Romney selecting Paul Ryan as is running mate [Archive] - Page 2

Wild Cobra

08-13-2012, 02:08 AM

Meet Paul Ryan: Climate Denier, Conspiracy Theorist, Koch Acolyte

A favorite of the Koch brothers, Ryan has accused scientists of engaging in conspiracy to “intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change.”

Paul Ryan Promoted Unfounded Conspiracy Theories About Climate Scientists. In a December 2009 op-ed during international climate talks, Ryan made reference to the hacked University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit emails. He accused climatologists of a “perversion of the scientific method, where data were manipulated to support a predetermined conclusion,” in order to “intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change.” Because of spurious claims of conspiracy like these, several governmental and academic inquiries were launched, all of which found the accusations to be without merit. [Paul Ryan, 12/11/09]

Paul Ryan Argued Snow Invalidates Global Warming Policy. In the same anti-science, anti-scientist December 2009 op-ed, Ryan argued, “Unilateral economic restraint in the name of fighting global warming has been a tough sell in our communities, where much of the state is buried under snow.” Ryan’s line is especially disingenuous because he hasn’t been trying to sell climate action, he’s been spreading disinformation. [Paul Ryan, 12/11/09]

Paul Ryan Voted To Eliminate EPA Limits On Greenhouse Pollution. Ryan voted in favor of H.R. 910, introduced in 2011 by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas pollution. [Roll Call 249, 4/7/11]

Paul Ryan Voted To Block The USDA From Preparing For Climate Change. In 2011, Ryan voted in favor of the Scalise (R-LA) Amendment to the FY12 Agriculture Appropriations bill, to bar the U.S. Department of Agriculture from implementing its Climate Protection Plan. [Roll Call 448, 6/16/11]

Paul Ryan Voted To Eliminate White House Climate Advisers. Ryan voted in favor of Scalise (R-LA) Amendment 204 to the 2011 Continuing Resolution, to eliminate the assistant to the president for energy and climate change, the special envoy for climate change (Todd Stern), and the special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation. [Roll Call 87, 2/17/11]

Paul Ryan Voted To Eliminate ARPA-E. Ryan voted in favor of Biggert (R-IL) Amendment 192 to the 2011 Continuing Resolution, to eliminate the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E). [Roll Call 55, 2/17/11]

Paul Ryan Voted To Eliminate Light Bulb Efficiency Standards. In 2011, Ryan voted to roll back light-bulb efficiency standards that had reinvigorated the domestic lighting industry and that significantly reduce energy waste and carbon pollution. [Roll Call 563, 7/12/11]

Paul Ryan Voted For Keystone XL. In 2011, Ryan voted to expedite the consideration and approval of the construction and operation of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. [Roll Call 650, 7/26/11]

Paul Ryan Budget Kept Big Oil Subsidies And Slashed Clean Energy Investment. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposed FY 2013 budget resolution retained a decade’s worth of oil tax breaks worth $40 billion, while slashing funding for investments in clean energy research, development, deployment, and commercialization, along with other energy programs. The plan called for a $3 billion cut in energy programs in FY 2013 alone. [CAP, 3/20/12]

http://truth-out.org/news/item/10855-meet-paul-ryan-climate-denier-conspiracy-theorist-koch-acolyte
How does that make him a denier? Isn't he a skeptic instead?

boutons_deux

08-13-2012, 08:22 AM

Paul Ryan’s Guru Ayn Rand Worshipped a Serial Killer Who Kidnapped and Dismembered Little Girls

http://exiledonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Paul-ryan-470x376.jpg

There’s something deeply unsettling about living in a country where millions of people go frothing batshit angry at the suggestion that maybe health care coverage should be extended to the tens of millions of Americans who don’t have it; or when they froth at the mouth in ecstasy at the thought of privatizing and slashing bedrock social programs like Social Security or Medicare. It might not be as hard to stomach if other Western countries also had a large, vocal chunk of their population who thought like this, but the US is seemingly the only place where right-wing elites can openly share their distaste for the working poor. Where do they find their philosophical justification for this kind of attitude?

It turns out, you can trace much of this thinking back to Ayn Rand, a popular cult-philosopher who plays Charlie to the American right-wing’s Manson Family. Read on and you’ll see why.

One reason why most countries don’t find the time to embrace her thinking is that Ayn Rand is a textbook sociopath. Literally a sociopath: Ayn Rand, in her notebooks, worshiped a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer, and used this killer as an early model for the type of “ideal man” that Rand promoted in her more famous books — ideas which were later picked up on and put into play by major right-wing figures of the past half decade, including the key architects of America’s most recent economic catastrophe — former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and SEC Commissioner Chris Cox — along with other notable right-wing Republicans such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Rush Limbaugh, Rep. Paul Ryan, and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/08/mark-ames-paul-ryans-guru-ayn-rand-worshipped-a-serial-killer-who-kidnapped-and-dismembered-little-girls.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capi talism%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Clipper Nation

08-13-2012, 08:27 AM

Apparently you goobers don't get it.

Ryan is not the potential POTUS.

Whatever plan he may have proposed previously is not necessarily the plan of the Republican nominee for POTUS.

DUHHHHHH
So you're saying Willard picked a running mate he disagrees with economically and they won't run on the same plan? That would be an even bigger disaster for Willard, tbh... :lol

Drachen

08-13-2012, 08:52 AM

Well you are trying to argue fine details when that's not the point I was making. I'm just saying if you project forward the GOP/Ryan healthcare proposals you can see a path (with democrat tweaking) for it to become similar to the German system.

Now with Obamacare, although he claims he gave us a framework that can be built upon, I don't see it taking us in any particular direction with future modifications. Do you?

Here, this article is a pretty good explanation of the German system.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91971406

boutons_deux

08-13-2012, 09:01 AM

So you're saying Willard picked a running mate he disagrees with economically and they won't run on the same plan? That would be an even bigger disaster for Willard, tbh... :lol

Gecko's people are saying Gecko would have signed Ryan's 2 sociopathic budgets if he were Pres.

Gecko endorsed Ryan's budgets in the primaries.

Gecko now HAS a specific budget policy and budget, now that he's adopted Ryan.

boutons_deux

08-13-2012, 09:04 AM

Why Romney’s Budget Plan Requires Even Deeper Cuts Than Ryan’s

– Under the Ryan plan, core defense spending (the defense budget other than war costs and some relatively small items such as military family housing),[11] would total about $5.7 trillion over the ten-year period 2013-2022. The Romney plan would increase core defense spending to $7.9 trillion. The Ryan plan increases core defense funding modestly relative to the existing BCA caps, but core defense would nevertheless decline to 2.6 percent of GDP by 2022. In contrast, Governor Romney would increase core defense to 4 percent of GDP.

– The Ryan plan would cut entitlement and discretionary programs (outside of core defense and net interest) by $5.2 trillion over ten years.[12] The Romney proposal would cut this spending by between $7.0 trillion and $9.6 trillion, depending upon whether the budget is balanced. Thus, Governor Romney’s ten-year cuts would range from one-third deeper than those in the Ryan budget to almost twice as deep as the Ryan cuts.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/13/680821/romney-ryan-budget-deeper-cuts/

boutons_deux

08-13-2012, 09:16 AM

Ryan to Release 2 Years of Taxes

They’re already working as a team. Bushy-tailed new GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Sunday that he’ll be releasing only as many tax returns as presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney—two years’ worth. Most Democrats, and likely some Republicans as well, are likely to find that underwhelming. Ryan declined to divulge how many years of returns he’d made available during the vetting process, though the going-over by Romney’s camp was “very exhaustive,” he said in an interview with 60 Minutes. “It’s a confidential vetting process, so there were several years,” he said.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/08/13/ryan-to-release-2-years-of-taxes.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet

Ryan obviously can't be more open than Gecko.

Born wealthy, secretive, sociopathic, what a plutocratic pair!

xrayzebra

08-13-2012, 09:27 AM

Yeah, boutons, Ryan eats small children and old Democrats......

Winehole23

08-13-2012, 09:28 AM

I keep reading smart (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-11/this-is-now-the-most-important-election-since-1980.html) people (http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/paul-ryans-party.html) who say that Mitt Romney (http://topics.bloomberg.com/mitt-romney/)’s selection of Paul Ryan (http://topics.bloomberg.com/paul-ryan/) as his running mate will produce the titanic clash of visions that we’ve supposedly all been waiting for. Ryan will fill in the grey zones of Romneyism, bolstering Romney’s ideological bona fides and bringing the ghost of Ayn Rand (http://topics.bloomberg.com/ayn-rand/) into the ring against the spectral tag team of Franklin Roosevelt (http://topics.bloomberg.com/franklin-roosevelt/) and Lyndon Johnson (http://topics.bloomberg.com/lyndon-johnson/).

Over the next three months, Democrats will do their best to produce that epic battle. In choosing Ryan, Romney appears willing to aide his opponents’ strategy.
Yet there is reason to be skeptical that Romney has just embraced a Manichean struggle. Romney’s campaign is emerging from two weeks of brutal scrutiny of his budget plan. After analyzing the plan on Romney’s own terms, the Tax Policy Center (http://topics.bloomberg.com/tax-policy-center/) concluded (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=1001628) it was “mathematically impossible.”

If Romney wants an epic clash of visions, he doesn’t need Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, on his ticket. He only needs to insert real numbers in his own plan, revealing that the only way to provide his upper-income tax cuts without exploding the national debt is to initiate a sharp retrenchment of government outlays that benefit middle-class and poor Americans. Romney chose not to do that either because he deems it political suicide or because he wants the details sufficiently vague that he can shake free of them if he’s elected president; most likely both.

His selection of Ryan doesn’t clarify that intentional muddle. A Romney plan that deliberately doesn’t add up is now complemented by a Ryan plan that deliberately doesn’t add up. As Ezra Klein (http://topics.bloomberg.com/ezra-klein/) explains here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/11/paul-ryan-isnt-a-deficit-hawk-hes-a-conservative-reformer/), Ryan’s plan assumes that the federal government will eventually shrink to the point that it consists of defense, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And Medicare would be drastically revised. (In essence, the U.S. government would at last be small enough for Grover Norquist (http://topics.bloomberg.com/grover-norquist/) to fulfill his dream of drowning it in a bathtub.)

Would a President Romney and a Republican Congress prove willing to inflict high levels of pain on the poor and middle class while further reducing historically low taxes on the wealthy? What of the Republican donors – the contractors and corporate welfare recipients – who feed so well at the federal trough? Do they passively watch their subsidies circle the bathtub drain? Does Mitch McConnell look like a man who wants to run the Senate for two years of ideological glory before surrendering power for a generation in an electoral backlash?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-12/does-a-romney-ryan-ticket-really-ensure-a-clash-of-visions-.html

Clipper Nation

08-13-2012, 09:40 AM

How convenient that Ryan's ideal government consists only of warmongering and Baby Boomer handouts... basically a neocon's wet dream, tbh... not conservative, no principles, only wanting to be elected, and this ticket is supposed to be BETTER than Obama?

boutons_deux

08-13-2012, 09:53 AM

"Would a President Romney and a Republican Congress prove willing to inflict high levels of pain on the poor and middle class while further reducing historically low taxes on the wealthy?"

Why is this even a question? THERE IS NO QUESTION, they would be willing. They've been saying exactly that for decades.

They want to "take the country back" for the 1%, no matter how hard they fuck the 99%.

Nobody listens or believes what the Repugs and conservatives have been saying repeatedly for years?

Sportcamper

08-13-2012, 10:33 AM

Don’t know anything about him but he does not have the decency to wear a tie at his Romney introduction event right in front of the USS Wisconsin…Weird Alfalfa hair cut going on…Talking about US jobs but Probably drives a Prius…Does not strike me as overly intelligent…Would have rather had real guy "Christie" or "Condoleezza"…

Winehole23

08-13-2012, 11:20 AM

In broad strokes, that agenda generates enthusiastic support among blue-collar and older white voters who have grown increasingly resistant to government spending, particularly for transfer programs to the poor, and the taxes required to fund them. In the 2010 national exit poll, for instance, two-thirds of non-college whites said “government is doing too many things better left to businesses and people,” while only 29 percent agreed that “government should do more to solve problems.” In a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey last year exploring the contrasting attitudes among American generations, 62 percent of the aging white baby boom-and an even more resounding 67 percent of the older “silent” generation-said they preferred a smaller government that offers fewer services to a larger government that provides more. And in that same survey, a majority of both the baby boomers and seniors said they supported the repeal of the new Obama health care law, which according to other polls many of them primarily view as a welfare program for the poor. In the 2010 exit poll, nearly three-fifths of non-college whites also supported repeal.

But among both blue-collar and older whites attitudes about Medicare are very different. In March, the United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll offered respondents two options for the program. Just 19 percent of whites older than 65 endorsed Ryan’s approach, which said “Medicare should be changed to a system where the government provides seniors with a fixed sum of money they could use either to purchase private health insurance or to pay the cost of remaining in the current Medicare program.” Fully 74 percent of white seniors said instead that “Medicare should continue as it is today, with the government providing health insurance and paying doctors and hospitals directly for the services they provide to seniors.” Among non-college whites, 63 percent said they preferred the current system, while only 26 percent backed Ryan’s approach. (Ryan’s plan also drew opposition not only from 66 percent of college-educated white women -- consistently the most Democratic-leaning component of the white electorate -- but even 60 percent of college-educated men, an audience usually receptive to anti-government arguments.)

Generally surveys find white women more resistant to changes in the safety net than white men (although the specific Congressional Connection Poll on Ryan’s plan didn’t show that pattern.) If Ryan’s plan remains a central focus through the fall, it would not be surprising if that debate widened the gender gap -- potentially helping the Republican ticket with men most receptive to the sort of broad anti-government arguments Ryan unfurled in his announcement speech Saturday, but hurting it with white women.
http://nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/why-ryan-could-make-a-romney-victory-harder-20120812?page=2

AFBlue

08-13-2012, 04:21 PM

Yet he chose a running mate whose economic plan involves increasing the deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years, and whose idea for balancing the budget just kicks the can down the road for the next thirty years, tbh... that plan makes no significant cuts, and only serves to funnel money otherwise going to social programs to the military instead, when we need to instead be ending our unaffordable "world police" act...

Still smaller than an Obama budget. You may disagree with the spending prioritization/allocation, but that doesn't make it "larger government." Thus, my claim still holds true.

Winehole23

08-13-2012, 04:24 PM

based on ten year projections and everybody doing what they say.

in all likelihood, both of you are probably wrong

Winehole23

08-13-2012, 04:26 PM

lol dueling with paper swords

boutons_deux

08-13-2012, 04:43 PM

Paul Ryan Vowed To ‘Protect’ Social Security In A Lockbox, And Other Fun Facts From His First Congressional Run

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/13/682471/paul-ryan-1998-race/

TeyshaBlue

08-13-2012, 05:16 PM

lol thinkprogress

LnGrrrR

08-13-2012, 05:45 PM

What a surprise! People support gov't programs that directly benefit them! :lol

boutons_deux

08-13-2012, 07:03 PM

Romney Officially Embraces Ryan’s Plan For Medicare

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign sought to distance the former Massachusetts governor from Paul Ryan’s controversial Medicare privatization plan on Saturday, but by Monday, Romney fully embraced his running mate’s proposal. During a press availability in Miami, Romney turned down three opportunities to explain how his vision would differ from Ryan’s, telling reporters, “my plan for Medicare is very similar to his plan for Medicare.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/08/13/685801/romney-officially-embraces-ryans-plan-for-medicare/

LnGrrrR

08-13-2012, 08:00 PM

baseline bum

08-13-2012, 08:16 PM

It was a fun race while it lasted...

You honestly think it's over? Before the money has really started flowing?

LnGrrrR

08-13-2012, 08:26 PM

You honestly think it's over? Before the money has really started flowing?

Eh, perhaps there'll be a struggle, but my gut tells me that Obama will have this rather handily (at least 53%). Of course, things can change if something explosive comes up, but I doubt it.

jack sommerset

08-13-2012, 09:25 PM

I wonder what percentage of the the black vote Obama will get this time around. God bless

DarrinS

08-13-2012, 11:00 PM

I wonder what percentage of the the black vote Obama will get this time around. God bless

Maybe a bit lower this time around -- say 95%

Clipper Nation

08-14-2012, 12:02 AM

You honestly think it's over? Before the money has really started flowing?
Money for what? Willard certainly can't run on his record, tbh... I suppose he could run a bunch of racist birth certificate ads and the like, but that would really seal his fate for good....

Wild Cobra

08-14-2012, 02:01 AM

I wonder what percentage of the the black vote Obama will get this time around. God bless
I'll bet he will still get high 90's of those who vote, but I'll bet only half as many turn out to vote.

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 05:46 AM

9 Reasons Romney's Choice of Paul Ryan for Veep Is Smarter Than You Think

1. Romney was in danger of losing badly, so a gamble was worth the risk.

2. Romney is now seen as bold.

3. Did I mention Ryan is Catholic?

4. Romney now has even more money.

5. Romney gets the full Koch election infrastructure.

6. The Romney campaign will now be the most brutal, race-tinged, fact-absent, expensive, technologically sophisticated campaign ever run.

7. While the VP pick isn't going to change the mind of many independent or hard-core party voters, it is a move to bring all elements of the party in sync.

8. Repeat: Paul Ryan is the most effective phony in American politics today.

9. The Conservative tribe is now ready to fight all of its enemies.

http://www.alternet.org/print/election-2012/9-reasons-romneys-choice-paul-ryan-veep-smarter-you-think

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 06:06 AM

The Ryan Role

even Jacob Weisberg apologized for his initial praise, admitting that

I reacted too quickly and didn’t sort out just how laughable Ryan’s long-term spending projections were. His plan projects an absurd future, according to the Congressional Budget Office, in which all discretionary spending, now around 12 percent of GDP, shrinks to 3 percent of GDP by 2050. Defense spending alone was 4.7 percent of GDP in 2009. With numbers like that, Ryan is more an anarchist-libertarian than honest conservative.

Ryan hasn’t “crunched the numbers”; he has just scribbled some stuff down, without checking at all to see if it makes sense. He asserts that he can cut taxes without net loss of revenue by closing unspecified loopholes; he asserts that he can cut discretionary spending to levels not seen since Calvin Coolidge, without saying how; he asserts that he can convert Medicare to a voucher system, with much lower spending than now projected, without even a hint of how this is supposed to work. This is just a fantasy, not a serious policy proposal.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/13/the-ryan-role/

DarrinS

08-14-2012, 07:14 AM

Lol Krugman

Th'Pusher

08-14-2012, 07:32 AM

Lol Krugman

Actually, those were the words of Jacob Weisberg as quoted in Krugman's blog. But, instead of dismissing the author out of hand why don't you address the fact that your new vice presidential candidate's budget is so wildly unrealistic that, the only way it can add up is to shrink all discretionary spending to around 3 percent of GDP by 2050. This is in addition to the unspecified loopholes in the budget to be closed to pay for $4.6T in additional tax cuts.

This is a legitimate issue. All I have heard since Saturday is that this guy is a wonk and knows the budget inside and out. Ok fine, let's have a legitimate debate about what the federal government would look like when discretionary spending is 3 percent of GDP. I am pretty sure I know who would win that debate, and you do to, which is why Republicans don't want to have it.

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 08:39 AM

I wonder what percentage of the the black vote Obama will get this time around. God bless

I wonder what percentage of the 1%, Wall St, ignorant red-state bubba, gun fetishist, "Christian" Taleban vote Gecko will get?

Winehole23

08-14-2012, 08:54 AM

between these two 1%ers, I choose neither

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 09:04 AM

Paul Ryan Once Wanted To ‘Remove’ Tax Burden On Poor Americans, But His Current Budget Does The Opposite

Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) 2012 budget, which passed the House in March and has been embraced by Mitt Romney, raises taxes on everyone making less than $30,000, while giving massive tax breaks to those earning more than $1 million a year.

As this chart shows, those at the very bottom of the income scale would see their after-tax income shrink by the largest amount under Ryan’s plan (and they could see their taxes go up even more, if any tax credits were eliminated in an attempt to cover some of the cost of the plan):

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/ryanraisestaxes.jpeg

Like Ryan, raising taxes on low-income Americans has become something of a recent obsession for Republicans. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), and others argue that it’s an injustice that those who don’t make enough money to qualify for the lowest tax bracket aren’t forced to pay income taxes.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/14/683411/paul-ryan-poor-taxes/

DarrinS

08-14-2012, 09:15 AM

lol thinkprogress

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 09:20 AM

You Can't Handle The Facts

TeyshaBlue

08-14-2012, 09:33 AM

lol thinkprogress.

DarrinS

08-14-2012, 09:54 AM

Somewhat lifelike talking points robot discusses Mediscare

r5NJF5Fcvmg

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 09:55 AM

Is Paul Ryan a Ticking Time Bomb as Mitt Romney’s Running Mate?

The congressman is getting glowing press, but journalists are just starting to examine his record.

It’s not that the mainstream media have ignored Ryan’s long record of wanting to drastically shrink and revamp government programs, especially Medicare and Medicaid, while pushing tax breaks that disproportionately favor the wealthy. But this somewhat radical agenda is wrapped in the gauzy overlay of an earnest young man who genuinely wants to keep the country from marching off a fiscal cliff.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/14/is-paul-ryan-a-ticking-time-bomb-as-mitt-romney-s-running-mate.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 10:18 AM

Representative Ryan's Far-Right Agenda: The Media Can't Take the Truth

In principle the country faces a choice this fall between a moderate conservative, President Obama, and the extreme conservative Romney-Ryan ticket that wants to privatize Social Security and Medicare and eliminate most of the services that the public expects from the federal government. The reason why this choice only exists in principle is that the media have worked hard to conceal Representative Ryan's extreme positions from the public. Now that Governor Romney has implicitly embraced these positions by selecting Representative Ryan as his vice-presidential nominee, it remains to be seen whether the media will do its job.

First, in spite of all the name-calling about President Obama being a Kenyan socialist, he has pushed an agenda that most Republicans would have been comfortable with 20 years ago. His health care plan was put first forward by the conservative Heritage Foundation in 1992, before Governor Romney put it in place in Massachusetts.

His Wall Street reform leaves the too-big-to-fail banks bigger than ever, and operating pretty much as they always did. That's pretty mild given their role in inflating a housing bubble, the collapse of which brought the economy to its knees.

And, running large deficits in a downturn was a practice that Obama could tie to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and both Bushes. It would be difficult to find a policy pushed by our Kenyan socialist president that would make a Nixon Republican unhappy.

By contrast, Representative Ryan has an extreme right-wing agenda that predates both the Great Society and the New Deal. He has put forward plans that would cut and privatize both Social Security and Medicare. He has also called for essentially zeroing out most categories of federal spending.

While Ryan supports current levels of military spending, the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) analysis of his budget shows that there will be essentially nothing left for anything else by 2040. The CBO analysis of the Ryan budget (prepared under his direction) shows that spending on all items other than health care and Social Security would fall to 4.75 percent of GDP by 2040 and to 3.75 percent of GDP by 2050.

The military budget currently is more than 4.0 percent of GDP. In the post-World War II era it has never been less than 3.0 percent. This means that Ryan's budget would leave nothing for running the State Department, the Park Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the Justice Department, the National Institutes of Health and the other areas that comprise the federal government as it now exists.

However to imply that Ryan is some sort of stringent free market fundamentalist would be far too generous. Representative Ryan has never expressed any discomfort with the numerous forms of government intervention that redistribute income upward to those at the very top.

For example, Representative Ryan has never spoken up against the implicit insurance that the government provides to too-big-to-fail banks, a subsidy which has been estimated to exceed $60 billion a year. Representative Ryan has also never spoken up against government-provided patent monopolies for prescription drugs. Patent monopolies raise the price of drugs by close to $270 billion a year above the free market price. While there are more efficient mechanisms for financing drug research, Representative Ryan is apparently not bothered by a government-created monopoly that results in a massive upward redistribution of income.

He has also never spoken up against the professional and licensing restrictions that protect doctors in the United States from international competition. As a result of these protectionist barriers we pay our doctors more than twice as much as what doctors earn in Western Europe. If free trade lowered doctors pay to Western European levels it would be equivalent to a tax cut of $1,200 a year for an average family of four.

It is possible to cite many other government interventions along similar lines that never seemed to bother Representative Ryan. In other words, Representative Ryan doesn't have any principled objections to government interferences in the market, even when this interference leads to enormous inefficiency, as is the case with too-big-to-fail banks or patent protection for prescription drugs.

Representative Ryan only seems to object to government programs and policies that benefit lower- and middle-income people. In this sense he seems to have perfectly captured the philosophy of the modern Republican Party: "a dollar in the pocket of a middle class person is a dollar that could belong to a rich person."

We will face quite a choice this November.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/representative-ryans-far-right-agenda_b_1774761.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=081412&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 10:19 AM

Paul Ryan's 'Path To Prosperity' Hurts Americans In These 10 Ways

Paul Ryan's budget proposals have earned him recognition from his fellow party members in Congress, and the presumed Republican vice presidential nominee's plans could have far-reaching effects on the American people if signed into law.

In Ryan's 2010 "Roadmap for America's Future" and the more recent "Path to Prosperity" in 2012, the Wisconsin congressman has laid out his vision for the role of the U.S. government and the future of federal entitlement programs.

Under Ryan's most recent proposal, the way Americans pay taxes would be markedly different. Taxpayers would fit into two tax brackets: Individuals falling in the top tax bracket would pay a rate of 25 percent, while those who fall into the lower bracket would pay 10 percent. (Ryan's 2010 Roadmap plan went further, eliminating all taxes on capital gains, inheritance and interest. Such cuts would have permitted individuals like Mitt Romney, who derives much of his income from those sources, to get away with paying nothing in taxes.)

To balance Ryan's proposed $4 trillion in tax cuts, many federal programs would have to be drastically revamped. The Atlantic's Derek Thompson estimates 40 percent cuts in transportation and education spending, and 24 percent cuts to veterans' programs, among others.

Medicare and Social Security would also face "reform" under the Ryan plan. Medicare beneficiaries, for example, would receive financial support from the government to purchase private health insurance coverage starting in 2023. Ryan's proposal could also mean that 44 million fewer people would be covered under Medicaid, CBS News reports.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/paul-ryan-path-to-prosperity_n_1773623.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

DarrinS

08-14-2012, 10:22 AM

"ticking time bomb" "far right agenda"

ooh noes

Th'Pusher

08-14-2012, 10:39 AM

"ticking time bomb" "far right agenda"

ooh noes

Do you not think that the goal cutting discretionary spending to 3% of GDP is an extreme budget? The current defense budget alone accounts for over 4% of GDP. Do you have any actual thoughts on Ryan's proposed budget?

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 10:42 AM

low-information right-wingers don't have thoughts, only emotional positions and biases and parroting VRWC talking points, aka LIES.

Winehole23

08-14-2012, 10:46 AM

dude, all YOU do here is parrot talking points.

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 10:46 AM

Reagan Budget Adviser Blasts Paul Ryan’s Budget As An ‘Empty Fairy Tale’

The Ryan Plan boils down to a fetish for cutting the top marginal income-tax rate for “job creators” — i.e. the superwealthy — to 25 percent and paying for it with an as-yet-undisclosed plan to broaden the tax base. Of the $1 trillion in so-called tax expenditures that the plan would attack, the vast majority would come from slashing popular tax breaks for employer-provided health insurance, mortgage interest, 401(k) accounts, state and local taxes, charitable giving and the like, not to mention low rates on capital gains and dividends.

…In short, Mr. Ryan’s plan is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices. And it couldn’t pass even if Republicans were to take the presidency and both houses of Congress. Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have no plan to take on Wall Street, the Fed, the military-industrial complex, social insurance or the nation’s fiscal calamity and no plan to revive capitalist prosperity — just empty sermons.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/14/687561/reagan-ryan-budget-fairy-tale/

Th'Pusher

08-14-2012, 10:47 AM

low-information right-wingers don't have thoughts, only emotional positions and biases and parroting VRWC talking points, aka LIES.

Well that would appear to be the case with DarrinS as he has added nothing of any value to the conversation.

Winehole23

08-14-2012, 10:47 AM

right on cue, Boutons

Th'Pusher

08-14-2012, 10:53 AM

dude, all YOU do here is parrot talking points.

While that may be the case, is it asking too much to ask the resident board conservatives to weigh in on the Ryan budget? If they don't think that reducing discretionary spending to 3% of GDP is extreme, would they like to explain how to realistically move the federal government out of the realm of things like Education, Training, Social Services, Transportation, Income Security, Health, etc?

Winehole23

08-14-2012, 10:57 AM

While that may be the case, is it asking too much to ask the resident board conservatives to weigh in on the Ryan budget? Dunno. Have you tried asking?

Th'Pusher

08-14-2012, 11:01 AM

Dunno. Have you tried asking?

Actually, those were the words of Jacob Weisberg as quoted in Krugman's blog. But, instead of dismissing the author out of hand why don't you address the fact that your new vice presidential candidate's budget is so wildly unrealistic that, the only way it can add up is to shrink all discretionary spending to around 3 percent of GDP by 2050. This is in addition to the unspecified loopholes in the budget to be closed to pay for $4.6T in additional tax cuts.

This is a legitimate issue. All I have heard since Saturday is that this guy is a wonk and knows the budget inside and out. Ok fine, let's have a legitimate debate about what the federal government would look like when discretionary spending is 3 percent of GDP. I am pretty sure I know who would win that debate, and you do to, which is why Republicans don't want to have it.

Do you not think that the goal cutting discretionary spending to 3% of GDP is an extreme budget? The current defense budget alone accounts for over 4% of GDP. Do you have any actual thoughts on Ryan's proposed budget?

Winehole23

08-14-2012, 11:12 AM

yeah, it's extreme. so extreme that I doubt Ryan's own party would ever pass it, even holding all the reins.

Winehole23

08-14-2012, 11:13 AM

spending is power. the GOP knows that as well as anyone else. just look at the eight years before Obama.

TeyshaBlue

08-14-2012, 11:17 AM

low-information right-wingers don't have thoughts, only emotional positions and biases and parroting VRWC talking points, aka LIES.

Vitamin I injection. [x] Complete

Th'Pusher

08-14-2012, 11:49 AM

yeah, it's extreme. so extreme that I doubt Ryan's own party would ever pass it, even holding all the reins.

Glad we agree. Let me know if you spot one of the resident board conservatives weigh in on the issue.

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 11:55 AM

While Calling Stimulus ‘Wasteful,’ Paul Ryan Secured Millions Of Dollars In Grants For Clean Energy

According to documents obtained by the Boston Globe, Rep. Ryan (R-WI) lobbied the Department of Energy for tens of millions of dollars in stimulus grants for Wisconsin energy initiatives at least four times — even while calling the stimulus a “wasteful spending spree.”

The Globe reports:

“This trillion dollar spending bill misses the mark on all counts,” said Ryan in a statement from his office. “This is not a crisis we can spend and borrow our way out of – that is how we got here in the first place.”

But later that year, once the bill was passed and signed into law, Ryan sought to make sure his constituents benefited.

On October 5, 2009, he wrote a letter to Chu on behalf of the nonprofit Energy Center of Wisconsin, which was applying for a grant under the Recovery Act’s Geothermal Technologies Program.

Under the grant program the center received a total of $240,000, according to its president, Frank Greb.

The same day Ryan sent another letter advocating for a grant application, in which the Energy Center partnered with Milwaukee Area Technical College, for training building technicians and operators in energy-saving techniques. For that program, the government provided $740,364, according to federal records.

But the biggest payoff came for the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation. Ryan predicted the $20 million grant would be able to “create or retain approximately 7,600 new jobs over the three-year grant period and the subsequent three years.”

Yet in an interview with MSNBC two years later, Ryan again bashed the stimulus package.

Ryan is best known for his role as chairman of the House Budget Committee. He’s well liked within the Tea Party for his strong rhetoric on slashing federal spending (cutting everything except the military and fossil fuel subsidies) — a key reason why he was chosen by the Romney campaign.

However, according to the documents, Ryan requested millions of dollars for a variety of programs under the stimulus package, including $5.4 million for bus services and tens of millions of dollars for renewable energy and efficiency programs.

Ryan joins at least 62 Congressional Republicans who have actively lobbied the government for loan guarantees and grants for clean energy companies in their districts — even while many of them have publicly criticized the stimulus program that provided a boost to local companies and organizations around the country. According to the Department of Energy, the loan guarantee programs created or saved over 60,000 jobs and the 1603 grant program supported up to 75,000 jobs, stimulating tens of billions of dollars in private-sector activity.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/14/687651/while-calling-stimulus-wasteful-paul-ryan-secured-millions-of-dollars-in-grants-for-clean-energy/

:lol :lol

And the non-Repug/Fox press is JUST GETTING STARTED!

:lol :lol

TeyshaBlue

08-14-2012, 11:59 AM

Glad we agree. Let me know if you spot one of the resident board conservatives weigh in on the issue.

As a board conservative, whatever the hell that is, I view Ryan's budget plan as irrelevant. It's vaporware in legislative guise.

Winehole23

08-14-2012, 12:00 PM

that's well put, TB

Th'Pusher

08-14-2012, 12:14 PM

As a board conservative, whatever the hell that is, I view Ryan's budget plan as irrelevant. It's vaporware in legislative guise.

Thanks. I agree that it is irrelevant in that it will never become law, but, I do think that it should frame the debate on the size and role of government.

TeyshaBlue

08-14-2012, 12:16 PM

A completely invalid budget plan should frame a debate?

Might as well solicit input from my chihuahua.:lol

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 12:18 PM

As a board conservative, whatever the hell that is, I view Ryan's budget plan as irrelevant. It's vaporware in legislative guise.

Ryan's budget strategy match up exactly with the VRWC strategy going back to Lewis Powell's "let's take our (1%) country back" from the 99%.

It's exactly what they want to do. They have been and will be relentlessly pursuing that strategy.

TeyshaBlue

08-14-2012, 12:18 PM

lol thinkprogress

Winehole23

08-14-2012, 12:19 PM

yeah, it's extreme. so extreme that I doubt Ryan's own party would ever pass it, even holding all the reins.rethought this in light of this:

Ryan's much-hyped budget plan would eliminate the deficit, "but not until 2040 or so," my colleague Mike Tanner explains, and his cuts in domestic discretionary spending amount to an average of just $35.2 billion per year below what Obama himself has proposed.http://reason.com/archives/2012/08/14/dont-believe-the-hype-about-paul-ryan

so, maybe not so extreme or unlikely wrt to discretionary spending, but refashioning entitlements is a whole nother ball of wax.

Winehole23

08-14-2012, 12:20 PM

to say nothing of tax reform

Th'Pusher

08-14-2012, 12:23 PM

A completely invalid budget plan should frame a debate?

Might as well solicit input from my chihuahua.:lol

That budget was passed by the house and the Republican nominee for POTUS said he would sign that budget into law. Why shouldn't it frame the debate? Let's lay out what the government would look like under Ryan's plan and let the people decide whether or not they share the same view as to the role of the federal government.

TeyshaBlue

08-14-2012, 12:24 PM

So, not a debate then. We need a lecture series?

A debate defines nothing in the contemporary political usage.

Th'Pusher

08-14-2012, 12:35 PM

So, not a debate then. We need a lecture series?

A debate defines nothing in the contemporary political usage.

Sure. I guess Harry Reid could have brought it up for debate in the Senate.

TeyshaBlue

08-14-2012, 12:40 PM

Sure. I guess Harry Reid could have brought it up for debate in the Senate.

My bad. I framed my response within the context of a campaign debate.

Th'Pusher

08-14-2012, 12:56 PM

My bad. I framed my response within the context of a campaign debate.

Ha. I was referring to a campaign debate too until it dawned on me that it could have been brought up for debate by Reid since it passed the House.

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 01:30 PM

Mitt Romney Calls Paul Ryan’s Medicare Cuts ‘Extraordinary’

Mitt Romney described the Medicare cuts included in Paul Ryan’s budget as “extraordinary,” during his visit to a mining operation in Beallsville, Ohio on Tuesday — just days after his campaign claimed that he would have signed the reductions into law as part of the Ryan blueprint.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/08/14/689571/mitt-romney-calls-paul-ryans-medicare-cuts-extraordinary/

:lol

Gecko NoWhereMan is so fucking stupid. He can't remember his positions from day to day.

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 01:32 PM

Paul Ryan’s Family Business Built On Government Contracts

A current search of Defense Department contracts suggests that “Ryan Incorporated Central” has had at least 22 defense contracts with the federal government since 1996, including one from 1996 worth $5.6 million. … Mr. Anti-Spending secured millions in earmarks for his home state of Wisconsin, including, among other things, $3.3 million for highway projects. And Ryan voted to preserve $40 billion in special subsidies for big oil, an industry in which, it so happens, Ryan and his wife hold ownership stakes.

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/14/688761/paul-ryans-family-business-built-on-government-contracts/

Ryan is 100% fraud, a liar, total fake, the epitome of fuck the 99% and enrich/protect the 1%.

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 01:42 PM

Campaign Chair: Romney Will Explain What Part Of Ryan’s Plan He Opposes In ‘The Next Couple Of Days’

Since Paul Ryan was unveiled as the Vice Presidential nominee on Saturday, the Romney campaign has had a variety of conflicting answers regarding Ryan’s controversial budget.

This afternoon on MSNBC, Romney’s campaign chairman, John Sununu, unveiled a new response: get back to us in a “couple of days.”

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/14/690061/campaign-chair-romney-will-explain-what-part-of-ryans-plan-he-opposes-in-the-next-couple-of-days/

Holy shit, Gecko and his team were totally unprepared for the shit-storm Ryan has visited upon their confused, amateur, out-of-touch, on-message-NOT! heads. :lol

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 01:44 PM

Paul Ryan does an about-face on Ayn Rand

Two years ago Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan said he regularly gave out Ayn Rand novel ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as Christmas gifts, but today he says he no longer espouses her beliefs.

“[T]he reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” Ryan said in a 2005 speech to the Rand-devoted Atlas Society.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2012/0814/Paul-Ryan-does-an-about-face-on-Ayn-Rand?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feeds%2Fcsm+%28Christian+Scie nce+Monitor+|+All+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Holy Fucking Shit! :lol :lol :lol

And you right-wingers think "57 states" is funnee? :lol:lol:lol

LnGrrrR

08-14-2012, 01:49 PM

Sununu is running Romney's campaign? Yeeeesh.

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 01:52 PM

Conservative Icon Norquist: ‘I Wouldn’t Ask Ryan To Be The Reformer’ Of Defense Spending

We can afford to have an adequate national defense which keeps us free and safe and keeps everybody afraid to throw a punch at us, as long as we don’t make some of the decisions that previous administrations have, which is to over extend ourselves overseas and think we can run foreign governments….

Other people need to lead the argument on how can conservatives lead a fight to have a serious national defense without wasting money. I wouldn’t ask Ryan to be the reformer of the defense establishment.

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/08/14/686901/norquist-ryan-not-reformer/

yep, drown shrunk govt in a bathtub, but MIC and its never-ending war busines isn't really govt (because it wildly enriches the 1%)

Winehole23

08-14-2012, 01:55 PM

Thus do we have Paul Ryan — Randian Super-Hero of Individual Self-Reliance and Working Class Warrior against government debt, waste, and intrusiveness — whose actual life is a testament to the precise opposite values. As Charles (http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/paul-ryan-vice-president-2012-11518368) Pierce (http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/paul-ryan-romney-vp-pick-11562917) and Joan Walsh (http://www.salon.com/2012/08/12/paul_ryan_randian_poseur/) document, not only was Ryan raised in a rich family and not only has he spent his entire adult life on the public payroll, but he has relied, and continues to rely, on various forms of government help in climbing every rung on his educational and careerist ladder. His claim to fiscal conservatism is even more laughable (http://upwithchrishayes.msnbc.com/_news/2012/08/11/13232707-paul-ryan-deficit-cutter-here-are-his-votes-on-the-wall-street-bailout-bush-tax-cuts-and-iraq-war?lite), as he voted FOR virtually every program that has piled up debt over the past decade, including the Iraq War (not just its commencement but its limitless continuation (http://www.ontheissues.org/House/Paul_Ryan.htm/#War_+_Peace)), the Wall Street bailout, Medicare Part D, Endless War in Afghanistan (http://www.ontheissues.org/House/Paul_Ryan.htm/#War_+_Peace), and — in the midst of all of that — Bush tax cuts.

Perhaps most ludicrous of all is the notion that he’s some sort of advocate for restrained federal government power. As Antiwar.com’s John Glaser documented today (https://twitter.com/jwcglaser/status/234645036149649408), Ryan has continuously voted in favor of measures to expand all sorts of intrusive federal power, including making the PATRIOT Act permanent, enacting the Military Commissions Act to provide indefinite detention (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll491.xml) with no habeas corpus rights, implementing the Protect America Act to massively expand the U.S. Government’s power to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll836.xml), supporting a federal Constitutional amendment to deny same-sex couples the right to marry along with a law banning the ability of gay couples in D.C. to adopt children and the continuation of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, a Constitutional amendment to criminalize flag burning, and almost every proposed measure to restrict abortion rights.

The ACLU — which has been continuously scathing in its criticisms of President Obama’s civil liberties record — issued a report (http://www.pdfdownload.org/pdf2html/view_online.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aclulibertywa tch.org%2Ffiles%2Fvp-report-card.pdf) on the potential Vice Presidential nominees (including Joe Biden) entitled “A Heartbeat Away from the Presidency, Light Years from Civil Liberties,” and said yesterday that Ryan has “uniformly harmful views on five key civil liberties issues including a humane immigration policy, LGBT equality, reproductive rights, torture and indefinite detention and fair voting access” (he did, however, vote against the NDAA’s indefinite detention provisions, signed into law by President Obama at the end of 2011, as well as for a bill to include “sexual orientation” in the list of factors that cannot be legally used in job hiring). Whatever one wants to say about Ryan’s record, it is the very opposite of constraining the power of the federal government to intrude into the lives of individuals; indeed, it’s a testament to massive expansion of intrusive federal government power in almost every realm.

This dynamic — in which the defining image of partisan icons is the antithesis of their personal reality — is, of course, also prevalent among Democrats: a point I note not to fulfill a both-sides-are-guilty obligation, but because it’s indisputably true. Obama supporters pretended that his 2008 campaign was some sort of populist uprising even as Wall Street overwhelmingly supported his candidacy (http://articles.nydailynews.com/2008-06-30/news/17902184_1_sen-obama-obama-spokesman-tommy-vietor-john-mccain). Now, especially with the selection of Ryan, they’re going to act as though his re-election is all about shielding Medicare from cuts even though, as Matt Stoller documents today (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/obamas-second-term-agenda-cutting-social-security-medicare-andor-medicaid.html#ZseBhPX7MYeGqQtA.01) (citing this (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/magazine/obama-vs-boehner-who-killed-the-debt-deal.html?pagewanted=all)), Obama already tried to cut not only Medicare but also Medicaid and Social Security, and clearly intends more of the same with a second term (along with his ongoing empowerment of America’s most extreme corporatists (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/10/will-erskine-bowles-be-our-next-treasury-secretary/)). And, of course, the “chickenhawk” insult that was so popular among Democrats during the Bush years has completely disappeared, as they now celebrate (http://digbysblog.blogspot.com.br/2012/04/schoolyard-power-plays-are-problem-not.html) the so-called Toughness of two political leaders — Obama and Biden — in their continuous willingness to use military force in other countries even though neither ever served in the military (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/01/bidens-draft-deferments-equal-cheneys-during-vietn/).
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/12/the_rights_brittle_heroes/

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 02:41 PM

"both-sides-are-guilty"

Glenn left out the "equally"

TeyshaBlue

08-14-2012, 02:44 PM

lol thinkprogress

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 02:54 PM

Ryan Took Stimulus Funds After Voting Against Them, GOP Runs Away From His Budget Plan

The documents show that Ryan’s attempts to take advantage of the stimulus funds even after he voted against them was more expansive than previously reported. Ryan was criticized by some House Democrats in 2010 after the Wall Street Journal reported that he was among several Republican lawmakers who sought the stimulus money for their constituents by, in his case, writing a letter in 2010 to the Department of Labor.

In addition to the appeals for stimulus funds, Ryan also received congressional approval for $5.4 million in earmarks — appropriations by Congress members for specific favored projects — in fiscal 2008, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group. The requests included $3.28 million for bus service in Wisconsin, $1.38 million for the Ice Age National Scenic Trail, and $735,000 for the Janesville transit system.

Politico reports first that the GOP sent out a memo spinning furiously away from the budget:

“Do not say: ‘entitlement reform,’ ‘privatization,’ ‘every option is on the table,’” the National Republican Congressional Committee said in an email memo. “Do say: ‘strengthen,’ ‘secure,’ ‘save,’ ‘preserve, ‘protect.’”

And another story reveals how the GOP is "fretting" and "panicking" about the pick:

"In more than three dozen interviews with Republican strategists and campaign operatives - old hands and rising next-generation conservatives alike - the most common reactions to Ryan ranged from gnawing apprehension to hair-on-fire anger that Romney has practically ceded the election.

This is sure going well for the Romney campaign!

http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/ryan-took-stimulus-funds-after-voting-against-them-gop-runs-away-his-budget-plan?akid=9214.187590.AcrONN&rd=1&src=newsletter693014&t=4

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 02:56 PM

Picture Worth a Thousand Words: A Romney-Ryan Logo

http://www.alternet.org/files/story_images/rolls-royce.jpg

http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/picture-worth-thousand-words-romney-ryan-logo?akid=9214.187590.AcrONN&rd=1&src=newsletter693014&t=1

TeyshaBlue

08-14-2012, 03:12 PM

Ohhh I can post pics too. Just as meaningless.

lol alternet

http://silentespeaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/RR.jpg

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 03:33 PM

Inside Job: Paul Ryan May Have Profited From 2008 Private Briefing by Dumping Stock

Seems that on September 18, 2008, while the rest of us were freaking out about our homes, our pensions, and our jobs, the congressman was huddled in a meeting with Bernanke, Hank Paulson, and others who warned that the banking industry was about to blow up, big time.

Ryan's office denies that he personally profited from the heads-up. But public records tell a different story. The Guardian outlines what really went down:

"On the same day as the meeting, Ryan sold stock in troubled banks including Wachovia and Citigroup and bought shares in Goldman Sachs, Paulson's old employer and a bank that had been disclosed to be stronger than many of its rivals. The sale was not illegal at the time.

Not long after the meeting, Wachovia's already troubled share price went into free fall. It plunged 39% on the afternoon of 26 September alone as investors worried the bank would collapse. It was eventually taken over by Wells Fargo for $15bn, a fraction of its former value.

Citigroup's share price fell soon after the meeting. In October 2008 Citigroup was among the largest beneficiary of the troubled asset relief program (Tarp), the taxpayer-funded bailout of the banking sector."

It comes as no surprise that Mr. Ryan gave a thumbs up to the TARP bailout -- in contrast to many of his fellow Republicans -- and that Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo rank among his biggest supporters.

Since the Richmonder blog broke the story, Team Romney has been hustling to kill it. But people are pretty damned tired of greedy public officials who line their pockets as their fellow Americans are suffering. This one may not go away.

As I reported on AlterNet some months ago, Ryan is not the only lawmaker who seems to pay more attention to serving his stock portfolio than his constituents. Representative Spencer Bachus of Alabama attended the same meeting as Ryan and he also ran straight to his broker, dumping General Electic stock, which took a nose-dive soon after.

In April, Barack Obama signed legislation that prohibits members of Congress and other federal workers from insider trading, and requires them to cough up details of transactions over $1,000. That's nice. The law makes it clear that the kind of behavior illustrated by Ryan is an affront to the public interest. But the fact that Ryan himself did not intuit this at a time when his country was in great peril speaks volumes about his character.

Looks like a snake has his sights on the White House.

http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/inside-job-paul-ryan-may-have-profited-2008-private-briefing-dumping-stock?akid=9214.187590.AcrONN&rd=1&src=newsletter693014&t=6

TB :lol

boutons_deux

08-14-2012, 03:34 PM

Ohhh I can post pics too. Just as meaningless.

lol alternet

http://silentespeaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/RR.jpg

Aint gonna be no "after Obama" for R&R.

TB :lol

TeyshaBlue

08-14-2012, 03:44 PM

Aint gonna be no "after Obama" for R&R.

TB :lol

Like I said, bot. Just as meaningless. Lrn2read.

boutons_deux

08-16-2012, 03:34 PM

After Documents Show Paul Ryan Secured $20 Million In Stimulus Grants, He Claims ‘I Never Asked For Stimulus’

On Tuesday, the Boston Globe and Associated Press reported on documents showing that GOP Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan had secured more than $20 million in stimulus funds for a local energy efficiency organization.

According to the reports, the documents showed that Ryan also brought in $5.4 million for local bus services. His requests came at the same time he was publicly calling the stimulus a “wasteful spending spree.”

However, in an interview with a local Ohio television news station, Ryan claimed he never secured funding through the program, saying “I never asked for stimulus.”

The Associated Press wrote a follow-up story to Ryan’s comments:

Ryan’s statement directly counters the evidence of four letters obtained by the AP which the congressman wrote to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, praising energy programs supported by the stimulus and requesting funds for initiatives in his district.

Ryan’s private praise for Department of Energy programs and his written requests for stimulus funds contradict not only his public criticism of the 2009 stimulus bill, but also many of the budget priorities he has laid out, including cuts to investments in green technologies.

Raising further questions about the vice presidential candidate’s claim today that he never sought stimulus money, Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck referred AP to previous explanations by the congressman’s office that by requesting funds Ryan was simply “providing a legitimate constituent service.”

Ryan is one of dozens of Congressional Republicans who have actively lobbied the government for loan guarantees and grants for clean energy companies in their districts — even while many of them railed on the stimulus program in the press.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/16/702921/after-documents-show-paul-ryan-secured-20-million-in-stimulus-grants-he-claims-i-never-asked-for-stimulus/

iow, Repugs (say they) just HATE big govt ... except when they use its funds to buy voters and campaign contributions.

CosmicCowboy

08-16-2012, 03:36 PM

I think that falls in the category of "if they are gonna fuck off the money anyway, they might as well fuck some of it off in my district."

Th'Pusher

08-16-2012, 03:49 PM

I think that falls in the category of "if they are gonna fuck off the money anyway, they might as well fuck some of it off in my district."

Ok. So he's just a liar and a hypocryt.

TeyshaBlue

08-16-2012, 03:51 PM

Ok. So he's just a liar and a hypocryt.

Or a hypocrite.

He's a politician. Is this news to you?

Wild Cobra

08-16-2012, 03:54 PM

Ok. So he's just a liar and a hypocryt.
If you look at the congressional polls, the approval rate of congress as a whole is very low. However, in each district, the approval rate of individual members is generally pretty high.

People want their congressional member to bring the pork home. They just don't want the pork going else where. Congress and pork is what the people want, and that's what they get.

Change the voters to be responsible and this would stop in congress.

Th'Pusher

08-16-2012, 04:35 PM

If you look at the congressional polls, the approval rate of congress as a whole is very low. However, in each district, the approval rate of individual members is generally pretty high.

People want their congressional member to bring the pork home. They just don't want the pork going else where. Congress and pork is what the people want, and that's what they get.

Change the voters to be responsible and this would stop in congress.

Great. Then tell your constituents and everyone else that it is his congressional right to bring home the pork for his constituents and stop being a lying hipocrite.

boutons_deux

08-16-2012, 04:40 PM

What Wisconsin Journalists Want You To Know About Paul Ryan

One issue most journalists raised was that Ryan left Wisconsin at a young age and climbed the political ladder in Washington. One local scribe compared him to Dick Cheney in that regard, stating both men rose to the top by focusing on D.C. connections and not in home state political circles.

"The way to understand him is he is Dick Cheney, he is a guy who went to Washington as soon as he could, rooted himself in the establishment, got himself elected as soon as he could and became a major player," said John Nichols, an associate editor at the Capital Times in Madison. "He is Dick Cheney with very good hair."

Other Wisconsin news people who have covered Ryan describe him as likeable and accessible to reporters, but something of an unknown even to local voters who re-elect him regularly despite his hometown being hit by hard economic times.

Scott Angus, editor of The Janesville Gazette, the daily newspaper in Ryan's hometown, described Ryan's fellow residents as having mixed views on their representative.

"The people of Janesville are probably as divided about Paul Ryan as the rest of the country," Angus said Saturday, hours after Ryan was announced as Romney's choice. "A lot of people would view [Ryan's opinions] as pretty conservative and pretty far to the right and that does not sit well with a lot of people in his district."

Angus, a 21-year editor of the paper, added, "He has lived here, but he has not worked here much, he has been in Washington working on his career path. I think a lot of people are surprised because he has always said his plans were not to rise to national office. He never had any elected office until he was elected to Congress."

But Janesville's recent past is also important, several reporters said, citing the town's difficult economic situation, sparked by the closure of a General Motors plant in 2009.

"Their unemployment rate is double digits," said Jeff Flynt, a news reporter at WTAQ Radio in Green Bay. "For a state that is trying to turn around the business aspects of the state the fact that Janesville unemployment continues to be pretty high and you have a guy who is known pretty well nationally and has not found a way to help the plant or put something in its place, that may catch" the national media's attention.

He added, "Paul's district has no big city in it. It is small cities, small towns and farms. He has had a congressional career that has gone largely under the radar."

"There are people in his district shocked to find out he was a big player on budget stuff. He has been able to define his own story.He didn't really spend any time in state politics and right out of college he went right into interning. While he is a Wisconsin congressman, he is not somebody who came up through the state ranks."

Columnist Dan Bice of the Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee, offered a similar view, saying "His hometown has been hurt economically, GM pulled out of there and some have said he has not done a lot to help out. The recession has hit Janesville as much as anywhere."

The Bureau of Labor Statistics data on Janesville finds unemployment spiked to more than 15 percent when the plant closed and was above 10 percent as recently as February.

Bice cited several other elements of Ryan's past that could be of interest to the national debate. He noted ties to a Kenosha businessman, Dennis Troha, who pled guilty in 2007 to illegal campaign contributions to the Wisconsin Democratic Party and to President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign. Troha had funneled donations to those campaign committees through family members. Troha and his family and associates had also given more than $58,000 to Ryan's campaigns over several years.

Ryan donated the Troha contributions to his campaign to charity in the wake of the scandal according to the Journal Sentinel.

"People will look into the connection with his father-in-law who is pretty heavily into natural gas and several people have raised the issue of fracking and his support of that," Bice said about Daniel Little, Ryan's father-in-law, who owns interests in four companies that lease land for mining and drilling by energy companies.

Another piece of Ryan's life that was mentioned by several Badger State journalists is his praise for Ayn Rand, the controversial atheist author and her books, Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead, which promote objectivism, the belief that individualism and self-interest is the key to success and happiness.

"There are things that are sort of known among the intelligencia that could become a little weird," said Nichols. "For instance, the Ayn Rand stuff. He has read Fountainhead, he has said it inspired him to go into politics, it is hyper individualist, no government at all. Ayn Rand was an atheist and you tie that kind of stuff to the vice presidential candidate and it is a lot to talk about."

Bice and Nichols both agreed Ryan's image back home is somewhat different than his D.C. persona as a fiscal hardliner.

"He is a deer hunter," Bice said. "He is not the sort of guy who is reading James Joyce. He is a smart guy, a clean cut guy."

Nichols agreed, stating:

"He is a genuinely nice guy who operates in almost an 18th Century, 19th Century view of partisan politics; a very old school, 'we are all Americans,' type arguing about fundamental issues but the hyper-partisanship has not really been a part of who he is. He is not thought of as the attack dog who makes the hit on someone."

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/08/12/what-wisconsin-journalists-want-you-to-know-abo/189288

Wild Cobra

08-17-2012, 02:03 AM

Great. Then tell your constituents and everyone else that it is his congressional right to bring home the pork for his constituents and stop being a lying hipocrite.
It's a fucked up society we live in. The politicians are damned if they do and damned if they don't, but the people who put them in office want the pork, so that's what they do even if they are against it. Otherwise its hard to get elected.

boutons_deux

08-17-2012, 08:56 AM

This is America. All life is negotiated through money. There is no higher value, no more important metric than money.

Politicians buy votes and contributions with pork.

Citizens buys pork and jobs with votes

Corporations buy politicians and (state) judges with money, jobs, etc, etc.

boutons_deux

08-17-2012, 12:26 PM

Ryan just another "small govt" Repug who is VERY BIG GOVT on vaginas

Paul Ryan: the small government champion who could force transvaginal ultrasounds on pregnant women

Ryan is considered by many a champion of small government. For women, though, the federal government that Paul Ryan envisions is big, intrusive and controlling. Paul Ryan would ban all abortions, with no exceptions, even in cases of rape, incest or the health of the mother. In other words, the mother could die as a result of complications from the pregnancy.

The Planned Parenthood Action Fund highlighted several other issues, among them, "his budget plan to dismantle Medicaid, jeopardizing the basic health care millions of women rely on, [and] his vote last year to end funding to Planned Parenthood, putting at risk the cancer screenings, birth control, STD testing and treatment, and other preventive care that nearly three million Americans rely on each year." The anti-choice National Right to Life Committee stated, "Ryan has maintained a 100% pro-life voting record." He is a co-sponsor of the Sanctity of Human Life Act, what critics call the personhood bill, now in Congress, that would define in federal law that:

"the life of each human being begins with fertilization … irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/16/paul-ryan-small-government-champion-force-women-ultrasound

Also, Gecko/Ryan definition of life as fertilized embryo would make some of Gecko's boys murderers since they have used (and discarded) IVF embryos. Just another "entitlement" exception for the 1%? :lol

boutons_deux

08-17-2012, 12:40 PM

4 Ways Paul Ryan’s Budget Would Devastate The Poor

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/3-23-12bud.jpeg

1. CUTS FOOD STAMPS BY $133 BILLION: Ryan’s budget would send the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) back to the states as a block grant and cut the program by $134 billion. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “an average of almost 10 million people would have to be cut from the program in the years from 2016 through 2022 to achieve the required savings.” If the cuts were to come from benefits, rather than kicking families out of the program, “All families of four — including the poorest — would see their benefits cut by about $90 a month in fiscal year 2016, or more than $1,100 on an annual basis.” Ryan continually claims that the food stamp program is “unsustainable,” even though the numbers show that’s simply not the case.

2. CUTS MEDICAID BY 1/3%: Ryan would treat Medicaid in the same way: transform the exiting matching-grant financing structure into a pre-determined block grant that will not keep up with actual health care spending and send it back to the states. This would shift some of the burden of Medicaid’s growing costs to the states, forcing them to — in the words of the CBO — make cutbacks that “involve reduced eligibility for Medicaid and CHIP, coverage of fewer services, lower payments to providers, or increased cost sharing by beneficiaries—all of which would reduce access to care.” The reductions to Medicaid kick in right away: between 2013 and 2022, the budget makes $1.4 trillion in cuts to Medicaid —a 34 percent reduction. As a result, states could reduce enrollment by more than 14 million people, or almost 20 percent—even if they are were able to slow the growth in health care costs substantially.

3. 30 MILLION AMERICANS WOULD LOSE HEALTH COVERAGE: Romney and Ryan would repeal the Affordable Care Act, including the subsidies for middle-class Americans to purchase coverage and the expansion of the Medicaid program for lower-income Americans. As a result, more than 30 million Americans would lose access to insurance. The popular regulations that prohibit insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and rescinding coverage would also be repealed.

4. CUTS PELL GRANTS FOR 1 MILLION STUDENTS: Ryan consistently claims that increases in financial aid are driving up the cost of higher education, even though evidence doesn’t back him up. The budget Ryan authored, according to an analysis by the Education Trust, would eliminate Pell Grants entirely for one million students. In 2011, 74 percent of Pell Grant recipients had family incomes of $30,000 or less. These cuts would come despite the fact that the price of a college degree has skyrocketed 1,120 percent over the last three decades.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/08/17/705401/how-paul-ryans-budget-would-devastate-social-programs-for-todays-lower-income-americans/

boutons_deux

08-17-2012, 12:46 PM

When Cruelty Is Cute

I’d been wondering how long it would take Republicans to realize that Paul Ryan is their guy.

He’s the cutest package that cruelty ever came in. He has a winning air of sad cheerfulness. He’s affable, clean cut and really cut, with the Irish altar-boy widow’s peak and droopy, winsome blue eyes and unashamed sentimentality.

Who better to rain misery upon the heads of millions of Americans?

He’s Scrooge disguised as a Pickwick, an ideologue disguised as a wonk. Not since Ronald Reagan tried to cut the budget by categorizing ketchup and relish as vegetables has the G.O.P. managed to find such an attractive vessel to mask harsh policies with a smiling face.

The Young Gun and former prom king is a fan of deer hunting, catfish noodling, heavy metal and Beethoven. He’s a great dad who says the cheese, bratwurst and beer of Wisconsin flow in his veins. He’s so easy to like — except that his politics are just a teensy bit heartless.

Rush Limbaugh hails Ryan as “the last Boy Scout,” noting that the tall, slender 42-year-old is a true believer: “We now have somebody on the ticket who’s us.”

For the rest of us, at least, Ryan is not going to raise our hopes only to dash them. Unlike W., he’s not even going to make a feint at “compassionate conservatism.” Why bother with some silly scruple or toehold of conscience?

Unlike some of the right-wing ayatollahs, Ryan doesn’t threaten with moral and cultural gusts of sulfur. He seems more like a friendly guidance counselor who wants to teach us how to live, get us in shape, PowerPoint away the social safety net to make the less advantaged more self-reliant, as he makes the rich richer. Burning the village it takes to save it, so we can avoid the fiscal cliff, or as he and his fellow conservative Cassandras ominously call it, “the debt bomb.”

Like Mitt Romney, Ryan truly believes he made it on his own, so everyone else can, too. He shrugs off the advantage of starting as the white guy from an affluent family, able to breeze into a summer internship for a Wisconsin Republican senator as a college student.

Only 16 and the youngest of four when he discovered his lawyer dad dead in bed from a heart attack at 55, Ryan had to grow up fast.

The Midwestern kid was guided by what David Stockman calls “Irving Kristol’s ex-Trotskyites” turned neo-cons; Jack Kemp, the cheery supply-sider who actually cared about the disadvantaged, and by one of Kemp’s favorite authors, Russian émigré and cult leader Ayn (pronounced like swine, as she used to say) Rand.

“And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism,” Ryan said in a 2005 speech to the Atlas Society. He even gave copies of “Atlas Shrugged” to staffers at Christmas. He did not emulate Rand on everything, given that she adamantly opposed Ronald Reagan, saying, “Since he denies the right to abortion, he cannot be a defender of any rights.”

Ryan co-sponsored the Sanctity of Life Act enshrining a fertilized egg with the definition of “personhood” and supported a bill Democrats nicknamed the “Let Women Die Act,” which would have let hospitals that get federal money deny women abortions even in life-threatening circumstances.

And Rand would not have approved of Ryan’s votes in the House backing W.’s profligate spending on unwinnable wars, a bank bailout and a Medicare expansion. She would no doubt have been thrilled, however, that under the Ryan budget plan, the megarich Romney would go from paying shamefully as little as possible in taxes to virtually no taxes.

Ryan was drawn to Rand’s novels, with their rejection of “the altruist morality,” making narcissism a social virtue; her exhortation that man must not only strive for “physical values” — her heroes were hot — and self-made wealth, but a “self-made soul.” Like John Galt, who traces a dollar sign “over the desolate earth” at the end of “Atlas Shrugged,” Rand idolized the dollar. She wore a brooch shaped like a dollar sign, and a 6-foot dollar sign stood beside her coffin at her wake.

Although the Catholic Ryan told Fox News’s Brit Hume in an interview that aired Tuesday night that he “completely disagreed” with Rand’s “atheistic philosophy,” he said his interest in economics was “triggered” by her.

His long infatuation with her makes him seem even younger than he looks with his cowlick because Randism is a state of arrested adolescence, making its disciples feel like heroic teenagers atop a lofty mountain peak.

The secretive, ambiguous Romney was desperate for ideological clarity, so he outsourced his political identity to Ryan, a numbers guy whose numbers don’t add up.

This just proves that Romney will never get over his anxiety about not being conservative enough. As president, he’d still feel the need to prove himself with right-wing Supreme Court picks.

Ryan should stop being so lovable. People who intend to hurt other people should wipe the smile off their faces.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/opinion/dowd-when-cruelty-is-cute.html?_r=1&ref=maureendowd&pagewanted=print

boutons_deux

08-17-2012, 01:32 PM

boutons_deux

08-19-2012, 10:46 AM

worth repeating:

10 Reasons Romney's Choice of Paul Ryan for Veep Is Smarter Than You Think

1. Romney was in danger of losing badly, so a gamble was worth the risk.

The polls and trends were going in the wrong direction as Obama was ahead by 9 percent among all voters and 11 percent among independents. As Michael Goodwin writes in the New York Post [4]:

Romney was on course to lose the election...perhaps by a landslide...Independents, despite being unhappy with Obama, were even more unhappy with Romney. And too many Republicans remain unenthusiastic about their party's nominee.

So Romney had to do something to energize the campaign, or he was dead in the water. Pick Ryan.

2. Romney is now seen as bold. By picking a controversial choice, a young, mediagenic, so-called brainy numbers guy, and one loved by the conservative base, Romney passed up the gaggle of more boring white guys who populated the pundits' predictions, to pick the radical one. But here, in fact, Romney has it both ways. Ryan is not a Palin or a Rubio -- a wild card -- but rather a well-positioned Republican with major mainstream and corporate credibility, whom the media often has gone ga-ga over. And Ryan is an insider -- Erskine Bowles (the co-chair of the Bowles-Simpson Deficit Commission, and rumored to be the next Secretary of the Treasury), has lavished lots of praise on to Ryan, who served on the commission, as have many others.

3. Did I mention Ryan is Catholic? We hear how the conservative Catholic bishops are trying to push Catholic voters to Romney, who has obviously come late to his anti-abortion stance. And among Catholic voters, Romney's Mormonism isn't exactly a plus. Still any anti-abortion politician is better than Obama in the bishops' minds. For the bishops, their task became easier with Ryan (even if they have a problem or two with his budget proposal), who is as conservative as they come, being against abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Those Catholics who are inclined to vote conservative are now very excited. And, in fact, it's not just far-right Catholics to whom Ryan appeals. A lot of voters in this country, for some reason, really like candidates who stick to rigid principles, even if those principles contradict their own. Ryan will get some of those voters.

4. Romney now has even more money. Romney has been doing fine, raising hundreds of millions from investment bankers and other pots of big wealth from the 1/10th of the top 1 percent. Still the Ryan choice is a huge motivator to the group of rabid right-wing billionaires around Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers who fund and raise money for right-wing candidates, and an array of right-wing groups. Ryan has been a Koch favorite for years, supported and featured in myriad ways. The Kochs have promised, with Karl Rove, to raise $400 million for the so-called "independent superPACs". Now, with all those billionaires jazzed over Ryan, the sky may be the limit. There is talk of the superPACs and the Romney campaign raising and spending $1.2 billion -- and now maybe even more.

5. Romney gets the full Koch election infrastructure. Solidifying the alliance with the Kochs is even more about infrastructure than campaign dollars, which will be plentiful. As my colleague Adele Stan, who covers the Kochs and conservative election field operations, explains:

The Kochs, via Americans for Prosperity and Faith and Freedom Coalition, own the infrastructure for the ground game in the swing states. They've been building it for years. That's not something any amount of money can build in the three months leading up to the election. Romney really, really needs Koch buy-in.

6. Ryan seals the deal for a base-motivating campaign in the worst tradition of the Republicans. Republicans win when they run to their base, and play the "us versus them" card for their anxious constituencies. Voter suppression tactics of all sorts are in play, especially in Florida and Pennsylvania. Taken together, Ryan's earnest demeanor and brutal budgets act as an a elixir for grassroots conservatives; the base will now be super-motivated.

Bush won two terms without winning the majority of the popular vote because the GOP wanted the win more than the Democrats -- and Republicans cheat more. As Thomas Schaller writes at Salon [5]:

By picking [Ryan], Romney provides a powerful signal that he is willing to counter Obama's failed attempt to unite America with an unapologetic attempt to win via econo-demographic divide and conquer politics.

7. The Romney campaign will now be the most brutal, race-tinged, fact-absent, expensive, technologically sophisticated campaign ever run. This presidential race is increasingly polarized. Polling shows that Obama has lost most of the non-college-educated white male voters he was able to capture in 2008. As Charles Blow points out [6] in the New York Times:

A staggering 90 percent of Romney supporters are white. Only 4 percent are Hispanic, less than 1 percent are black and another 4 percent are another race.

And of uncommitted "swing" voters, Blow writes:

Nearly three out of four are white. The rest are roughly 8 percent blacks Hispanics and another race.

Schaller adds: "Don't be surprised in the Romney-Ryan ticket engages in the sort of racially tinged, generationally loaded entitlement politics practiced by the Tea Party..."

8. While the VP pick isn't going to change the mind of many independent or hard-core party voters, it is a move to bring all elements of the party in sync. Progressive pundits, just a few days ago, were saying: Oh, the VP pick doesn't make much difference...maybe, at best, a 2 percent swing. Today is apparently a new day, and progressives are pouncing on this choice as being a huge plus for Obama. Well, ya can't have it both ways. Republican wins are always about turning out the base to the polls. Ryan probably won't make that much difference on the large scale, but he becomes the thunderbolt to rouse the base, which appears to love him, even if he is a media-created fraud. In fact, Ryan may be the most effective political phony in America.

9. Repeat: Paul Ryan is the most effective phony in American politics today. When Romney picked Ryan, he was grabbing one of the great teflon politicians of all time. Ryan has a tremendous ability to appear earnest while lying through his teeth, as he did recently when he repeated Romney's lie about Obama and welfare work requirements. Ryan represents what Salon's Joan Walsh calls [7]the "fakery at the heart of the Republican project today." She adds:

[Ryan,] the man who who wants to make the world safe for swashbuckling, risk-taking capitalists, hasn't spent a day at economic risk in his life.

Guys like Ryan "somehow become the political face of the white working class when they never spent a day in that class in their life," writes Walsh. He has, she says, a "remarkable ability to tap into the economic anxiety of working class whites and steer it toward paranoia that their troubles are the fault of other people -- the slackers and the moochers, Ayn Rand;'s famous 'parasites' ..."

10. The Conservative tribe is now ready to fight all of its enemies. The conservatives and Republicans know what team they are on -- and that tribal identity is more important to them than any idea of hegemonic cultural identity could possibly be to liberals. For one, the conservative team is almost totally white, and far more homogenous, while more than 43 percent of Obama's supporters are people of color. Add in that conservative brand of resentment -- the "makers versus the takers" -- and it becomes clear who represents the conservative notion of a "maker." With Ryan as the standard-bearer for the self-described "makers," the team has its galvanizer.

http://www.alternet.org/print/election-2012/9-reasons-romneys-choice-paul-ryan-veep-smarter-you-think

boutons_deux

08-19-2012, 04:21 PM

Paul Ryan's Faux Populism

On Friday, Paul Ryan, the presumptive Republican vice-presidential nominee, made the most populist speech of this campaign season.

"It's the people who are politically connected, it's the people who have access to Washington that get the breaks," he told an enthusiastic crowd of over 2,000 at a high school gym in Virginia.

"Well, no more. We don't want to pick winners and losers in Washington... . Hardworking taxpayers should be treated fairly and it should be based on whether they're good, whether they work hard and not who they know in Washington. That's entrepreneurialism. That's free enterprise."

Sounds good, but earlier this week - three days after being picked as Romney's running-mate - Ryan went to Las Vegas to pay homage to Sheldon Adelson, the casino billionaire who is the poster boy for using money to become "politically connected" in Washington, and getting the "breaks" that come with it. Adelson has promised to donate up to $100 million to make sure Romney and Ryan are in the White House next year.

Much of Adelson's fortune comes from his casino in Macau, in China, via his money-greased access to Washington.

When China's pitch for the 2008 Olympics was endangered by a House resolution opposing the bid because of China's "abominable human rights record," Adelson phoned Tom DeLay, then House majority whip and recipient of Adelson's political generosity - urging him to block the resolution, which DeLay promptly did. The next day, according to the New York Times, a Chinese vice premier promised Mr. Adelson an endless line of gamblers to the Macau casino.

The money Adelson has committed to putting Romney and Ryan into the White House is a business investment. Adelson has a lot riding on the 2012 election.

Last year, his Las Vegas Sands Corporation came under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act - bribing Chinese officials to help expand its casino in Macau.

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, meanwhile, is investigating whether the Sands Corporation violated federal money-laundering laws by accepting more than $100 million from high-rolling gamblers accused of drug trafficking and embezzlement, rather than reporting the suspicious funds to the government.

Ryan has also been a major recipient of contributions from billionaire energy moguls Charles and David Koch. Koch Industries PAC has donated more than $100,000 to Ryan's campaigns and his leadership PAC - more than any other corporate PAC, according to a NY Times analysis of campaign records.

You see, Koch industries spans a variety of oil and gas investments - whose value would be compromised if Congress and the White House got serious about climate change.

Small wonder Paul Ryan has emerged as one of Congress's most outspoken skeptics of climate change. He has also repeatedly voted against energy efficiency standards, including a House vote to prohibit the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.

Several months ago, when I debated Paul Ryan on ABC-TV's This Week, he said we need to shrink the size of government because big corporations and wealthy individuals otherwise use government to their advantage.

"If the power and money are going to be here in Washington, that's where the influence is going to go ... that's where the powerful are going to go to influence it," he said.

It's an odd argument coming from Ryan because his proposed budget doesn't shrink government by cutting benefits and payments to big business and the rich. He increases military payments to defense contractors, for example, slashes Wall Street regulations, and gives giant tax benefits to the rich.

His budget shrinks government mainly by cutting benefits and payments to the poor and lower-income Americans. Over 60 percent of his spending cuts target programs for Americans in the bottom third of the income ladder.

Ryan is correct when he says "it's the people who are politically connected, it's the people who have access to Washington that get the breaks."

But his faux populism obscures the main point. A much smaller government still dominated by money would continue to do the bidding of billionaires like casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, energy moguls like the Koch bothers, military contractors, and other high rollers now actively trying to put Ryan and Romney into the White House.

It just wouldn't do anything for the rest of us.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/13006-focus-paul-ryans-faux-populism

boutons_deux

08-20-2012, 06:04 AM

More on the FRAUD Ryan, subsidizing carbon companies he and his family are financed by

Paul Ryan’s Big Oil budget halts energy innovation

House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposed FY 2012 budget resolution is a backward-looking plan that would benefit big oil companies at the expense of middle-class Americans. It retains $40 billion in Big Oil tax loopholes while completely eliminating investments in the clean energy technologies of the future that are essential for long-term economic growth.

This budget would lock Americans into paying high, volatile energy prices. It would ensure that millions of clean energy jobs are created oversees-not here in the United States. It is a path backward to Bush-Cheney Big Oil energy policies that cost jobs and harm American competitiveness. In short, the Ryan plan ensures that we lose the high-stakes competition for the $2 trillion worldwide clean tech market.

Ryan claims in an April 4 Wall Street Journal op-ed that his plan “rolls back expensive handouts for uncompetitive sources of energy, calling instead for a free and open marketplace for energy development, innovation and exploration.” This is false. Ryan’s proposal actually violates his assertion in two ways. It maintains wasteful subsidies for Big Oil, while cutting valuable investments in the clean energy technologies of the future.

Let’s consider each of these in turn. First, Ryan’s plan would continue “welfare” for big oil companies. Ryan was asked several times in a recent interview whether his plan would “eliminate tax breaks for Big Oil,” but he refused to answer. Evading an uncomfortable question was his acknowledgment that his budget hatchet leaves Big Oil tax breaks untouched . This is consistent with his recent vote to keep Big Oil tax loopholes as part of the FY 2011 spending bill, while cutting education, medical research, and clean-tech investments.

In addition to receiving $40 billion of unnecessary tax breaks, Big Oil does not pay its fair share of royalties for oil and gas produced from publicly owned waters. The Government Accountability Office estimates that a loophole in a 1990s oil-and-gas law could deprive the treasury of $53 billion in lost royalties. In February, the House Republicans overwhelmingly voted against recovering these royalties. Although Ryan’s budget claims that it “stops spending money the government doesn’t have,” it does nothing to recoup these forgone funds. This is another gift for Big Oil, paid for by middle-class taxpayers who must suffer the consequences of other steep spending cuts.

The proposed budget resolution doesn’t just contain billions of dollars of welfare for Big Oil. It would also slash investments in the research, development, and deployment of the clean energy technologies of the future. It would cut clean energy investments [1] by more than half for FY 2011, by two-thirds for FY 2013, and by 90 percent in 2014 to just $1 billion. This will take us back to the miserly clean energy budgets of President Bush.

The proposed budget would weaken the economy and increase the deficit by disinvesting in long-term economic growth the clean-tech sector fosters. For instance, the electric vehicles of the future will require advanced batteries, and the American economy will benefit if those batteries are made here. The federal government invested seed money beginning in 2009 to launch such an industry here. Former Governor Jennifer Granholm (D-MI) observed that “Just as a result of federal policy on batteries alone…have attracted 17 [battery] companies who are projected to create 63,000 jobs.”

But Ryan’s budget will nearly eliminate funding for this and other R&D programs that can lead to advances to battery technology. It also eliminates loan guarantees that can help manufacturing plants get built in the United States, and ignores investments to build a battery-charging infrastructure essential to expand the market for electric vehicles and reduce oil use.

Much of DOE’s spending on clean energy programs leverages significant private investment. This varies by program, of course, and is roughly linked to the product development cycle.

For example, the Advanced Research Project Administration-Energy, or ARPA-E, program gives relatively small grants to companies doing early research into advanced technologies. This leverages a small amount of private investment in the short term, but sets the companies up to attract larger private investments later on. ARPA-E tries to link companies that have received grants with private venture capital investors. Yet funding for this program was eliminated by the House passed budget for the remainder of FY 2011, and will likely be excluded by the Ryan budget as well.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Department of Energy loan guarantee program leverages significant private investment. It provides financing to help companies grow new technologies to commercial scale. Since borrowers are very likely to pay back loans, this generates significant private investment from both banks and equity investors. The amount varies by project, but on average, $1 in government spending yields $13 in private investment , which helps generate economic growth. The House-passed spending bill eliminated this vital program for the remainder of FY 2011, and it will likely be eliminated when the details of Ryan’s proposal are made public. Only in a Big Oil budget would spending $1 to generate $13 more in economic activity be called an “expensive handout.”

These investments spark economic growth, including more jobs and local development. The Boston Globe reported that Massachusetts clean-tech companies received $20 million in federal funds that “raised nearly five times as much””$95 million””from private investors. The money has helped create several dozen jobs, expand offices, and lay the groundwork for new manufacturing as the companies begin testing technologies on ever-larger scales.”

Rep. Ryan’s proposed budget also disregards the economic benefits of a clean energy future to middle-class families. In addition to creating new industries and jobs, clean energy sources that rely on homegrown wind, solar, geothermal energy, or efficiency will insulate Americans from rising and volatile energy prices.

An innovation-based economy requires government support for scientific research, development, and deployment. Such investments create domestic manufacturing jobs producing new clean-tech products. Without federal investments in innovation and clean-tech start up companies, it is very difficult to create a supply chain of related jobs that provide essential goods and services for these new technologies. Meanwhile our competitors invest heavily in the development of their clean-tech industries. China, for instance, invests $12 billion monthly in its wind, solar, and other renewable clean energy projects. The Ryan budget’s cutbacks in innovation investments condemn Americans to a future where new job creation happens overseas rather than at home.

The Ryan budget undermines our economy in another way. It goes backward by continuing to allow harmful, costly pollution. Its attacks on “environmental regulations” ignore their economic benefit. The Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, determined that the Clean Air Act has generated $20 in benefits for every $1 in cleanup costs””a return on investment that would make Warren Buffet proud.

Paul Ryan’s proposed budget resolution would keep Big Oil fat and happy while condemning the rest of us to high energy prices, job losses to other nations, and air pollution. Rather than foster innovation and economic growth like President Obama’s proposed budget, it is a path to perdition.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/04/06/207835/paul-ryan-big-oil-budget-energy/

Winehole23

08-22-2012, 06:28 AM

This Is Not the Ryan Effect You Are Looking For

By Daniel Larison (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/author/daniel-larison) • August 21, 2012, 5:28 PM (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/this-is-not-the-ryan-effect-you-are-looking-for/)

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Pew’s new survey (http://www.people-press.org/2012/08/21/medicare-voucher-plan-remains-unpopular/) includes some bad news for Ryanmaniacs:
http://www.people-press.org/files/2012/08/8-21-12-5.png (http://www.people-press.org/files/2012/08/8-21-12-5.png)
The report notes that Ryan’s numbers are slightly worse than some comparable Democratic running mates from previous elections:

Views of the Ryan vice presidential selection are somewhat less positive than those for John Edwards in 2004 and Al Gore in 1992.
There doesn’t seem to be much support here for the idea that there is a Ryan-inspired “movement” taking off across the country (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/could-romney-ryan-resemble-obama-2008/). Even among Republicans, there is not as much strong approval for the choice as one would have expected. When 20% of your own partisans are underwhelmed by the choice, and another 20% don’t know what to think about it, that suggests that choosing a relatively obscure Congressman who has spent his entire career in Washington may not have been the clever political maneuver that many movement conservatives believe it to be. The reaction among independents is more of a problem. Considering how poorly-known Ryan still is to most voters, it doesn’t bode well that 42% of independents already give the choice a fair or poor rating.
Another detail that should give Ryan fans pause is that the vast majority of Americans has no idea that Ryan is the one responsible for his Medicare reform proposal:

At this point, most Americans do not associate Ryan with the proposal to change Medicare. Just 23% of those who have heard about the idea of shifting Medicare to a system of credits to buy private insurance identify it as Ryan’s [bold mine-DL]. Nearly as many (17%) say Barack Obama proposed this, while 44% do not know who proposed it.
If most Americans don’t link Ryan with a proposal half of them reject, that could mean that approval of the Ryan choice is artificially high. What happens to those numbers when voters discover that this proposal came from Ryan? Nothing good for the Republican ticket, I’ll wager.
Update: A new WSJ/NBC News poll finds (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443713704577603600866054994.html?m od=googlenews_wsj) that Ryan’s selection has so far had no meaningful impact on the race:

Some 22% of those polled said Mr. Romney’s pick of Mr. Ryan as his running mate made them more likely to back the Republican ticket, while an almost equal share, 23%, said it made them less likely to do so. Some 54% said it made no difference.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/this-is-not-the-ryan-effect-you-are-looking-for/

Winehole23

08-22-2012, 06:29 AM

Wisconsin went from leans Obama to toss up. Otherwise, the Ryan bounce is pretty hard to detect.

boutons_deux

08-22-2012, 06:32 AM

"Ryan-inspired “movement” taking off across the country."

That's another LIE from the Fox Repug Propanda network, etc, pimping bounce that's not there, beyond more enthusiasm, and rally screaming from the base that had little for Gecko.

boutons_deux

08-23-2012, 09:48 AM

Paul Ryan's Top 10 Falsehoods and Outrages... from Just His First Week on the Campaign Trail

1. Ryan’s position opposing abortion even in cases of rape, and his attempts to define cytoblasts as legal ‘persons’ (which would outlaw all termination of pregnancies and some forms of birth control) came under scrutiny when Republican Todd Akin, running for the Senate in Missouri, provoked a furor. [3] Akin said he opposed abortion even in cases of rape because in ‘legitimate rape’ the woman’s body rejects fertilization. Akin’s insensitivity to a situation that affects a third of a million American women every decade, plus his ignorance of Biology 101, drew widespread condemnation. Mitt Romney put out a statement that both he and Ryan believed abortion was permitted in case of rape. Problem: Ryan has repeatedly opposed that position and appears to agree [4] with Akin more than with his running mate.

2. Ryan keeps attacking Prsident Obama’s stimulus program now [5]. But in 2002 when then President George W. Bush proposed stimulus spending, Ryan supported it. “What we’re trying to accomplish today with the passage of this third stimulus package is to create jobs and help the unemployed,” Ryan told MSNBC in 2002.

3. Even more embarrassing, in 2010, Ryan asked for $20 million in stimulus money from Obama for companies in his district, then repeatedly denied requesting stimulus funds. [6] He finally admitted he had done so, but continues to slam the stimulus program as a failure (even though the economy pulled out of a Depression as a result of it).

4. Ryan slammed President Obama for the closure of an auto plant [7] that closed in late 2008 under George W. Bush. Ryan’s running mate, Mitt Romney, opposed Obama’s actual auto bailout, which was a great success and returned Detroit to profitability.

5. When Ryan was challenged on his lack of foreign policy credentials, he replied that he had ‘voted to send men to war.’ [8]That is, he is boasting that his support of the illegal and disastrous Bush invasion and occupation of Iraq qualifies him to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. The Iraq War left over 4,000 US service personnel dead, over 30,000 seriously wounded, and likely hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead; failed to uncover any weapons of mass destruction, contributed to the US debt, and led to the takeover of Iraq by Shiite elements close to Iran, who are now helping Iran get around US sanctions. Does Ryan really want to run on that record of foreign policy ‘success’?

6. Paul Ryan charges that Barack Obama has ‘stolen’ $700 billion from medicare for his Obamacare. In fact, these expense reductions do not cut Medicare benefits, and, moreover, Romney and Ryan supported these reductions! [9] The difference is that they would give the savings to the affluent, whereas Obama uses them to cover the presently uninsured.

7. Ryan, seeking the youth vote, was foolish enough to list “Rage against the Machine” as one of his favorite bands. Band leader Tom Morello lambasted him, saying Ryan is the embodiment of the machine [10] against which they are raging. Face it, Ryan, you are stuck with Megadeath and Ted Nugent.

8. It became clear that under Ryan’s tax plan, Gov. Mitt Romney would pay less than 1% in annual federal taxes, highlighting Romney’s already low rate compared to ordinary Americans (slightly lower than Ryan’s own!) and putting the spotlight back where Ryan’s appointment was supposed to misdirect it.

9. It turns out Ryan and his wife own shares in oil and gas companies that indirectly benefit from tax breaks for Big Oil [11] that he wants to keep in the federal budget.

10. Ryan continues to push his longstanding plans for a steal-from-the-elderly-and-give-to-the-rich medicare plan, which President Obama warned would cost ordinary recipients over $6000 a year extra. Politifact checked and rated Obama’s charge as correct, though they noted [12] that the figures referred to CBO analyses of Ryan’s last plan, not his ‘new’ one, which hasn’t been subjected to similar analysis. Ryan certainly recently put forward a plan that would cost ordinary people that much extra.

http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/paul-ryans-top-10-falsehoods-and-outrages-just-his-first-week-campaign-trail

Winehole23

08-24-2012, 06:11 AM

a bit of movement detected on the fiercely partisan TPM:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/08/the_year_so_far.php?ref=fpblg

AFBlue

08-24-2012, 09:45 AM

Wisconsin went from leans Obama to toss up. Otherwise, the Ryan bounce is pretty hard to detect.

It's early. Ryan will get introduced to the larger population at the convention, and will probably seal his impact at the debate...unless he flubs every interview and destroys his credibility to irrecoverable levels in the interim.

boutons_deux

08-24-2012, 11:32 AM

"destroys his credibility to irrecoverable levels"

for people who really know his record, he's already irrecovderably known as an unserious budgeteer and fraud. He has a long trail he hasn't bothered to hide the way Gecko has destroyed/secreted his records.

But it would be typical of shallow, ignorant Americans, a majority?, to ignore his record, to ignore the many trashings of his record and budget, and suckeredly buy his VEEP candidate bullshit only.

boutons_deux

08-24-2012, 01:08 PM

Still Praising Ryan as ‘Fiscal Hawk’

The U.S. news media continues to hail Rep. Paul Ryan as a “fiscal hawk” despite the ocean of red ink in his budget plan. The latest to misrepresent Ryan’s record is the New York Times’ Katharine Q. Seelye, who famously distorted Al Gore’s words in Campaign 2000

it’s important to “look at what [Ryan’s] budget (pdf) actually proposes (as opposed to vaguely promises) in its first decade. First, there are a set of tax cuts for higher income brackets and corporations. The Tax Policy Center (pdf) estimates the cost of these tax cuts, relative to current policy, at $4.3 trillion.

“Second, there are spending cuts. Of these, approximately $800 billion comes from converting Medicaid into a block grant that grows only with population and overall inflation – a big cut compared with projections that take into account rising health-care costs and an aging population (since the elderly and disabled account for most Medicaid expenses).

“Another $130 billion comes from doing something similar to food stamps. Then there are odds and ends – Pell grants, job training. Be generous and call all of this $1 trillion in specified cuts.

“On top of this we should add the $700 billion in Medicare cuts that Ryan denounces in Obamacare but nonetheless incorporates into his own plan. So if we look at the actual policy proposals, they look like this: Spending cuts: $1.7 trillion; Tax cuts: $4.3 trillion. This is, then, a plan that would increase the deficit by around $2.6 trillion.

“How, then, does Ryan get to call himself a fiscal hawk? By asserting that he will keep his tax cuts revenue-neutral by broadening the base in ways he refuses to specify, and that he will make further large cuts in spending, in ways he refuses to specify. And this is what passes inside the Beltway for serious thinking and a serious commitment to deficit reduction.”

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/08/22/still-praising-ryan-as-fiscal-hawk/