Rep Ryayn (R-WI)

Ever see someone dressed to the nines step out of a fancy car, about to walk into a fancy building for a fancy party and realize he has to get the dogshit off his fancy shoes... fast? That would be Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan. He used to be able to ignore all the videos and blog posts about his infatuation with the adolescent heartthrob he never could quite get over. But now that it's entered the zeitgeist and voters are starting to grok that not only has Ryan based his miserable budget proposals on the anti-social philosophy of Ayn Rand but that his entire political career is predicated on the work of this Republican prophet of gloom and-- for the 99%-- doom... well he can't get it off his shoes fast enough. He hasn't been recorded saying, "Ayn? Ayn who" yet, but if Ron Zerban keeps pressing him of where all the mean-spirited, hysterical, unAmerican selfishness comes from... I hope someone has a tape recorder ready.

Ryan may have been a little embarrassed this when Edward Hudgins, a director at the Randian Atlas Society said he would-- like most Gordon Gekko types-- "like to see Paul Ryan as president one day." That's also Wall Street's goal-- which is why Blue America started StopPaulRyan, perhaps the most crucial page for the future of this country on all of ActBlue.

"I'd love to see him as president or as vice president on the ticket coming up because I know what the man's values are: They're admirable values," Hudgins said. "To what extent he considers himself in agreement with Ayn Rand, as a public figure, a public policy person, you're not going to find them a lot better."

And that isn't all the could be causing the Randian congressman indigestion today. Henry Aaron was the co-creator of Ryan's plan to end Medicare. Yesterday Aaron, who works at the Brookings Institute withdrew his support for the whole idea and told Ryan-- and the world-- that the plan won't work.

Mike Tate, chairman of Wisconsin's Democratic Party agrees with Aaron. "Medical professionals, the faith community and now even the inventor of the central concept of the Romney-Ryan budget, he pointed out after the committee meeting, "have come forward to say that this budget that ends Medicare as we know it is wrong for America. As more experts come forward, and people learn the truth about the Romney-Ryan budget, it becomes more clear that this budget is fundamentally flawed, with the potential to cause real harm if implemented."

Poor misunderstood Ryan would surely like to blame his exposure on that dreadful Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize laureate in economics who has been repeatedly warning his NY Times readers that Ryan is nothing more than a lightweight phony being pumped up by avaricious special interests. Yesterday Krugman told TPM's Sahil Kapur that Paul Ryan's arithmetic just "doesn’t add up at all... All he does is make scary noises about the deficit, with mood music, with organ music in the background about how ominous it is, and then propose a plan that would in fact increase the deficit.”

Rob Zerban is the progressive Democrat taking Ryan on this year-- the first serious reelection campaign Ryan has ever had to face. The DCCC may continue ignoring Ryan for whatever reason but Wisconsinites and people from all over America, sensing the danger, are rallying to Rob. If Ryan's numbers don't add up, Rob's always do. He's not some hack beholden to the wealthy special interests who have molded him into a national personality and conservative celebrity. Rob's always been part of the real world. This is what he had to say about Ryan's support of Republican Party tactics to double the interest rate on student loans:

“Doubling the student loan interest rate and saddling our young people with an extra $1,000.00 in costs each year, at a time when families are already struggling to make sure their children have the opportunity for higher education, is a recipe for disaster.

“I personally know how important these programs are-- they are the reason I was able to attend school and become a job creator that Paul Ryan and his Washington Republican buddies tout. I was able to live my version of the American Dream because our country made a modest investment in me through Pell Grants and Stafford Loans.

“We as a country can never compete in the global economy if we continually put up barriers for young people to thrive in whatever future they choose.  Paul Ryan’s budget does absolutely nothing to help Americans succeed-- it is simply yet another giveaway for the oil & gas companies, Wall Street and corporations who fund his campaigns on the backs of our working families.”

Blue America has endorsed Rob and we've put up a wonderful billboard at the Ryan Road offramp on the I-94 just south of the Milwaukee Airport. Please take a look-- and if you'd like to help us put a few more like that around the district, you can do that here-- where there are no contribution limits.

Paul Ryan-- Not Just A Self Server, But An Ignorant Self Server

...Lining his own pockets-- dining at one of the sleaziest lobbyist joints in DC (Bistro Bis) and swilling some fancypants $350 bottles of Jayer-Gilles 2004 Echezeaux Grand Cru (the most expensive wine on the restaurant's rip-off menu). He claims the two unidentified lobbyists he was drinking the $700 worth of wine with are "economists" but he refuses to give their names and he quickly paid for one of the pricey bottles when he was confronted by someone who recognized him. Says he won't do it again... But, of course, this is the same Paul Ryan who told constituents subsidies for oil companies should be ended just a few days before voting against ending them. Is he a pathological liar? His voting record, going back over a decade certainly attests to that.

Perhaps what Ryan and the two lobbyists "economists" [one has now been identified as one of the most predatory and ruthless hedge fund managers anywhere] were toasting was the gargantuan haul his reelection campaign had just taken in from special interests eager to express their thanks for his willingness to toss middle class Wisconsin working families under the bus to benefit... well, his own wealthy campaign contributors, the kinds of people who drink a couple bottles of Echezeaux Grand Cru with dinner. Mike Tate, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party isn't one of those people. And he wasn't celebrating Ryan's latest haul either.

"With Paul Ryan having already taken more health insurance money than any politician in Wisconsin history and already in the pocket of Wall Street bankers, we now see massive fundraising totals coming for the 7-term Washington insider. But all the money in the world can't and won't redeem his immoral plan to end Medicare. When 2012 comes around, the seniors and working families of southeastern Wisconsin will pour to the polls and vote not on the size of Ryan's bank roll-but on a rotten agenda that asks seniors to give up the historic guarantee of health care so that millionaires and billionaires can cravenly share less in the burdens that keep America strong."

I'd like to think he's right but Republicans in the southern Milwaukee suburbs and especially in southern Waukesha County have been electing outright fascists and reactionary bums like Joe McCarthy, Scott Walker, John Schafer, Ron Johnson and, of course, Ryan. Replacing Paul Ryan with Democrat Rob Zerban is something we should all think about contributing to-- except those of us who don't find it appalling that Ryan continues to support massive taxpayer subsidies for some of the world’s most profitable companies-- as well as the biggest polluters-- while so many middle-class American families are hurting in this down economy.

Paul Krugman doesn't suffer Ryan gladly and early on pointed out that he has absolutely nothing of any value to offer in any debates about the economy or about fiscal policy. In fact we're coming up on the one year anniversary of Krugman letting NY Times readers know that "the Ryan plan is a fraud that makes no useful contribution to the debate over America’s fiscal future." Yesterday he got down into the fiscal weeds on a topic Ryan's been doing a lot of spouting on-- ignorant, misleading spouting, as it turns out: interest rates.

The Very Serious position has been that government borrowing will drive up rates, crowd out private investment, and impede recovery. A Keynes-Hicks analysis, by contrast, says that when you’re in a liquidity trap, even large government borrowing won’t drive up rates — and hence won’t crowd out private investment. In fact, it will promote private investment by raising capacity utilization and giving firms more reason to expand.

What we usually get in response to this seemingly decisive data are a series of excuses-- most recently, that rates were low because the Fed was buying all the bonds. Well, that program has ended, and interest rates are still low.

But wait: the crowding out types have another answer, namely, to just ignore the facts.

Which, brings us, as it so often does, right to Janesville dunce, Paul Ryan. As usual, he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about and as usual, the House Budget Committee chairman's got it all ass backwards: "Stop corny crony capitalism in the regulatory state, get spending under control to show that we’re getting our borrowing under control so we take pressure off the interest rates, reform the taxes. And our budget says, through base boarding, getting rid of loopholes in exchange for lowering rates, have a top tax rate of 25 percent so we’re more globally competitive, a tutorial system on corporations and sound money, sound monetary policy so our dollar maintains its reliable store of value. Those four foundations, real sensible regulatory system, spending cuts and controls to get our debt under control, sound money and tax reform, those are the things I think we need to do, the foundations for economic growth. There’s no excuse to do something else or there’s no substitute for it. This Keynesian borrow, spend and tax isn’t working and it won’t work." Wrong, wrong, wrong... and you can use those three words to sum up most of what Ryan has had to say about the economy and about fiscal policy since the small town p.r. hack who never had an honest job in his entire life declared himself an economic expert.

Don't forget... laughing at Ryan-- or even hating him-- isn't going to defeat him and it isn't going to elect Rob Zerban. Can you help?

Neither Kathy Hochul Nor Jane Corwin Were All That Important Tuesday-- Paul Ryan And The Republican Agenda Were

Tuesday's election results in western New York were all about independent voters telling Republicans across the country to step on the brakes or suffer the consequences. Paul Krugman used the word "Buffalo" eight times in his Wednesday morning post-- and that was just in the headline!

The obvious point is that Republicans, having run in 2010 largely by scaring seniors with tales of death panels, are now horsed on their own pet aardvark, or something.

The difference is that whereas Democrats were not, in fact, trying to impose death panels, Republicans really do want to dismantle Medicare – and that’s the truth no matter how many times Very Serious People reach for their smelling salts when Democrats say that. And you would think that would make Medicare an even more potent weapon for the Dems than it was for the Rs (unless they go out of their way to ignore what the electorate is really concerned about.)

It’s now starting to look like a real possibility that we will have had three electoral waves in a row-- a Democratic sweep in 2006-2008, a Republican countersweep in 2010, and a countercountersweep in 2012 as voters realize that the GOP is the same as it always was, only more so.

Within hours of the disavowal of his vision for turning seniors' healthcare over to his financial backers at the predatory health insurance companies, Ryan was desperately trying to salvage what's left of his credibility-- with his own paralyzed caucus (remember Boehner and Cantor had tricked them all into backing Ryan's crazy plans). He was tweeting up a storm Wednesday morning with every kind of excuse for what a great big misunderstanding his plan to turn Medicare into an inadequate private voucher system has been. He tried ducking responsibility by blaming the Democrats... of course.


But even after Jane Corwin's approval numbers began tanking when she blundered into admitting that she would have voted for Ryan's budget, Ryan never showed up in Buffalo to defend her. The Republicans there and in DC were at least savvy enough to know that his presence in the district would have meant instant death for her campaign. Instead they invited Boehner and Cantor to defend her. That amounted to a slow drawn out death.

The slap in the face to Ryan didn't exactly go unnoticed back in Wisconsin. His opponent for reelection, Kenosha County Supervisor Rob Zerban was out with a statement Tuesday night:

"Tonight it is clear that Representative Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare is the wrong choice for our families, and we will not stand for it. Voters in New York's 26th Congressional District rejected Paul Ryan’s backward vision of America that puts our seniors at risk. If New Yorkers don’t want Medicare replaced with a voucher plan, you can be sure that families here in Wisconsin's First District will have something to say in the next election. Wisconsinites put our trust in Paul Ryan only to be sold out to special interests.

"I’d like to congratulate New York’s new Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Hochul for winning this strongly-held Republican district. We have our work cut out for us to put our nation back on track, but ordinary people have spoken up tonight to say, 'Hands off our Medicare, Paul Ryan'."

Mike Tate Chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party backed up his messaging against right-wing over reach the next morning:

"In the face of overwhelming opposition, Republicans have been stymied in their attacks on our seniors.
 
"In the Legislature, Republicans furiously reversed their own plans to gut SeniorCare only after six GOP senators now face recalls this summer and thousands of Wisconsin citizens signed petitions to save the successful program that helps seniors pay for prescription drugs. They claim that they will, for the moment, spare the program.

"And as New York's Congressional election shows, Paul Ryan's attempt to end Medicare is being rejected even by Republican voters.

"Both Republican legislators and Paul Ryan promise that they will preserve SeniorCare and Medicare, but we know these promises are an absolute sham.
 
"It's time for Scott Walker and his rubber-stamping Republicans to stop playing politics with SeniorCare, for Paul Ryan to stop his plans to end Medicare and for all of them to stop paying for tax cuts for the rich and huge corporations on the backs of Wisconsin's seniors."

Norman Solomon, one of the Blue America candidates running on a Medicare-for-all platform in next year's congressional races, looked at the race in NY-26 and said it proves that "Democrats can win uphill battles by really putting up a fight instead of splitting the difference with the extremist Republican Party. The reality is that the GOP is committed to dismantling Medicare and a wide range of other humane government programs. We should not give an inch when the lives of children, the elderly and other vulnerable people are at stake."

Paul Ryan is the biggest danger middle class families are facing to their children's future. Wall Street and Big Business will stop at nothing to get him and his toxic agenda into the White House. There is only one way to stop him-- and that's with direct action. And right now that direct action means electing Rob Zerban to the seat Ryan has been sitting in. It won't be easy, but it's not any less possible than the race in NY-26 was. In fact, President Obama won WI-01 in 2008, and the district is filled with fired up Democrats and newly awakened independents. Can you help Rob's campaign? Ryan's budget and his vision and his entire political career were inspired-- as he freely admits-- by deranged anti-Christian novelist Ayn Rand. Wall Street adores her too... and would love her simplistic and extremely dangerous ideas dominating our politics:



Replacing Paul Ryan with Rob Zerban will mean instead of harboring a Wall Street shill hell-bent on destroying the middle class for his corporate masters, WI-1 will have a congressman joining defenders of working families like the men and women in the video below. You can contribute to Rob's campaign at StopPaulRyan through Act Blue.



(Read the full post at Down With Tyranny)