Monday Stuff

Once more unto the breach, dear friends...

#7, Louie Gohmert
#8, Allen West
#9, Joe Pitts
#10, Jack Kingston
#11, Patrick McHenry
#12, Spencer Bachus
#13, Jim Gerlach
#14, Cliff Stearns
#15, Jean Schmidt
#16, Phil Gingrey
#17, David Schweikert
#18, Virginia Foxx
#19, Pete Sessions
#20, Charlie Dent
#21, Cathy McMorris Rodgers
#22, Chris Smith
#23, Todd Akin
#24, Buck McKeon
#25, Kristi Noem
#26, Hal Rogers
#27, Lou Barletta (Two bonus selections: Boren and Ross)
#28, Paul Broun
#29, Mary Bono Mack
#30, David Dreier
#31, Marsha Blackburn (including backgrounder)

…and that brings us to #6 on our list of U.S. House Repugs opposed to health care reform, and that would be none other than the man of the hour, Willard Mitt Romney’s VP nominee himself, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

As I work my way down this list, I feel my level of disgust rising more and more with each of these fools and frauds, and though it may rise higher still before I’m all done with this, I must tell you that it’s pretty damn elevated at this moment. And that’s because, like no other politician with the possible exception of John McCain, Puppy-Dog-Eyes Ryan has the Beltway media-political establishment utterly cowed.

It doesn’t matter how many times Ryan’s supposedly bold and visionary economic proposals are blown up by actual economists performing actual math showing the actual, real-world misery that would result if Ryan’s horrendous scheme were ever signed into law, under the guise of supposed deficit reduction (which, as is just about always the case with this bunch, would in fact make the deficit worse). And it just doesn’t matter how many times Ryan, among others, spouts the utterly craven lie that he, in fact, is the supposed protector of Medicare, as opposed to that mean, nasty President Obama who supposedly wants to destroy it.

And it also just doesn’t matter how many times it is pointed out that what Ryan proposes goes so completely against what he is supposed to represent as a Roman Catholic (his alleged religious affiliation) that it makes a sick mockery of that faith. Short of a charge of criminal activity resulting in prosecution in a court of law (and I don’t believe that will ever happen, if for no other reason because Ryan wouldn’t be where he is unless he were a smart and cagey individual, and I don’t see him doing anything like that), we are going to keep hearing the same mythology from our corporate media that we’ve been hearing from Ryan from now into the distant future.

So, with all of this in mind, I give you the following:

Here is a primer, more or less, on Ryan, courtesy of Think Progress.

When the Repugs are busy trying to spin Number 44 as the person supposedly trying to gut welfare through granting waivers to states, more or less (hilarious to hear a Repug pretend to care about welfare), I would ask that you keep this in mind.

He believes ending a pregnancy should be illegal, even if the pregnancy is the product of rape or incest or endangers the woman’s health (here).

Oh, and as noted here, Ryan trashed “Romney-Care” in 2010 (ruh-row).

And Ryan was so productive on the job too, as noted here.

But don’t you know that Ryan had “a dozen” Democratic supporters for his budget, who Ryan won’t reveal (just like he won’t reveal his tax returns further than two years back – and stop me if you’ve heard this before).

Finally, choice items here include his endorsement from the Log Cabin Republicans, a truly laughable group of human beings at this point for their relentless capitulation to the GOP even when it is in opposition to their professed positions; also, Ryan financially benefits from the health insurance industry; Think Progress also tells us how Romney-Ryan would protect “too big to fail” banks; and of course, now that the Repug presidential ticket has zero foreign policy experience, that’s OK (as opposed to that baaad Kenyan Muslim socialist in ’08, who had not much also and was vilified relentlessly for it).

The selection of Paul Ryan for Willard Mitt Romney’s VP candidate is the perhaps inevitable result of the “magical” thinking of that party in collusion with our Beltway media political complex, where facts are impervious to the bubble of pseudo-reality in which they surround themselves. And as far as I’m concerned, that makes it the sworn duty of every American voter to rupture that bubble beyond any possible repair in November...



Update 1 8/17/12: Such a fine, upstanding Christian man of morality and integrity (here)...

Update 2 8/17/12: Nice idea, but good luck with this.

Update 8/30/12: Thoroughly beneath contempt (here)...

...and when I think of Ryan (which I try not to do, actually), this song somehow comes to mind.