By Manifesto Joe
It was refreshing to see a Democrat (Joe Biden) acting tough and fiesty at Thursday night's vice presidential debate. But something that's often been lost in the analysis is how many brazen whoppers Paul "Ayn" Ryan told in the 40 minutes that he spoke.
Perhaps the most obvious distortion from "Ayn" was on unemployment. He depicted the jobless rate of 10% or so in Biden's hometown of Scranton, Pa., as representative of conditions throughout the country.
This may have gotten by a lot of people who don't follow the news, and the aggressive Biden did miss an opportunity to double up on this point. This absurd distortion came only days after the Bureau of Labor Statistics' most recent U.S. jobless figure of 7.8% was the top story for most media outlets.
Igor Volsky of ThinkProgress points out further that the U.S. jobless rate dropped from a year before in 325 out of 372 metro areas that the bureau surveyed. Here's a link to Volsky's entire analysis.
Myths about Social Security and Medicare
"Ayn" also rehashed the old myths about Social Security and Medicare going broke. Volsky also addresses this "malarkey," as Joe Biden described it:
[T]he possibility of Medicare going bankrupt is —- and historically has been —- greatly exaggerated. In fact, if no changes are made, Medicare would still be able to meet 88 percent of its obligations in 2085. Social Security is fully funded for another two decades and could pay 75 percent of its benefits thereafter. There is also an easy way to ensure the program’s long-term solvency without large changes or cuts to benefits.
Social Security is taxed regressively, with the levy collected on annual incomes only up to $110,100. It would be very easy to shift some of that payroll tax onto people with higher incomes, thereby making the system able to pay 100% of obligations.
But many Mainstream Media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal are demagoguing this issue in a way that favors the wealthy, and keeping alive the myth among younger people that Social Security and Medicare won't be there for them. It isn't that the programs are destined to fail -- it's that the Republican Party is under the spell of people like Grover Norquist (and "Ayn") who lust for their failure and are doing all they can to undermine them.
Here's a link to an article on the subject by Travis Waldron.
The terrorist bogeyman
It had already become clear, listening to gaffes by the fool heading this "ticket," Mitt Scumney, that these people remain mired in a Cold War mentality. Now comes Eddie Munster, beating war drums and rattling sabres over Iran. That country seems to have become the latest villain in The Enemy of the Month Club.
More from Volsky:
(Quote from Ryan) "When Barack Obama was elected, they had enough fissile material -— nuclear material to make one bomb. Now they have enough for five." This is misleading and unproven. Iran now has enough fissile material, but has not yet enriched to the necessary level for a weapon. The Institute for Science and International Security says "it would take Iran more than two months to produce that amount if it started with 20%-grade uranium, and 'several months' to make enough for a bomb using low-enriched uranium. That would give the world community enough time to detect the operation and organize a response, ISIS noted in June."
Well, at least "Ayn" stopped short of saying that Obama wants to implement Sharia law in America. It wouldn't surprise me if he privately thinks that's seriously possible.
Tomorrow night, Obama gets his second shot at Scumney. I hope he's as aggressive as Biden. He made no mistakes on the facts, but his lack of aggression was his perceived failure in the first presidential debate.
With liars like these perhaps only weeks away from the two highest offices in the land, the stakes couldn't be higher.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Showing posts with label Ryan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ryan. Show all posts
Monday, October 15, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Like Others In 'GOP,' 'Ayn' Ryan Is Shameless Liar
By Manifesto Joe
No sooner did U.S. Rep. Paul "Ayn" Ryan have his big chance to "introduce" himself to much of the American public than he was already spouting gross lies, and just as shamelessly as many other Republicans.
During his speech to the "GOP" National Convention on Wednesday night, Ayn blamed President Obama for the closing of a General Motors plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wis.
He seemed to have conveniently forgotten that the closing was announced while his good buddy Il Doofus (Bush 43) was president. Where was he during this convention, by the way?
Ryan also slammed Obama for ignoring the advice of the so-called bipartisan debt-reduction panel -- "the cat food commission" -- neglecting to mention that he himself opposed its recommendations.
Not that much of this is surprising. Slick Willard Scumney has been telling the voters that money has been absconded from the Medicare trust fund, when in reality no such thing has happened.
Meanwhile, Ayn, his running mate, is the author of a plan to convert Medicare into a private voucher system. It's estimated that if this is done, it could end up costing U.S. seniors as much as $6,400 more per year.
Ayn repeated the stale rhetoric that the Democrats are all out of "ideas" and have nothing left but promoting fear and division.
I suppose there's truth in the suggestion that Democrats' "ideas" basically all hark back to the New Deal in the 1930s. But there's certainly nothing "new" in the Republicans' "ideas." One can read an 1873 satirical novel, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, co-authored by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, and get an idea of how old their notions are.
What's most pathetic is that, even though reporters for big media outlets like the Los Angeles Times have little trouble finding the inaccuracies in Ayn's speech, lockstep Republicans and Tea Party cretins will swallow it all whole. As Mr. Twain phrased it, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
No sooner did U.S. Rep. Paul "Ayn" Ryan have his big chance to "introduce" himself to much of the American public than he was already spouting gross lies, and just as shamelessly as many other Republicans.
During his speech to the "GOP" National Convention on Wednesday night, Ayn blamed President Obama for the closing of a General Motors plant in his hometown of Janesville, Wis.
He seemed to have conveniently forgotten that the closing was announced while his good buddy Il Doofus (Bush 43) was president. Where was he during this convention, by the way?
Ryan also slammed Obama for ignoring the advice of the so-called bipartisan debt-reduction panel -- "the cat food commission" -- neglecting to mention that he himself opposed its recommendations.
Not that much of this is surprising. Slick Willard Scumney has been telling the voters that money has been absconded from the Medicare trust fund, when in reality no such thing has happened.
Meanwhile, Ayn, his running mate, is the author of a plan to convert Medicare into a private voucher system. It's estimated that if this is done, it could end up costing U.S. seniors as much as $6,400 more per year.
Ayn repeated the stale rhetoric that the Democrats are all out of "ideas" and have nothing left but promoting fear and division.
I suppose there's truth in the suggestion that Democrats' "ideas" basically all hark back to the New Deal in the 1930s. But there's certainly nothing "new" in the Republicans' "ideas." One can read an 1873 satirical novel, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, co-authored by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, and get an idea of how old their notions are.
What's most pathetic is that, even though reporters for big media outlets like the Los Angeles Times have little trouble finding the inaccuracies in Ayn's speech, lockstep Republicans and Tea Party cretins will swallow it all whole. As Mr. Twain phrased it, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Rand, Paul Ayn's Idol, Was Hypocrite Who Took Social Security, Medicare
By Manifesto Joe
Republican vice presidential pick Paul Ayn has gotten by with some prospective voters by flashing them that shit-eating grin. But not everybody has forgotten about his past pronouncements of admiration for the garrulous swill of would-be novelist Ayn Rand.
"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand," said Rep. Ayn at a D.C. event honoring the so-called author. On another occasion, he proclaimed, "Rand makes the best case for the morality of democratic capitalism."
Let us recall that this demented slut Rand, who characterized those who take government payments as "moochers" and "parasites," took Social Security herself, and Medicare, too, when the inveterate chain smoker was confronted with self-inflicted lung cancer at the age of 69. She had previously proclaimed scientific warnings about smoking to be a hoax.
Here's a link to an article on the subject.
Just in passing, let us note that despite a cult of mentally ill admirers, Rand is generally regarded by serious critics as a vapid purveyor of nonliterature. Her seemingly endless railings were so awful that Whittaker Chambers, a darling of the far right after he was a witness against Alger Hiss, was essentially exiled from much of the right-wing twit "movement" after he wrote a scathingly negative review of Atlas Shrugged for the National Review in 1957.
As a novelist, she just plain sucked. OK, we'll put that aside for a moment. The horrific effect that her toxic, selfish ideas have had on generations of American pseudo-intellectuals is yet another issue. And now, with a likely vice presidential candidate who's a "disciple" of this ugly slattern, we've seen the poison of her influence come to full fruition.
I suppose it can be argued that, since Rand was the ultimate spokesperson for selfish opportunism, it shouldn't be surprising that she'd be a hypocrite who would cash in on the welfare state when she got the chance. She would just characterize something like that as her good luck, and somebody else's bad luck in a less prosperous and charitable time.
Slick Willard Scumney does his best to project himself as the captain of his own vessel, but make no mistake -- his choice of Paul Ayn as a running mate is a clear overture to the "GOP's" powerful far right wing. For a while he didn't seem like one of them, but he's made clear that he's telling the "I've got mine, so fuck you" wing of the Republican Party that he'll generally do what they tell him to do.
Unfortunately, we've had a few powerful folks in Washington who have been "disciples" of the Ayn Rand Cult. Longtime Fed chief Alan Greenspan immediately comes to mind. Yet even he, as the U.S. economy came dangerously close to collapse circa 2007-09, eventually had to admit that his "free market" dogma may have had some points of error.
I would have hoped that the near-collapse of our economy would have relegated these sophomoric trolls to the back waters of American discourse, where they belong. I suppose I was being too optimistic, because even the Great Depression couldn't educate Rand, who became popular as a "literary" apologist for robber barons during that very era.
Even if the Scumney-Ayn ticket loses in November -- and I pray that Obama and Biden will do everything possible to expose this cult follower in the meantime -- Ayn will probably be peddling his opportunistic snake oil again in 2016. This kind of venom just never seems to go away, no matter how discredited.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Republican vice presidential pick Paul Ayn has gotten by with some prospective voters by flashing them that shit-eating grin. But not everybody has forgotten about his past pronouncements of admiration for the garrulous swill of would-be novelist Ayn Rand.
"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand," said Rep. Ayn at a D.C. event honoring the so-called author. On another occasion, he proclaimed, "Rand makes the best case for the morality of democratic capitalism."
Let us recall that this demented slut Rand, who characterized those who take government payments as "moochers" and "parasites," took Social Security herself, and Medicare, too, when the inveterate chain smoker was confronted with self-inflicted lung cancer at the age of 69. She had previously proclaimed scientific warnings about smoking to be a hoax.
Here's a link to an article on the subject.
Just in passing, let us note that despite a cult of mentally ill admirers, Rand is generally regarded by serious critics as a vapid purveyor of nonliterature. Her seemingly endless railings were so awful that Whittaker Chambers, a darling of the far right after he was a witness against Alger Hiss, was essentially exiled from much of the right-wing twit "movement" after he wrote a scathingly negative review of Atlas Shrugged for the National Review in 1957.
As a novelist, she just plain sucked. OK, we'll put that aside for a moment. The horrific effect that her toxic, selfish ideas have had on generations of American pseudo-intellectuals is yet another issue. And now, with a likely vice presidential candidate who's a "disciple" of this ugly slattern, we've seen the poison of her influence come to full fruition.
I suppose it can be argued that, since Rand was the ultimate spokesperson for selfish opportunism, it shouldn't be surprising that she'd be a hypocrite who would cash in on the welfare state when she got the chance. She would just characterize something like that as her good luck, and somebody else's bad luck in a less prosperous and charitable time.
Slick Willard Scumney does his best to project himself as the captain of his own vessel, but make no mistake -- his choice of Paul Ayn as a running mate is a clear overture to the "GOP's" powerful far right wing. For a while he didn't seem like one of them, but he's made clear that he's telling the "I've got mine, so fuck you" wing of the Republican Party that he'll generally do what they tell him to do.
Unfortunately, we've had a few powerful folks in Washington who have been "disciples" of the Ayn Rand Cult. Longtime Fed chief Alan Greenspan immediately comes to mind. Yet even he, as the U.S. economy came dangerously close to collapse circa 2007-09, eventually had to admit that his "free market" dogma may have had some points of error.
I would have hoped that the near-collapse of our economy would have relegated these sophomoric trolls to the back waters of American discourse, where they belong. I suppose I was being too optimistic, because even the Great Depression couldn't educate Rand, who became popular as a "literary" apologist for robber barons during that very era.
Even if the Scumney-Ayn ticket loses in November -- and I pray that Obama and Biden will do everything possible to expose this cult follower in the meantime -- Ayn will probably be peddling his opportunistic snake oil again in 2016. This kind of venom just never seems to go away, no matter how discredited.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
'Biggest Brown-Noser' Ryan To Be GOP VP Pick
By Manifesto Joe
If this is Romney's choice for a running mate, 99% of Americans under 55 should prepare to be thrown under the bus.
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, 42, looks to be Slick Willard's choice for a vice presidential running mate. It's a pretty clear signal from Scumney to the Republican Party's powerful far right wing -- pssst, I'm really one of you guys! I just played like a moderate to get elected governor of Massachusetts.
Ryan, who was literally voted "Biggest Brown-Noser" by his 1988 high school classmates, is a Young Republican poster boy. Here's a link to his Wikipedia biography, by the way.
My wife, who is not much better at brown-nosing than I am, keeps telling me that it pays off. In Ryan's case, it certainly seems that way.
If the Scumney-Ryan ticket wins in November, we will have a heartbeat away from the presidency a man who has very seriously proposed privatizing Social Security and replacing the current Medicare program with a voucher system. The concrete proposals have been for phase-ins (should I say phase-outs?) that wouldn't apply to Americans over a certain age, generally given as 55. That makes all this more palatable for older people -- retired Tea Party types can keep collecting their checks while throwing younger people under the bus with nary a thought.
A sad thing about politics, in any country, is that there usually has to be a bloody, fatal wreck at the intersection, so to speak, before someone will put up a traffic light. Social Security, in effect since 1935, is largely taken for granted. There are no seniors around who can remember the time before we had Medicare, starting in 1965. So, as collective memories grow fuzzy, it is looking like tragic reality that people are going to have to see, with their own eyes, what American life will be like with no such entitlements.
The Obama-Biden ticket would be well-advised to make Ryan's record on these issues a centerpiece of their campaign. Of course, they'll be accused of fear-mongering and "class warfare" and such -- fine, let the other side talk that trash. The American Class War looks like it's been effectively over for decades anyway (want to guess who won?), so it's a guerrilla struggle from now on.
One afterthought is wonderment about how someone like Paul Ryan could be elected to seven terms in the U.S. House from a seemingly progressive state like Wisconsin. This is a place that elected the La Follettes, Bill Proxmire and Russ Feingold.
But, Scott Walker is governor there now, having survived a recall election. And Joe McCarthy was elected to the U.S. Senate there -- twice.
Oh, well. There's plenty to be ashamed of in Texas. But at least we never sent Joe McCarthy to Washington. We had to settle for Martin Dies.
Unfortunately, it looks alarmingly as though Paul Ryan will be going back there soon, and perhaps with a promotion.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
If this is Romney's choice for a running mate, 99% of Americans under 55 should prepare to be thrown under the bus.
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, 42, looks to be Slick Willard's choice for a vice presidential running mate. It's a pretty clear signal from Scumney to the Republican Party's powerful far right wing -- pssst, I'm really one of you guys! I just played like a moderate to get elected governor of Massachusetts.
Ryan, who was literally voted "Biggest Brown-Noser" by his 1988 high school classmates, is a Young Republican poster boy. Here's a link to his Wikipedia biography, by the way.
My wife, who is not much better at brown-nosing than I am, keeps telling me that it pays off. In Ryan's case, it certainly seems that way.
If the Scumney-Ryan ticket wins in November, we will have a heartbeat away from the presidency a man who has very seriously proposed privatizing Social Security and replacing the current Medicare program with a voucher system. The concrete proposals have been for phase-ins (should I say phase-outs?) that wouldn't apply to Americans over a certain age, generally given as 55. That makes all this more palatable for older people -- retired Tea Party types can keep collecting their checks while throwing younger people under the bus with nary a thought.
A sad thing about politics, in any country, is that there usually has to be a bloody, fatal wreck at the intersection, so to speak, before someone will put up a traffic light. Social Security, in effect since 1935, is largely taken for granted. There are no seniors around who can remember the time before we had Medicare, starting in 1965. So, as collective memories grow fuzzy, it is looking like tragic reality that people are going to have to see, with their own eyes, what American life will be like with no such entitlements.
The Obama-Biden ticket would be well-advised to make Ryan's record on these issues a centerpiece of their campaign. Of course, they'll be accused of fear-mongering and "class warfare" and such -- fine, let the other side talk that trash. The American Class War looks like it's been effectively over for decades anyway (want to guess who won?), so it's a guerrilla struggle from now on.
One afterthought is wonderment about how someone like Paul Ryan could be elected to seven terms in the U.S. House from a seemingly progressive state like Wisconsin. This is a place that elected the La Follettes, Bill Proxmire and Russ Feingold.
But, Scott Walker is governor there now, having survived a recall election. And Joe McCarthy was elected to the U.S. Senate there -- twice.
Oh, well. There's plenty to be ashamed of in Texas. But at least we never sent Joe McCarthy to Washington. We had to settle for Martin Dies.
Unfortunately, it looks alarmingly as though Paul Ryan will be going back there soon, and perhaps with a promotion.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
