Tag: Campaign 2012

Ryan Caught Lying: ‘I Never Asked for Stimulus’ – But Documents Prove He Earmarked At Least $25 Mil

Jon Ponder

Think Progress:

On Tuesday, the Boston Globe and Associated Press reported on documents showing that GOP Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan had secured more than $20 million in stimulus funds for a local energy efficiency organization.

According to the reports, the documents showed that Ryan also brought in $5.4 million for local bus services. His requests came at the same time he was publicly calling the stimulus a “wasteful spending spree.”

However, in an interview with a local Ohio television news station, Ryan claimed he never secured funding through the program, saying “I never asked for stimulus.”

The Associated Press wrote a follow-up story to Ryan’s comments:

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Of Course Romney and Ryan are Lying. That’s Nicer Than the Truth

Trish

ThumbsUpConstructionGuyCropWebRepublicans have a core problem, and Michael Tomasky brilliantly uncovered it. They have to lie, he says, because the truth is that they don’t care about people like us. They know their policies won’t work for us but if they convince us they will, we will let them keep on feeding on us.

Tomasky begins by saying you couldn’t write a novel where someone like Romney picks as his running mate someone like Ryan, who comes from a prominent family in the road construction business that made most of its money from government contracts.

A fiction editor would say, “Come on, Tomasky, this is just too heavy-handed.”

It’s tricky business to trick us. You have to lie.

Especially if the same candidate and his running mate were attacking the other guy with a lie that specifically distorted what he’d said about, of all things, roads and bridges! (“You didn’t build that.”) Grandpappy Ryan did exactly what Obama says other people did to help small businesses thrive. He built the roads. And he was paid to do so by government road contracts. Forget fiction. That’s even too pat for Hollywood.

Even George W. Bush needed help from strategist Paul O’Neill with his talking points, running as he was, on the same trickle-down voodoo economics that failed to win re-election for his father, George H.W. Bush. It’s tricky business to trick us. You have to parse your words carefully. Or to put it another way, you have to lie.

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Van Jones: Don’t Underestimate Paul Ryan

Trish

Ryan is THE most effective weapon the other side has. He makes the argument for austerity with passion, poise and skill. He is a true believer. Vice President Biden better eat his Wheaties before the debate.

— Van Jones, former Green Energy Czar in the Obama administration, who was targeted by Glenn Beck after publicly referring to Republicans as “assholes.” Jones has since taken a lead role at MoveOn.org’s Rebuild the Dream initiative, and is launching a campaign to personalize and energize progressive election efforts through works by artists and musicians, along with narratives from people on the receiving end of failed Republican policies.

Fox News fact check: ‘Ryan budget plan doesn’t actually slash the budget’

Jon Ponder

This is from Fox News — yes! the Republican Party’s own propaganda network:

Here are a few little-known facts about Paul Ryan’s supposedly slash-and-burn budget plan.

  • Government spending increases almost every year over the next decade.
  • Tax and other revenue rises year after year.
  • The 10-year deficit is still $3 trillion.

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With Congressman Ryan on the Ticket, Obama Is Positioned to Run Against the Least Popular Political Group: The Republican House

Jon Ponder

In the 1996 presidential campaign, the Clinton-Gore reelection team unilaterally made House Speaker Newt Gingrich Bob Dole’s de facto running mate, shunting aside Dole’s real vice presidential choice, Jack Kemp, a moderate centrist.

In a series of campaign ads like the one above, the reelect team were successful in tying the speaker — one of the least popular and most divisive figures in politics then (as now) who had shut down the federal government on two separate occasions a few months earlier — to Dole in part because Dole was the majority leader in the Senate, Gingrich’s counterpart in the leadership of the upper body. Dole’s association with Gingrich became so onerous that he resigned from the Senate in June 1996 to focus full time on the campaign. Even so, Clinton walloped him, winning by 8.5 percentage points in November.

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Inside a Mitt Romney Rally, or At Least Near It

Trish
TruthRomney
Left, 'Truth,' and on the other side, (right) 'Romney.' WTF???

I hope you faithful Pensito Reviewers appreciate my sacrifice in bringing you these crowd shots from Mitt Romney’s appearance in St. Augustine, Fla. on Monday, Aug. 13. I had to get up at 6 a.m. — that’s 6 in the morning, people! — to start my day with a bunch of rabid Republicans and tea partiers.

I wanted to stick around for the speechifying by Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Gov. Rick Scott, Sen. Marco Rubio, and of course, Willard himself but the speakers started late (you’d think Republicans would be on time and Democrats would run late), and going on three hours in, I wanted to flee the scene. The vibe was decidedly “We’re taking our country back,” and since I’m the one they’re trying to take it back from, it wasn’t pleasant.

But do enjoy these shots. I made them just for you.

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