The Height of GOP Stupidty, Part Ten: Lyin' Paul Ryan

Paul Ryan, this week's GOP Golden Boy, whose ALLEGED charisma is all the republicans care about, pledged in his convention speech that he and Mittsy would usher in an ethic of responsibility.

That was his first lie.

He replayed a lie he's been spreading ever since Mittsy tapped him to be Veep. He said, again, that Barack Obama, while campaigning for president, promised that a GM plant in Wisconsin would not shut down. Ryan said, in his speech, "That plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight."

Except...candidate Obama never promised that. And, while the plant did close down, and remains closed to this day, it was shut down in December 2008, a full month before Obama became President. So, Paul Ryan blatantly lied.

Remember that, he blatantly lied.

But this is nothing new from a campaign that doesn't believe in the facts. In fact, Romney pollster Neil Newhouse blatantly said, "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers."

Yup, Romney/Ryan will not rely on facts this election cycle. But, let's forget Mittsy for a moment and return to Paul Lyin'.

Paul Ryan slammed Obama for not supporting a deficit commission report; Paul Ryan, himself, voted against that same report. He failed to mention that.

Paul Ryan claims Obama "funneled" $716 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare; Paul Ryan failed to mention that his own budget plan relies on those very same savings.

Paul Ryan laid blame for Standard & Poor's downgrade of U.S. government debt at President Obama's feet; Paul Ryan failed to mention that S&P--in explaining its downgrade--referred to the debt ceiling standoff. The process of raising the debt ceiling was politicized in the last Congress, driven by House Republicans, led by Paul Ryan.

Now, I am a democrat, a quite Liberal, left-leaning Democrat, so I am not at all surprised that Paul Ryan is an outright liar. But someone else is confused about Ryan's inability to distinguish the truth from fiction, and that person, Sally Kohn, is a Fox News columnist.

Yes, Sally Kohn said that Paul Ryan's speech "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."

To be fair, Sally Kohn calls herself the "progressive voice on Fox News" but that's neither here nor there. The focus is on the apparent ease with which Paul Ryan mangles the truth. And she broke down his speech into three categories:

He was Dazzling, she says:

"Ryan's primary job was to introduce himself and make himself seem likeable, and he did that well. The personal parts of the speech were very personally delivered, especially the touching parts where Ryan talked about his father and mother and their roles in his life. And at the end of the speech, when Ryan cheered the crowd to its feet, he showed an energy and enthusiasm that’s what voters want in leaders and what Republicans have been desperately lacking in this campaign."

But he was also Deceiving:

"On the other hand, to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech 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.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. Said fact checkers have already condemned certain arguments that Ryan still irresponsibly repeated.

• Fact: While Ryan tried to pin the downgrade of the United States’ credit rating on spending under President Obama, the credit rating was actually downgraded because Republicans threatened not to raise the debt ceiling.
• Fact: While Ryan blamed President Obama for the shutdown of a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, the plant was actually closed under President George W. Bush. Ryan actually asked for federal spending to save the plant, while Romney has criticized the auto industry bailout that President Obama ultimately enacted to prevent other plants from closing.
• Fact: Though Ryan insisted that President Obama wants to give all the credit for private sector success to government, that isn't what the president said. Period. 
• Fact: Though Paul Ryan accused President Obama of taking $716 billion out of Medicare, the fact is that that amount was savings in Medicare reimbursement rates (which, incidentally, save Medicare recipients out-of-pocket costs, too) and Ryan himself embraced these savings in his budget plan.

Elections should be about competing based on your record in the past and your vision for the future, not competing to see who can get away with the most lies and distortions without voters noticing or bother to care. Both parties should hold themselves to that standard. Republicans should be ashamed that there was even one misrepresentation in Ryan’s speech but sadly, there were many.”

And she ended by calling him Distracting:

“And then there’s what Ryan didn’t talk about.Ryan didn’t mention his extremist stance on banning all abortions with no exception for rape or incest, a stance that is out of touch with 75% of American voters. Ryan didn’t mention his previous plan to hand over Social Security to Wall Street. Ryan didn’t mention his numerous votes to raise spending and balloon the deficit when George W. Bush was president. Ryan didn’t mention how his budget would eviscerate programs that help the poor and raise taxes on 95% of Americans in order to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires even further and increase—yes, increase—the deficit. These aspects of Ryan’s resume and ideology are sticky to say the least. He would have been wise to tackle them head on and try and explain them away in his first real introduction to voters. But instead of Ryan airing his own dirty laundry, Democrats will get the chance.At the end of his speech, Ryan quoted his dad, who used to say to him, 'Son. You have a choice: You can be part of the problem, or you can be part of the solution.'" 

Ryan may have helped solve some of the likeability problems facing Romney, but ultimately by trying to deceive voters about basic facts and trying to distract voters from his own record, Ryan’s speech caused a much larger problem for himself and his running mate.”

The facts are these:

Paul Ryan has lied about several very important issues, involving jobs, the stimulus, the debt ceiling, his own budget plan.

The facts are also these:

Paul Ryan wants to take away a woman’s right to choose, on any variety of topics, from abortion, to contraception.

The facts are also these:

America cannot afford to have a man like Paul Ryan, no matter how much he seems likable, a heartbeat away from the presidency. Remember, Sarah Palin? Remember how we all wondered what would happen if McCain became President and she was that close to running this country?

It’s the same thing now.

Convention Speech Built On Demonstrably Misleading Assertions

Paul Ryan's RNC Speech 'Was Attempt To Set World Record For Blatant Lies'

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