Paul Ryan

[boutons_deux]

Paul Ryan To Spew More of the Same Old on Five Sunday News Shows

nothing is going to be any different (http://www.politicususa.com/2015/10/31/dont-fooled-paul-ryan-extreme-close-government-permanently.html) under his leadership.

After all, as conservatives have already observed with a sort of weary dismay, Ryan has already sold out the GOP by agreeing to the budget instead of shutting down the government again.

It’s not easy being a nihilist these days.

Even so, the mainstream media, ever eager to lap submissively at the feet of the Republican Party, has Paul Ryan lined up to appear no less than FIVE TIMES on Sunday:



ABC This Week airs at 9:30 am CT in Janesville, WI and 10:00 am ET in Washington, DC. Check here (http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/tune-time-channel-area/story?Source=GovD&id=6700408)for local listings.
CBS Face the Nation airs at 9:30 am CT in Janesville, WI and 10:30 am ET in Washington, DC. Check here (http://www.cbsnews.com/face-the-nation/local-listings/?Source=GovD#m) for local listings.
CNN State of the Union airs at 8:00 am CT in Janesville, WI and 9:00 am ET in Washington, DC.
FOX News Sunday airs on local FOX stations at 7:00 am CT in Janesville, WI and 8:00 am ET in Washington, DC.
NBC Meet the Press airs at 9:00 am CT in Janesville, WI and 10:30 am ET in Washington, DC. Check here (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3080248/ns/meet_the_press-more?Source=GovD)for local listings.


No doubt Ryan will go on with the usual Republican talking points and be coddled with the same inattention to fact and detail as regularly displayed on Sunday news programming.

The cause of Republican nihilism will be advanced and nothing new will be learned because nothing new will be offered.

Paul Ryan’s “new day” will be revealed Sunday as an undisguised “yesterday” because yesterday is all Republicans have.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/10/31/paul-ryan-spew-sunday-news-shows.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29

[boutons_deux]

The right turns on Paul Ryan: Yesterday’s conservative savior is today’s moderate wimp

When newly-elected Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) was picked by Mitt Romney to be his running mate in 2012, right-wing media were ecstatic. Cheered by Ryan’s sterling conservative credentials, far right commentators celebrated that one of their own (http://www.politico.com/story/2012/08/rush-limbaugh-ryan-is-us-079674) has been added to the ticket.

Rush Limbaugh (http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/08/13/paul_ryan_pick_energizes_the_campaign_we_ll_win_or _lose_this_election_on_ideas): “I don’t remember a vice presidential pick that has so energized a campaign as this choice of Paul Ryan.”

Glenn Beck (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/glenn-beck-paul-ryan-mitt-romney_n_1773490.html): “Mitt Romney has picked a solid, smart conservative for his vice-presidential running mate.”

Laura Ingraham (http://www.lauraingraham.com/b/RR-for-a-weary-nation/821039158779174017.html): “More than anything today, we need a man with courage and clear-thinking. Ryan has both.”

Mark Levin (https://www.facebook.com/marklevinshow/posts/10151161265448832): “Paul Ryan is an excellent VP choice.”


Fast forward just three years and those same commentators are now raising doubts about Ryan, when not outright trashing him in public. Ryan’s sudden sin? Not being sufficiently conservative; not passing the purity test.

Limbaugh (http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/10/22/the_donor_class_push_make_paul_ryan_speaker_get_ri d_of_trump_and_have_rubio_or_jeb_win_the_white_hou se): “This whole Ryan thing hasn’t made any sense to me from the first moment I heard about it.”

Beck (http://www.mediaite.com/online/glenn-beck-unleashes-on-house-freedom-caucus-after-supporting-paul-ryan/): “The ‘fix’ the republic needs is Paul Ryan? The man who never met a bailout he didn’t like? A man who asked to be made king? 100% support and you can’t vote him out? Your solution is MORE POWER FOR THE SPEAKER?!?!?!?”

Levin (https://twitter.com/marklevinshow/status/652504630534868992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw): “NOT SO FAST! Paul Ryan an amnesty advocate”

Ingraham (https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/status/656785026856689665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw): “From misrepresenting the outrageous Fast Track &TPP to amnesty & foreign workers, list of demands, Ryan’s possibly the worst Spkr choice.”

Ryan’s amazing free-fall from grace seems to be part of a larger race to the radical right, not only among powerful forces with the Republican Party, which now seem to be fundamentally opposed to governing and legislating, but also within key portions of the right-wing media. There seems to be a mini-stampede underway towards an extremist destination rarely seen in mainstream American politics. And for parts of the conservative media that means now demonizing former heroes (http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/08/13/glenn-beck-continues-love-affair-with-paul-ryan/189314) like Paul Ryan.

“Conservative talk show hosts, including Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, have already denounced him as a dangerous moderate,” according to Doyle McManus at the (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1025-mcmanus-paul-ryan-20151025-column.html) Los Angeles Times. “

Tea party organizations are already raising money from supporters with appeals to stop any more Ryanesque budget deals.”

Ryan would “certainly be the most conservative Speaker of the House in modern history.”

Esquire agrees (http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39172/paul-ryan-moderate-myth/):

He still believes in privatizing social security and Medicare. He still believes that social programs are a “hammock.”

He still believes that the Social Security survivor benefits that he and his family received throughout his adolescence cause dependency on other people and their families.



The conservative press could barely contain its universal glee when Ryan got the VP nod just three years ago. ‘He’s one of us (http://www.politico.com/story/2012/08/rush-limbaugh-ryan-is-us-079674),’ seemed to be the collective cheer.

“Fox News, the most powerful right-wing media outlet in the country, has spent years praising Ryan as a ‘star,’ (http://mediamatters.org/video/2011/01/26/luntz-decides-barack-obama-was-the-focus-but-pa/175569) a ‘genius (http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/05/25/fox-amp-friends-grills-paul-ryan-for-being-too/180013),’ and a man of ‘courage,'” Media Matters noted (http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/08/11/paul-ryan-the-romney-running-mate-the-right-win/189267) in 2012.


Today, the insults pile high:

-“He is the wrong man at the wrong time.” [American Thinker (http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/10/paul_ryan_a_poor_choice_for_speaker.html)]

-“Paul Ryan represents one of the absolute worst outcomes for conservatives.” [Conservative Review (https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2015/10/paul-ryan-is-the-absolute-worst-choice-for-speaker)]

-“Despite his portrayal by the media as being conservative, most actual conservatives in the House know that Ryan isn’t a conservative.” [Breitbart (http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/11/more-republicans-join-speakership-race-as-paul-ryans-nascent-campaign-falls-apart-on-the-runway/)]


Breitbart, in particular, has become a clearinghouse (http://www.breitbart.com/?s=paul+ryan) of often-inaccurate analysis regarding Ryan, such as (http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/11/more-republicans-join-speakership-race-as-paul-ryans-nascent-campaign-falls-apart-on-the-runway/) claiming the Republican’s bid for the speakership had recently collapsed. Breitbart even warned (http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/26/medias-matters-paul-ryans-back/) readers that Media Matters “has Paul Ryan’s back,” as proof the Republican cannot be trusted.

In a sign of how fractured and radical the conservative movement has become, it appears fewer and fewer media players have Ryan’s back.

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/31/paul_ryan_partner/

[baseline bum]

I can't wait for 2020 when the Republican party swings so far right that they'll shit on Cruz for being too moderate.

[DMX7]

I can't wait for 2020 when the Republican party swings so far right that they'll shit on Cruz for being too moderate.

Makes me wonder if we could really see the splitting of a major political party.

[boutons_deux]

GOP “death spiral” shocker: “We’ve gone beyond the tipping point on the demographic changes”

Pollster Stanley Greenberg lays out why the deck is stacked against the Republican Party in 2016


America is now too diverse and progressive for President Obama’s “third term” and entirely too liberal for the extreme anti-immigrant GOP to remain a winning national party in 2016, according to former President Bill Clinton pollster Stanley Greenberg.

Greenberg, whose new book “America Ascendant” argues that the nation will soon be “exceptional again” because of its cultural diversity, argued that the Democrats shouldn’t be afraid to now advocate for “very bold policy changes.”

“The Democratic Party is waiting for a president who will articulate the scale of the problems we face and challenge them to address it,” Greenberg argued. “The problem the president has had is that he’s not tried to educate the country on how deep the downside is,” Greenberg said,

(NB: that's Bernie's message)

“we’ve gone beyond the tipping point on the demographic changes taking place in the country,” Greenberg credited “ongoing, extraordinary, disruptive changes” with “producing a different kind of politics” that allows for a more robust progressive debate.

“A rural, white, married, evangelical, religious,” Republican Party, Greenberg argued, is waging a “furious counter-revolution” to blunt the rise of a more diverse, liberal populace, but is actually working to further marginalize itself.

“The Republican Party essentially exists — particularly in the last decade — to deny that new American majority the ability to govern based on its values.”

This effort has “alienated the Republican Party from the country,”

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/30/gop_death_spiral_shocker_weve_gone_beyond_the_tipp ing_point_on_the_demographic_changes/

That's just Greenberg. Does he consider the wealth and power of the VRWC/1%/BigCorp to purchase whatever federal poiliticians they want?

and what about the strangle hold of the Repugs on slave states and red states, by gerrrymandering, voter suppression?

[boutons_deux]

Republican judge switches parties, slams GOP’s “pettiness and bigotry”


“Make no mistake: I have not left the Republican Party. It left me,” Key says in the video announcement, a blistering indictment of anti-LGBTQ sentiment within the GOP and the party’s “pettiness and bigotry”:


I can no longer be a member of the Republican Party. For too long, the Republican Party has been at war with itself.

Rational Republican beliefs have given way to ideological character assassinations. Pragmatism and principal have been overtaken by pettiness and bigotry.

Make no mistake: I have not left the Republican Party.

It left me.

I cannot tolerate a political party that demeans Texans based on their sexual orientation, the color of their skin or their economic status.

I will not be a member of a Party in which hate speech elevates candidates for higher office rather than disqualifying them.

I cannot place my name on the ballot for a political party that is proud to destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands of federal workers over the vain attempt to repeal a law that would provide health care to millions of people throughout our country.

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/22/republican_judge_switches_parties_slams_gops_petti ness_and_bigotry/

[boutons_deux]

“Cooked as a party” shocker: Republican chairman admits “terrible feeling” about GOP’s future

Reince Priebus says without a win in 2016, the Republican Party's days are numbered


http://www.salon.com/2015/10/16/rnc_chair_admits_the_gop_is_cooked_as_a_party_if_t hey_lose_the_white_house/

Repug as party that can win the WH? yes, dead.

But Repugs' unConstitutional gerrymandering, vote counting fraud, voter suppression, bigotry, hate, paranoia, misogyny, Bible thumping, Christian Taliban, anger still holds power in slave and red states.

Repug Billionaire Boys Toys in the House and Senate have enough power to block progress, solutions, to maintain the status quo rigged in favor of BigFinance, BigCorp, 1%.

[boutons_deux]

Paul Ryan Says There Will Be No Immigration Reform Under Obama

Ryan told several Sunday shows that he would not work with President Barack Obama on the matter, since the president’s unilateral actions to give legal protections to some of the undocumented had poisoned the proverbial well.

“I think he's proven untrustworthy on this issue. He tried to go around Congress with an executive order to rewrite laws unilaterally.

Presidents don't write laws.

Congress writes laws,” Ryan told ABC’s “This Week.”

“So yes, I do not believe we should and we won't bring immigration legislation with a president we cannot trust on this issue.

If we believe and have consensus on things like border enforcement, and interior security, then that's fine.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-ryan-obama-immigration_56362fb1e4b063179912b276?z83hm2t9

A huge departure from Repug/xenophobe/racist/nativist orthodoxy.

[boutons_deux]

Ryan To Black Caucus: I'm With You On Voting Rights--But I, ecstatically, Can't (won't) Do Anything

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus said House Speaker Paul Ryan told them he backs a bill to restore portions of the Voting Rights Act gutted by the Supreme Court, but won't bypass his committee chairman to bring it the floor for a vote, The Hill reported. (http://thehill.com/homenews/house/268159-ryan-backs-voting-rights-bill-but-tells-black-caucus-its-out-of-his-hands)

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) told The Hill that Ryan had signaled support for the Voting Rights Amendment Act, a bipartisan bill sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), at a meeting with the group of black lawmakers Wednesday.

"So somebody was saying, 'Well, why don't you go tell your committee chair to do it?' " Cleaver said. "And he said, … 'Look, I can't do that.'"

According to The Hill, Ryan does not want to step on the toes of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), whose committee has jurisdiction over the legislation.

Goodlatte has said (http://thehill.com/homenews/house/268159-ryan-backs-voting-rights-bill-but-tells-black-caucus-its-out-of-his-hands) that what's left of the Voting Rights Act is enough to protect the franchise and thus the bill is not necessary.

Ryan, a former committee chairman himself, has expressed a commitment to a bottom-up approach to leadership that defers to committees on advancing legislation.

"He said, 'I told my own conference I'm not going to do it, so I'm not going to come up here and tell you anything differently. … I want it to be the product of the committee,' " Cleaver recounted, according to The Hill.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/paul-ryan-voting-rights

With an authoritarian strong hand, Ryan commands his troops, proving once again that Repugs are not racist, value the black vote, black people not so much.

[boutons_deux]

Paul Ryan failing at uniting fractious conference and showing Republicans can govern (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/12/1484028/-Paul-Ryan-failing-at-uniting-fractious-conference-and-showing-Republicans-can-govern)

House Speaker Paul Ryan will attempt to get his unruly Republican conference on the same budget page Friday, giving them more than a week off (yes, they're taking another week off) to mull over whether to recognize reality, or keep doing what they've been doing and leave the House in chaos.

The hard-line Freedom Caucus wants to reject the budget agreement worked out last fall by outgoing Speaker John Boehner and severely cut domestic spending levels. Ryan and his leadership team, as well as the Republicans who aren't maniacs, want to demonstrate that the House is capable of functioning normally, and build a budget based on that hard-won agreement. Ryan isstuck in the middle (http://thehill.com/policy/finance/269160-divided-gop-to-pow-wow-on-budget).

Conservatives are revolting against higher top-line spending levels negotiated last fall by President Obama and Ryan's predecessor, then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). GOP centrists are digging in on the other side, pledging to kill any budget that deviates from the two-year, bipartisan budget deal.Ryan has been listening to all sides and hopes his party can work out its differences internally, insisting he's not the "micromanager" or "dictator" of the House.

But the former Budget Committee chairman still believes sticking with the current figures gives the House the best chance to return to regular order and a more traditional appropriations process.
That would put the power of the purse back in the hands of Congress, he's argued, so lawmakers can hold the Obama administration accountable.


That's an argument that is falling on deaf Freedom Caucus ears. "I am not one of those people who will be constrained by the number from last year," says one of them, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ). "There are a growing amount of people will not do that."

At the same time, there's an increasingly fed up bunch of Republicans who are revolting against the revolters, represented by Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) who says that he's got plenty of Republicans on his side that will vote against any budget that doesn't adhere to the Boehner-Obama deal.

Ryan is almost certainly going to have to give up on the whole idea of passing a budget and just proceed to individual spending bills that use the caps set by the Boehner deal. There could be enough opposition to that from the maniacs, though, to derail that as well.

Which could mean another showdown in the fall when Congress has to keep passing short-term funding bills under the threat of a shutdown. Which would also mean Paul Ryan will fail just as badly as John Boehner.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/12/1484028/-Paul-Ryan-failing-at-uniting-fractious-conference-and-showing-Republicans-can-govern?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

[boutons_deux]

Wingnuts have a death-grip on Congress: Why Paul Ryan can’t control the House GOP

With budget negotiations on the horizon, the Republicans' right flank is digging in its heels yet again

Remember last fall, when pundits and politicians were trying to talk themselves into Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House because he would lay down the law with the hard-right wing of the Republican caucus? When he was the man who could bring some much-needed order to the ranks? Who could maybe end this habit of careening from crisis to crisis that Congress has fallen into because the two parties are unable to agree on anything, down to whether toilet paper should be rolled over or under in Capitol Hill bathrooms, let alone a budget to fund the basic functions of government?


As the kids like to say, LOL (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/us/politics/paul-ryans-budget-strategy-collides-with-conservatives-demands.html?_r=0):


“The release of President Obama’s eighth and final budget on Tuesday has forced into the open the seething tensions that never really went away after a spending agreement was reached last year, in part to ease Mr. Ryan’s transition into the speaker’s suite.

That deal set spending until the end of October of this year, at levels that the president adhered to and Senate Republicans hope to make stick. But a core group of House Republicans who gave Mr. Ryan a pass back then now say they want to toss those numbers out like so much flotsam and pass their own budget with far tighter spending restrictions.”


That “core group of House Republicans” is the House Freedom Caucus, the band of 40 or so feral meerkats who did much of the heavy lifting in driving John Boehner into retirement. But they aren’t the only Republicans who look like infants here. Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), the chairs of the House and Senate Budget Committees, last week announced (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/republicans-decline-hear-presidents-budget?cid=sm_fb_newsnation) they will not even let the director of the Office of Management and Budget present the proposed budget to the Congress. This practice is a common courtesy extended to presidential administrations for the last 40 years or so.

No one would expect any Congress to rubber-stamp a president’s budget proposal, of course. Not even if the same party controlled both chambers and the White House. But what’s notable here is this quote from one member of the Freedom Caucus:

“If we are going to pass a Republican budget, it should reflect Republican ideals,” said Representative Mick Mulvaney, Republican of South Carolina and a member of the Freedom Caucus that is leading this charge. “That means lower spending.”


But as part of his deal to earn his Republican colleagues’ votes for Speaker, Ryan devolved a fair amount of power for setting legislative agendas back to the committee chairmen. This took away one of the tools that past Speakers like Boehner could use as leverage to get bills they favored taken up by individual committees. With that gone, a weak Speaker is practically a helpless bystander to this sort of spectacle.

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/11/wingnuts_have_a_death_grip_on_congress_why_paul_ry an_cant_control_the_house_gop/

[boutons_deux]

Paul Ryan’s curious case against expertise


That is the key difference between ourselves and the progressives: We do not believe we should be governed by elites. We do not believe that there are experts or elites who should steer us in their preferred direction. We see that sense of organization as condescending, paternalistic, and downright arrogant. We know it’s wrong. […]

“Because we believe that all of us are equal, we believe there is no problem that all of us – working together – cannot solve. We believe every person has a piece of this puzzle, and only when we work together do we get the whole picture.”


The speech as delivered was slightly different from the speech as written (http://www.speaker.gov/press-release/speaker-ryan-address-eppc-s-40th-anniversary-celebration), and some of the changes are notable.

Regardless, I found the speech interesting because it sheds light on Ryan’s broader worldview and what he sees as the major points of contention in these divisive political times. What was challenging, however, was understanding the meaning of some of the Speaker’s labels.

For example, what exactly is an “elite” and who believes we should be governed by them? Ryan didn’t specify, though he did note that he supports the idea of crafting a health care reform plan that’s guided by consumers guided by the free market, rather than relying on guidance from health policy experts at HHS.

In other words, Paul Ryan seems to have a problem with expertise. Indeed, he explicitly rejected the idea of “experts” helping guide policy debates.

And if the Republican Speaker believes this is an important difference between conservatives and progressives, he may be onto something.

Several years ago, David Brooks, lamenting the radicalism of congressional Republicans, complained (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/opinion/05brooks.html) that many on the far-right “do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities.”

Five years later, there was Paul Ryan, effectively arguing that Brooks is right and conservatives shouldn’t accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities.
It’s an embrace of a sort of clumsy intellectual populism in which “regular people” deliberately thumb their noses at experts because they’re experts.

The intellectual elites and their pesky reality-based worldview tell us that

climate change is real,

evolutionary biology is fact, and

tax cuts don’t pay themselves, so to heck with those folks.

Who needs a bunch of elitist egg heads steering debates, just because they have facts and evidence on their side?

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/paul-ryans-curious-case-against-expertise?cid=sm_fb_maddow

Strategy: Repugs to keep suckering the low-wage, low-info, Bible humping sheeple that ALL their problems and all their risks are due to illegal immigrants, knitters, LGBT, libruls, Muslims, absence of Christian Sharia.

[boutons_deux]

Paul Ryan’s anti-poverty plan isn’t the ‘better way’


if the public fully understood what Ryan was recommending with regard to poverty, he’d probably have an entirely different controversy on his hands.

Most of Ryan’s proposal is exactly what you’d expect it to be: work requirements, state block grants, tax credits, etc.

The plan is based on faulty assumptions (http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2016/06/paul-ryans-favorite-poverty-talking-point-debunked-000142) and it ignores obvious anti-poverty measures such as the minimum wage.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities called Ryan’s blueprint “disappointing (http://www.cbpp.org/poverty-and-inequality/commentary-house-gops-attention-to-poverty-is-welcome-but-plan-is-seriously),” adding, “Most of its proposals are so vague that it’s hard to figure out how they would work or affect low-income people.

And in some cases where the plan provides more specificity, the proposals would likely do more harm than good, risking increases in poverty and even homelessness among poor families with children.”

But Slate’s Jordan Weissmann highlighted the punch-line (http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/06/07/i_can_t_stop_laughing_at_paul_ryan_s_anti_poverty_ plan.html).


Specifically, Ryan and the GOP would like to abolish the Department of Labor’s recently released “fiduciary rule,” which once it’s fully implemented in 2018 will simply require that investment professionals act in their clients’ best interests when offering advice on their retirement accounts. […]

Conservatives, meanwhile, have claimed the rule will make it harder for low- and middle-income families to get financial advice, which how it makes its way into Paul Ryan’s anti-poverty agenda.


This may sound a little wonky, but bear with me for a minute.

As we discussed (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obama-admin-scores-another-win-putting-customers-first) in April, under the current rules, when investors meet with their financial advisers to talk about their IRAs, the advisers operate under something called the “suitability standard.” As Helaine Olen explained (http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/04/06/new_fiduciary_rule_means_financial_advisers_have_t o_put_clients_best_interests.html) at the time, this standard allows finance-industry professionals “to make suggestions for retirement investments that take into account how clients’ investments buttress their own bottom line. The advice just couldn’t be out-and-out malfeasant.”

Your adviser can’t direct you to an investment he or she knows to be bad for you, but he or she isn’t required to recommend the best possible option for you, either. If there’s a retirement-fund option that would basically work to your benefit, and that also helps your adviser with commissions or rewards, he or she can push you in that direction – even if you’d make more money following a better path.

According to the Obama administration, this translates into $17 billion a year that could be in investors’ retirement accounts, but isn’t.

So, the administration is planning to scrap the “suitability standard” and replace it with the “fiduciary rule” that will take effect in 2018.

Investment firms, not surprisingly, aren’t at all pleased, and according to Paul Ryan, blocking the fiduciary rule belongs as part of the House Republicans’ new anti-poverty agenda.

Which is kind of hilarious. How many low-income families, struggling to pay rent and put food on the table, are going to see a material difference in their lives if Paul Ryan makes it easier for finance-industry professionals to change the standards for retirement investments to benefit firms over consumers?

What’s more, let’s not miss the forest for the trees. The Speaker of the House has been eager, if not desperate, to

show that he and his Republican conference are serious about governing – so serious that they’ve spent months crafting a detailed, six-point agenda that they’re rolling out this election year. More than five years after claiming the House majority, GOP leaders have declared they’re finally ready to demonstrate Republicans’ preparedness to lead. :lol

But as it turns out, Part One of the “Better Way” platform – ostensibly the GOP’s best approach to combating poverty – is the same, stale, far-right ideas, coupled with an item from Wall Street’s wish list that has practically nothing to do with poverty.
I realize there are some in the Beltway media who believe Paul Ryan is genuinely committed to an ambitious anti-poverty agenda, largely because the Speaker tends to use the word a lot (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/paul-ryan-still-struggling-the-basics-poverty) while pushing the same Republican ideas he’s supported for years.

But that doesn’t make yesterday’s pitch compelling. If anything, all Ryan has done is reinforce the doubts about his party’s capacity for governing that he hoped to dispel.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/paul-ryans-anti-poverty-plan-isnt-the-better-way?cid=sm_fb_maddow

iow, Ryan simply, blatantly continues the Repug War on the (criminalized, fraudulent, high-living, lazy) Poor while enabling/protecting/enriching BigCorp/1%.

[hater]

He will be sucking Dicks Trump soon enough

[Splits]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkYvKYsVAAAYSYQ.jpg

[FuzzyLumpkins]

It appears that boutox primarily gets his news from msnbc now. I guess it better than nakedcapitalism.

[boutons_deux]

It appears that boutox primarily gets his news from msnbc now. I guess it better than nakedcapitalism.

It's well known Fuzzy has his head WAY up his ass.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

:cry

[boutons_deux]

Paul Ryan’s ‘Better Way’ points in a worse direction

“What you will see with these [six releases] are detailed policy papers,” the Wisconsin Republicandeclared (http://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/ryan-announces-plan-rolling-house-policy-agenda#sthash.1EwnpJ9E.dpuf). “We’re not talking about principles here. This is substance. It’s going to be a clear explanation of the policy changes that are needed in these areas.”

Was that true? Well, it’s a funny story (http://thehill.com/homenews/house/283637-gop-obamacare-plan-will-leave-out-key-dollar-figures), actually.

House Republicans’ ObamaCare replacement plan will not include specific dollar figures on some of its core provisions, and will instead be more of a broad outline, according to lobbyists and aides. […]

Keeping the plan in the form of a broad outline puts off decisions some of the difficult tradeoffs and preempts lines of attack that would be raised with a specific and detailed plan. :lol


Oh, I see. Putting together policy proposals is difficult, so Ryan and House Republicans prefer not to invest the effort.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of Ryan’s health care “task force,” recently urged (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/house-republican-health-care-plan-give-us-little-time) the media to “give us a little time, another month or so,” :lol before the Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act would be ready for its big unveiling.

Two months later, if The Hill’s reporting is accurate, they’re nearly ready to show us “a broad outline” of ideas we already know they support, and which wouldn’t make much of a difference in providing health security to the public.

In fact, as luck would have it, an interesting anniversary is upon us.

As we discussed (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/paul-ryan-shape-republican-health-plan) when the Republican “task force” was created early last year, the political world may not fully appreciate just how overdue this GOP health care plan really is.

It was on June 17, 2009 that then-Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) made a bold promise (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_10/020635.php). :lol

The Missouri Republican, a member of the House Republican leadership at the time, had taken the lead in crafting a GOP alternative to the Affordable Care Act, and he was proud to publicly declare, “I guarantee you we will provide you with a bill.” :lol

The same week, then-Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told reporters that the official Republican version of “Obamacare” was just “weeks away (http://thehill.com/homenews/house/64877-gopers-impatient-on-healthcare-alternative).” We’d all see the striking proof that far-right lawmakers could deliver real solutions better than those rascally Democrats.

It turns out, Blunt’s proclamation was exactly seven years ago tomorrow – and Paul Ryan’s “broad outline” isn’t quite ready yet.
We’ve documented the reasons GOP lawmakers keep failing (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/house-republican-health-care-plan-give-us-little-time) to craft their own ACA alternative, so let’s instead focus our attention today on the Speaker’s “Better Way” blueprint.

It started with Ryan’s plan to address poverty, which turned out to be laughable (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/paul-ryans-anti-poverty-plan-isnt-the-better-way).

His national-security vision soon followed, and it was not only ignored, it was quickly contradicted by his party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

Part Three in the Wisconsin congressman’s agenda was a deregulation plan that was just a warmed over version (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/14/1538568/-Paul-Ryan-releases-regulatory-portion-of-his-6-part-agenda-It-shouldn-t-fool-anybody) of the stale GOP wish list.

And the next step, apparently, is a “detailed policy paper” outlining the Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act – without the details. :lol

As we talked about (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/paul-ryans-anti-poverty-plan-isnt-the-better-way) a few weeks ago, the Speaker of the House has been eager, if not desperate, to show that he and his Republican conference are serious about governing – so serious that

they’ve spent months crafting a new six-point, election-year agenda. So far, however, the agenda is hollow and meaningless.
Ryan set out to prove that Republicans are a governing party. He’s inadvertently helping prove the opposite.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/paul-ryans-better-way-points-worse-direction?cid=sm_fb_maddow

Repug governance! :lol They control the House and Senate, and can't even propose shit, never mind get shit done.

[CosmicCowboy]

:lmao

Maddog conveniently forgets Nancy Pelosi and "You have to pass the bill to read it".

She is worse than Hannity.

[boutons_deux]

:lmao

Maddog conveniently forgets Nancy Pelosi and "You have to pass the bill to read it".

She is worse than Hannity.

Typical, you attack the messenger, while she's describing FACTUALLY the Ryan/Repug "governance"

Pelosi got shit done, Repug Speakers got nothing to show for 7 years, except "strict obstructionism", and cutting Federal deparmental budgets to the benefit of BigCorp.

[CosmicCowboy]

Typical, you attack the messenger, while she's describing FACTUALLY the Ryan/Repug "governance"

Pelosi got shit done, Repug Speakers got nothing to show for 7 years, except "strict obstructionism", and cutting Federal deparmental budgets to the benefit of BigCorp.

It's total bullshit Maddog hypocrisy. She accuses Republicans of not presenting a detailed plan ahead of time when that's exactly what Pelosi did but that's OK because Maddog is an unabashed partisan like Hannity..

[boutons_deux]

It's total bullshit Maddog hypocrisy. She accuses Republicans of not presenting a detailed plan ahead of time when that's exactly what Pelosi did but that's OK because Maddog is an unabashed partisan like Hannity..

You're still deflecting, and refusing to address dickless Ryan's total failure to govern HIS House and present bills to a vote.

[CosmicCowboy]

You're still deflecting, and refusing to address dickless Ryan's total failure to govern HIS House and present bills to a vote.

You are still deflecting and refusing to admit Maddog is a partisan hack. Only difference between her and Hannity is she probably gets more pussy.

[boutons_deux]

You're still deflecting, and refusing to address dickless Ryan's total failure to govern HIS House and present bills to a vote.

she's admittedly, openly partisan, but just because she BITCH SLAPs your Repugs daily with their own words and actions, doesn't mean she's a hack.

Now, what about your Boy Ryan and his fucked up House?

[CosmicCowboy]

You're still deflecting, and refusing to address dickless Ryan's total failure to govern HIS House and present bills to a vote.

she's admittedly, openly partisan, but just because she BITCH SLAPs your Repugs daily with their own words and actions, doesn't mean she's a hack.

Now, what about your Boy Ryan and his fucked up House?








:lmao and you are a hack to.

The House has had no problem passing bills. Historically the problem is getting them through the Senate.

[boutons_deux]

:lmao and you are a hack to.

The House has had no problem passing bills. Historically the problem is getting them through the Senate.

bullshit. How many significant bills has the Repug House passed or even gotten to a vote since 2010? naming post offices isn't "significant".

How many times has the House voted to repeal ACA? 60? :lol

[boutons_deux]

here ya are. CosmicParasite, pro-business, anti-competitive Repugs fucking over Human-Americans, "over and over and over"

Public Knowledge Rejects Senate Appropriations Funding Bill Stalling FCC’s Set-Top Box Proposal

Today, the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up its fiscal year (FY) 2017 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill (http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/majority/fy2017-financial-services-and-general-government-appropriations-bill-approved-by-senate-subcommittee). The bill includes appropriations for the Federal Communications Commission of approximately $341 million, below the President’s requested amount, and also

requires the FCC to complete an impact study of its set-top box proposal (https://www.publicknowledge.org/press-release/fcc-moves-to-save-consumers-billions-in-set-top-box-rental-fees) before voting to increase video device competition for consumers.

The following can be attributed to Kate Forscey, Government Affairs Associate Counsel at Public Knowledge:

“We are disappointed by the Appropriations Committee targeting the FCC for working to protect consumers, as Congress directed.

This attack is a rider which attempts to stymie the Commission’s ongoing proceeding to ‘Unlock the Box (http://unlockthebox.com/)’.

The rider hitched onto this bill would further forestall a truly competitive video marketplace, for which consumers and creators yearn and which the FCC now stands poised to deliver.

“From a policy standpoint, this industry giveaway is another attempt at a transparent delay strategy, designed to perpetuate incumbent cable’s current stranglehold on consumers, and which flies in the face of Congress’ clear directive that the FCC act to ensure competition in consumer video navigation.

If Congress delays this proceeding, consumers will be caught in procedural purgatory, while innovators and content creators are left wanting for a chance to speak and create. Congress empowered the FCC to work out the policy concerns that some members have raised, and it should be trusted to do so.

https://www.publicknowledge.org/press-release/public-knowledge-rejects-senate-appropriations-funding-bill-stalling-fccs-set-top-box-proposal

[TeyshaBlue]

Typical, you attack the messenger, while she's describing FACTUALLY the Ryan/Repug "governance"

Pelosi got shit done, Repug Speakers got nothing to show for 7 years, except "strict obstructionism", and cutting Federal deparmental budgets to the benefit of BigCorp.

Maddow is no more a messenger than Hannity. Jesus Fucking Christ.

[boutons_deux]

Maddow is no more a messenger than Hannity. Jesus Fucking Christ.

Maddow bitch slaps all y'all's Repug every fucking night. Man up, quit whimpering.

[TeyshaBlue]

Dream on sheep.

[boutons_deux]

This week, House Speaker Paul Ryan made the case that President Obama's legacy discredits progressivism.

New data on poverty, incomes, and insurance coverage makes Paul Ryan's argument look pretty silly.

Poverty goes down, coverage goes up, and America gets a raise

Just a couple of days ago, the Washington Examiner published a curious op-ed (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obama-the-measure-of-progressivism/article/2601345) from House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who’s convinced that President Obama will be remembered as a leader done in by an ineffective ideology. Obama’s “ultimate legacy,” the far-right Speaker complained, “will be showing the country that progressivism in practice just doesn’t work.”

Ryan added, “For all the tax hikes and reckless spending and red tape, America is not better off.”

It’s hard to overstate how profoundly wrong the Speaker is: by practically every imaginable metric, the country is vastly better off. Take today’s news from the Census Bureau (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/census-bureau-americans-got-raise-last-year-first-time-2007-n647501?cid=sm_tw), for example.

Americans finally got a raise last year after eight years of stagnating incomes.

The typical U.S. household’s income rose 5.2 percent in 2015 to $56,516, the Census Bureau said Tuesday…. The government’s annual report on incomes and poverty portrays an economy that is finally starting to benefit a wider range of Americans, roughly six years after the recovery began.


It’s been quite a while since Americans saw a report this good on incomes and poverty. Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said (https://twitter.com/CEAChair/status/775711746829017088) on Twitter this afternoon, “I usually try to be restrained, but this is unambiguously the best Income, Poverty & Health Insurance report ever.”

That probably sounds hyperbolic. It’s not. Furman fleshed out (https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/09/13/income-poverty-and-health-insurance-united-states-2015) the details from the Census Bureau’s document and highlighted several key findings,

including the fact that income growth last year was the fastest on record (this report dates back roughly a half-century);

the income growth was widespread across every income group and racial/ethnic demographic, with Americans at the bottom seeing the largest percentage increase;

poverty rates saw their largest one-year drop since 1968;

and the number of Americans without health insurance dropped to the lowest point ever recorded in the United States.

Even the pay gap (https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/775766374157135872) between men and women has improved to its lowest level ever.
It’s not often we see economic news this encouraging.

New York’s Jon Chait’s take (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/clinton-is-running-for-obamas-third-term-yes-please.html) on today’s data rings true.

It is almost impossible to overstate how thoroughly this data nullifies the central charges made against the administration’s policies.

The left-wing version of the economic stagnation claim charges that Obama’s program has failed at the root level, allowing the rich to hoover up all the gains and doing almost nothing for the suffering masses.

The more popular right-wing version argues that, whatever social benefits Obama has purchased – 20 million more insured, strict new regulations on Wall Street, lower greenhouse gas emissions – they have come at a terrible and unacceptable price.

Obama’s big-government agenda has snuffed out the entrepreneurial genius of American capitalism, dooming its people to endless stagnation, unless and until Paul Ryan can liberate them from stifling taxes and regulation.

These sweeping philosophical arguments hinged in large measure on a now-moot statistical artifact. […]

[F]or the vast majority of Americans who don’t resist Obama’s policies philosophically – and the Republican primaries have revealed just how few committed economic libertarians the Grand Old Party truly has – the practical outcomes are growing harder and harder to gainsay.


Paul Ryan probably should’ve held onto that op-ed for a couple of additional days before sending it in for publication.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/poverty-goes-down-coverage-goes-and-america-gets-raise?cid=sm_fb_maddow (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/poverty-goes-down-coverage-goes-and-america-gets-raise?cid=sm_fb_maddow)

Lyin Ryan lyin in the fucking Moon Times

Trash is lyin to ya

Repugs is lyin to ya

BigCorp is lyin to ya

BigCorp pays whore scientists to lie to ya

[boutons_deux]

The Kock tools / tea baggers / super-patriots monsters are back!

Impeachment Fever! House Hardliners Find A New Way To Buck GOP Leadership

Debt limit crises are so 2013. House Republican hardliners have found a new outlet to express their frustration with President Obama’s tyrannical rule -- and with the GOP leadership's foot-dragging -- in the form an impeachment vote against a mid-level figure in the administration.

The move, deemed unprecedented by some congressional scholars, comes as Republicans had sought to keep their members (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/with-election-looming-republican-leaders-reign-in-hill-shenanigans)in line ahead of what has been an already treacherous election for the GOP.

Caught in the crosshairs is IRS Commissioner John Koskinen (pictured), the bureaucrat who was brought in to clean up a controversy at the tax agency and who now faces an impeachment vote this week.

GOP leaders gave their rank-and-file plenty of venues to vent about what they have deemed a botched investigation into allegations that the IRS was targeting conservative groups. :lol

Their efforts to tamp down the rebellion were rebuffed by procedural moves led by House Freedom Caucus members Tuesday.

Led by Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) :lol and Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) ;lol,

the hardliners have filed what is known as “privileged resolution,” which in effect, will force some sort of House vote in the next two days on whether to impeach Koskinen, who has been swept up in the so-called IRS "targeting scandal," which pre-dated his appointment to the top spot at the IRS and in which he was not involved.

His critics charge that

he lied or misled members in congressional testimony about the state of the investigation :lol –

a charge that has been elevated to ”high crimes and misdemeanors,” :lol

the constitutional standard for the rarely used impeachment process.

“John Andrew Koskinen engaged in a pattern of deception that demonstrates his unfitness to serve as a Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service,” Fleming said on the floor Tuesday, while introducing the resolution.

“Commissioner Koskinen made a series of false and misleading statements to Congress in contravention of his oath to tell the truth.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/impeachment-vote-resolution-koskinen

Repug governance! what's not to ridicule! :lol

Repug "social welfare" PACS were from the very start total frauds, nothing but conduits for dark money and political nastiness.

[boutons_deux]

Paul Ryan’s poor sense of timing extends to the CFPB

Just 48 hours after House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) released an op-ed arguing that President Obama’s record discredits the entire progressive ideology, Americans learned (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/poverty-goes-down-coverage-goes-and-america-gets-raise) that income growth last year was the fastest on record; poverty rates saw their largest one-year drop since 1968; and the number of Americans without health insurance dropped to the lowest point ever recorded in the United States.

The far-right Speaker’s timing could have been better.

As the Washington Post’s Matt O’Brien noticed (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/14/and-now-a-case-of-really-bad-republican-timing/), this wasn’t Ryan’s only recent trouble with timing.

It’s generally a bad idea to say something is a failure right after its biggest success.

That might seem sort of self-evident, but it apparently isn’t. Take House Speaker Paul Ryan. He’s been trying to recast the election as a contest between Hillary Clinton and not Donald Trump, but rather his “Better Way” agenda – basically tax cuts for the rich, spending cuts for the poor, and deregulation for big business – and what he says would be President Obama’s third term.

Now, as part of that, he recently had this to say about the newly-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose job is, well, to protect consumers from financial malfeasance.



“The CFPB,” the Speaker said (https://twitter.com/SpeakerRyan/status/775417585550721024?lang=en) via Twitter, “supposedly exists to protect you, but instead it tries to micromanage your everyday life. That’s NOT a #BetterWay.”

Right off the bat, the idea that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is trying to “micromanage your everyday life” is plainly silly.

The agency has been around five years.

Can you think of a single instance in which the CFPB has tried to micromanage any part of your everyday life?

What percentage of the public even knows the CFPB exists?

But more to the point, Ryan’s complaints about the agency come directly on the heels of one of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s greatest success stories (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cfpb-uncovers-wells-fargo-scheme-scores-major-win-consumers).

Late last week, the CFPB reached a record settlement with Wells Fargo after the banking giant was caught allegedly bilking consumers, enrolling Wells Fargo customers in banking services without their permission, then charging them fees for accounts and services they neither sought nor authorized.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau did its job, looked out for the public, and scored its biggest victory to date.

In response, Paul Ryan condemned the agency and questioned its very existence.

Worse, it’s not just Ryan.

Earlier this week in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported (http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/capitolinq/Toomey-McGinty-spar-over-who-looks-out-for-business-and-who-favors-consumers.html) that Sen. Pat Toomey (R), in the middle of a tough re-election fight, “indicated in response to a question that he would like to see the [CFPB] dismantled.” :lol

The conservative senator added that the agency is, among other things, “very ill-conceived and badly governed.” :lol

Remember, this came just days after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s most impressive success story – a win that benefits everyday Americans from alleged misconduct from a financial-industry giant.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/paul-ryans-poor-sense-timing-extends-the-cfpb?cid=sm_fb_maddow

These dumb mofo Repugs, running their mouths in the fantasy echo chamber, expect their supporters also to be dumb mofos and in general, that expectation is met.