Ryan's Country Club appearance says a lot, too bad his Mysterious detailed Plan for Medicare and Taxes doesn't.

Thank god, we’re finally blessed with the presence of Paul Ryan again. He’s been away you know, licking his wounds from a tough, brutal presidential campaign. Can you image how exhausted he must have felt? Ryan’s recuperation, from November to January 13, ended when he mustered up enough strength to appear before his constituents at a town hall…I’m sorry, a country club to rub shoulders with the average working stiffs who can't seem to get enough of his anti-government rhetoric.

Journal Times: Despite voting for the contentious fiscal cliff package that raised tax rates, it was clear Sunday that Ryan’s status among his TEA Party supporters hadn't diminished. 

Because to rabid low information tea party voters, Republican fiscal policy plays second fiddle to power, guns and hating liberals. They're still not asking for a detailed plan on health care reform:

Ryan lambasted the Affordable Care Act’s complexity and effectiveness, and predicted that it would eventually fail. “I think this thing is going to collapse under its own weight because it’s not sustainable. It’s sickly, and it cannot survive because it’s such a poorly drafted law.”

Of course Ryan failed to mention the wrench thrown into the system by uncooperative Governors and Republican state legislatures who refuse to obey federal law passed by congress.

Ryan said he favors a consumer-directed health care system driven by free-market competition.

What Ryan never mentions is we already have a free market system, that’s why we’re getting crushed by the massive increases in cost. Ryan’s plan goes one step further though by removing the basic requirements of health care providers, meaning Americans will essentially be buying junk policies filled with legalese that pretty much exempts everything. Now that's competition. 

But Ryan saved the biggest load of BS for last; the promise of a detailed plan:

He has similar plans to “show ... in legislative detail” alternatives on income tax reform and Medicare reform.

Here’s my challenge; let’s see the plan, and the CBO analysis. That’s all. How easy is that? But low information tea party voters can’t be bothered with such wonkish details, after all, they’re already too busy planning their new American revolution against a tyrannical U.S. government. 

Paul Ryan Runs from his own Medicare Plan, Worried about Challenge from Rob Zerban!!

Rep. Paul Ryan appears to be vulnerable in 2012, and he's showing it. His Democratic challenger Rob Zerban started early and campaigned often. And while Ryan has turned off constituents with fewer and fewer town halls and unwavering support of ending to Medicare, Zerban has moved within 6 points of overtaking Ryan. Get a load of this report from The Hill earlier today:

A prominent Democratic pollster is making the case that the party should invest in a challenge to Rep. Paul Ryan, the architect of the conservative House budget plan. Pollster Paul Maslin's survey of 405 likely voters "shows that challenger Rob Zerban is well-positioned to give incumbent Paul Ryan the toughest fight of his career, with a very good chance to upset him," Maslin wrote in a memo.

The survey found the district, the Wisconsin First, evenly divided on partisan issues … And, after respondents hear one additional paragraph description linking Ryan to the Republican leadership describing his authorship of the House budget plan, his support falls below 50% and his favorable rating becomes like Obama’s and Walker’s—dead even at 46% positive and 46% negative. And... Rob Zerban trails Ryan by only six points after this very brief exposition of Ryan’s signature idea, 49-43%.

Which has produced an amazing Ryan transformation…COMPROMISE on Medicare? Yes, Ryan is doing this all for the cameras. Paul Ryan is a snake, a sneaky con man willing to sell our seniors so the free market can profit from their medical needs. Ryan’s trying to diffuse his Medicare debacle, taking it out as an issue. But Ryan’s original intent can’t be erased. But he’ll try…:

jsonline: Republican House budget chair Paul Ryan has teamed up with Senate Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon to offer what they're billing as a bipartisan approach to overhauling Medicare … Like the Ryan plan it would shift the fundamental structure of Medicare from a "defined benefit" program to a "defined contribution" program, and those seniors would use the subsidy to purchase health insurance from a menu of government-approved private plans.

But a traditional Medicare fee-for-service plan would be among the options seniors can choose from. Private plans would be competing with traditional Medicare to cover seniors, according to the plan.

Yes, its much like the vilified “public option” Democrats wanted to include in the Affordable Care Act, where private plans would have to compete with the lower government rates.

The new proposal also takes a different approach in how it sets the premium subsidies for seniors, and the rate at which those subsidies could grow over time, as medical costs rise. One of the chief criticisms of the Ryan plan … health costs rising much faster than inflation, beneficiaries over time would be forced to pay the difference … the premium subsidy would steadily erode.

Here’s where things get weird, confusing and problematic:

Under the new plan, the size of the premium subsidies would be tied to the costs of the insurance plans being offered to seniors. Increases in the subsidies would be capped at the growth rate of the overall economy plus one percent. And Wyden said that if health care costs grow at a higher rate, beneficiaries wouldn't necessarily be the ones absorbing the costs under their proposal. "We are rejecting that," said Wyden. "If that happens (if costs go up at a higher rate) Congress has to do its job and look at all other options: lower reimbursement (to providers), higher premiums for the wealthy."

Right, like that’ll happen.

Whether this new plan would in theory save as much money is not clear. Ryan said the new plan would also include consumer protections sought by Wyden.

Ryan can try to hide behind the misguided support of Ron Wyden, but he can’t run from his original plan no matter how hard he tries. 

Ryan Projects the Propaganda by taking the "Moral High Ground."

Paul Ryan’s fear campaign continues unabated, obscured by the usual “I know you are but what am I” tact, and a whole lot of conservative projection. In fact projection is the GOP’s primary offensive weapon; “where a person subconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people.”

While Ryan accuses the Democrats of fear mongering his cost shifting health care reform plan for Medicare, where care is controlled by insurance companies and the free market, he actually does them one better by warning typically paranoid conservatives we’re about to “lose our country.”

Big Government:“We can be like Republicans in the past–trim the edges, slow things down, make things more affordable, buy time. Or we can do what is necessary to save our country. We’ve got to understand that there are core principles involved here–that if we compromise too far, we can win but we will still lose the country.”

Scared yet? Thank god we have Ryan to ease our worries and to take the "moral high ground." He'll talk some sense into us…via propaganda. Or as Ryan puts it, “educate” the public with corporate Prosperity PAC money.

Rep. Paul Ryan, chair of the House Budget Committee, also leads the Prosperity PAC, a political action committee … Prosperity Action is trying to change the premise of the debate about spending, to help educate the country, to educate grassroots activists … if we win that kind of an election, then we will have the moral authority to make the changes needed. I believe that President Obama is going to campaign on the idea that he offers the country a kind of security, that the Republicans will feed Americans to the wolves to help their rich friends. He’s going to use resentment, fear, and envy.

Ryan convincingly denies the truth by portraying the wealth disparity as resentment, fear, and envy, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Projection? Sure. The funny thing is, Ryan ignores or denies legitimate criticisms of his “free market” plan of self-rationing. The insane notion that insurance companies and hospitals will lower rates and cut their profit margins, while taking Ryan’s taxpayer premium support money in a supposed free market, is pure lunacy. To add insult to injury, Ryan also wants insurers to dump those with pre-existing conditions into a costly taxpayer supported high risk pool. Ryan socializes the risk, and privatizes the profits.

Besides appealing to conservative’s willingness to play the picked on victim of their misunderstood ideology, Ryan positions himself as one of the few wonkish numbers crunchers the party is willing to tolerate. That’s why the following string of big words sounds so impressive to Republican voters:

We must reject that substantively–statistically and quantitatively, but also seizing the moral high ground.

And when you seize the moral high ground, like Scott Walker has, you can do anything you want.

Does Paul Ryan have Dissociative Identity Disorder?

Paul Ryan, you know the progressives are a cancer, labor unions are like Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, and not voting for TARP would usher in Barack Obama's liberal fascism Paul Ryan, was reportedly accusing Obama of “preying on the emotions of fear, envy and resentment” in a bizarre speech at the Heritage Foundation.

Imagine that.

Nearly every Ryan quote posted in this Politico article was mind-blowing introspective identity transference - that is, he accused Obama of the very economic, social and political transgressions Ryan himself has perfected to a fine precision against the wage earning class for the past decade.

Politico Excerpt:
[...] said the class warfare that threatens the U.S. is “[a] class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society. And their gains do come at the expense of working Americans, against entrepreneurs, and that small businesswoman who has the gall to take on the corporate chieftain.”

Just imagine if you can, that the one congressman whose legislative record demonstrates an eager willingness to use government power to rig a system of trade, credit, capital and taxation to the advantage of connected crony capitalists, made the above statement. Had Michael Moore, Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders made that statement - fine. But completely preposterous coming from Paul Ryan unless of course it was part of a confession.

Even more so, Ryan accused Obama of setting up straw men and scapegoats (have you ever been to a Ryan townhall?), and engaging in intellectually lazy arguments, as he tries to build support for his jobs plan.

Intellectually lazy arguments? Have you checked out the latest Politifact editorial where they laughingly analyze a wildly hypothetical statement from Ryan? Seriously, the JS Politifact is now fact-checking his hypotheticals. Just wonderful. Ryan, who rarely makes reality-based non-fictional statements to support his ideological-based schemes to defraud trillions out from Social Security and Medicare recipients, leaves his enablers at Politifact with grudgingly little more than fabrications in their effort to prop up and defend him from statements made by those evil democrats.

Politifact gave Ryan a "half true" rating when he claimed that a 100% tax on millionaires would fund only four months of government operations. But get this, Politifact even goes so far as to bolster Ryan's misfire by stating that had he drawn his hypothetical from more current data, his point would have been stronger showing government would run for an even shorter period.

Of course nobody ever suggested taxing millionaires at 100%, so their editorial was little more than low-grade windbaggery masquerading as a fact-check analysis, but Ryan constantly draws on this kind of class-based rhetoric to, you guessed it, to set up straw men and scapegoats.

After keeping a watchful eye on our congressman for almost ten years now, I'm more convinced than ever that he either has Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personality) or he is a very cunning liar. He can't see the Paul Ryan in Congress that rigs the system against the wage earning class with his wrong-headed proposals and votes, to the one he wakes up to everyday. How can anyone make those statements without first looking in the mirror and seeing themselves? Unless of course he has no reflection.

Others Have Noticed

Crooks and Liars Ryan Blames President For trying to put out fire set by Ryan

The Paul Ryan Watch Ryan Loves Everyone, some restrictions apply.

Think Progress Ryan Wrong on Income Inequality

Paul Ryan tells College student with crushing loan to get 3 jobs...like he did?

Rep. Paul Ryan has resorted to just making things up now. With no regard for facts or actual dollar amounts, he's getting lazy, BS'sing his way through town hall sessions like a street vendor selling knock off watches. 

Think Progress came up with this gem, where Ryan tells a college student to get three jobs if he's having a hard time paying for his student loans. In fact, Ryan would do away with the grant altogether and simply dump people into private banks (another gift to bankers).

In an economy with lower wages, benefits, high tuition's, crushing college loans, and fewer and fewer jobs, Ryan's 3 jobs advice is cruel.

LOWE: I come from a very middle-class family and under President Obama, I get $5,500 per year to pay for school, which doesn’t come close to covering all of the funding, but it helps ease the burden. Under your plan, you cut it by 15 percent. I was just curious why you would cut a grant that goes directly to the middle- and lower-class people that need it the most.
RYAN: ‘Cause Pell Grants have become unsustainable. It’s all borrowed money…Look, I worked three jobs to pay off my student loans after college. I didn’t get grants, I got loans, and we need to have a system of viable student loans to be able to do this.
The second concern I have is, in the health care bill — people don’t know this — for budgetary gimmickry reasons, the administration and Congress at the time, took over the student loan industry. So they had the federal government, the Department of Education, basically confiscate the private student loan industry.

Ryan leaves out how much money the government saves not paying banks for processing government backed Pell grants.

Ryan worked 3 jobs to pay for his student loans? That’s doesn’t mesh with this interesting part of Ryan’s bio:

Ryan's father died when Paul was only 16. Using the Social Security survivors benefits he received until his 18th birthday, he paid for his education at Miami University in Ohio, where he completed a bachelor's degree in economics and political science in 1992.

Let’s see the proof of these jobs, Paul. How much was the loan? In reality, Ryan never had to look too far for work or worry about being unemployed:

Ryan worked as a marketing consultant for his family's construction business before being elected to Congress. Ryan Incorporated Central began as an earthmoving business created by his great-grandfather in 1884. 

Ryan's World; He'll have order or you'll be arrested. Treating the "Leader" Elite like Royalty.

Still more video of Paul Ryan's Whitnall Park Rotary Luncheon where the public had to pay $15 to see and talk their representative. Any question about whether Ryan is sociopathic is answered here.

Ryan is under the false impression that only polite agreeable attendees have the right to ask questions without interruption from their elected officials. But for those backed-into-a-corner desperate Americans...jail. It's obvious from the video that security had been told to remove dissenters immediately, without the pleasantries of being asked to keep it down, wait their turn...etc. Apparently speaking out of order is cause for arrest in Ryan's world. 

Ryan amazingly did not try to stop the police from arresting and fining the protesters. It will take all the self control you can muster when you see Ryan wave sarcastically goodbye to protesters on his way out of town. This is campaign ad gold....

Ryan calls protesting citizens, "the new norm." Ah, I think they're trying to tell you something Paul?

Think Paul Ryan is going to cake walk his way into office this time around? Just because he has a high national profile doesn't guarantee his districts support this time around. Good for Greenfield residents with the courage to really tell Ryan how they feel. TMJ4:

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan had to walk through and talk over protesters Tuesday during a public appearance in Greenfield.

3 people were arrested and 20 in all were removed from Klemmer's Banquet Center for disrupting Ryan's speech. Outside the building both pro and anti Ryan demonstrators marched around the area and chanted.

Like Ryan said in the clip nonchalantly, "Protests are something that are here to stay, I think." Funny, it wasn't like this a year ago Paul.

Reporter Dares Question Paul Ryan About His Budget Plan

Al Jazeera recently launched a program called Fault Lines, a half hour long news program that analyzes the political and economic divide, the "Fault Lines" that run through the world.

This week they released an episode focusing on "The Top 1%" which explores the growing wealth gap in the United States that has expanded by leaps and bounds over the last 30 years. It asks "How did the gap grow so wide, and so quickly?

Dane 101 Excerpt:

(Reporter's Perfectly Reasonable Questions Were Rude)

Wisconsin's very own Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, makes an appearance in the episode when the discussion turns to his budget plan. When the Al Jazeera reporter asks Ryan if his plan is undemocratic "given the fact the majority of American people oppose cuts to so-called entitlement spending" and "why he won't talk about tax burden for the richest in the country given the fact that wealth is so concentrated?" The reporter said the only answer Ryan gave was her "questions were rude."

In the video excerpt below, watch for Ryan's pompously smirky response to the reporter's question:



Watch full (25 minutes) "Fault Lines" episode here.