Cole writes: "If you would raise taxes on the middle classes; but your budget would allow your wealthy running mate Mitt Romney to pay almost nothing in taxes, you might be Paul Ryan."
Paul Ryan speaks during a campaign rally in Wisconsin, 08/12/12.
You Might Be Paul Ryan If...
13 August 12
f you admitted that you got into politics because of the impact on you of the philosopher of personal greed and egotism, Ayn Rand, but later had to deny it because it was bad publicity, you might be Paul Ryan.
If you want to destroy social security for others, but after your father died when you were 16, you used your father's social security survivor benefits to help pay for your education at Miami University of Ohio ... you might be Paul Ryan.
If you say your budget plan was inspired by Roman Catholic teachings, but nearly 60 prominent Catholic thinkers and leaders condemned it as heartless, cruel and un-Christian ... you might be Paul Ryan.
If you claim to be a free marketeer but want to keep $40 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil in the budget, you might be Paul Ryan. When it comes to green energy, the Right says it has to be profitable on its own, but won't give it a level playing field.
If you would raise taxes on the middle classes; but your budget would allow your wealthy running mate Mitt Romney to pay almost nothing in taxes, you might be Paul Ryan.
If you are against deficits in an economic downturn and during a Democratic administration, but voted for all the measures that ran up the deficit under Bush and erased Clinton's budget surplus, you might be Paul Ryan.
If you say you are pro-life, but supported to the hilt an illegal and unjustified US invasion and occupation of Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, you might be Paul Ryan.
If you accused climate scientists of conspiring to "intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change," but are yourself a Koch brother-backed conspirator for the 1%, you might be Paul Ryan.
If your proof that climate change is an illusion is that it still snows in the winter, you might be Paul Ryan.
|
THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community. |
 24 May 2013
|
 23 May 2013
|
 22 May 2013
|
 23 May 2013
|
 23 May 2013
|
 24 May 2013
|
 22 May 2013
|
 22 May 2013
|
 25 May 2013
|
Comments
We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.
General guidelines: Avoid personal attacks on other forum members; Avoid remarks that are ethnically derogatory; Do not advocate violence, or any illegal activity.
Remember that making the world better begins with responsible action.
- The RSN Team
I will never understand pro lifers who are pro war.
When someone tells me they oppose war under any circumstances I call them a liar to their faces. There are very few people like that & I have no reason to believe any of them post here.
This country was born in a war & preserved in wars & people - soldiers & civilians - died in those wars. I know a number of people who BS about their opposition to war but they love the hell out of their lifestyles & the opportunities those wars brought to this country.
Isn't it wonderful to be the beneficiary of all the death & suffering that occurred in those wars & at the same time be able to appear so righteous pontificating against the pain & suffering of war.
Pro lifers are the people opposed to the wanton slaughter of unborn babies. Not really the same as being anti war.
I said I do not know any people who consider war to be a primary option & I don't. I do not view corporations as being people.
From the Revolution on the wars this country has fought have resulted in increasing the size of the nation, growing the economy to number one in the world, produced innumerable technology advances that have enhanced our quality of life & provided us with a standard of living that is the envy of the world.
I wonder how many of the righteous people posting here turn their backs on our standard of living because it was bought with the blood & suffering of the people involved in those wars. Rather than compromise their righteous values they live without the benefits our society offers. My guess? Absolutely no one.
What a load of blinkered flatulence!
This country was invaded/begun by a bunch of religious zealots who let the natives save and feed them, then turned around and slaughtered them -and it has been so ever since.
The people who ESPECIALLY "LIKE" war are the chicken-hawks who send young desperate folks out to kill and plunder for the corporate state, who are the only beneficiaries. If they don't have a war they're pretty good at lying their way into one.
I oppose war UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES -other than as a means of defense when all other means fail -and I'll warrant that I'd fight more fiercely than any of the chest-thumping reactionary blowhards I hear around me in such a case. I'm what I call a"Bad-tempered pacifist" and a bit of a scrapper in my past. I'd love to meet and debate you directly on the subject so stick THAT in yer own face mate!
The current "Defense" department (Which should be re-named the "War at any price Department" or WAAPD) is a conglomeration and collaboration of political cowards who have never served a day in combat or even in the military, in combination with a power-drunk set of combined chiefs of staff, CIA and FBI, an unaccountable Black Budget and now a bunch of highly-paid contractors who want anything but peace anywhere, for their corporate masters.
I would almost beg of you -read General Smedley Butler's ("a.k.a. "The Fighting Quaker") "War is just a Racket".
Wake up and smell the shite!
JackB, what's the difference in unborn babies and 18-year old born babies who are thrown into the "wanton slaughter" of some Chickenhawks war. In fact, I would say it's more cruel to send young people - who have grown to maturity in our society, who have dreams and aspirations, who have loved ones back home - into the unadulterated hell of war, especially when that war was cooked up by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others. You say you don't know ANYONE who is pro-war? Well, there's four for you.
I refuse to call the Invasion of Iraq a war. It was a planned invasion and occupation of a sovereign country by people who had ulterior motives. The result: 1.) More than 5000 Americans and allies dead and tens of thousands wounded, many disfigured for life. 2.) Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and millions wounded; 3.) More than 4.5 million Iraqis displaced, 2.5 million of those outside Iraq; 4.) Destruction of much of the Iraqi infrastructure, especially in Sunni strongholds like Fallujah; 5.) A $3 Trillion war; 6.) A ruined American economy now teetering on the brink!
And now comes Rmoney/Ryan to the rescue with Bush/Cheney policies on steriods to "FIX" the problems they created. Please... spare me.
I view abortion as murder. Pure & simple. Sending young people to war is not a death sentence. Abortion is. An 18 year old is not a baby. Like you I did not support going into Iraq but we are there & I will support the decision until the troops are home.
The last "war" fought by this country was WWII. You can call the action in Iraq whatever you like but I feel certain that if you were there you would have called it a war.
I believe there are wars that must be fought & wars that should not be fought. The difference is subjective as the opinions voiced here clearly show. E.G. I believe WWII was a war that we had to fight.
Having been to war I do not wish it on anyone. However there are posters on this blog who seem to enjoy the fruits of war paid for with the blood & guts of others who pass themselves off as being righteously above the fray. They ignore the fact that in this country it is elected officials who send soldiers off to fight & they also ignore how elected officials become elected officials.
Only men get to decide what women shoiudl do with their own bodies??? Hypocrite male!
Also, who here has stated that only men get to decide? In fact, I remember reading many post from women regarding abortion how men should have no say because it is not their body. I think both sexes should have a say.
If men had to give birth, abortion would be a sacrament.
And sending people who have volunteered to war does NOT make a person pro-war.
God, or if you prefer, Mother Nature is responsible for the distinctions between the sexes. Are the distinctions fair? I don't know. Depends on who is voicing the opinion & what is being considered. Fair or unfair, it is women who have babies.
It is common knowledge that if left alone an embryo will mature into a live, breathing human baby.
The Supreme Court decided that the baby was secondary to the procreation process. The important thing was the mother's privacy. So they drew a totally arbitrary line in the development cycle & said - if the baby can live outside the womb it is a baby otherwise kill it if you want.
By shifting the argument to the mother the SC effectively made the fetus valueless until it crossed the arbitrary line. It had no legal standing. None of the judges nor anyone else could prove a fetus isn't human. It isn't human simply because the Supreme Court said so.
The difference between an opinion and a fact is that a fact can be proven, whereas an opinion cannot.
What you have Jack, is a conviction, based on a opinion. If you believe in the concept of a human being having a soul, I would like you to tell me at exactly what moment ensoulment takes place in every human being, and then PROVE IT.
If it is your opinion that ensoulment takes place at conception, you have the right to that opinion. Just because you happen to believe your opinion, and it is a conviction for you, does not make it a fact, because you cannot PROVE IT.
Everyone has the right to their own opinion, and you also have the right to make decisions for you based on your opinions. The problem I have starts when you assume your opinion is a fact, and then you want everyone else to live their lives, and make their decisions based on your assumptions, and your opinions.
A fetus is a "potential" human being. It is my opinion that it does not become a human being until ensoulment takes place. Under the current laws, neither your opinion nor mine takes precedence, and that is fine with me.
Why is that you (and all the other so-called pro-lifers) want to control someone else's independent decision? And that is what this infringement is all about, is it not? You want to control their decision, their point of view,and their responses to their lives, don't you?
I've often thought it's the people who don't feel in control of themselves, and their lives, that want to control others. The less control they feel they have over themselves, the more they want to control others. One could say that about the rich, greedy, and powerful too, couldn't one.
And there is also the fact that if you admit to the possibility that your assumptions and opinions might be WRONG, then all of the other assumptions and opinions you carry around with you will become suspect as well. Gosh, you might have to change everything you've learned to believe was true. You might have to examine your whole belief system.
Well, you know what has been said about the way people have learned to think about their religions. It beats thinking.
When I was taking biology classes they taught me it took two (in the case of humans at least) to procreate. Those two independant beings are classified as male and female. So neither is truly independant when it comes to "making" a "baby"
hmm,Can you spelL 'H Y P O C R I T E '??
It's quite clear that JackB assumes women think like him. Not so. I know women who have had abortions and to this day they still think about that baby. It's not something most women take lightly. And to assume otherwise is so typically self-rightous.
There is no God who teaches thou shalt not kill and sanctions War.
So going to war with Imperial Japan was wrong? Are you saying we should had done nothing and that the slaughter of the Chinese by them was ok? So after Pearl are you saying we should had said the Japanese are really nice people but just misdirected? Are you saying we should had sat back and been isolationists and ignored the rest of the world? My grandfather who served in the Pacific did not see them as subhuman or monkeys. He stated time and time again that they are simply just like us and fighting for what they believe in.
So can a person be pro abortion and anti war but not be a hypocrite as well? The term Pro Life is just a political twist of trying to say one is anti abortion.
Everyone fighting is actually fighting for what they have learned to believe they are fighting for. Many times what they have learned to believe is a lie foisted upon them by politicians, the wealthy, and corporations that are driven by greed, or by the desire to have power over others. The problem is that attacking others is like an invitation to respond to an attack, with an attack. All fights start with the second blow. However, if we learn to believe that our "national honor" is at stake, or that "it's them or us," or whatever other rationalization s you want to use, most of the time they are just facades being used to keep the people doing the fighting from knowing what is going on.
I don't believe anything will change until the people in power who are starting the wars, are also the ones in the front lines fracing the bullets, grenades, and rockets. Why should they change if there are no immediate consequences to their decisions? And there are no immediate negative consequences when they can send others to do their killing for them, AND get richer at the same time.
Ben was great and brilliant but not always right.
Ryan is a climate denier and has a miserable record on the environment, even as almost daily reports of severe, often record-breaking heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms, and floods, and the very rapid melting of glaciers and polar ice caps, and other reports indicate that we are rapidly approaching a climate catastrophe, major food, water, and energy scarcities, and other environmental disasters
Please check out
http://truth-out.org/news/item/10855-meet-paul-ryan-climate-denier-conspiracy-theorist-koch-acolyte
and
http://grist.org/politics/paul-ryans-budget-plan-is-very-nice-to-big-oil/
When one also considers Ryan’s other VERY conservative policies, including supporting major tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and highly profitable corporations and cutting programs that most Americans depend on, I think it is essential that the Romney-Ryan team be defeated in November.
DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN AT ANY LEVEL
DO VOTE TO GET THESE ANTI-AMERICANS OUT OF OUR GOVERNMENT, VOTE AS IF OUR LIVELIHOODS DEPEND ON IT, AS THEY DO
Until there are two hundred thousand really, really pissed off people on Capital Hill (all at the same time) raising some serious hell absolutely nothing is ever, ever going to happen to these totally bought and paid for by the richest 50 people in the world that are becoming more and more powerful with each passing rigged election thanks to the stupid people.
Phantom: Dick Cheney is a nice guy around his family and friends and within the causes he espouses. But we know the nasty things he's done - right? Like spitefully exposing the CIA-wife of an enemy. Rmoney is a nice guy around his family and friends and within the religion that he freely gives to. But he didn't care about the jobs of the people displaced by his Bain company - did he? And Paul Ryan? I picture him as Rick Santorum with the green eyeshade, looking to rob the poor to give to the rich. RMONEYHOOD! Lots of people are polite in civil society, but vicious behind closed doors.
Human nature, my friend, human nature.
First Cheney did ot expose Plame it was NOvak in his article from information he received from Armitage who worked at the State Dept. It would be nice if all the libs would finally get that fact right and stop blaming the white house (bush, cheney rove).
Second, Romney saved more jobs while at Bain than were lost. Using the steel plant as an example, the steel plant came to Bain asking for money which meant the company stayed open for a couple years longer. The people were going to lose their jobs earlier if Bain had not helped. But then using your comment about how Romney did care about the loss of jobs does that same logic apply to Obama when he took over GM and all the people who lost jobs when it went bankrupt? After all more people lost jobs when you count all the auto dealerships that folded and the fact that GM is now shipping lots of jobs overseas.
Finally, I have never understood how the poor who have nothing can get robbed of something they do not have. If a robber finds someone with no money how does robbing him make the robber rich? Do a person not have to have money in order to be robbed?
Finally, I love the constant reference to Robin Hood by libs. Too bad you don't know the real story. You see Robin Hood was a tea party member. He fought the Sheriff (government) who took money from the people (taxes) and gave it back to the people.
Well that's the idea isn't it, phantom? The President is trying to return some of the money to the people. In the case of Rmoney/Ryan, Ryan's budget would reduce capital gains to ZERO - ZILCH - NADA! And where did Romney make all of his $21 Million that he paid 14% on last year? That's right, capital gains.
I rest my case.
And finally, what is wrong with making money on capital gains? Why do you hate the rich?
There's nothing wrong with making money on capital gains, phantom. And I don't hate the rich. The problem is that the rich are not paying their fair share in taxes. You and the bought congressmen and the right wing talking heads continue to claim CLASS WARFARE while all the time you're doing it. A familiar GOP tactic is to charge the opposition with what they themselves are doing - just as the GOP claims voter fraud while all the time they're committing voter suppression. E.g. Bush cut taxes for the rich by 4.5% when everyone else got a 3% cut. At the same time he cut the cap gains, dividend and estate tax rates - all aimed at wealthy individuals. I don't hate the rich, it's just that the economy was doing just fine until Bush/Cheney got hold of it.
And now we're to believe that Rmoney/Ryan are going to do a better job using the same tactics - only to benefit the rich? We've been there!!!
As for cap gains tax rates in 2000 the lg term cap rate was 10% for those in the lowest tax bracket (15%). It was 20% for those in higher brackets (up to 39%). So what did Bush tax cuts do?
The poor got a 33% tax cut in the rate from 15% to 10%, while the rich went from 39% to 35% which is a 10% tax cut.
Then for cap gain rates the bottom 2 brackets (10 and 15%) now pay ZERO cap gains while those in the 25% and higher pay a 15% rate. Going from 10% rate to ZERO is better than going from 20% to 15%. So it was the middle class who got a better deal and not the rich.
And yes it is Dems who are into Class Warfare. They like to break all Americans into little groups like poor, middle class, white, black, male female, straight, gay etc.
Also, keeping the rates as they currently are is NOT a tax cut but raising them back to pre-Bush is a tax increase.
And Dems have been demonizing the rich for years but even worse under Obama. Let us not forget the Dems "Decade of Greed" campaign referring to the 1980. this is just typical dem playbook.
You people keep screaming about how much we hate the rich...WE DON'T....they just like to keep saying it so people like you end up believing it.
We just want them to pay the same amount of taxes as everyone else does. It's only fair...RIGHT?
.
Tell those 50-60million citizens who will vote for this guy, and his running mate Mitt, and their wealthy paymasters, that this is all true and than you'd better sing it from on high because they are voting against not only their own self interests but against the interests of their communities, their country and their children. They've gotten drunk on the spiked kool-aid and are lining up to commit suicide, on behalf of the wealthiest 1 %.
The Dems - where's the vision, where's the positive future you'd like to lead towards?
Until there are two hundred thousand really, really pissed off people on Capital Hill (all at the same time) raising some serious hell absolutely nothing is ever, ever going to happen to these totally bought and paid for by the richest 50 people in the world that are becoming more and more powerful with each passing rigged election thanks to the stupid people.
http://www.whatnowtoons.com
I have found mens need for carnage repulsive while I was taught bible, new testament and told to read History and Geography Books. They only showed the corruption in man's soul. Man needs to kill not for food, clothes but for the sheer enjoyment of taking life. It matters not whose, animal or human or the very essences that make up this Planet.
No one Party is to blame...however , GOP for all their names are the greediest. Man is to blame...
Define nearly all. NOT even close to half the US population protested.
I read an article in the Sun magazine written by a Special Ops marine who said that if the prime export of Iraz was palm dates, a war with Iraz would have been out of the question.
At the same time, the one senator who would have stood up against the war, Paul Wellstone, was killed under some very suspicious circumstances. In fact, he told people at two different speeches he gave a week before his death, that Dick Cheney had called him, and told him to get with the program.
I'm a firm believer in the concept of GIGO - garbage in, garbage out. The president and everyone involved in taking us to war was feeding us garbage, and that is what came back out with those who listened to him, and thought he was telling us the whole truth.
I wrote a couple of editorials about this topic for a local alternative newspaper, and was basically ignored. Anyone going against the "status-quo" at that time, was basically ignored.
If you watched the film "The Hunger Games" and didn't think that post-Apocalypti c America it protrays was negative, then you might be Paul Ryan.
If you watch the Ayn Rand movie adaptation of "The Fountainhead" and auto-erotically touch yourself, then you might be Paul Ryan.
If your entire life you have taken advantage of "social" benefits to reach your current status, but then believe that we shouldn't preserve the same social benefits for the next generation, you might be Paul Ryan.
If the Chinese Communist Party puts millions into your SuperPac anonymously to help you get elected, knowing that you will aid the continued off-shoring of American jobs to their country, you might be Paul Ryan.
If you read Dickens "Christmas Carol" and think Ebenezer Scrooge is simply a misunderstood "job creator" and those Socialist ghosts should have left him alone, you might be Paul Ryan.
In Iraq, who knows how many real "enemy" were killed, but the numbers for innocents killed and displaced are more likely North of 1,000,000. Particularly hard hit were women and children.
Let's ignore the slime and discuss.
I bet you can't.
I once heard it put that it was like feeding oats to horses. The birds got to pick up the leftover grains on the ground.
It's been written that if one took all the money in the world, and divided it up between the rich, there still wouldn't be enough for any of them.
It's also been written that to a wise person, enough is as good as a feast. To a greedy person, there will never be enough. Why? I believe it's because all greed is based on fear - the fear of never having enough.
As with all addictions, a person who is addicted will almost alwasys be in denial of what is driving them to behave as they do. There will always be the rationalization s that they use to make themselves think they are not the ones with the problem. And they will always look to blame others for all the decisions they make that allow or further their addictive behaviors.
Perhaps what we need is a 200,000 person intervention, in the form of Occupy D.C..
Obama shoudl quit playing the nice guy who say what a nice guy Ryan is. Ryan is NOT a nice guy. He just plays like he is.
Likableness and amiability aside, anyone who has been paying even scant attention in the last six months should be alarmed at the idea of a Paul Ryan being even half-a-heartbea t away from the oval office. All one needs to do is have a gander at his so-called "Ryan Plan". Don't take my word for it. Look it up and see for yourself; right wing social engineering at its cruelest. Under his plan the uber rich will be doing quite nicely. Not so for the rest of us. "Blessed are the meek"? Think again.
If religion were a thing that money could buy
Then the rich would live and the poor would die
Same Shit, Different Dog.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
These are great points - if they'll go out there with legs and put them in the electorate's consciousness. OTOH, the GOP has done well with the mantra of one (or more) of their icons: "Facts are stupid things." I just heard political consultant Drew Westen, tearing into *both* political parties and candidates by the way, and he observed that "Money can't buy me love - but it can buy me Washington."
Or as one genius icon ("W") would say, 'Fool me once, and um, uh ....' We need to look at REALITY as well as hypocrisy. Facts may be stupid to propagandists, but are vital to the living breathing people impacted by our nation's 'leadership'.
It would be difficult to find two more strident advocates for reverse-Robin-h ooding the remaining 'wealth' and health of a 'middle class'. A more dangerous, detached, and patron-beholden set of candidates has probably never been seen before, though Cheney/Condy Rummy, etc. came mighty close.
Will the facts make a difference? Only if they matter to We the People who vote! And vote we must! IMHO, we need a *landslide* to be heard over the din and influence of Fox etc. and PAC money.
Her book and her economic philosophy have been proven to be a failure!
…And proof is not required; just use common sense to think it out.
Republican Party philosophy has been a failure for the last 100 years –since 1912. Check it out, Google it. Read the History Books.
RSS feed for comments to this post