Well Jon Stewart seems to think so and he makes a great case for it, too!
Imagine for a moment that you’re Paul Ryan and you’re watching this. Delightful to contemplate him getting his nose rubbed in it like this, isn’t it?
From Salon:
The head of a charity in Ohio is not pleased with Paul Ryan’s photo op at a soup kitchen in Ohio, saying that the Romney campaign “ramrodded their way” into their facility unannounced.
The president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, Brian J. Antag, told the Washington Post: “We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations. It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.”
He added: “The photo-op they did wasn’t even accurate. He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall.”
The Post reports that Ryan made the unscheduled stop after an event at Youngstown State University, and was there for about 15 minutes. But though the pictures taken shows Ryan apparently doing dishes, the food had already been served and everything had already been cleaned before he got there.
“Had they asked for permission, it wouldn’t have been granted. … But I certainly wouldn’t have let him wash clean pans and then take a picture,” Antag said.
I’ve always hated Paul Ryan’s guts and the more I know about the sonofabitch the more I hate him. What an ugly little man. He’s the perfect running mate for Shit Romney.
They really upped their game with this one.
“Phil? Is that you? Crazy? Not me. No way.”
On the second night of the Republican Convention, Vice Presidential hopeful Paul Ryan stepped up to the podium as Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town” played in the background and a crowd of pale-skinned squares, who wouldn’t know the difference between Thin Lizzy and a highball glass of Gin Fizz, roared with lemming-like approval.
Is the anti-drug, devout Catholic and ultra-conservative Ryan aware that Thin Lizzy’s frontman Phil Lynott, who described himself as a “black Paddy bastard,” was an alcoholic and heroin addict who died as a result of his booze and drug excesses?
If Lynott were alive today, I wonder what he would think of the irony of the uber-uptight and desperately unhip Ryan glomming onto the legacy of one of rock’s epic bad boys? Probably wouldn’t give two shits about the image thing but might have a big problem with his song being used to rally the right-wing masses.
And you gotta question what Ryan and his fellow Republican asswipes were thinking when they chose to use “The Boys Are Back In Town” as Ryan’s intro in the first place. Did they even bother to listen to the fucking lyrics of the song? They were the truest words spoken all night.
Guess who just got back today?
Them wild-eyed boys that had been away
Haven’t changed, haven’t much to say
But man, I still think them cats are crazy
Paul Ryan may try to come off as some kind of rock and roll candidate, but the dude is to rock and roll what white wine is to whiskey.
By the way, I’m pretty sure the RNC version of the “The Boys Are Back In town” was performed by the wretched G.E. Smith Band, who are serving as the Republican’s house band this year. You may remember Smith as the leering neanderthal guitarist who had a gig on Saturday Night Live for a few years and was briefly a sideman to Bob Dylan. Lately, when he’s not electrifying crowds of mouthbreathing conventioneers, he gigs with the utterly irrelevant Hot Tuna on the jamband circuit.
Image via Billionaires for Wealthcare
Although Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and Congressional Republicans as a whole are trying to take the offense on Medicare by painting Obamacare as siphoning off funds from Medicare that will materially harm seniors—it worked like a charm in the 2010 midterm elections—an article that appeared this morning on Talking Points Memo about Romney and Ryan’s actual intentions re: Medicare is getting a lot of attention.
As has been noted repeatedly, that strategy requires Romney and Ryan to disavow Medicare reforms the GOP recently endorsed overwhelmingly as a part of the party’s budget, which Ryan authored.
[Good luck with that one, boys]
From “Mitt’s Medicare Strategy: Don’t Tell Seniors Truth”:
All along Romney has been claiming that he and Paul Ryan won’t change Medicare for existing beneficiaries — only for the people who will get old in the “future.”
[Like nearly all of us, yeah?]
Now Romney’s own advisers and campaign surrogates are saying that this ain’t so.
As outlined in a memo the campaign released Saturday, Romney plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety, and thus to spend over $700 billion more on the program in the coming decade than the government would spend if the health care law stands.
That commitment would leave Medicare poised for insolvency in 2016, years before he proposes to phase in the voucher system. Which means Romney would have two options: find new Medicare cuts or taxes to extend the life of the program, or preside over its demise.
On Fox News Sunday, Romney adviser Ed Gillespie tried to address the conundrum. “There are other reforms as well. As you know Governor Romney supports increasing over time bringing the Medicare eligibility age in line with the Social Security retirement age.”
But raising the Medicare eligibility age is a benefit cut, and implementing the increase before 2016 would violate Romney’s pledge to leave the program unchanged for people between ages 55 and 65.
Avik Roy, an outside health care adviser to the Romney campaign, admits that committing to billions of dollars in higher Medicare spending in the near-term will make it difficult for Romney to achieve its separate goal of reducing overall federal spending to modern lows. But he notes that Romney could make up the difference elsewhere in the budget or, by “mak[ing] other changes to the Medicare program, such as increased means-testing, that don’t alter the program’s basic structure.”
Further means-testing of Medicare would amount to a benefit cut to current seniors.
These admissions rest on top of the fact that by repealing the Affordable Care Act, Romney would wipe out new Medicare benefits included in the law. Repeal would result in higher payments to doctors and hospitals, and the restoration of overpayments to insurers participating in Medicare advantage. But for beneficiaries, it would re-open the Medicare prescription drug donut hole and eliminate coverage for preventive services and annual checkups that the ACA created.
Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan would cost senior citizens an additional $6400 or more a year out of pocket! Did you hear that Republican retirees? Considering that Paul Ryan’s “voucher” amounts to “Here’s a coupon for your old age, go fuck yourself oldster and please hurry up and die” HOW IN THE WORLD—at a time in history where far fewer than half of the American population has anywhere NEAR the amount of savings they’ll need to retire on—-can the Republicans think running on a platform that essentially says to senior citizens: “Let them eat Advil!” is anything but a very, very bad idea?!?
A “wheelchair army” would come to Washington, DC and kill them all if Paul Ryan’s plan were put into place. Every damned one of them. You have to shake your head in amazement at people who are anywhere near retirement age who would vote Republican. It’s beyond idiocy.
I had a friend who died when he was 94 years old. How in the hell would, say, even a spry 84-year-old, just come up with another $6k a year? How the fuck would you do it at that age? Get a job as a greeter at Home Depot? Flip some burgers at McDonald’s? Slot machines? The fucking lottery? Pulling it out of your ass? INVESTING IN WALL STREET???
It’s preposterous… and it’s pretty much what the Republicans have in store for you. For YOUR old age! Nope, it’s not an abstraction, dumbshit Fox News viewers and “low information voters,” (LIV) it’s your “golden years” that Mitt is talkin’ ‘bout!
The Democrats, if they play their cards right politically (which they never, ever do, but might it happen by accident?) could inflict some major damage to the Republicans this election if they’d run a few commercials with a wheezing 90-year-old dealing with bill collectors, having to choose between food and his prescriptions and being told “We’re sorry sir, your coverage won’t pay for dialysis anymore” by a kindly-faced nurse who smiles as she shuts the door in his face.
The same actor in all of them. Maybe it’s a couple. Yes! It’s a couple, even better.
Remember those famous Taster’s Choice coffee commercials with the serialized narrative of the flirting good looking yuppie neighbors back in the 90s? Now imagine the flipside of that: That same couple is old, retired and the 83-year-old husband husband is eating Ramen noodles so they can keep the lights on in their apartment.
INT - NIGHT
An elderly man staring straight ahead has tears running down his face. CAMERA PULLS OUT, REVEALING his wife, asleep in a medical bed in their living room with IV drips and heart monitors beeping softly in the background. He is holding his sleeping wife’s hand.
OLD MAN:
Honey, can you hear me? I don’t
know how much longer we can
keep going on like this.
The camera sees collection notices in his hands. The top one, which the camera lingers on long enough to read indicates that their gas and electricity is about to be shut off
VOICE OVER:
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s plans to end
Medicare and replace it with their
“coupon” will cost you an extra $6400
a year out of pocket. $12,800 for a
married couple. Where will YOU come up
with an extra $12,000 a year in
your old age?
The man, sobbing, lays his head on sleeping wife’s body.
OLD MAN
Honey, I don’t know what to do,
I don’t know what to do, baby.
The lights in their apartment sputter and go off.
The heart monitor stops beeping.
VOICE OVER
This could be your old age. Mitt
Romney is not the solution.
Mitt Romney is the problem.
A blast from the past: Last June some amusing footage made the rounds of a young Catholic activist giving a hard time to Republican Congressman Paul Ryan about his “Ayn Rand Budget.”
The viral video saw Mitt Romney’s now running mate hot-footing it to his SUV in order to avoid being handed a Bible and being pressed about his admiration for cult philosopher, Ayn Rand.
This was shot at the Faith and Freedom Coalition on June 4th, 2011. The young man who accosted Ryan, I believe is named James Salt.
As Swampland wrote at the time:
These days, when people question a politician’s “morality,” they usually mean his or her personal behavior and choices. But an interesting thing is happening right now around the GOP budget proposal. A broad coalition of religious voices is criticizing the morality of the choices reflected in budget cuts and tax policy. And they’ve specifically targeted Ryan and his praise for Rand, the philosopher who once said she “promote[d] the ethic of selfishness.”
Across the street from the Faith & Freedom Conference Friday afternoon, a group of religious leaders continued the attack on what they now consistently refer to as “The Ayn Rand Budget.” Father Cletus Kiley, a Catholic priest, declared the Ryan budget “does not pass our test” of Catholic teachings, and suggested that supporters of the budget “drop Ayn Rand’s books and pick up their sacred texts.”
Rand’s influence on Ryan’s politics is also the subject of a new ad produced by the religious group American Values Network, which hopes to run the spot in Ryan’s district. It’s a stinging attack, and again, one that was wholly unanticipated by the Republican rising star.
You won’t hear this in the embedded video below, but in another video of the same event from a different camera, James Salt says: “He [Ryan] will have to account for the suffering he will cause.”
I don’t think James was referring to voters here, when he says Ryan will “have to account,” do you? I think he means that Paul Ryan will be answering to a “higher power.” It’s a pity that smarmy Republican bastard didn’t hear that bit…
It’s officially official now, what with the Paul Ryan Veep nod: the Republican Party is in the grips of a long-dead, fanatically anti-Christian cult leader. At a certain point, you realize, of course, that the far-right religious cultural warriors are going to be obliged to turn on the libertarian-types. Their common ground ain’t as common as it used to be! And it’s going to be really fun to watch.
Here’s how the American Values Network sees it: Christian voters must choose: Ayn Rand or Jesus :
GOP leaders and conservative pundits have brought upon themselves a crisis of values. Many who for years have been the loudest voices invoking the language of faith and moral values are now praising the atheist philosopher Ayn Rand whose teachings stand in direct contradiction to the Bible. Rand advocates a law of selfishness over love and commands her followers to think only of themselves, not others. She said her followers had to choose between Jesus and her teachings.
GOP leaders want to argue that they are defending Christian principles. But, at the same time, Rep. Paul Ryan (author of the GOP budget) is posting facebook videos praising Rand’s morality and saying hers is the “kind of thinking that is sorely needed right now.” Simply put, Paul Ryan can’t have it both ways, and neither can Christians. As conservative evangelical icon Chuck Colson recently stated, Christians can not support Rand’s philosophy and Christ’s teachings. The choice is simple: Ayn Rand or Jesus Christ. We must choose one and forsake the other.
Ayn Rand on why the Christian Message is “Monstrous” and Christ’s Teachings are “Evil” (American Values Network)
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Don’t Get Lippy with GOP Rep. Paul Ryan or he’ll have you taken to the gulag
Above, Hunger Games poster for the Roger Corman version
The REAL hunger games have begun in the Capitol: This week the House is voting on $36 billion in cuts to nutrition assistance, or SNAP, which would kick 2 million people off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamps), reduce benefits for 44 million more, and drop 280,000 low-income kids from school lunch.
Visit Half in Ten to learn more—and how you can stop the Capitol from winning.
An Austerity Backlash: From Sen. Bernie Sanders’s website, May 7, 2012
France handed the presidency on Sunday to François Hollande, who declared that “austerity can no longer be inevitable.” In Greece, Germany and Italy, parliamentary and local elections Sunday were seen as setbacks for austerity measures. Sen. Bernie Sanders saw a lesson for the United States in the European elections.
“In the United States and around the world, the middle class is in steep decline while the wealthy and large corporations are doing phenomenally well. The message sent by voters in France and other European countries, which I believe will be echoed here in the United States, is that the wealthy and large corporations are going to have to experience some austerity also and that that burden cannot solely fall on working families.
In the United States, where corporate profits are soaring and the gap between the rich and everybody else is growing wider, we must end corporate tax loopholes and start making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. At the same time, we must protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Austerity, yes, but for millionaires and billionaires, not the working families of this country.”
Via Think Progress
Did you see the footage of Republican Congressman Paul Ryan hot-footing it to his SUV to avoid being handed a Bible at the Faith and Freedom Coalition meeting yesterday? The young man who accosted Ryan, I believe is named James Salt. My hat is off to you, James. Bravo, sir! That took balls, and I’ll bet it was fun!
Via Swampland:
These days, when people question a politician’s “morality,” they usually mean his or her personal behavior and choices. But an interesting thing is happening right now around the GOP budget proposal. A broad coalition of religious voices is criticizing the morality of the choices reflected in budget cuts and tax policy. And they’ve specifically targeted Ryan and his praise for Rand, the philosopher who once said she “promote[d] the ethic of selfishness.”
Across the street from the Faith & Freedom Conference Friday afternoon, a group of religious leaders continued the attack on what they now consistently refer to as “The Ayn Rand Budget.” Father Cletus Kiley, a Catholic priest, declared the Ryan budget “does not pass our test” of Catholic teachings, and suggested that supporters of the budget “drop Ayn Rand’s books and pick up their sacred texts.”
Rand’s influence on Ryan’s politics is also the subject of a new ad produced by the religious group American Values Network, which hopes to run the spot in Ryan’s district. It’s a stinging attack, and again, one that was wholly unanticipated by the Republican rising star.
BRILLIANT!!!! 100% gold-plated genius. LET HIM HAVE IT! They need to make it really hot for this guy…
You won’t hear this in the embedded video below, but in another video of the same event from a different camera, James Salt says: “He [Ryan] will have to account for the suffering he will cause.”
I don’t think James was referring to voters here, when he says Ryan will be held accountable, do you? It’s a pity Ryan didn’t hear that bit…
As YouTube commenter Dr. Frank Crosby quipped: “The mistake the conference organizers made was assuming that Representative Ryan with his hate-filled policies is a Christian.”
”+1,” as the kids say…+1.
Not exactly, but he might as well be talking about the so-called “Ryan plan” from beyond the grave…
The more things change, the more they… oh wait, nothing’s changed!
This video is as evergreen as it is brilliant, a “one size fits all” discourse of the futility of capitalism that lends itself to an infinite number of different blogging contexts. Today, it’s the “Ryan plan.”
Via Crooks and Liars
