Paul Ryan’s brazen lies: His Republican National Convention speech was stunning for its dishonesty

[웃 910]

His Republican National Convention speech was stunning for its dishonesty

Paul Ryan gave a feisty anti-Obama speech that will have fact-checkers working for days. His most brazen lie accused President Obama of “raiding” Medicare by taking the exact same $716 billion that Ryan and the House GOP notoriously voted to slash. It was stunning.

But that’s not all. He attacked Obama for failing to keep open a Janesville GM plant that closed under Bush in 2008. He hit him for a credit-rating downgrade that S&P essentially blamed on GOP intransigence. He claimed that all taxpayers got from the 2009 stimulus was “more debt,” when most got a tax cut (and the stimulus is known to have saved between 1.4 and 3.3 million jobs). He derided the president for walking away from the Simpson Bowles commission deficit-cutting recommendations when Ryan himself, a commission member, voted against those recommendations.

He blamed Obama for a deficit mostly created by programs he himself voted for – from two wars, tax cuts, new Medicare benefits and TARP.

And of course, he riffed on the tired central lie of the GOP convention: that the president said “government gets the credit” for small businesses, not the business owners themselves.

Other than that, it was a great speech.

Interestingly, for all his lies, Ryan didn’t repeat the Romney camp’s false claim that Obama did away with the welfare system’s work requirements. Maybe he ran out of time.

Ryan got off a few good zingers: “College grads shouldn’t have to live out their 20s in childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters.” He didn’t mention that he opposed legislation to keep student loan rates from doubling. His remarks about his childhood were slightly moving. He talked about losing his father at 16, and he called his mother, who went back to school and to work after that, his role model. But he never mentioned the Social Security death benefits that let him go to an out-of-state school. Occasionally he seemed to be going after swing voters, rather than his hard-right base, taking a more in sorrow than anger tone about Obama’s failings. Then he’d mix things up with nastiness and lies.

And when Ryan riffed on the handful of jobs he briefly held, his Ayn Randian roots were clear. “When I was waiting tables, washing dishes, or mowing lawns for money, I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life, he said. [Perhaps that's because he wasn't; he grew up in a wealthy family.] I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for myself, define happiness for myself. That’s what we do in this country. That’s the American Dream. That’s freedom, and I’ll take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners.” That’s straight out of Rand, and ’50s anti-Communist paranoia.

Finally, the man chided by the Catholic Bishops for his anti-poor budget had the audacity to say, “The greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.” Ryan’s budget decimates programs for “those who cannot defend or care for themselves.”

The sanctimonious V.P. nominee seems to have forgotten the Fourth Commandment: “Thou shalt not lie.” Ryan believes he can say anything and get away with it.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

The sanctimonious V.P. nominee seems to have forgotten the Fourth Commandment: “Thou shalt not lie.”

I think the OP should actually read a Bible before quoting it.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

The first round of lay-offs were in 2008. Before the second round came Obama promised it wouldn't get closed during a campaign speech while pandering to voters in wisconsin.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Best line of Ryan's speech:

[Penny Lane 8,159]

He derided the president for walking away from the Simpson Bowles commission deficit-cutting recommendations when Ryan himself, a commission member, voted against those recommendations.

I never understand why they come out and lie about things that are so easily proven wrong.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I never understand why they come out and lie about things that are so easily proven wrong.

Where is the lie in that statement?

[Penny Lane 8,159]

Where is the lie in that statement?

Perhaps lie was the wrong word for that particular statement. It was more hypocritical than false.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Perhaps lie was the wrong word for that particular statement. It was more hypocritical than false.

Why is it hypocritical? Obama believed his own Simpson-Bowles Commission went too far, so ignored it completely. Ryan as attendee believed it didn't go far enough, so he added to it.

Edited August 30, 2012 by The Patriot

[JohnR! 5,495]

Perhaps lie was the wrong word for that particular statement. It was more hypocritical than false.

The speech writers for the candidates should do some fact-checking, before they send out their bosses, with half-truths or downright lies, to parade them in front of their own constituency...

http://www.huffingto...=elections-2012

WASHINGTON — Laying out the first plans for his party's presidential ticket, GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan took some factual shortcuts Wednesday night when he attacked President Barack Obama's policies on Medicare, the economic stimulus and the budget deficit.

Sen. Rob Portman, a former U.S. trade representative, glossed over his own problems when critiquing Obama's trade dealings with China. A day earlier, the convention's keynote speaker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, bucked reality in promising that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney will lay out for the American people the painful budget cuts it will take to wrestle the government's debt and deficit woes under control.

And former senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum stretched the truth in taking Obama to task over his administration supposedly waiving work requirements in the nation's landmark welfare-to-work law.

A closer look at some of the words spoken at the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla.:

RYAN: "And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly. ... So they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama."

THE FACTS: Ryan's claim ignores the fact that Ryan himself incorporated the same cuts into budgets he steered through the House in the past two years as chairman of its Budget Committee, using the money for deficit reduction. And the cuts do not affect Medicare recipients directly, but rather reduce payments to hospitals, health insurance plans and other service providers. In addition, Ryan's own plan to remake Medicare would squeeze the program's spending even more than the changes Obama made, shifting future retirees into a system in which they would get a fixed payment to shop for coverage among private insurance plans. Critics charge that would expose the elderly to more out-of-pocket costs.

Edited August 30, 2012 by Gegel

[Penny Lane 8,159]

Why is it hypocritical? Obama believed his own Simpson-Bowles Commission went too far, so ignored it completely. Ryan as attendee believed it didn't go far enough, so he added to it.

http://factcheck.org/2012/08/ryans-vp-spin/

Ryan: He created a new bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanks them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing. Republicans stepped up with good-faith reforms and solutions equal to the problems. How did the president respond? By doing nothing nothing except to dodge and demagogue the issue.

Ryan accused Obama of doing exactly nothing about recommendations from a bipartisan presidential commission to reduce the deficit. But Ryan himself was among a minority of commission members whose opposition scuttled the plan and prevented it from being sent automatically to Congress for action.

He attacked Obama for failing to keep open a Janesville GM plant that closed under Bush in 2008.

This one made me laugh.

Edited August 30, 2012 by Evylin

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

http://factcheck.org/2012/08/ryans-vp-spin/

You do know FactCheck is a George Soros subsidized endeavor, don't you?

Edited August 30, 2012 by The Patriot

[JohnR! 5,495]

You do know FactCheck is a George Soros subsidized endeavor, don't you?

It does not discredit the facts, though. They remain the same.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

It does not discredit the facts, though. They remain the same.

Sheesh.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

It does not discredit the facts, though. They remain the same.

Tell me. What did Obama do with the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles Commission?

And tell me, what happened to all the budgets passed under Ryan in the House when they went to the Senate?

Where are your "facts"?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Given a chance to vote for Simpson-Bowles for the first time — after many months of praise from officials in both parties for a proposal that would slash deficits by $4 trillion — the House rejected the measure soundly. Just 38 members voted for it. Supporters included 16 Republicans and 22 Democrats.

It appears that Simpson-Bowles, crafted more than a year ago by a bipartisan presidential commission, has become the idea a whole lot of people in both parties love to love — but virtually no one wants to vote for.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-approves-35-trillion-budget-plan-proposed-by-paul-ryan/2012/03/29/gIQAYFvljS_story.html