"It is a Trojan Horse. Disguised as deficit reduction plans, it is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It is thinly veiled social Darwinism. It is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everybody who’s willing to work for it; a place where prosperity doesn’t trickle down from the top, but grows outward from the heart of the middle class. And by gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that’s built to last -- education and training, research and development, our infrastructure -- it is a prescription for decline."It was not the first run-in between the president and the congressman, as the two exchanged sharp words in Obama's visit to the House GOP retreat and the 2010 healthcare roundtable. Ryan also delivered the Republican response to Obama's 2011 State of the Union address.
In short, your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love.Ryan argues his support of Rand is limited to broad individualist ideals, but the implications of the Path to Prosperity echo the harsher rhetoric of the political right in recent years.
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."Who's that in the White House again? The "Food Stamp President" who lacks an Anglo-Saxon heritage? Well I never.
Marriage is an important part of getting ahead: lets people know you're not a homo; married guy seems more stable; people see the ring, they think at least somebody can stand the son of a bitch; ladies see the ring, they know immediately you must have some cash or your cock must work.posted by pjenks at 7:20 AM on August 11, 2012 [2 favorites]
That means a lot in the age of superficiality. Two demographics Ryan will appeal to are married women (who would like their husbands to be just like him) and metrosexuals (of either sex). The latter are the young adults who are economically savvy and know what's coming down the pike if something's not done about it soon. I think this group will like and trust Ryan because he's one of them.Trust me on this, women in general are not going to vote for Ryan over Obama. He's not any more of a hunk and his ideology make him very very unattractive. Maybe racist Christian women will find him more palatable than a black man or a Mormon.
Because sometimes people have to see evil with their own eyes to recognize it for what it is.Humanity's capacity for suffering and denial is inexhaustible. Looking the other way is what we do.
No, Nixon never lost a VP election. He lost a presidential election.Nixon?Question: How many men have been the veep on a losing ticket and come back to take the White House?FDR did okay. I am having a hard time coming up with a second name for this list, though.
When is it rational to take a big risk?posted by Bonzai at 11:05 AM on August 11, 2012
When the status quo wasn’t proceeding in a way that you felt was favorable. When you have less to lose. When you needed — pardon the cliché, but it’s appropriate here — a “game change”.
LAMB: Have you always been for strict gun control?Nixon and Kissinger, of course, are responsible for a good deal of evil across the world outside of the United States, but at least at that time they could agree with Democrats on policies that would help Americans become better people through the assistance of government.
NIXON: Oh, yes. Let me be quite direct about that. I’m known as a conservative Republican, and I am conservative. But on the other hand, on some issues I take a different point of view. Gun control — I feel strongly about it. I have many friends — Joe Foss, who served with such distinction in World War II. I met him when I was in the Pacific. He was a great fighter pilot — 25 Japanese planes shot down. He’s the head of the organization [N.R.A.], but I am for strict gun control. Let’s just look at the figures. During the Persian Gulf War, during that war, 20 times as many people were murdered in the United States as were killed on the field. That’s unacceptable. Gun control, I think, could have some positive effect in controlling that and seeing that doesn’t happen in the future. So, in gun control, I figure that way.
He drew his biggest reaction on Saturday when he said that 'our rights come from nature and God, not from government.'
bardic:Except that a losing V.P. candidate has gone on to become President only once in the modern era.Honestly, my lame 12th dimensional chess insight is that maybe this is all about grooming Ryan for 2016.
The Coming Democratic Attack Barrage, concluding with,
That ad will draw blood and will—as Henry Kissinger used to say—have the additional merit of being true.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governedAgain, Ryan holds some out-there beliefs. But this is not one of them; it is one of the foundational beliefs of our nation.
" ... kind of like putting Eddie Van Halen in REO Speedwagon. Yes, it makes REO Speedwagon rock a lot harder, but it totally ruins Van Halen."posted by octobersurprise at 2:48 PM on August 11, 2012 [2 favorites]
Then, a few months later, he’s at it again. And even some putatively liberal commentators shrug and tell themselves that, at least, Paul Ryan is a Serious Person. He gets credit for sincerely wanting to “reform” entitlements, when his entire career makes it quite plain that he doesn’t believe in the concept of entitlements, let alone the ones we actually have. He gets a pass on obvious mendacity that none of us would buy from, say, Herman Cain. (In a way, it’s not dissimilar to all those valentines to the mighty intellect of Newt Gingrich that we read back in the early 1990’s, until everybody figured out that Newt’s default position on almost everything was being a thoroughgoing creep.) Outside of the very real possibility that it’s all being done to give Paul Krugman a stroke, I don’t get it.posted by ndfine at 2:59 PM on August 11, 2012 [1 favorite]
Islam does not accept that Jesus Christ was the Messiah - that's why they're not Christians.Yes, they do. They believe that Jesus was the "Masih", i.e. "the Anointed One", which is the same thing that both "Messiah" and "Christ" mean.
Islam acknowledges a lot of Christian concepts, but the pre-eminence of Muhammad's additional teachings makes it not Christianity.I might be wrong about this, but I believe that standard Islamic belief is not that Muhammad's teachings take precedence over those of Jesus, but rather that the teachings of Jesus as Christians today know them are not the actual teachings of Jesus, and that the actual teachings of Jesus are on an equal footing with those of Muhammad.
(When I was a mainstream protestant I used to accept this definition, but what about the Christians pre-381? Are they pre-Christians?)Until you get a Arian running for President, I wouldn't worry about it. But do watch out for those Pelagians, they're everywhere nowadays...
First, Romney walked out to the soundtrack from Air Force One, which increased his foreign policy experience by nearly 75%. He was very happy to be able to announce Paul Ryan as a game-changer policy wonk Young Gun political outsider thing. Paul Ryan is a 14-year Congressman who has basically not stepped foot outside of the District of Columbia since he could rent a car without a co-signer. Romney awkwardly introduced Ryan as “the next President of the United States,” but then smoothly corrected himself by putting his arm around Ryan’s shoulder and grinning through a really painful explanation of how Romney made a mistake, but not in selecting Paul Ryan, because (chuckle), um, because ... *posted by ericb at 4:15 PM on August 11, 2012 [6 favorites]
On the off chance that it helps you out in Wisconsin (it won't), it seems like it basically implodes your chances in Florida since Obama/Biden will carpetbomb that state with attack ads.
This is also the first election in modern history where there is not at least one candidate (either party, president or vice) who is a veteran.
This is also the first election in modern history where there is not at least one candidate (either party, president or vice) who is a veteran.When was the last time? After a brief scan of Wikipedia, maybe 1932? FDR, John Nance Garner, Hoover, and Charles Curtis? I might have missed a military reference in their bios, or maybe even Wikipedia just doesn't mention one despite it existing.
VP Quayle got the last laugh.Was there a funny monkey on the tee vee?
The rumor-mill here in DC has it that Obama is going to put Marriage Equality on the platform at the convention.
Screw the polls. Republicans will be on the right side of the spending debate. They’ll be on the right side of the substance debate, too. Instead of bickering about Romney’s tax returns and repeating the obvious but unhelpful observation that the unemployment rate sucks, we’ll actually have to debate serious problems and solutions. That’s great for the country.posted by BobbyVan at 7:20 PM on August 11, 2012
I’m not saying Ryan is the nation’s savior. He has serious flaws. His discipline on spending isn’t matched by restraint on tax cuts. He was wrong to oppose the Simpson-Bowles plan. Democrats will hammer him on the tax side, and he’ll deserve it. But that, too, will make the debate productive: Each side’s dogmas will be exposed, with fiscal responsibility as the governing standard. And unlike many of his colleagues, Ryan isn’t a wanker or a hater. He’s in it for solutions, not spite. He’ll be the best kind of debater, open to criticism and amenable to compromise.
His discipline on spending isn’t matched by restraint on tax cuts.BobbyVan, I think that Mr. Ryan's voting record will show that this simply isn't true. No Congressperson who voted for Medicare Part D can claim to be disciplined on spending. (I recognize that you were quoting not advancing such an argument yourself.)
Various statistical measures of Mr. Ryan peg him as being quite conservative. Based on his Congressional voting record, for instance, the statistical system DW-Nominate evaluates him as being roughly as conservative as Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.The accompanying chart pegs him as more right-wing than Nixon, Kemp, Dole, Quayle, and even Cheney (and further to the right than Ferraro, Mondale, and FDR veep Garner were to the left).
By this measure, in fact, which rates members of the House and Senate throughout different time periods on a common ideology scale, Mr. Ryan is the most conservative Republican member of Congress to be picked for the vice-presidential slot since at least 1900. He is also more conservative than any Democratic nominee was liberal, meaning that he is the furthest from the center.
Included in the data collected by Myers and her team: congressional voting records, an exhaustive questionnaire and "several years" of tax returns -- she did not say how many. Romney has come under fire from Democrats and many in the media for his refusal to release more than two years of returns, despite reports he released several times that amount when he himself was vetted as a possible ticket-mate for John McCain in 2008.posted by zombieflanders at 6:42 AM on August 12, 2012
[I]t’s worth pointing out that Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wisconisn, where he still lives, is recovering economically in no small part because of money from the stimulus and other federal grants.posted by zombieflanders at 9:29 AM on August 12, 2012 [7 favorites]
The relevant info is buried in Ryan Lizza’s recent New Yorker profile of Ryan. As Lizza put it, “government spending programs” are “at the heart of his hometown’s recovery.”
Lizza reported that several major economic development projects financed by federal money are underway in Ryan’s hometown. There’s the Janesville Innovation Center, which will “provide entrepreneurs with commercial space in which to launch their ideas.” This is being funded by a $1.2 million stimulus grant, Lizza notes.
That’s not all. As Lizza notes, the federal government is contributing over $10 million to a new facility in Janesville that will produce a medical tracer that used to be made outside the U.S. The new plant could employ some 150 people.
John Beckford, the head of a local economic development group and Ryan supporter, explained to Lizza how Janesville is reinventing itself after a GM plant closed in the town. The town — which is near a ring of major cities like Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis, Des Moines, and Minneapolis — is remaking itself as a “redistribution hub for major companies,” Lizza reported. One key to making this work is a major infrastructure project that Ryan has encouraged: I-90 around Janesville will be expanded from four to eight lanes, which “will be financed as part of a billion-dollar federal and state highway project.”
I like the one with Ryan's head on the infamous non-Palin's rifle-wielding, USA-bikini-clad body.I'm not sure what you're referring to, but I'm pretty sure with your difficult username, this is about as close to eponysterical as you can get. Savor it well.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 10:13 AM on August 12 [+] [!]
Umm. Is this restriction of contraception a thing in US politics now (less contraception equals less abortions?)A significant portion of the people who think that abortion should be outlawed also seem to think something along the lines of "sex is inherently evil and should only be done for procreation within the bounds of a holy marriage".
Palestinians have no say in our economic development. Every resource — water, land, soil, minerals, airspace, humans — is controlled and commandeered by Israel, which then deigns to sell us back a small portion.Zahi Khouri is a Palestinian American businessman and founder of Palestinian National Beverage Co. [via]
In the West Bank, for example, Israeli settlers consume on average 4.3 times the amount of water as Palestinians. In the Jordan Valley alone, some 9,000 settlers in Israeli agricultural settlements use one-quarter the amount of water consumed by the entire Palestinian population of the West Bank, about 2.5 million people.
Palestinians have no control over our borders. This means we cannot import or export without being subject to discriminatory measures by our occupier. It also means that, without Israeli permission, we cannot hire experts to enhance our employees’ skills or send employees for overseas training.
Worse, we are restricted within the territories ostensibly under our “control.” At any given time, there are more than 500 Israeli checkpoints, roadblocks and other barriers to movement within the occupied West Bank — an area smaller than Delaware — hindering Palestinians and their goods from moving between their own towns and cities and the outside world.
Palestinian development of all kinds is severely hindered by the Israeli occupation. Yet Palestinians have not given up. Palestine has one of the highest literacy rates in the Arab world. Our youth continue to graduate from our universities, opening businesses and gaining skills. Our private sector innovates and grows.
All of this is happening on the 22 percent of historic Palestine that is the West Bank and Gaza. If Romney had any historical perspective, he would dispose of his racist judgments about Palestinian culture and instead imagine our potential without Israel’s imposed hindrances.
I had great health for most of my life. Then in my 60s, cancer pulled the rug out from under me. Five surgeries, four rehabilitations, you don't want to know. I was lucky to have good employment-based insurance. I maxed it out. Medicaid came to the rescue. Many people don't have any insurance at all, and many companies are laying off insured older workers and hiring younger ones who are not being offered a health plan.posted by cashman at 8:16 PM on August 12, 2012 [20 favorites]
One important reason I will be voting for Obama is his health plan. "Obamacare" is a first step along the way to the kind of universal health care provided by all advanced countries, except for ours. In writing about this issue I have heard so many heartbreaking stories of lives lost, families destroyed, treatment deferred until it was too late.
What bothers me about Romney is that he denies the success of his own "Romneycare" in Massachusetts. It was his signature program. Now it's as if he's never heard of it. We need health care in this country. I suspect many of those opposed to it have never had to go through a health ordeal like mine. They may think they are well off and can handle their own expenses. They have no idea.
—Roger Ebert
Urbana, Illinois
Yes, the Affordable Care Act includes substantial cuts to Medicare. But Ryan's own budget, which nearly every House Republican voted to pass and which Romney has said he would sign as president, leaves those cuts in place and uses them to finance other priorities. In other words, the Romney campaign is attacking a proposal that Romney and his allies endorse.NRO: Brief Note on what Ryan-Wyden Actually Does, but Wyden says that's 'nonsense.'
One aspect of the coverage that is particularly frustrating is that Ryan’s critics are pointing to his support for the Medicare prescription drug benefit as a sign that he is unserious about reform. What is not very well understood is that the Medicare prescription drug benefit was originally linked to an earlier version of premium support.posted by BobbyVan at 6:22 AM on August 13, 2012
In the immediate aftermath of the ruling, thousands of articles were written calling Citizens United a truly historic development in the American electoral process, but one voice was conspicuous by its absence. Karl Rove did not mention the subject in his Wall Street Journal columns. Karl Rove did not mention it during his appearances on Fox News. In fact, not a word from Karl Rove on the subject was to be found in any major media. This, despite the fact that he was indisputably a leading expert on the subject and that three out of the five conservative justices voting in the majority—Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito—had been given lifetime appointments by his patrons, George H. W. and George W. Bush, and, most important, despite the fact that he would become arguably the single greatest beneficiary of the ruling.posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:37 AM on August 13, 2012 [2 favorites]
It should probably come as no surprise to anyone that someone like Paul Ryan would trade on inside information gained through his position as a congressman to line his pockets, but this particular instance is especially egregious. Ryan attended a closed meeting with congressional leaders, Bush's Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on September 18, 2008. The purpose of the meeting was to disclose the coming economic meltdown and beg Congress to pass legislation to help collapsing banks.Or as Matthew Yglesias points out:
Instead of doing anything to help, Ryan left the meeting and on that very same day Paul Ryan sold shares of stock he owned in several troubled banks and reinvested the proceeds in Goldman Sachs, a bank that the meeting had disclosed was not in trouble.
This kind of trading might be illegal now, but was definitely kosher back then when insider trading rules didn't apply to congress at all. My guess is that it's probably fine even under today's rules, since even though it fits the ordinary language meaning of "insider information" it doesn't actually make Ryan an insider to the companies in question in a legal sense. But it's about as clear an example of a public official trying to use his office to obtain personal benefits as you're likely to find.posted by zombieflanders at 7:41 AM on August 13, 2012 [8 favorites]
Under both provisions, the result is the same: People who choose to carry health insurance have a lower tax bill than they would if they chose not to. In terms of their respective potential impact on individuals' bank accounts and tax liability, the manner in which they affect individuals' financial incentives, and hence the constraining effect on individuals' financial choices to either buy or forgo health insurance, the two "mandate" provisions are identical. (Indeed, in most cases, the financial difference for the individual taxpayer made by the Republican tax credit would be greater—i.e., more "coercive"—than the ACA tax penalty.)The Ryan Role
So why does Saletan believe otherwise? Has he crunched the numbers himself? Of course not. What he’s doing – and what the whole Beltway media crowd has done – is to slot Ryan into a role someone is supposed to be playing in their political play, that of the thoughtful, serious conservative wonk. In reality, Ryan is nothing like that; he’s a hard-core conservative, with a voting record as far right as Michelle Bachman’s, who has shown no competence at all on the numbers thing.posted by tonycpsu at 7:43 AM on August 13, 2012
- Only once doing so Romney has spent a disproportionate amount of time saying (essentially) he doesn't WANT to talk about Ryan's budget proposals- You pick a VP candidate that will not upstage you
oops- You pick a VP candidate that people will be excited about
brand new poll has the Ryan pick just about as popular as Quayle, the bounce from this pick may be a flatline
It also appears that the fateful September 18 meeting in the US Capitol occurred at 7:00 p.m. -- AFTER the end of the trading day. This insider trading theory is bunk.posted by BobbyVan at 9:34 AM on August 13, 2012 [1 favorite]
The first polls are out on Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan for running mate, and the reaction isn’t very positive. A USA Today/Gallup poll finds a plurality of Americans think Ryan is a “fair” or “poor” choice, while only 48 percent believe he’s qualified to be president.posted by zombieflanders at 10:12 AM on August 13, 2012 [1 favorite]
According to Gallup, the overall evaluation is the worst since Dan Quayle’s selection in 1988, while the number believing Ryan is qualified is lower than all but Quayle and Sarah Palin in 2008 (from polling that goes back only to 1988; via Nate Silver). A Washington Post/ABC News poll found an immediate jump in Ryan’s positive ratings — but only to a lukewarm 38 percent favorable, 33 percent negative plurality. This does not appear to be a pick that’s getting immediate rave reviews from voters.
The Romney campaign told USA Today that the lousy numbers reflect mainly that Ryan isn’t well known, and that’s probably correct. It probably didn’t help that the rollout happened early on a Saturday morning during the Olympics (and the “60 Minutes” interview opposite the Olympics closing extravaganza? Who but the most intense Republican partisans are going to pick Romney/Ryan with Bob Schieffer over the Spice Girls?)
But Team Romney is wrong if it believes that low name recognition makes the polling irrelevant. It’s the opposite: Picking someone unknown — and someone who is very young and doesn’t have the conventional credentials (whether reasonable or not) for presidential nominations — is very much a potential problem for the team.
Sen. CHRISTOPHER DODD: I had no idea I was going to hear what I heard, sitting in that room with Hank Paulson saying to us in very measured tones that, "Unless you act, the financial system of this country and the world will melt down in a matter of days." There was literally a pause in that room where the oxygen left.posted by BobbyVan at 10:44 AM on August 13, 2012 [1 favorite]
NARRATOR: Paulson carried an emergency plan his staff had drafted.
It was about September 18th [sic]. … On Thursday at about 11 o’clock in the morning the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous drawdown of, uh, money market accounts in the United States to the tune of $550-billion was being drawn out in in a matter of an hour or two.Five to eight hours is plenty of time for something to leak.
The Treasury opened up its window to help, and pumped in $105-billion into the system, and quickly realized it could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close down the operation, to close down the money accounts. … If they had not done that, in their estimation, by 2 PM that afternoon $5.5-trillion would have been withdrawn and would have collapsed the U.S. economy and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. We talked at that time about what would have happened. It would have been the end of our economic and our political system as we know it.
Investor confidence in money market funds, which many people use like a savings or checking account, was shaken this week when one such fund said its value fell below the industry benchmark of $1 per share.Oh, and around 3:14 am EDT on September 18 (well before markets opened), the Federal Reserve announced "coordinated central bank action to ease money market stress" to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.
This unprecedented turn of events marks the first time that individual investors in a money market fund are at risk for losing some of their principal.
"The impression I get from these 27 transactions in individual bank stocks in 12 months, 17 of which involve not net injections or withdrawals but rather switches between banks, is of a guy who simply does not know what he is doing.posted by ericb at 11:36 AM on August 13, 2012 [6 favorites]
... I don't want to hire as my vice president and federal budget czar somebody who uses Congressional inside information to profit by switching his portfolio back and forth between Citigroup and Goldman five times a year: I want somebody with better ethics.
I don't want to hire as my vice president and federal budget czar somebody who investing very part-time with no analytical support and without inside information switches his portfolio back and forth between Citigroup and Goldman five times a year: I want somebody with a better brain."
Did Paul Ryan run from his Paulson-Bernanke briefing to his phone to call his broker and trade on inside information? I doubt it. It is certainly not a potential conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest but rather an actual conflict of interest for a Congressman receiving Fed and Treasury information on the health of banks to be buying and selling individual bank stocks. But late-mid-month -- the 16, 17, 18, 20 -- is a "normal" time for Ryan to be trading (38 percent of trading days are in that 17 percent of the month) and for Ryan to switch out of some banks into another (usually Goldman Sachs) was a common thing for him to do: once every two months.So all we're left with is the much less potent charge that Ryan is unfit to be VP because he's a bad stock picker who invests "very part-time with no analytical support and without inside information." I think we're about done with this one.
[The Ryan pick] is about exploiting the gullibility and vanity of the news media, in much the same way that George W. Bush did in 2000.This has already been said of course, in comments here and elsewhere, but there you go.
Like Bush in 2000, Ryan has a completely undeserved reputation in the media as a bluff, honest guy, in Ryan’s case supplemented by a reputation as a serious policy wonk. None of this has any basis in reality; Ryan’s much-touted plan, far from being a real solution, relies crucially on stuff that is just pulled out of thin air — huge revenue increases from closing unspecified loopholes, huge spending cuts achieved in ways not mentioned.
So whence comes the Ryan reputation? As I said in my last post, it’s because many commentators want to tell a story about US politics that makes them feel and look good — a story in which both parties are equally at fault in our national stalemate, and in which said commentators stand above the fray. This story requires that there be good, honest, technically savvy conservative politicians, so that you can point to these politicians and say how much you admire them, even if you disagree with some of their ideas; after all, unless you lavish praise on some conservatives, you don’t come across as nobly even-handed.
Presidential debate No. 1 (domestic policy):posted by cashman at 1:42 PM on August 13, 2012 [3 favorites]
Jim Lehrer, Executive Editor of the PBS NewsHour
Wednesday, Oct. 3, University of Denver, Denver, Colo.
Vice presidential debate:
Martha Raddatz, Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent, ABC News
Thursday, Oct. 11, Centre College, Danville, Ky.
Presidential debate No. 2 (town-meeting style):
Candy Crowley, Chief Political Correspondent, CNN and Anchor, CNN’s State of the Union
Tuesday, Oct. 16, Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y.
Presidential debate No. 3 (foreign policy):
Bob Schieffer, Chief Washington Correspondent, CBS News and Moderator, Face the Nation
Monday, Oct. 22, Lynn University, Boca Raton, Fla.
Let me apologize. I originally had a too-credulous item here linking to a piece at The Richmonder alleging that Paul Ryan has sold bank shares after a closed door meeting with Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke on the financial crisis in 2008. As Eric Platt explains he certainly seems to have sold the shares on the same day as the meeting, but the meeting happened in the evening by which time the markets would have been closed. One can perhaps construct a scenario by which the Richmonder's theory of the case holds up, but they don't have the goods and I shouldn't have passed their analysis on with no qualification and so little scrutiny of my own.posted by BobbyVan at 1:49 PM on August 13, 2012 [1 favorite]
As Brad DeLong writes, for one reason or another Ryan did quite a lot of trading of individual bank stocks in 2008 so the timing of this particularly transaction isn't particularly noteworthy when put in that context. For posterity's sake the original item is below now in strikethrough.
The choice of Ryan energized the Republican campaign and won the support of conservatives who have often been wary of former Massachusetts governor Romney.It has been literally one business day since the announcement was made - it seems a little early to be claiming that this 'energized' the campaign (especially since Romney is cancelling events due to exhaustion), but then again that's probably what it said on the GOP talking points memo.
I gotta think on the whole Ryan was a mistakeWho wouldn't have been a mistake? It seems like virtually all major Republican politicians are either nitwits, crazy, hateful, or some combination thereof, and the few who aren't are therefore unacceptable to the Republican base.
So my question is this, how is it possible to reconcile Libertarian views-- where each person pulls themselves up by their own bootstraps-- with birth control prohibitions?Here is what is obvious at this point: the GOP base is fracturing into some very extreme camps, and they are playing a game of Twister that seems impossible to win. Paul Ryan is a practicing Catholic who has spent the last ten years talking about how glorious and untouchably brilliant Ayn Rand's philosophy is. How did he meld one philosophy, in which Christ commands everyone to help the poor and avoid the evil and selfishness of power, with another philosophy in which a militant atheist decries the very idea of helping the poor because the only way towards justice is selfishness?
Well, jeez, you can't be a Catholic about EVERYTHINGposted by muddgirl at 4:05 PM on August 13, 2012 [5 favorites]
It’s okay to admit it. You’re frightened to death of me. It might actually be healthy for you to face your fears now rather than later, when Mitt and I are leading by a few points in the polls and it looks like this thing might end badly for you. Face it: I’m not some catastrophe waiting to happen, like a Sarah Palin or a Dan Quayle. On the contrary, you have the exact opposite fear. I’m a solid, competent, some might say exceptional, politician.Sure, it's just the Onion. But then again, they did write this. In January 2001.
Did you get nervous when you read that last sentence? Is it because you know in your heart of hearts that it’s 100 percent true? Is it because, even if you strongly disagree with my beliefs on Medicare, Social Security, women’s rights, and marriage equality, you know my talent as a speaker and my well-thought-out approach to these issues—no matter how radical and convoluted you find them—might just be enough to win over independent voters?
Do you get chills just thinking about how strong my appeal actually is?
I have another question for you: How scared are you that I can convince people I’m right? Because I’m good at it. No, I’m really good at it. You see, I know how to turn up the charm and charisma without putting people off. Then I back up what I’m saying with arguments that, when they come out of my mouth, sound completely accurate and well-reasoned. And I do it with such passion that people automatically recognize me as a man with deep convictions he will stand up for, no matter what.
The American people love that shit. They love it.
Passion, intellect, and a magnetic personality. Pretty damn intimidating combo, if I say so myself. You want to talk about polish? Man, I’ve got polish for miles. Oh, and by the way, I’ll go ahead and say this next thing because, if we’re being honest, why the hell not, right? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m white. Hoo, brother, am I white.
Yup, you should be scared shitless of me, because guess who isn’t? The people of Wisconsin. They love me. Republicans and Democrats there love me. Hell, I get Democrats to vote for me even if my policies make zero sense when it comes to their livelihoods. Do you know why? Because they like me. They like my story. Young, good-looking kid who pulled himself up by his bootstraps to make something of himself. Christ, I'm a storybook candidate. I balance out this ticket so well it’s almost too perfect. The people of Ohio are going to think that. And seniors in Florida—the state we supposedly lost when Mitt picked me—won’t be so scared as soon they know that my mother lives in Florida, and that all I want to do is reform the health care system so she can receive care that makes good fiscal sense.
Boy, I’m going to sell the shit out of that talking point. And I’m going to do a great job of it. Why? Because I’m Paul Ryan. That’s what I do.
And if we’re having trouble getting Pennsylvania on board, just wait until I absolutely wipe the floor with Joe Biden in the vice presidential debates. Don’t think for a second that I don’t know you’re terrified of us facing off, because in the back of your mind you know it could be a bloodbath up there.
Well, that’s 77 electoral votes, and by my math that means you can kiss your golden boy goodbye after four short years. All that promise. All that energy. All that potential. Gone in one November night.
I’m your worst fucking nightmare.
Muslims simply believe that Jesus, like Moses, Abraham and finally Mohamed, is a prophet in a long line of prophets. There's no special position accorded to him that they don't accord to the other major prophetsI think you're very wrong.
"Yesterday’s Romney-Ryan rally in North Carolina pulled in an overflow crowd of 15,000 people.And judging by some facebook comments, the movement conservatives in my social circles were indeed pretty excited.
There’s no spinning that number. It’s a LOT of people, and the Republican base in energized.
And that’s not all. Since the VP announcement, Romney’s campaign has brought in over 70,000 donations from his Tea Party base."
Bush concluded his speech on a note of healing and redemption.Frighteningly spot on. Whoever wrote that is a hell of a futurologist.
"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."
Mr. Reagan is not a champion of capitalism, but a conservative in the worst sense of that word—i.e., an advocate of a mixed economy with government controls slanted in favor of business rather than labor (which, philosophically, is as untenable a position as one could choose—see Fred Kinnan in Atlas Shrugged, pp. 541-2). This description applies in various degrees to most Republican politicians, but most of them preserve some respect for the rights of the individual. Mr. Reagan does not: he opposes the right to abortion.The campaign spending is frightening when put in perspective like that. The good news is they're clearly as clueless about what their money will achieve as we are. Acting like Karl Rove has a master plan is great and scary, but Rove is a clever, sadistic opportunist, not a mastermind, and looking at the work of his CrossroadsGPS it's pretty damn lackluster.
Mr. Enthoven's reform models were the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, created in 1959, and Calpers, the California health-insurance program for public employees. He used premium support when he designed the Stanford faculty health plan.posted by BobbyVan at 6:42 AM on August 14, 2012
Mr. Enthoven's ideas won some support in the Carter administration. Deregulation czar Alfred Kahn publicly endorsed them. Missouri Democrat Dick Gephardt, of all people, pushed them in Congress.
In the 1990s, premium support's chief advocates were Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution and Bob Reischauer of the Urban Institute. Neither shop is known as a hatchery for conservative ideology. (Mr. Aaron has since recanted.) President Clinton's 17-member Medicare commission, chaired by Louisiana Democrat John Breaux, endorsed the reform in 1999.
"Have any of you all met Paul Ryan? We should get him to come to the university. I’m telling you, this guy is amazing. I always thought I was okay with arithmetic, this guy can run circles around me. He is honest, he is straightforward, he is sincere. And the budget he came forward with is just like Paul Ryan. It is a sensible, straightforward, honest, serious budget and it cut the budget deficit just like we did by four trillion dollars…The president came out with his own plan. And the president, as you remember, came out with a budget. And I don’t think anybody took that budget very seriously. The Senate voted against it 97 to nothing."posted by BobbyVan at 6:53 AM on August 14, 2012
The Ryan Plan boils down to a fetish for cutting the top marginal income-tax rate for “job creators” — i.e. the superwealthy — to 25 percent and paying for it with an as-yet-undisclosed plan to broaden the tax base. Of the $1 trillion in so-called tax expenditures that the plan would attack, the vast majority would come from slashing popular tax breaks for employer-provided health insurance, mortgage interest, 401(k) accounts, state and local taxes, charitable giving and the like, not to mention low rates on capital gains and dividends. The crony capitalists of K Street already own more than enough Republican votes to stop that train before it leaves the station.--David A. Stockman, former director of the Office of Management and Budget under Ronald Reagan
In short, Mr. Ryan’s plan is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices. And it couldn’t pass even if Republicans were to take the presidency and both houses of Congress. Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have no plan to take on Wall Street, the Fed, the military-industrial complex, social insurance or the nation’s fiscal calamity and no plan to revive capitalist prosperity — just empty sermons.
This month, Romney said that his tax reform proposal is “very similar to the Simpson-Bowles plan.” How I wish it were. I will be the first to cheer if Romney decides to embrace our plan. Unfortunately, the numbers say otherwise: His reform plan leaves too many tax breaks in place and, as a result, does nothing to reduce the debt.posted by zombieflanders at 7:07 AM on August 14, 2012 [1 favorite]
North Carolina's News & Observer newspaper dug up the rest of that speech, finding that at one point, Bowles also called Ryan's controversial Medicare overhaul "a pretty radical change" that he'd rather avoid.And this one from Obama:
But in a March 29, 2012, PBS interview, Bowles said that Ryan's plan to offer government payments to buy private insurance should nevertheless remain an "option" going forward. He even said "you would want to consider" a newer version of the Ryan plan that lets people keep traditional Medicare as an alternative.
"One of the things I like about Paul Ryan is he's demonstrated over his years there an ability to work across the aisle to find people who have common purpose who may disagree on some issues but find enough common ground to get things done," Romney said Monday. "And, for instance, him coming together with a plan to save Medicare for future generations, no change to current Medicare beneficiaries or people near retirement but for future beneficiaries, he and Sen. Wyden have come together. This is the kind of bipartisanship we need more of, not less."Yes, the same plan (actually a policy paper) that Wyden is now calling Romney and Ryan's reading of "nonsense".
“Governor Romney is talking nonsense,” Wyden said in a statement to reporters Saturday night. He based most of his objection to Romney’s remarks on semantics, saying his proposal with Ryan was not legislation but “a policy paper.”And finally, of course Bowles isn't going to agree with everything Ryan has proposed. But there's no denying that these words, spoken by the leading Democrat on the fiscal commission, are politically potent: "sensible, straightforward, honest, serious."
That is not an explanation that his fellow Democrats find persuasive.
Wyden fired back Saturday evening that Romney is "talking nonsense."That sounds less like "semantics" and more like "specifics" to me.
Added the Oregon senator:Bipartisanship requires that you not make up the facts. I did not ‘co-lead a piece of legislation.’ I wrote a policy paper on options for Medicare. Several months after the paper came out I spoke and voted against the Medicare provisions in the Ryan budget. Governor Romney needs to learn you don't protect seniors by makings things up, and his comments today sure won't help promote real bipartisanship.”[...]
Wyden has repeatedly said that the Medicare plan that Ryan pushed through the Republican-led House is different from the "policy paper" that he produced with Ryan.
Ryan's legislation proposed that seniors eventually be given a fixed amount of money to purchase health coverage. The Wyden-Ryan approach saw giving seniors a choice between traditional Medicare coverage or expanded and revamped private coverage.
"We haven't gone through piece by piece and said, `Oh, here's a place where there's a difference,'” Romney said of his running mate's plan. "But my plan for Medicare is very similar to his plan, which is `Do not change the program for current retirees or near-retirees but do not do what the president has done and that is to cut $700 billion out of the current program.'"Yo, Mitt, Imma let you finish, but Paul Ryan’s budget keeps Obama’s Medicare cuts. Full stop.
he's put Florida into play in a way he didn't have to
Fortunately, with a few simple additions, a follow-up report—let’s call it my dream study—could clear up much of the confusion and build on the authors’ hard work in a way that would be very useful for the tax debate.And even then it runs into several problems:
The first aspect that stands out is that Governor Romney has yet to detail what tax expenditures he’d repeal, but TPC assumes that many items are either “on the table” or “off the table.” While some of these assumptions make a lot of sense, others make less.Actually, the CBPP report specifically states that "the exemption from tax on the increase in the value of life insurance policies as people age" is something that "primarily benefit[s] lower- and middle-income households, [and] including them would not meaningfully affect the results."
For example, a couple of items that TPC assumes are off the table are the exclusion of interest on tax exempt bonds and the exclusion of interest on life insurance savings.
The second aspect of the report that could be modified is that TPC defines the rich just like the Democrats have chosen to do, with those earning more than $200,000 being called “high income” and those earning below that being called middle-class or poor. This arbitrary definition matters a lot to this analysis.Do they mean the "arbitrary" definition that is used as the official definition of high-income by the IRS?
Lastly, TPC’s report offers scant documentation on how the different pieces of the tax reform are modeled and how individuals in different income groups would behave. Although it may take a little work, my dream study would provide results for a wide variety of these assumptions, or, at the very least, include a fat appendix that details the assumptions they use.Except they actually did that.
To help Romney, the center did so under the most favorable conditions, which also happen to be wildly unrealistic. The analysts assumed that any cuts to deductions or loopholes would begin with top earners, and that no one earning less than $200,000 would have their deductions reduced until all those earning more than $200,000 had lost all of their deductions and tax preferences first. They assumed, as Romney has promised, that the reforms would spare the portions of the tax code that privilege saving and investment. They even ran a simulation in which they used a model developed, in part, by Greg Mankiw, one of Romney’s economic advisers, that posits “implausibly large growth effects” from tax cuts.Or, by basically killing most domestic programs and support for anyone who's not rich:
The numbers never worked out. No matter how hard the Tax Policy Center labored to make Romney’s promises add up, every simulation ended the same way: with a tax increase on the middle class. The tax cuts Romney is offering to the rich are simply larger than the size of the (non-investment) deductions and loopholes that exist for the rich. That’s why it’s “mathematically impossible” for Romney’s plan to produce anything but a tax increase on the middle class.
Romney will have to cut federal spending by between $6 and $7 trillion over the next decade to hit those targets. But he also promises that there will be no changes to Social Security or Medicare for those over 55, which means neither program can be cut for the next 10 years. So he’s going to have to cut between $6 and $7 trillion without touching Medicare or Social Security, and while increasing spending on defense.But, hey, what's a little widespread American suffering for the middle and lower classes when you can cut taxes for people who have already been taking more and more of the nation's income for the past several decades?
As my colleague Suzy Khimm has detailed, those budget promises already require cuts far in excess of what even Paul Ryan’s budget proposes. Now he’s taking more than $700 billion of the Medicare cuts Ryan relies on to meet his budget targets and wiping them off the table. So Romney somehow has to make that money up, too.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities indulged this idea back in May. If Social Security and Medicare are spared from cuts, then to get federal spending under 20 percent of GDP while holding defense spending at four percent of GDP, “all other programs — including Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education, environmental protection, transportation, and SSI — would have to be cut by an average of 40 percent in 2016 and 57 percent in 2022.”
Actually, the CBPP [sic] report specifically states that "the exemption from tax on the increase in the value of life insurance policies as people age" is something that "primarily benefit[s] lower- and middle-income households, [and] including them would not meaningfully affect the results."You make it sound like the TPC said that the life insurance exemption primarily benefits lower- and middle-income households. Here's the full paragraph from the TPC report:
The largest of these provisions are the tax exclusion for “imputed rent,” (the value of the housing services that homeowners obtain from living in their own homes) and the exemption from tax on the increase in the value of life insurance policies as people age. Smaller provisions include the exclusion from taxable income of combat pay, veterans’ benefits, and benefits for low-income families; previous reform proposals have excluded most of these smaller items. Moreover, because they are small, and because many primarily benefit lower- and middle-income households, including them would not meaningfully affect the results.You see how the TPC makes a distinction between large provisions and smaller provisions? And then it describes the small provisions as benefiting lower- and middle-income households?
This conclusion would be unchanged by the inclusion of the tax expenditures we considered off the table, like the exclusion of veterans and military benefits. The reason is that, with the exception of the imputed rent, these items collectively provide relatively small benefits to households making over $200,000. As a result, eliminating them for those households would add relatively little additional revenue and thus not avoid the tax increase on middle-class families. To the degree these expenditures were limited for households with incomes below $200,000 they would change the composition of tax expenditure reductions for these households but not the average tax increase they faced.And neither the WSJ nor AEI addresses the huge cuts to services that Romney's plan asks for that I pointed out above, of which $90 billion is a drop in the bucket.
Mitt Romney's Miami Campaign Stop Host a Convicted Cocaine SmugglerJob creator! Small business owner!
If there's one word that's become associated with Wisconsin Representative and vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan over his long tenure in Washington, D.C., it is "serious." Ryan is credited, up and down, with being a "serious" man. His reputation for seriousness precedes him in every fresh encounter on Capitol Hill and every booking on Sunday morning's political chat shows. And more amazingly, that reputation lingers long after those encounters have ended, despite each new pile of evidence to the contrary. He's as pure a product as the Beltway Bubble has ever produced.posted by ericb at 12:45 PM on August 14, 2012 [1 favorite]
... This is the biggest gift that Ryan has given the Bubble People. He's infused the race with a set of notions that extend to everyone a permission to look past and gloss over our present calamitous circumstances, and to do so with the assurance that they are really working hard to contend with all the 'substance-like substance' that Ryan brings to the race. To be sure, the Beltway Bubble media cut and run from the American people and their lingering suffering a long time ago. There's no currency, after all, in having access to poor people. Ryan's entry into the race, however, allows them to feel just as Serious and as Brave and as Tough as he is. As opposed to feeling like failed cowards. For that, their gratitude to Ryan will be fulsome, in every sense of the word.
It’s so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand’s vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are. I always go back to, you know, Francisco d’Anconia’s speech (at Bill Taggart’s wedding) on money when I think about monetary policy. And then I go to the 64-page John Galt speech, you know, on the radio at the end, and go back to a lot of other things that she did, to try and make sure that I can check my premises so that I know that what I’m believing and doing and advancing are square with the key principles of individualism…Rob Zerban is Paul Ryan's Other Election Battle
In more than three dozen interviews with Republican strategists and campaign operatives — old hands and rising next-generation conservatives alike — the most common reactions to Ryan ranged from gnawing apprehension to hair-on-fire anger that Romney has practically ceded the election.posted by ericb at 2:59 PM on August 14, 2012 [8 favorites]
... The most cutting criticism of Ryan, shared only by a handful of strategists, is that Ryan isn’t ready to be president — or doesn’t come across as ready. A youthful man who looks even younger than his 42 years, Ryan could end up labeled as Sarah Palin with a PowerPoint presentation, several operatives said.
“He just doesn’t seem like he can step into the job on Day One,” said the strategist, who professed himself a Ryan fan.
And that’s just what it does to the Romney-Ryan ticket. Forget how it plays in close House and Senate races.
“Very not helpful down ballot — very,” said one top Republican consultant.
“This is the day the music died,” one Republican operative involved in 2012 races said after the rollout. The operative said that every House candidate now is racing to get ahead of this issue.
Another strategist emailed midway through Romney and Ryan’s first joint event Saturday: “The good news is that this ticket now has a vision. The bad news is that vision is basically just a chart of numbers used to justify policies that are extremely unpopular.”
Amen Doug! Not only can I not vote for a Socialist but neither can I vote for a man accursed by God. To those Christians wanting to vote for Romney, Romney preaches and teaches a different Christ and therefore is accursed by God.posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:49 PM on August 14, 2012 [5 favorites]
Still not convinced? A hardcore Romney fan? Here are a few questions you might try answering: 1) Why is the Romney energy policy almost identical to Obama’s? 2) Why is Romney being supported by the Global Warming alarmist crowd? 3) Why does Romney support McAmnesty? 4) Why can’t we trust Romney to appoint strict constructionist judges to the federal and Supreme Court benches? 5) Why was the Massachusetts Republican Party in such bad shape after his four years in office?posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:15 PM on August 14, 2012 [1 favorite]
No answer? Or, do you not like the answers you’re finding?
Either way, there you have it. Point by point, issue by issue, Romney is politically left of our current Commander-in-Chief. So, if your argument for voting for him is that he’s the lesser of two evils, well… play that record again, Sam.
“You know, let me tell you something,” [Soledad] O’Brien said. “There is independent analysis that details what this is about. … And name calling to me and somehow by you repeating a number of $716 billion, that you can make that stick when [you say] that figure is being ‘stolen’ from Medicare, that’s not true. You can’t just repeat it and make it true, sir.”posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:53 PM on August 14, 2012 [4 favorites]
In a five part series he wrote a few years ago, blogger J. Brad Hicks breaks down how, in the mid-1960s, the Republican party made a conscious decision to rebrand themselves as the party of Christians, and in doing so, how they had to shift the ideology of the churches to what he calls a "false gospel".posted by Rhaomi at 9:59 PM on August 14, 2012 [15 favorites]
Part 1: The False Gospel
Part 2: The Republicans and fear of the Communists
Part 3: Homosexuality versus the "Holiness Code"
Part 4: Abortion and Contraception
Part 5: Public prayer and Conclusion.
Yes, Biden is rattling chains like an extra in Roots. This is the same politician of pallor who cracked jokes about Indians who work in 7-Elevens and who referred to his now-boss as “clean” and “articulate.” Yet Biden’s demagoguery was met with approving hoots and hollers. Or, rather, hollas.Mitt Romney Still Unprepared for Questions About Paul Ryan's Medicare Plan
TAKE a deep breath, pundits. If history is any guide, Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan will have very little effect on the presidential election. Mr Romney's pick was unusual, though, in that it came 16 days before the Republican convention. That's the second earliest a pick has come in (relative to the candidate's convention) dating back to 1976.posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:28 AM on August 15, 2012
There's no way anyone could actually read the Bible thoroughly and use it to defend the wealthy and modern capitalism.All sorts of people can, have, and do read the Bible thoroughly and use it to defend all sorts of things.
So there’s something of a consensus in the polls, showing a net gain for Mr. Romney of between zero and two percentage points since the announcement of Mr. Ryan.posted by zombieflanders at 6:45 AM on August 15, 2012
The consensus is not quite as robust as it looks — we’re mostly relying on data from just two polling firms — and whatever signal there might be is competing against statistical noise.
I can’t rule out the possibility that, a few days from now, we’ll be talking about a significant bounce for Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan — or about how there seems to be none at all.
But this seems to be our best guess: that they’ve gained a percentage point, or perhaps two. If so, it would constitute a below-average bounce for the Republican candidates.
Ann Romney sat down with NBC's Natalie Morales and when the subject turned to the still-hidden tax returns, the Republican became quite agitated. Romney insisted that her husband's campaign has done "what's legally required of us," which is true, but fails to meet accepted norms, standards, and expectations.posted by zombieflanders at 9:56 AM on August 15, 2012 [9 favorites]
She added, "There's going to be no more tax releases given." I assume that means outside of the 2011 returns Mitt Romney has promised to release, but has not yet disclosed, though Ann Romney didn't elaborate.
She went on to say, "There's nothing we're hiding." Except the tax returns, the tax rates paid, and the explanation for the Swiss bank account, the shell corporation in Bermuda, and the cash in the Cayman Islands. Other than hiding all of that, they're not hiding anything.
And why will the Romneys refuse all additional calls for disclosure, even from Republicans? According to Ann Romney, it's because Democrats might use the materials to make Mitt Romney look bad.
I continue to marvel at this deeply odd argument. As Dahlia Lithwick and Raymond Vasvari recently explained, "[Romney] isn't actually claiming that his opponents will lie. He's claiming he's entitled to hide the truth because it could be used against him.... These are tax returns. Factual documents. No different than, say, a birth certificate. But the GOP's argument that inconvenient facts can be withheld from public scrutiny simply because they can be used for mean purposes is a radical idea in a democracy."
Dems are now going to launch a new offensive hammering home a simple point: Under the Romney/Ryan plan, health care costs for current seniors do go up.posted by zombieflanders at 11:22 AM on August 15, 2012 [1 favorite]
In an interview, Rep. Chris Van Hollen pointed out that the Romney/Ryan agenda constitutes far more than just Ryan’s plan to quasi-voucherize Medicare. It also includes the repeal of Obamacare — which, if done successfully, will drive up care costs up for seniors. Van Hollen — who is playing a key role plotting party strategy — says Dems need to broadcast this point far and wide.
Separately, Chuck Schumer is circulating a memo to fellow Dems, advising a more frontal attack on Ryan as a phony deficit hawk.
“This definitely needs to be emphasized: It is simply untrue that the Ryan-Romney plan will have no immediate effect on Medicare beneficiaries,” Van Hollen told me just now. “It will immediately raise the costs for seniors with high prescription drug burdens. It will immediately raise costs for preventive health care services under Medicare.”
Van Hollen noted that repealing Obamacare would get rid of its provision closing the Medicare “donut hole,” that that seniors with high prescription drug costs “will immediately get hit hard under their plan.” Obamacare also eliminated the co-paytments for preventive services under Medicare, to encourage seniors to seek care before their conditions worsen and become more expensive.
“The Romney Ryan plan would immediately increase those costs,” Van Hollen said.
Finally, there is the disputed $716 billion itself — the Medicare savings Obama secured, which are being mischaracterized as a “cut” to beneficaries. Romney’s camp has taken to claiming that Obama “raided” Medicare of this money to pay for Obamacare. But the above cost savings for seniors in Obamacare are partly paid for by that money, Van Hollen notes. What’s more, Van Hollen points out, if the program’s cost goes up, seniors’ premiums — a share of overall cost — go up with it.
“If the election were held today,” writes former Romney advisor Steve Lombardo, “Obama would win.” After months of harsh attacks on his record and background, Mitt Romney has emerged with the lowest favorability ratings of any presidential candidate in twenty years. He has trailed in the large majority of head-to-head polls since winning the Republican presidential nomination, and he remains behind in every swing state. The Real Clear Politics average puts Obama up 3.5 points, and Nate Silver gives Romney a less than 30 percent chance of winning.posted by zombieflanders at 11:34 AM on August 15, 2012
Here’s how it breaks down: In fiscal year 2012, the federal government spent $1.42 billion on Amtrak, $444 million on PBS, and $146 million on the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. Getting rid of all these subsidies would have saved the government about $2 billion this year — chump change relative to the scale of cuts that Romney wants.The fact that Romney's throwing out these nickel and dime wingnut bugaboos when asked what he'll cut is damn near proof positive he doesn't have the goods. It would be political malpractice of the highest order for the Democrats to let him get away with this shell game.
In keeping with Mr. Adelson's penchant for staying below the radar, Romney aides refused to say who attended the meeting with Mr. Ryan, though the location (a private room at one of Mr. Adelson's hotels) and leaks from the Romney camp left little doubt. And in keeping with laws that prohibit elected officials from explicitly asking donors for super PAC money, aides to Mr. Romney insisted before the event that the meeting was not a fund-raiser.But who is Sheldon Adelson?
Mr. Adelson spent $20 million to prop up Newt Gingrich’s failed candidacy for the Republican nomination. Now, he has given $10 million to a Mitt Romney super PAC, and has pledged at least $10 million to Crossroads GPS, the advocacy group founded by Karl Rove that is running attack ads against Mr. Obama and other Democrats. Another $10 million will probably go to a similar group founded by the Koch brothers, and $10 million more to Republican Congressional super PACs.
That’s $60 million we know of (other huge donations may be secret), and it may be only a down payment. Mr. Adelson has made it clear he will fully exploit the anything-goes world created by the federal courts to donate a “limitless” portion of his $25 billion fortune to defeat the president and as many Democrats as he can take down.
Las Vegas Sands denies any wrongdoing. But it has told investors that it is under criminal investigation for possible violations of the U.S. anti-bribery law. Adelson declined to respond to detailed questions, including whether he was aware of the concerns about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act when he directed payment of the bill from Alves’ law firm.
President Obama's campaign and his surrogates have made wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the Presidency. Another outrageous charge came yesterday in Virginia. And the White House sinks a little bit lower.
This is what an angry and desperate Presidency looks like.
President Obama knows better and promised better; and America deserves better.
Sign the petition if you agree President Obama should take his campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But if you’re a member of Congress, the odds are curiously in your favor. As I reported on AlterNet several months ago, in-depth research undertaken in 2004 considered to be the baseline work in the field revealed that from 1993-1998, US senators were beating the market by 12 percentage points a year on average. Corporate insiders only beat the market by a measly 5 percent. Typical households, in contrast, underperformed by 1.4 percentposted by the man of twists and turns at 12:30 AM on August 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
During an interview on Wednesday, O'Brien told Pawlenty that one of the presumptive Republican presidential candidate's ads falsely claimed that President Barack Obama had cut $716 billion from Medicare -- but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had determined that it was actually reduction in spending, not benefits.Wonder if Romney will be called on to apologize for his surrogates' behavior or if anyone who's very definitely non-partisan and completely objective about this election cycle will note the nasty tone they take when questioned about basic things like truthiness. Ha ha, yeah right!
"Isn't that just patently untrue in that ad?" she asked the former Minnesota governor.
"No, that's not correct, Soledad," Pawlenty replied. "It is absolutely beyond factual dispute that [Obama] has cut $716 billion out of the money that was projected to be spent on Medicare over the next 10 years."
"But, sir, it's not a cut in Medicare, right?" O'Brien observed. "Let me just read from the CBO. It's a 'permanent reduction in the annual updates to Medicaid's payment rates.' It's a cut in the spending -- future spending. And it's cut that actually goes to insurers, right? I mean, it's not cuts to individuals."
"No matter how you say this, it's a cut to Medicare," Pawlenty insisted. "You can't even with a straight face, look your viewers in the eye and tell [them] that it's not a cut to Medicare."
"Well, I can't look viewers in the eye from where I am," O'Brien pointed out. "I'm saying the way the CBO puts it. ... That is a savings."
"Do you know what that is in English?" Pawlenty quipped.
"I speak English incredibly well, sir, as you know," O'Brien shot back. "So, tell me what it is in English."
"In plain speaking is this -- and I just mean in compared to the mumbo jumbo in the bureaucracy in the CBO -- what they're saying is that Medicare was going to go up by X and now it's going to go up by X minus $716 billion. There is no question that is a cut in where current law was before Obamacare was passed. There is no way you can present that in any other way."
"Or you can call it a savings, is actually the other way to present that," O'Brien explained.
"Obama for America spokeswoman Lis Smith released the following statement on Mitt Romney’s claim that he never paid less than 13 percent in taxes at any point over the past decade:posted by ericb at 10:53 AM on August 16, 2012 [2 favorites]Mitt Romney today said that he did indeed ‘go back and look’ at his tax returns and that he never paid less than 13% in taxes in any year over the past decade. Since there is substantial reason to doubt his claims, we have a simple message for him: prove it. Even though he’s invested millions in foreign tax havens, offshore shell corporations, and a Swiss bank account, he’s still asking the American people to trust him. However, given Mitt Romney's secrecy about his returns, coupled with the revelations in just the one return we have seen to date and the inconsistencies between this one return and his other financial disclosures, he has forfeited the right to have us take him just at his word."*
"We'll believe it when we see it. Until Mitt Romney releases his tax returns, Americans will continue to wonder what he's hiding. Romney seems to think he plays by a different set of rules than every other presidential candidate for the last thirty years, all of whom lived up to the standard of transparency set by Mitt Romney's father and released their tax returns."posted by ericb at 1:47 PM on August 16, 2012 [3 favorites]
Smith said the ad campaign pays no heed to political affiliation, and the organization describes itself as nonpartisan and says its focus is on protecting intelligence agents and special operations officers, not on politics.posted by TwoWordReview at 2:11 PM on August 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
But it shares an office with two Republican political consulting firms in Alexandria, Virginia. Its spokesman Chad Kolton worked for the Bush administration as a spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence.
Taylor has run for the Republican nomination for Congress in Virginia; Smith said he is a registered Republican but votes independently.
“We have been transparent to what’s legally required of us,” Romney said. “But the more we release, the more we get attacked, the more we get questions, the more we get pushed. We have done what’s legally required, and there’s going to be no more tax releases given. And there’s a reason for that. And that’s because of … what happens as soon as we release anything. Mitt’s financial disclosures when he was governor were huge.Reading that whole article, she just seems to think Mitt is going to be King, and how dare the peons suggest that they do what the lower class presidential hopefuls do. I had previously thought they were letting this drag on, and then I thought that Mitt would never release them, and now I'm starting to wonder if these people actually believe that they are simply too royal to be scrutinized. After you get the best of the best everywhere you go and you have people falling at your feet because of your millions, it seems you can't shake that attitude. I'll have to watch the interview clips to check out her demeanor, but it certainly doesn't look good in print.
“The other thing you have to understand is that Mitt is honest, his integrity is, is just golden. We pay our taxes .... Beyond paying our taxes, we also give 10% of our income to charity. So we have no issues that way, and the only reason we don’t disclose any more is, you know, we just become a bigger target.”
In 2010, Mitt Romney took $3 million in charitable deductions on his tax return, against adjusted gross income of $22 million.posted by peeedro at 3:53 PM on August 16, 2012 [2 favorites]In 2010, therefore, Romney gave third parties (other than his foundation) a total of $2.1 million, with a total of $1.7 million going to the church. 78% of Romney's donations in 2010, therefore, went to the church.
- $1.5 million was a direct cash donation to the LDS Church
- $1.5 million was a stock donation to the Romney's private foundation, which is called the Tyler Foundation. The Tyler Foundation, in turn, gave away $647,500 in 2010, of which $145,000 went to the church. (The Tyler Foundation is controlled by the Romneys, so any money the Tyler Foundation gives away is effectively money the Romneys are giving away)
a new video by the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund Inc accuses Obama of taking too much credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden
[scratchy audio of Foo saying details are for suckers and dummies]posted by Fezboy! at 12:03 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]
[fade to theremin-heavy music]
Foo doesn't like what is happening now. Foo says we need change.
[ominous key change]
But Foo doesn't know what he wants to when he gets here. Or maybe Foo wants to do things so unspeakable after winning office that he cannot tell you now because he knows it is the wrong thing to do for you.
[key change to Cmaj].
Bar knows what needs doing. Bar has shown you what he wants to do for you. Vote Bar and keep heading in the smart direction.
With all exemptions and credits removed, that turns the $3,810 tax bill that Ryan's plan proposed as a net savings for you into a $2,160 tax hike.Ryan Opposed Debt Reduction Plan Romney Used as a Model
Admittedly, this is an extreme scenario. However, Ryan has said his tax code revision would be revenue neutral -- and based on his explanation of how to get us there, the only way the math adds up is if all our tax breaks get the ax.
Representative Paul Ryan was a pivotal figure in killing the 2010 Bowles-Simpson agreement, which Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney now points to as a model for putting America’s fiscal house in order.Medicare, Paul Ryan, and beyond: a primer
The 18-member panel needed 14 votes to send a 10-year plan for trimming the debt to the U.S. Congress for a vote. As his party’s top member on the House Budget Committee, Ryan led a bloc of three House Republicans who denied the additional votes needed.
Romney appears to have escaped relatively unsinged from the apparently unrelated revelation that he may have committed voter fraud in January 2010, when – despite not owning a house in Massachusetts and having given every appearance of having moved to California – he registered and voted in the Massachusetts special election to replace the deceased Senator Ted Kennedy.The article has a timeline of where Romney moved and the places he lived, then this:
If Romney's 2008 return (filed in 2009, shortly before the January 2010 special election) didn't give Tagg's basement as his address, then Romney clearly didn't consider Massachusetts his home in that year. If Romney's 2009 return (filed in 2010) gives a non-Massachusetts address, despite the fact that he claimed to be a Massachusetts resident earlier that year and had bought a house in Massachusetts in July, then Romney clearly didn't consider Massachusetts his home in that year either. If Democrats hit the daily double – in other words, if Romney declared La Jolla, California to be his home in both years – then Massachusetts prosecutors likely will have no choice but to take a hard second look at their ex-governor. (The Obama campaign's new focus on obtaining only three more years' returns – 2007, 2008 and 2009 – may suggest they're focusing in on this possibility as well.)posted by cashman at 7:47 AM on August 18, 2012 [7 favorites]
A felony voter fraud charge could expose Romney to fines and/or imprisonment, jeopardize Romney's standing with the Michigan State Bar, and – worst of all, in the political sense – would be a mortal embarrassment on the campaign trail, both to himself and to downticket Republicans (especially Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who won the special election in question but is locked in a tight, highly-publicized race against the popular Elizabeth Warren to retain his seat).
[AMC]'s stock rose from $7 per share to $90 per share,[29] making Romney a millionaire from stock options.[94] However, whenever he felt his salary and bonus was excessively high for a year, he gave the excess back to the companyI rather suspect that instead of being proud of his old man and wanting his approval, Mitt considers him a loser who cared too much about things that don't matter (because, of course, Mitt never learned to appreciate those things).
Liberals like myself, of course, delight in pointing out these inconsistencies and leveling the charge of hypocrisy: do as I say, not as I do. But I'm not sure hypocrisy is really the right word, here. It's a little like when right-wingers point out that folks at Occupy Wall Street were using iPhones which are, hey! a product of the same global capitalism they distrust. The response for both Occupiers and Rand devotees is that we are all embedded in the world as it is, a capitalist economy with a system of social insurance (inadequate as it may be) and few of us can individually withdraw fully from either.I really like Hayes' perspective on this. Just as it's nearly impossible for someone who's concerned with corporate greed to avoid taking actions that will benefit corporations, it's nearly impossible for someone who believes that government programs should be destroyed to not at some point benefit from a government program. The difference is that it takes a very special type of sociopath to use the government ladder to get to the top, try to kick the ladder out, and then go the extra mile and criticize the people who continue to use those ladders to improve their own situation.
So it's not hypocrisy that bothers me so much as the ridiculous self-serving selective vision of those who have benefited from personal privilege, social connections, family name and, yes, the welfare state, constantly hectoring others to swim or sink on their own and taking determined, effective steps to destroy policies that give other folks some of the same cushion they had.
That's a problem much bigger than Paul Ryan. One of the most insidious aspects of the culture of success in the U.S. is the way in which it invites those who are successful to write for themselves a story of their own personal overcoming of the odds, their own sink or swim moments, the ways in which their success was produced by some very special, personal individual achievement, conveniently erasing the role that privilege, luck, connections and society played in all of it.
Commodus was probably the worst thing that ever happened to Rome. It was not that he was worse than Caligula or Nero; only that the empire was bleeding to death and could not afford another madman. It had once been a privilege to be a citizen of Rome; now it only meant paying heavy taxes to a series of generals who managed to fight their way into power.posted by localroger at 1:33 PM on August 18, 2012 [1 favorite]
Carnegie believed that the sons of prosperous businesspersons were rarely as talented as their fathers. By leaving large sums of money to their children, wealthy business leaders were wasting resources that could be used to benefit society. Most notably, Carnegie believed that the future leaders of society would rise from the ranks the poor. Carnegie strongly believed in this because he had risen from the bottom. He believed the poor possessed an advantage over the wealthy due to their receiving more attention from their parents, and were taught better work ethics.posted by notashroom at 1:52 PM on August 18, 2012 [4 favorites]
" ... eliminating federal supports for Amtrak and cultural programs would barely save any money. Repealing Obamacare would actually add to the deficit, given the net savings that are in the health-care law. And the savings that Romney projects for tying federal compensation to private-sector levels seem to be overblown, according to recent figures from the Congressional Budget Office. Overall, the cuts that Romney specifies would just be a drop in the bucket, and they still don’t explain how his budget would produce the savings that he promises."posted by ericb at 2:31 PM on August 18, 2012
sour cream:By switching the letters "o" and "m" it spells MONEY!
Mitt Romney 'Rmoney' Photoshop Kind Of Says It All, The Huffington Post, Feb. 6th, 2012
The truth? Not only is this not the most negative campaign ever — it’s not the most negative campaign of your lifetime, unless you happen to be three years old.posted by tonycpsu at 8:59 AM on August 20, 2012
Paul Ryan waited until very late on Friday afternoon, when his aides assumed no one would be paying any attention, to release his tax returns for the last two years (fewer than he made available to Team Romney). Did we learn anything scandalous? It doesn't look like it -- Ryan and his family paid 20 percent of their adjusted gross income in federal income taxes in 2011 and 15.9 percent in 2010, on income of $323,416 last year and $215,417 the year prior.posted by zombieflanders at 10:47 AM on August 20, 2012
There were no Swiss bank accounts, shell corporations in Bermuda, or stashed cash in the Caymans.
But the developments were nevertheless interesting. For one thing, we're reminded that Mitt Romney pays a much lower tax rate than his own running mate, despite Romney's vast wealth. Even Bill Kristol said this morning, "I think it just seems kinda weird that he pays a lower rate than an awful lot of middle-class people."
For another, Ryan's disclosure keeps the focus on the tax-return issue itself, and Romney's unyielding secrecy.
What a bizarre spectacle we have today between Paul Krugman and Niall Ferguson. In the latest issue of Newsweek, Ferguson wrote that Barack Obama broke his pledge that healthcare reform wouldn't increase the federal deficit. In fact, says Ferguson, the CBO concluded that it will increase the deficit. Krugman shot back that CBO said no such thing: "Anyone who actually read, or even skimmed, the CBO report knows that it found that the ACA would reduce, not increase, the deficit — because the insurance subsidies were fully paid for."Brad DeLong: (links inside) Martin Wolf Explains What Is Very Wrong with Paul Ryan--and Mitt Romney--in Words of One Syllable
Krugman is right, of course, and I was curious to know how Ferguson would respond. I'm gobsmacked to learn that this is Ferguson's defense:
The vast bulk of health-care costs arise from an extremely small share of patients, whose insurance will inevitably bear a substantial share of their expenses. That’s why competition in health care doesn’t work as well as in other sectors, and it’s also why the key to keeping costs to a minimum is to encourage providers to offer better, less costly care in complex cases.Reason: The Wrong Side Absolutely Must Not Win: 'The past several weeks have made one thing crystal-clear: Our country faces unmitigated disaster if the Other Side wins.'
the man of twists and turns:Sullivan re Ferguson: Fisking Ferguson I,Mother Jones: Niall Ferguson Finally Renders Me Speechless
The piece is sadly so ridden with errors and elisions and non-sequiturs it will require a few more posts.
While there’s a ton of discussion about the political implications of the Ryan budget’s Medicare reforms, Dems also view its education cuts as a major target.posted by zombieflanders at 10:53 AM on August 21, 2012 [1 favorite]
Dems see the Ryan plan’s impact on education as absolutely central to their efforts to portray the GOP ticket’s priorities as dangerously out of whack for everyone but the wealthy. It’s also key to Dem hopes of winning over key swing constituencies, such as independents, Latinos and non-college “waitress moms,” and central to firming up support among the “Rising American Electorate,” the Dem coalition of minorities, young voters and unmarried women.
A good window into the thinking of Dem strategists can be found in a July poll on the Ryan budget done in July by the Dem firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, whose findings are widely respected by top Dems.
The poll, which tested various messages about the Ryan plan, found that one of the leading voter concerns about the Ryan budget is cuts to education, particularly among key constituencies, and that those cuts raise serious doubts about Romney when voters are told that he supports the Ryan agenda.
Among white non college women, 66 percent say the education cuts raise serious doubts about Romney. Among Latinos the number is 67 percent. Among independents it’s 61 percent.
“There’s a lot the voters don’t like about the Ryan budget, but education is at least as important to voters as the Medicare piece is,” Andrew Baumann, vice president of Greenberg Quinlan, tells me.
“Education is a core concern for middle income and working class voters that gets underestimated,” Baumann continued. “The idea that Romney and Ryan would gut education programs that those voters see as important to pay for more tax cuts for millionaires illustrates whose side they’re on.”
It could open Romney up to criticism that he is injecting race into the campaign and seeking to boost support among white, working-class voters by charging that the nation's first black president is offering a free pass to recipients of a program stereotypically associated with poor African-Americans.Or, you know, what jaduncan said above.
Akin's Position Is The GOP's, The Dish, 22 Aug., 2012
Until this incarnation of the Republican party is destroyed at the polls, we live in its thrall. We have in this election an opportunity not just to re-elect a president capable of making the Grand Bargain we all need; but to punish and humiliate the most extreme, irrational, hateful version of Republicanism that now stalks the land, led by a brazen liar and fathomless cynic.I'm not optimistic that Georgia, or any of the ex-Confederate states for that matter, will oust religious conservatives in large numbers.
It's an opportunity of a lifetime: to use this election to try and destroy the fundamentalist insanity that has effectively destroyed any American conservatism worthy of the name. Former Republicans, Independents and all non-fundamentalists, Christians and Jews and Muslims, have a chance to excise this metastasizing cancer from our politics.
"I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born," he said. "Ann was born at Henry Ford hospital, I was born at Harper hospital. No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised."What the fuck. Seriously? What the fucking fuck? You absolute fucking racist-enabling prick, Romney. Fuck off and die. I have nothing more constructive to say about this.
"Ann was born at Henry Ford hospital, I was born at Harper hospital. No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised."That racist fuck. Romney must be delighted to believe that he's going to his Mormon childhood whites-only Heaven.
Bain private equity funds in which the Romney family’s trusts are invested appear to have used an aggressive tax approach, which some tax lawyers believe is not legal, to save Bain partners more than $200 million in income taxes and more than $20 million in Medicare taxes.
Annual reports for four Bain Capital funds indicate that the funds converted $1.05 billion in accumulated fees that otherwise would have been ordinary income for Bain partners into capital gains, which are taxed at a much lower rate.
Although some tax experts have criticized the approach, the Internal Revenue Service is not known to have challenged any such arrangements.
In a blog post Thursday, Victor Fleischer, a law professor at the University of Colorado, said that there was some disagreement among lawyers, but that he believed: “If challenged in court, Bain would lose. The Bain partners, in my opinion, misreported their income if they reported these converted fees as capital gain ins
posted by futz at 5:20 AM on August 11, 2012 [88 favorites]