.
According to Wikipedia, ACT (a leftist PAC) “was primarily funded by insurance mogul Peter Lewis [Progressive Insurance], currency trader George Soros, and labor unions, especially the Service Employees International Union, and was led by Steve Rosenthal, a former political director of the AFL-CIO.” ACT went out of business in 2005 and subsequently agreed to pay a $775,000 FEC fine for violating fundraising rules.
I could be wrong, but I think the last time Democrats didn’t claim the Republican candidate was going to pull the Social Security (SS) rug out from under senior citizens was in 1932, three years before SS existed.
Finally, in reference to Donald Trump’s disapproval of additional coal regs proposed/supported by President Obama and Hillary Clinton (“will bankrupt them [coal-fired power plants] because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted”), a local agitprop wrote, “I’m one of the war [World War II] baby generation who can still remember what this was like.” The author then linked to a 2012 Daily Mail (UK) article with photos of downtown Pittsburgh when coal smoke was a huge pollution problem for this area. Apparently the author wants his flock to believe Pittsburgh will return to its smoky days without more coal regs. Something not mentioned was local government and industry collaborated on the pollution turnaround that began more than two decades before the federal EPA existed.
“I hope letter writer Scott O’Hara lives long enough to witness the passage of time vindicate President Obama’s legacy. Today’s divisive political climate paints a distorted picture of the actual truth. His disparagement of Obama’s ‘track record’ is misinformed and delusional. When you consider the mess he inherited from his truly inept, unfit, and incompetent predecessor, he should be praised for making things better. If electing Hillary means a ‘3rd term’ of progress, I’m all for it.”
[RWC] TMF probably doesn’t know it, but it appears he conceded most of us have the same view of President Obama as Mr. O’Hara. Otherwise, what’s there to “vindicate” about “President Obama’s legacy?”
Though I’m not a fan of former-President Clinton, it’s tacky for TMF to call him “truly inept, unfit, and incompetent.”
“To think it would ‘devastate’ the country is more GOP fear-mongering based on lies. The bottom line is that no amount of back-handed slaps aimed at Obama/Clinton will make Donald Trump competent, electable or fit to be president. O’Hara sits in a glass house throwing stones at others.”
[RWC] Donald Trump (DT) is at least as qualified and fit for the office of US President as Hillary Clinton (HRC). It’s no secret my problems with DT are mostly about ideology – whatever his is – and style. As I wrote before, “I know exactly what HC appointees will do to the Supreme Court (SC) and the damage it will do to our country for decades. Though not a certainty, with Donald Trump (DT) there’s a chance our country won’t face that fate.”
Whether DT wins or not, the closer the election, the greater the chance Republicans retain the Senate. That said, even if Republicans retain the Senate majority, an HRC win means she will still have the opportunity to appoint at least one lefty justice, giving leftists the clear majority with five seats and no need to convince a “swing justice” to join them to get their way. A Republican-majority Senate, however, can still block HRC legislation as Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) did for bills passed by the Republican-majority House that President Obama didn’t like. Those are the reasons why I will vote for DT.
TMF alleges “O’Hara sits in a glass house throwing stones at others” while oblivious of his own “glass house.”
“As for the veiled racism of Laura Weir’s letter, I’m glad that she thinks that race relations have improved so much in this country that nothing more needs to be done. Then she leaps to the conclusion that all government corruption, irresponsibility and lies are somehow only to be laid at Hillary Clinton’s feet? Being a corrupt, self-centered, liar is the very definition of Donald Trump -- but I’m supposed to believe that Hillary is worse? I don’t think so.”
[RWC] What “veiled racism?” I don’t know Ms. Weir, but it would take a lot of creative reading to call anyone a racist – “veiled” or otherwise - based on the letter I read. When someone pulls out the racism tactic, he’s admitted he can’t win the debate based on facts, history, logic, and principle.
As any HRC supporter, TMF should probably stay away from accusing anyone of “being a corrupt, self-centered, liar.” My most recent compilation of HRC’s trail of lies, including those of her E-mailgate, is here.
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