Here’s a list of some of the whoppers that Paul Ryan served up Wednesday night.
Dispatches From the Republican National Convention
Entry 13: Here’s a list of some of the whoppers that Paul Ryan served up Wednesday night.
Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP/GettyImages.
Rice got the best pre-Ryan reception, definitely, but these nights are rigged for the veep speeches. The lights dim a little. The floor gets packed—so packed that reporters were told to stay away, lest we violate fire codes, starting at 10:20 pm.
So I was in the cheap seats, not on carpet, when Ryan plowed through one of the more impressive strings of whoppers we've seen at this level. Ryan's been doling out chunks of this speech for weeks, which made the fibs sound even stranger.
In the spirit of the Internet, I will package them in listicle form.
- The GM plant in Janesville. Ryan mentioned it in a pretty effective section on the Obama-induced pangs of his hometown. But as Matthew DeLuca explained two weeks ago,
GM announced the closure during the Bush presidency. Ryan hustled to
save it. He voted for the GM bailout, in another attempt to save it. You
can call that proof of government's failure, sure, but Obama didn't
force it on the city.
- "The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare,
and cronyism at their worst." That's extraordinarily hard to argue, and Ryan's office lobbied effectively for some stimulus grants that went to his district.
- "$716 billion, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama." Not really true, either.
The Medicare spending "cuts" are of the sort that Ryan defended when he
was rising through the House—reductions in future reimbursement rates.
- "A downgraded America." S&P's rationale for downgrading the United States from AAA to AA+
"assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of
2012, remain in place." This was "because the majority of Republicans in
Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues."
Ryan's promised to keep those tax cuts for now, then try and flatten the
code into two low rates, and we don't know what the S&P Tiki Gods
think of that.
- The "bipartisan debt commission" Ryan referred to was Simpson-Bowles. He served on it, and voted against the report, because it didn't tackle Medicare costs—which sort of brings us back to the "$716 billion funneling" issue.
Heck, this is the part where I should offer some balance. Well: Ryan delivered these lines perfectly, with just the right decibel shifts. And "a ship trying to sail on yesterday's wind" is a keeper.
this is what people with personality disorders do, project their own behavior onto others.
It just shows how little some people know about politics....
All i saw was diarrhea coming our of this mouth last night....
Damn it is really bad for the repubs that the vp pick and the speakers had to get up and lie knowing that their listeners either don't care or are to stupid to realize they are liars.They just insulted their partys intelligence and don't care.
Its gotta hurt when even FOX calls you out
Fox News' Sally Kohn: Paul Ryan's RNC Speech 'Was Attempt To Set World Record For Blatant Lies'
Paul Ryan's speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday was full of lies, according to Fox News contributor Sally Kohn.
According to Fox News columnist Sally Kohn, vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday "was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech."
"On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold," Kohn wrote.
In a surprising move, Fox News joined CNN, The Huffington Post, the Washington Post's Wonkblog, and ThinkProgress in publishing a fact-check of the Republican vice presidential nominee's speech, finding that the speech was full of lies and misleading assertions.
Kohn, who describes herself as a "progressive voice on Fox News," wrote in her Thursday column that though Ryan came off as likable during his speech, his misrepresentations and omissions "caused a much larger problem for himself and his running mate."
In contrast, several Fox News commentators praised Ryan's speech on air after the event, without mentioning his misleading claims, according to Media Matters.
In her column, Kohn called out four lies in Ryan's speech. She critcized Ryan for blaming President Obama for the shutdown of a General Motors plant in Janesville, Wis., that actually was closed during the Bush administration. She also knocked Ryan for pinning the blame for S&P's downgrade of U.S. debt on Obama, when Republicans in Congress helped precipitate the downgrade by threatening to refuse to raise the debt ceiling.
"The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan's mouth," Kohn wrote.
You can read Sally Kohn's full takedown of Paul Ryan's speech for Fox News here.
Obviously you don't know who Sally Kohn is. She is Fox's newest liberal(FOX being fair and balanced does have them on their staff) http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/fox-news-newest-contributor-liberal-activist-sally-kohn-they-want-a-good-fight-on-the-issues_b111322 It's her job to give her liberal views. LOL What do you think our Senators and Representative are for? The represent their constituants! The try to obtain money and other benefits for things their districts and state needs. Those needs vary in importance depending on the economy and other issues. At a time when our congress is bashed for doing nothing there are still people bashing them for doing what they are supposed to do.
As for the healthcare lies obama has made. Ryan is right. Obama said from the beginning that they would take $500 billion from medicare coming mostly from cutting medicare advantage. Now that the real number is out and the truth be known he's using all kinds of excuses like it's all waste and fraud. Blah Blah. The government hasn't found that much waste and fraud in the total of all the years looking. How will they do it now?
This is reaching for sure. It's expected and will be truthfully countered. It's going to come down to who you believe. I think seniors who have already seen many of their Drs stop taking medicare as just one downfall of Obamacare will believe the truth.
Oh, so it's Faux News "newest liberal" whose responsible for Ryan's lying. Gotcha.
What are the facts, steph11?
What are the facts, steph? I second Pam. Take your time.
Quoting itsmesteph11:Typical liberal statement (or maybe you are just uneducated about the facts?)
Quoting rachelrothchild:
He's a hypocrite.
I'm not a liberal, and I'm not uneducated. You can't vote for something (or several things) that screws over the American people and then talk about freedom and liberty. It doesn't work that way. You can't just talk the talk. You have to walk the walk. People like me aren't stupid enough to buy this. He is a corrupt piece of crap who will tell you what you want to hear and give you whatever answer is popular at the time, just like Romney. Wolves in sheeps' clothing. I almost feel sorry for anyone who trusts what he says. His voting record speaks for itself.
I think you are the one who is uneducated about the facts. As for me, I'm not voting for Romney or Obama because they are both controlled by the same people.
Quoting itsmesteph11:Typical liberal statement (or maybe you are just uneducated about the facts?)
Quoting rachelrothchild:
He's a hypocrite.
How Limbaugh, Thomas, Bean produced conservative warrior Andrew Breitbart
- PamR
on Aug. 30, 2012 at 9:18 AM