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Paul Tales Source: Huffington Post TAMPA, Fla. -- Paul Ryan pledged Wednesday that if he and his running mate Mitt Romney were elected president, they would usher in an ethic of responsibility. The Wisconsin congressman and GOP vice presidential candidate repeatedly chided President Barack Obama for blaming the jobs and housing crises on his predecessor, saying that his habit of "forever shifting blame to the last administration, is getting old. The man assumed office almost four years ago – isn’t it about time he assumed responsibility?" Ryan then noted that Obama, while campaigning for president, promised that a GM plant in Wisconsin would not shut down. "That plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight," Ryan said. Except Obama didn't promise that. And the plant closed in December 2008 -- while George W. Bush was president. It was just one of several striking and demonstrably misleading elements of Ryan's much-anticipated acceptance speech. And it comes just days after Romney pollster Neil Newhouse warned, defending the campaign's demonstrably false ads claiming Obama removed work requirements from welfare, "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers." Ryan, for his part, slammed the president for not supporting a deficit commission report without mentioning that he himself had voted against it, helping to kill it. He also made a cornerstone of his argument the claim that Obama "funneled" $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare. But he didn't mention that his own budget plan relies on those very same savings. Ryan also put responsibility for Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. government debt at Obama's doorstep. But he didn't mention that S&P itself, in explaining its downgrade, referred to the debt ceiling standoff. That process of raising the debt ceiling was only politicized in the last Congress, driven by House Republicans, led in the charge by Paul Ryan. The credit rater also said it worried that Republicans would never agree to tax increases. “We have changed our assumption on [revenue] because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues,” S&P wrote. Jodie Layton, a convention goer from Utah watching the Ryan speech, said she was blown away by the vice presidential candidate. But she said she was surprised to hear that after his speech about taking responsibility, he'd pinned a Bush-era plant closing on Obama. "It closed in December 2008?" she asked, making sure she heard a HuffPost reporter's question right. After a long pause, she said, "It's happening a lot on both sides. It's to be expected." Ryan has referenced the GM plant before, and his attack was debunked by the Detroit News, which called it inaccurate. "In fact, Obama made no such promise and the plant halted production in December 2008, when President George W. Bush was in office," Detroit News reporter David Sherpardson wrote earlier this month. "Obama did speak at the plant in February 2008, and suggested that a government partnership with automakers could keep the plant open, but made no promises as Ryan suggested." After the speech, CNN's political commentators focused mostly on Ryan's misstatements, demonstrating the degree to which they were evident. Top Obama adviser David Axelrod jumped on the GM factory claim. "Again, Ryan blames Obama for a GM plant that closed under Bush. But then, they did say they wouldn't 'let fact checkers get in the way.'" |
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" But then, they did say they wouldn't 'let fact checkers get in the way.'" The last line sums it all up!
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8/30/2012 8:06 pm |
Perhaps the following from acknowledged conservative sources will remove the scales from your ears and your eyes. It would appear that conservatives, those that are somewhat objective, have a clear view of what Ryan and Romney stand for. In the case of Ryan he certainly doesn't stand for much. Certainly not honesty. "The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn asked if it was the most dishonest convention speech" ever. New York magazine's Dan Amira described it shortly before midnight as "appallingly disingenuous and shamelessly hypocritical," with his colleague Jonathan Chait -- who claims to have "the equivalent of a master’s degree in Ryan lie-ology" -- later calling out the Republican candidate for "brazen dishonesty." The New Yorker's Atul Gawande tweeted that "Ryan's outright, unflinching dishonesty on Medicare, GM, Simpson-Bowles, among others is revelatory -- a total discarding of pretense." Perhaps you should send these sources a complaint that they twisted the facts when they called out Ryan for what was unquestionably the most dishonest convention speech ever. I am sorry to rain on your parade but you are wrong once again. Next...
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"Nonetheless, Ryan implicitly acknowledged that his statement Wednesday night was incorrect: The decision to shut down the plant happened before Obama was elected, let alone became president. Blitzer pointed out that it was General Motors that made the decision to shut down the plant, which Ryan agreed was true. Still, Ryan said the eventual closure reflected Obama's economic record. "I'm not saying it was his decision," Ryan said. "I'm saying he comes and makes these promises, makes these commitments, sells people on the notion that he's going to do all of these great achievements, and then none of them occur." Blitzer pointed out that Ryan's statement on the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan was also misleading. On Wednesday night, Ryan had said the president came up with no deficit reduction plan and rejected efforts by others. In fact, the president did offer such a plan, and Ryan was among many lawmakers who voted against Simpson-Bowles. -taken from an interview with Wolf Blitzer
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8/30/2012 8:59 pm |
"Nonetheless, Ryan implicitly acknowledged that his statement Wednesday night was incorrect: The decision to shut down the plant happened before Obama was elected, let alone became president. Blitzer pointed out that it was General Motors that made the decision to shut down the plant, which Ryan agreed was true. Still, Ryan said the eventual closure reflected Obama's economic record. "I'm not saying it was his decision," Ryan said. "I'm saying he comes and makes these promises, makes these commitments, sells people on the notion that he's going to do all of these great achievements, and then none of them occur." Blitzer pointed out that Ryan's statement on the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan was also misleading. On Wednesday night, Ryan had said the president came up with no deficit reduction plan and rejected efforts by others. In fact, the president did offer such a plan, and Ryan was among many lawmakers who voted against Simpson-Bowles. -taken from an interview with Wolf Blitzer The difference between Ryan's and Obama's usage of the 716 billion dollars is that Obama's usage is to address waste and fraud on the provider side of the provider/patient relationship whereas Ryan's utilization of the 716 billion dollars is on the patient side of the relationship. This amounts to increased premiums and reduced services provided to the patient. The 716 billion under Ryan goes to the insurance companies and it goes to fund a tax break for the wealthy. Thank you for providing the substance of Blitzer's interview.
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8/30/2012 9:16 pm |
The verdict is in from CNN Fact Check. Paul Ryan got it right. Ryan lied consistently and on an ongoing basis throughout his speech. The following from Fox News should dispel any delusion for a conservative that has the capacity to hear the truth. I say that it should dispel the delusion. I doubt very much that it will since conservatives have shown that they do not care to be told the truth by Romney and Ryan. The following by Sally Kohn of Fox News is surprising in its candor. She characterized Ryan's speech in the following terms. "1. Dazzling At least a quarter of Americans still don’t know who Paul Ryan is, and only about half who know and have an opinion of him view him favorably. So, Ryan’s primary job tonight was to introduce himself and make himself seem likeable, and he did that well. The personal parts of the speech were very personally delivered, especially the touching parts where Ryan talked about his father and mother and their roles in his life. And at the end of the speech, when Ryan cheered the crowd to its feet, he showed an energy and enthusiasm that’s what voters want in leaders and what Republicans have been desperately lacking in this campaign. To anyone watching Ryan’s speech who hasn’t been paying much attention to the ins and outs and accusations of the campaign, I suspect Ryan came across as a smart, passionate and all-around nice guy — the sort of guy you can imagine having a friendly chat with while watching your kids play soccer together. And for a lot of voters, what matters isn’t what candidates have done or what they promise to do —it’s personality. On this measure, Mitt Romney has been catastrophically struggling and with his speech, Ryan humanized himself and presumably by extension, the top of the ticket. 2. Deceiving On the other hand, to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold. The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth. Said fact checkers have already condemned certain arguments that Ryan still irresponsibly repeated. Fact: While Ryan tried to pin the downgrade of the United States’ credit rating on spending under President Obama, the credit rating was actually downgraded because Republicans threatened not to raise the debt ceiling. Fact: While Ryan blamed President Obama for the shut down of a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, the plant was actually closed under President George W. Bush. Ryan actually asked for federal spending to save the plant, while Romney has criticized the auto industry bailout that President Obama ultimately enacted to prevent other plants from closing. Fact: Though Ryan insisted that President Obama wants to give all the credit for private sector success to government, that isn't what the president said. Period. Fact: Though Paul Ryan accused President Obama of taking $716 billion out of Medicare, the fact is that that amount was savings in Medicare reimbursement rates (which, incidentally, save Medicare recipients out-of-pocket costs, too) and Ryan himself embraced these savings in his budget plan. Elections should be about competing based on your record in the past and your vision for the future, not competing to see who can get away with the most lies and distortions without voters noticing or bother to care. Both parties should hold themselves to that standard. Republicans should be ashamed that there was even one misrepresentation in Ryan’s speech but sadly, there were many. 3. Distracting And then there’s what Ryan didn’t talk about. Ryan didn’t mention his extremist stance on banning all abortions with no exception for or , a stance that is out of touch with 75% of American voters. Ryan didn’t mention his previous plan to hand over Social Security to Wall Street. Ryan didn’t mention his numerous votes to raise spending and balloon the deficit when George W. Bush was president. Ryan didn’t mention how his budget would eviscerate programs that help the poor and raise taxes on 95% of Americans in order to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires even further and increase — yes, increase —the deficit. These aspects of Ryan’s resume and ideology are sticky to say the least. He would have been wise to tackle them head on and try and explain them away in his first real introduction to voters. But instead of Ryan airing his own dirty laundry, Democrats will get the chance. At the end of his speech, Ryan quoted his dad, who used to say to him, “"Son. You have a choice: You can be part of the problem, or you can be part of the solution." Ryan may have helped solve some of the likeability problems facing Romney, but ultimately by trying to deceive voters about basic facts and trying to distract voters from his own record, Ryan’s speech caused a much larger problem for himself and his running mate. Sally Kohn is a Fox News contributor and writer. Thank you for commenting. In doing so you proved once again that you really don't hew to the truth and to the facts. You try to spin things to slant the truth, to evade the facts and to skew the reality of what Republicans would do to the nation at large and to select groups of minorities in our society individually. You provided me the opportunity to present to anyone interested in reading about this the factual basis of the matter at hand. I did this, not by telling more lies, I did this by using one of your favorite sources for political news. I did this by using the very words that Fox News used in describing Paul Ryan's fast and loose account of the truth. For providing me this opportunity to elaborate on what Paul Ryan said, I thank you, I thank you, I thank you. Please keep coming back.
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Today I was reading Politifacts site as well as the Washington Post Political facts page. Politifact has a truth-o-meter that rates much of what you have mentioned. Many of the comments by Romney, Ryan, and others in the Republican party were rated on a scale: True, Half Truths, Mostly False, False, and Pants-on-Fire I've checked out facts for many many sources and they're all saying the same thing. Romney and his cohorts are proficent in twisting what is said and taking things out of context. I used to consider myself a Republican but was so unhappy with what they are doing I've since changed my Party affiliation. The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its poverty by how little. W. R. Inge
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It seems that now the author here picks and chooses what he wishes to believe. Fact, the Janesville Plant was largely idled in December of 2008, and ceased operations in April of 2009. Its quite hard for me to swallow that you would use Fox News seeing how you denigrate them most of the time.
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8/31/2012 9:33 am |
It seems that now the author here picks and chooses what he wishes to believe. Fact, the Janesville Plant was largely idled in December of 2008, and ceased operations in April of 2009. Its quite hard for me to swallow that you would use Fox News seeing how you denigrate them most of the time. Even Ryan yesterday modified his statement about the closing of the GM plant after he could no longer stand the heat for the lies that he told.
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8/31/2012 11:23 am |
One of the repub planks is totally free markets with no government interference and then they complain that Obama did not step in and control gas prices. Soooo what do they want????? The repubs plan to raise the level of education! They will do that by letting students transfer to a school of their choosing. Will they go back to the days of busing or will only the kids whose parents can drive them miles away to the (better) school be able to get the (better) education. What happens if 95% of the kids in one school decide they want to attend a different school across town? Will they close the one they leave and hold class on the playground at the other? Never mind actually improving what is already established. Just cut the funding. IN Texas the repub plan for education is called blowing smoke up what Clint Eastwood was referring to. LOL In business 101----One of the rules is >>>> If you have a flaw in product advertise it in a way to offset the public viewpoint. In the convention there was an attempt to present Romney and Ryan as full of concern for the little people (which they are not). Then there was Romneys wife trying to offset the problem with women voters over the abortion issue---yes both repubs and Democrats have moms and dads and raise kids in the same way. Now what do you little guys benefit from that we repubs can cut??! I understand the Constitution promotes division of church and state so why was I listening to a church bishop in a presidential convention? Enough of that on Sunday. LOL The repub tea party health policy, repeal everything out there and DO NOT GET SICK. There is an alternative --die and get it over with. The repub tea party government policy>>>I want it but I refuse to pay for it. The repub job creation policy>>>eliminate the capital gains tax so that we 1% pay zero tax --the Reagan trickle down tax savings and Bush tax cuts were not enough. We will spend what we do not deposit in the Caymans and create a job for you but you will need to move offshore. The repub solution to restoring the American Dream--learn to live on minimum wage, rent a house, turn off the air conditioning, eat out at McDonalds no more than 1 time per month, walk to work IF you can find a job in the U.S.--otherwise forget it and move offshore where we created the jobs for you.
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8/31/2012 1:16 pm |
One of the repub planks is totally free markets with no government interference and then they complain that Obama did not step in and control gas prices. Soooo what do they want????? The repubs plan to raise the level of education! They will do that by letting students transfer to a school of their choosing. Will they go back to the days of busing or will only the kids whose parents can drive them miles away to the (better) school be able to get the (better) education. What happens if 95% of the kids in one school decide they want to attend a different school across town? Will they close the one they leave and hold class on the playground at the other? Never mind actually improving what is already established. Just cut the funding. IN Texas the repub plan for education is called blowing smoke up what Clint Eastwood was referring to. LOL In business 101----One of the rules is >>>> If you have a flaw in product advertise it in a way to offset the public viewpoint. In the convention there was an attempt to present Romney and Ryan as full of concern for the little people (which they are not). Then there was Romneys wife trying to offset the problem with women voters over the abortion issue---yes both repubs and Democrats have moms and dads and raise kids in the same way. Now what do you little guys benefit from that we repubs can cut??! I understand the Constitution promotes division of church and state so why was I listening to a church bishop in a presidential convention? Enough of that on Sunday. LOL The repub tea party health policy, repeal everything out there and DO NOT GET SICK. There is an alternative --die and get it over with. The repub tea party government policy>>>I want it but I refuse to pay for it. The repub job creation policy>>>eliminate the capital gains tax so that we 1% pay zero tax --the Reagan trickle down tax savings and Bush tax cuts were not enough. We will spend what we do not deposit in the Caymans and create a job for you but you will need to move offshore. The repub solution to restoring the American Dream--learn to live on minimum wage, rent a house, turn off the air conditioning, eat out at McDonalds no more than 1 time per month, walk to work IF you can find a job in the U.S.--otherwise forget it and move offshore where we created the jobs for you. I would only add that if one can not keep from becoming ill then you had best die quickly.
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