After Criticizing Ryan's Proposals - Gingrich Surges In Polls

Remember when Newt Gingrich let his guard down and called Paul Ryan’s budget proposal and plan to end Medicare exactly what it is - "right-wing social engineering?"

Union Leader Excerpt:
Sununu told reporters that when Gingrich earlier this year called U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan's entitlement reform provisions of the Republican budget plan “right-wing social engineering,” it was “an effort of self-aggrandizement” that undercut Ryan and was “the most self-serving, anti-conservative thing one can imagine.”

That's funny. Against all odds since then, Gingrich has been slowly gaining on the other so-called conservatives running for the gold in the GOP presidential primary. Actually, Gingrich is now considered the front-running candidate among the pack of ghouls that speak in favor of Ryan's frontal attack on seniors, even pulling way ahead of Mitt Romney.

Union Leader Excerpt:
Sununu said, “What he did to Paul Ryan is just the latest in a pattern of anti-principled actions that really irritated his own leadership and produced 88 percent of the Republicans voting for his reprimand” in 1997.

The above statements from the bombastic Sununu says it all. Why should Newt Gingrich or any presidential candidate care a rat's ass about Paul Ryan? Think about it. Who is Ryan? Second and even more telling, how could criticizing Ryan's proposal be self-aggrandizement if it's so good?

The truth is, they all know Ryan's budget proposals are fictional, unworkable, radical and vicious - you have to be a goose-stepping single-file Randroid to believe in them. You have to be trained and "principled." They're sympathetic to Ryan and defend him because he was the only one evil enough to propose such a dastardly plan. They wouldn't dare propose the same so they translate Ryan's ideologically engineered insanity as courage. I'm guessing here that Gingrich isn't one of them.

Union LeaderExcerpt:
He said Gingrich's occasional “off-the-cuff” comments are “a reflection of the off-the-cuff thinking that he goes through to deal with the issues and that is not what you want in the commander-in-chief.”

People want to hear the truth and they know the truth when they hear it. Gingrich spoke the truth when he called Ryan's proposals "right-wing social engineering." Everyone knows that. When a politician like Sununu thinks telling the truth is not what people want in a commander-in-chief, I highly doubt it. But that statement should give pause and further thought about the truthfulness of the GOP candidates Sununu did not direct that statement at. Sununu should back-fire in their faces.

The best part is Romney, Sununu and rest of the cast of Ryan defenders don't know what to do next. They were going to bombard Gingrich with more garbage and venom aimed at drawing a greater contrast between themselves and the former House Speaker. But the
latest report out of Politico shows somebody may have connected Newt's surge to his criticism of Ryan so Romney skipped several chances to attack Newt Gingrich on Friday — an abrupt change to his campaign’s aggressive approach to draw that contrast.

But this is funny. They’re trying to undermine Newt Gingrich, not that I care, but the fact that Gingrich has surged past Romney seems to have gotten their underwear all bunched up. THEY were the ones preparing to aggrandize themselves by resurrecting Paul Ryan's proposals, but now they're not so sure. Yet, they accuse Newt of self-aggrandizement because he derided Ryan's proposals.

In the meantime, Gingrich surges ahead. Beauuutiful.

Sidenote: The Janesville Gazette, Ryan's hometown newspaper, published a mainstream media version of this story in the local section of the print copy. As of this posting, they have not opened the article to the Web for open commenting. Are they worried about self-aggrandizing constituents or protecting their political endorsement?

Two-Faced Ryan Still Scamming With Old Tricks

Ryan’s newest scam involves eliminating tax breaks for employees who are enrolled in their employer’s group health care plans and give workers the tax credit to buy health insurance on an individual basis.

In my humble opinion, this really is nothing new from the two-faced congressman. Embedded in his "Roadmap for America's Future" were provisions offering employees a "choice" to eat a baited T-bone by giving them a tax credit to buy health insurance on an individual basis. This credit would be paid for in part by shifting healthcare tax breaks away from the employer to the worker. Of course this would likely encourage most companies to drop their employer-sponsored group plans. This self-cannibalizing slow-death baiting of American workers is a popular gimmick from Ryan's bag of old sucker tricks. What is new however, is that he's now trying to pawn it off as a replacement for Obama's health care reform package.

PoliticusUSA Excerpt:
According to Ryan, his plan will give consumers the needed incentive to demand more value from their healthcare. He said, “Giving patients and consumers control over health care resources would make all Americans less dependent on big business and big government for our health security; give us more control over the care we get; and force health care providers to compete for our business.”

Okay, we know that Ryan wants to end our employer sponsored healthcare. But what about his own employer sponsored health care from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program? Although he boasts that his proposals offer insurance plans to individuals the very same standard health benefits Members of Congress enjoy, he doesn't address how Congress and Federal employees would fit under his individual privatization mandate or have the incentive to opt-out.

But to use Ryan's own words then, IF giving consumers Congress and Federal employees individual control over health care resources would make all of them less dependent on big government for their health security and give them more control over the care they get; and give them more incentive to demand more value from their health care - why hasn't Paul Ryan lead the way and opted out of his employer's group health plan?

Nothing was more telling than when Democrats proposed a simple House resolution requiring members of Congress to publicly disclose whether they will continue to participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The entire Wisconsin Republican House delegation including Ryan voted "NO." Mind you, that wasn't a vote to opt-out of the Federal Employee Program, it was merely a request to publicly disclose their current status.

With that minor disclosure they couldn't even muster the courage to stand with their own convictions.

Scammers.

Ryan satire that you almost can't make up

...because it sounds pretty much like the real guy.

The Onion satirical newspaper has a "major news story" up with the following headline:

"Congress Passes First Law in History That Doesn't Somehow Kill Thousands of Ducks"

The story itself goes on to "report" this:

> ... The law, designed to track suspicious interstate financial transactions, passed with an overwhelming majority in both houses and did not cause the usual hail of dead ducks to fall from the sky... .

> According to congressional sources, the outcome of the legislation likely would have been different if Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) had been successful is his attempt to add a provision to the bill calling for 14,000 ducks to be stabbed to death.

Yup, that's our Pauly: Mangling figurative baby ducks for political fun and profit.

US credit downgrade vindicates his draconian budget plan, Ryan says

On a Sunday morning Fox gasbag show, Rep. Paul Ryan said Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. credit was a "vindication" both of Republican actions in the tarted-up debt ceiling "crisis" and his own draconian budget plan.

Gee, it's a "vindication" that the debt ceiling crisis and its outcome -- manufactured entirely by Republicans and teabaggers -- has now led to a lower US credit rating? Can Ryan and other Republicans only be vindicated in their brinkmanship tactics when things get worse as a result? Well, yes, if you believe the GOP's only real interest is damaging the economy so that Obama becomes a one-termer and the Senate falls to the Republicans.

[And meanwhile, tea party noisemakers are busy celebrating the S&P downgrade. When the public and the facts aren't on your side, throw in with chaos.]

Ryan also blithely opined that Republicans and Democrats haven't been able to compromise on budget plans because Democrats simply won't go along with his plan to end Medicare and other entitlement programs as we know them. In short: "Surrender, Dorothy!" It's the old George W. Bush brand of compromise: you guys totally compromise your positions and agree to mine, and we'll call it bipartisan.

The latest Ryan miscreancy was ably summarized at David's Blog (highlighting is my own):

"I am not very surprised with the downgrade," Ryan told Fox News' Chris Wallace. "We more or less saw it coming because we are [on] the wrong fiscal path. We'll find out what spike in rates we are going to get. Obviously not only does it hurt the federal government and its ability to close deficits, but it hurts people. Car loans, home loans, all these things are going to go up. And so, it is because Washington has not gotten its fiscal house in order."

And to me, this is just more vindication of our actions. We passed a budget, which according to someone with S&P yesterday, would have prevented the downgrading from happening in the first place."

"Isn't that like a doctor saying, 'I did the operation perfectly but the patient died?'" Wallace wondered. "In its announcement, S&P condemned the political dysfunction here in Washington, the grid lock here in Washington... isn't the failure to compromise part of the problem?"

"Both political parties are responsible for the mess we have right," Ryan admitted. "This is not a Democrat or Republican problem only. Both parties got us to where we are. I would argue, though, in the last couple of years, we've gone deeply in the wrong direction."

"Yes, we haven't been able to get the kind of compromise because our partners on the other side of the aisles had been unwilling to reform the [entitlement] programs that the cause of the problem."

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/ryan-claims-downgrade-vindication-gop