Everyone’s favorite “smart” Republican:
Speaking on Morning Joe Thursday morning, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) compared the current situation in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker (R) has inspired days of protests by proposing a budget that would remove key bargaining powers for public employee unions, to the recent unrest in Egypt that toppled the 30-year authoritarian rule of Hosni Mubarak, saying it’s “like Cairo has moved to Madison these days.”
Not only is this an awesome Hoekstroika, I’m wondering how Walker feels being compared to Mubarak.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Except what Ryan sees when he looks at Egypt is the unruly masses rising up against the benevolent ruler that was only tyrannical because they couldn’t govern themselves. He’s baffled as to why people would be turning against Walker because we all should know how much unions have done to destroy our country. See EDK’s post on education reform as another example.
joe from Lowell
Rachel Maddow made an interesting point last night: the protests in Madison are the same size as the protests in Bahrain, which some think stand a chance of toppling the government.
fasteddie9318
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
In Ryan’s case, it would be more helpful to Google any of the great number of informative web pages dealing with the subject of mental disability.
Culture of Truth
Ok, that’s hiliarous.
If I may quite Jon Lovitz as Dukakis,
“I can’t believe we’re losing to these guys.”
Poopyman
I’m thinking the typical Repuglican views Mubarak as one of their own who got shafted by their own unwashed masses and sold out by The Kenyan.
So, pretty good, probably.
danimal
Ryan’s walkback on comparing the WI GOP leadership to Hosni Mubarak in three…two…one…
c u n d gulag
For every Conservative who thinks Ryan is some sort of a genious, look at how he put his foot in his mouth on this one.
That boy’s only seems bright when you hold him up against Bachmann, Pence, Goemert, and the Brothers King.
He’s basically an imbecile.
Nice hair, though!
Stefan
Speaking on Morning Joe Thursday morning, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) compared the current situation in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker® has inspired days of protests by proposing a budget that would remove key bargaining powers for public employee unions, to the recent unrest in Egypt that toppled the 30-year authoritarian rule of Hosni Mubarak, saying it’s “like Cairo has moved to Madison these days.”
I can see that: in both cases brave protestors are asserting their inalienable rights to dignity and democracy against a corrupt, repressive regime which is trying to grab onto power for the sake of power.
Oh, wait, that’s not how Ryan meant it?
cleek
100 internet bux to the first to spot a wingnut making a rape joke about WI.
Bulworth
Conservatives still doubling down on the “The Egyptian revolution was bad” meme. Since it’s the Rush, Beck line, I guess I’m not surprised. But it seems quite at odds with most of America’s response. I wonder if anyone will call them on it.
shortstop
I always hope this guy will never stop talking.
shortstop
@shortstop: That sounds like I put it through an online translation program to another language, then another, then back again.
Zifnab
I don’t even know. The public workers in Madison are staring down four and five digit pay cuts. They’re not starving yet, but a budgetary beating like that very well could move some employees on to food stamps.
It’s not a perfect analogy by a long stretch, but there is definitely a similar youth-powered anti-plutocrat vibe running through both Cairo and Madison.
Dave
@Bulworth: For a movement that is usually so “on point” with how they talk, they have been wildly disorganized over Egypt. Rush thinks it’s bad, Beck thinks China and Al-Qaeda are going to take over…and then Fox is fellating W for his “freedom agenda” and how it liberated Egypt. It’s a joy to watch.
freelancer
Rachel Maddow’s opening segment last night was kind of about the meta of this isssue. If you place yourself in the bubble of Right Wing Media, with all it’s mythos, misinformation, and hate, it becomes bizzarro news. What happens then is, as far as the rest of the country is concerned, you look like an abject monster or total buffoon.
But if you listen to nothing but Hannity, Beck, Levin, Ingraham, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Malkin, et. al., you have come to the conclusion that Hosni Mubarak was an American Strongman who was ousted by an Islamosocia|ist uprising. If you’re then watching Wisconsin, you’re seeing union thugs gather to intimidate a noble freshman Republican Governor.
asiangrrlMN
The emperor has no clothes! Paul Ryan is an idiot. That is all. And, Madison ain’t that far away from me….
JPL
I started to watch the interview online and stopped because Joe was gushing about Ryan being the only one speaking to the truth. Ryan doesn’t know what the truth is. He needs to debate Krugman for ten minutes and then realize that his sound bites don’t mean much.
BTW..did Ryan vote against an unfunded mandate to bomb Iraq?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jon Chait has been kicking the shit out of Ryan for scolding Obama for not rubber stamping Bowles-Simpson, even though Ryan, as a member of the commission, voted against BS, and the simpering, fawning press corps (personified by Mike Allen) for failing to notice.
cyntax
Wasn’t Mubarak the write-in candidate with the most votes at CPAC this year?
Comrade Dread
I’m pretty sure Ryan meant that the rabble of public employees were secret members of the Muslim Brotherhood ready to impost a soshalist sharia state.
KG
My favorite part of this whole thing is the line we keep hearing that “politicians made promises we can’t keep.” Well, there’s a legal term of art for that, especially when you’re talking about something like a collective bargaining agreement… it’s called breach of contract. And we are told that contracts are sacred, so to knowingly and brazenly breach such a contract, well, that’s just downright unamerican.
Ana Gama
If you live nearby, head on over to Madison this weekend. A bunch of us from SW Michigan will see you there.
Cat Lady
We are all Cheeseheads now.
Sloegin
The silly thing is it’s not so much union-busting, as an SEIU-busting. SEIUs typically roll over and play dead if you scratch their bellies even a tiny bit.
This is all about rule by Dicktat.
Dave
But how about the bigger travesty with Ryan saying the public benefits are so much more generous than their private counterparts? He ignore two things.
First, public employees are paid less and the benefits make up the difference so that the total compensation of public/private is roughly equal.
Second, these “generous” benefits are things we all used to take for granted. For the most part, we all used to have good health care that didn’t bankrupt us and secure jobs and the guarantee that as long as we worked, we could provide for our kids. Then the GOP started a multi-decade campaign to strip that away.
The unions are the last bastion of that former life because they have the law on their side to enforce the standards. So the GOP turns around and holds them as some kind of divas to get the rest of us to turn on them. It’s a fucking evil plan and all too often, it works.
D-boy
It looks like the Wisc Democrats are going to boycott the vote on this bill so it will be interesting to see if the Republicans blink
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/116381289.html
JPL
Paul Ryan is probably concerned that Walker is going to call out his private goons just like Mubarak did.
hahaha.. It’s a possibility though.
Allan
The editors at Madison’s liberal daily, the CapTimes, are not Walker fans either.
I keep re-reading that editorial because it’s just so damned bracing to see a representative of the press speaking truth to power.
dmsilev
Relative to the rest of the GOP caucus, he probably does qualify as smart. Still, I believe that conservative dogma opposes grading on a curve…
dms
Poopyman
@shortstop: Try telling somebody “You always cease to amaze me.”
Ash Can
I kind of agree with Zifnab. No, a Midwestern state with a horse’s ass for a governor isn’t the same as a leading Mideast nation with a strongman-for-life head of state. Nevertheless, what strikes me about what’s happening in Wisconsin is this: For decades, the average Joes-in-the-street in this country have let the (increasingly extreme) Republicans get away with murder. The mass media has been complicit, to be sure, but over the past 40 years and more people have continually voted against their own self interests — even when it comes back around to bite them in the ass. Now, however, these people finally — finally! — have been pushed too far. They’ve woken up, at least somewhat, and they’re fighting back.
We’ve all wondered aloud here for some time what it would take to make middle-class and lower-class voters finally figure out that today’s Republicans are not their friends. We’ve all wondered whether a line in the sand even existed. Well, I guess it does exist, and it’s in Wisconsin, and Governor Asshole went and stepped over the sucker.
Dave
@Allan: That piece is enlightening. Walker is trying to funnel $140M in special-interest spending to his cronies and then claiming a fiscal crisis to break the unions.
We have a similar, if smaller, version of this “break the people, enrich the wealthy” idea here in Maine. Our TeaBag governor is proposing cutting $20 million from the welfare programs, which could send hundreds of families onto the street. And it just happens to be the same amount that a new estate tax cut would cost. What a coincidence!
Villago Delenda Est
@Bulworth:
Well, the “This is the George W. Bush democracy wave!” meme kinda fell onto the rocks and smashed into a bazillion pieces, so the “revolution is BAD!” meme is all they’ve got left.
Allan
This reminds me of the preview for the latest comedy about the courtship misadventures of a bunch of former sit-com actors and stand-up comedians, in which the prinicple that you make yourself appear more attractive by surrounding yourself with uglier people is illustrated to humorous effect.
Mike in NC
He probably meant Cairo, Illinois. GOP Congresspeople have trouble with things like arithmetic and geography and, well, pretty much everything else not in the Bible.
Sue
Ryan also called the protests ‘riots’. Yeah, nothing can inspire violence like a crowd made up of third grade teachers and social workers.
Villago Delenda Est
Friendly revision offered.
shortstop
@cyntax: Snap.
@Poopyman: Ooh, that’s good. You bet I will.
shortstop
@Sue: People could get raped in that. They should be aware of it going in.
Too soon?
ed drone
@Mike in NC:
Hell, they flunk that ‘un, too.
Ed
El Cid
@Comrade Dread: We should be on the lookout for the seditionists in Madison to be blinking their eyes to signal suras from the Koran, or printing signs with anagrams of “caliphate”.
JPL
The Plum Line has an article up now about Ryan’s appearance on Morning Joe that’s worth a read. link
shortstop
@El Cid: As long as the new words keep the long A a la Beck, “caliphayte.” He probably says “mentore” and “delegayte,” too.
No, I don’t know why I’m focusing on this, either.
Sue
Democratic State Senators are nowhere to be found, rumor has it that they are out of state and can’t be brought back to establish the quorum required to act on the bill.
DUDES!
Mike E
@asiangrrlMN:
…wishing that it wasn’t far from me, here, in Mayberry. “Right2Work” state and all. Middle Class, RIP.
Funny thing: when the shiz was going down in Cairo, I blurbed to a friend that this all seemed similar to Solidarity-fest in Poland, back in the day. I can hope this be the case here in Freedomland…
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike E:
The irony of the Polish Solidarity fest was that Ronald Reagan was cheering on a labor union. I guess those things are just fine over in commie-land, but they’re beyond evil here in the land of the “Free Market”.
Cris
Shouldn’t you be coloring the blog orange?
tworivers
Scott Walker later held a press conference which consisted solely of a heartfelt rendition of his indelible classic “It’s Raining Today”.
New Yorker
Brilliant. Maybe he’ll next compare the union leadership to that troublemaker Lech Walesa.
Elizabelle
Yup.
And this is their Great White Hope.
He only looks like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Elizabelle
@Ash Can:
I so hope you are right that we have reached a tipping point.
Long time coming.
Cliff
@Sue:
Yup, They stood up for labor and ran for the hills, word is they are out of state so the state police can’t come after them.
A Most interesting adventure is coming our way these next few years.
Imagine that, Democrats with spines. Its a good thing to see finally!
Jamie
Jeesh, Wisconsin has been in a state of emergency for the last 30 years?
Dominique
First Iranians, now Egyptians. You Americans…
“Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.” – http://twitter.com/petehoekstra/status/2208228550
martha
Paul Ryan is an idiot but he’s a malleable one and is good at parroting what his masters, the corporatists, want him to say. He is also a fiscal fraud.
I’m proud of my city and state today and good on the Dem state senators for heading out of town and foiling Scotty “Talker’s” best laid plans.
Jeanne ringland
@joe from Lowell: Why is there nothing on the national news about Madison?
Nick
@joe from Lowell:
Bahrain has like 1/5 of the population of Wisconsin
Nick
@joe from Lowell:
Bahrain has like 1/5 of the population of Wisconsin
4jkb4ia
It’s Jeffrey Goldberg, so I am positive John didn’t see it, but he has a picture of a protest sign with the names and pictures of Mubarak, Hitler, and Walker. No joke. Post was good snark too.
Triassic Sands
If I lived in Wisconsin I’d “be in the streets” about this ultra-right-wing POS. And I’d be seriously looking at
RECALL.
Oh, a word of caution to protesters — don’t count on freedom loving American law enforcement to be as lenient as their Egyptian counterparts were.
bob h
I have this vague recollection from American history that Wisconsin was a center of the Progressive movement- LaFollette, and the like. And now it is ground zero for trogolodyte Republicanism!
Tancrudo
I say we run with it. America’s Tahrir Square is in front of the State Capitol in Madison.
Aren’t Americans sick of non-representative government by a kleptocracy, the same as Egyptians were?
We bicker around the difference between corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans, but the difference seems to be only that the corpoDems just move the ball down the field towards plutocracy whereas the corpoRepubs score touchdowns. The fake Koch-sponsored Tea Party eats up the airways with counterfactual fantasies of overtaxation amid the lowest taxation of half a century, nobody on Wall Street will ever be prosecuted for the greatest financial swindle in a century, and now state governors threaten to destroy the middle class with force of arms if necessary.
Have we had enough yet?