The head of a northeast Ohio charity says that the Romney campaign last week “ramrodded their way” into the group’s Youngstown soup kitchen so that GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan could get his picture taken washing dishes in the dining hall.
Brian J. Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, said that he was not contacted by the Romney campaign ahead of the Saturday morning visit by Ryan, who stopped by the soup kitchen after a town hall at Youngstown State University.
“We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations,” Antal said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there, and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.”
He added: “The photo-op they did wasn’t even accurate. He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall.”
I’m surprised there is actually a charity still out there that realizes nonprofits are supposed to be apolitical.
RedKitten
That’s just so typical of those two, isn’t it? It would be funny if I weren’t frightened as hell that those two asshats might actually fool enough people into voting for them.
gogol's wife
If this had been Obama or Biden it would be leading the news on all the networks.
YellowJournalism
Someone in another thread suggested bringing clean dishes to Romney/Ryan events for Ryan to “wash.” I think banging the pots and pans would be more fun.
How much you want to bet they try to compare this to FLOTUS going to a soup kitchen more than a year back?
MikeJ
@YellowJournalism:
We’re banging pots and pans
To make you understand
We gonna bury you man
It’s the song I hate, it’s the song I hate
cmorenc
Former President Jimmy Carter, who to this day remains a favorite target of scornful reference by Republicans, actually DID voluntarily spend days constructing houses for Habitat for Humanity. Paul Ryan OTOH considers a soup kitchen merely a handy prop for an empty photo op. Ryan apparently believes he can gain favorable publicity from the photo without anyone busting him for the actual brevity and emptiness of his purported “service”.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Ryan probably spend all his time looking for a bathtub to drown the dishes in.
Nerull
Every single little detail about both of these guys is fake, carefully crafted to match whatever they feel voters want to see. Absolutely nothing they do is genuine.
Their real problem is neither is a very good actor. They suck at being fake, but the media plays along.
Hill Dweller
@gogol’s wife:
If Obama had favorably compared his campaign to a former SEAL giving his life, the media would crush him. If the parents of two of the four that died in Benghazi had publicly criticized Obama’s campaign for using their sons as a political football, the media would crush him.
Willard did both, but has paid no price.
geg6
@YellowJournalism:
FLOTUS goes to food pantries and soup kitchens all the time. It’s also how the Obama family has spent their Thanksgiving every year since the girls were little. But none of them go barging in, taking over the place for photo ops and acting like they did something long after the meal was served and the kitchen cleaned. This is just disgusting to me. Faking charity? Really? That’s about as low as anything I can imagine.
BFR
It’s a pretty sad commentary on society that these guys have (correctly) determined that there’s no downside to being this lazy.
RedKitten
And of course the campaign’s response is that those plebes should be happy for.the publicity. Again, typical Repub…”we’ll TELL you what you should value.”
Napoleon
Proud ex Y-towner here. Great they called him out.
cathyx
The story I read said that the dishes were already clean. He just grabbed them for the picture. They didn’t need to be washed.
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
I wonder if Ryan kicked any hobos while he was there. I’d hate to think he might have missed his chance to vent his scorn upon a few of the truly worthless 47%.
geg6
@Napoleon:
My niece is going to YSU. She said she wore her Obama/Biden t-shirt all day, all over campus. Just in case she ran into any media. She’s a good girl, she is.
Just Some Fuckhead
Nuts To Soup
Yutsano
@Hill Dweller: Say it with me now: IOKIYAR. It’s not just a slogan.
@RedKitten: They’ve told us all we need to know. Now vote for Willard or you’re fired plebe.
Chris
@geg6:
It’s Ryan tossing a sop to the moderates. The hardcore wingnuts consider charity just as morally evil as welfare, but there’s a bunch of noobs out there that still fall for the “of COURSE we care about charity, we just don’t want the GOVERNMENT doing it!”
Like everything else, he does the absolute bare minimum required for the purposes of his campaign, e.g. not even taking a shift in the soup kitchen, just having a picture taking and leaving… which is par for the course for the Romney/Ryan campaign, and generally the extremely lazy ethic that’s taken over the party since Palin. But it doesn’t seem to matter to a lot of his supporters, True Believers or suckers.
MaryRC
@cathyx: Talk about “malarkey”. If you looked it up in the dictionary, there’d be a picture of Ryan pretending to wash a clean pot next to it.
Napoleon
@geg6:
I am a YSU grad as well. This would take 6 hours to write and I do not have the time but in a way my impression of y-town is that even though demographically they should be “Regaen Dems” they really never have been.
cbear
@Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
Don’t be so cynical. Those hobos are lucky he didn’t cut out their livers and serve them to his wife and kids with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@Chris:
Yes, I’ve never understood this. I’ve gotten into debates online with freaks who think this way. They’re all for “private charity”, since it’s important that the evil government not help people. That’s a job for private charities.
Then, about half of the time, it comes up that I run a small non-profit myself. And then, all of a sudden, they get all over my ass about how I’m a lazy good-for-nothing loser who’s too dumb or incompetent to have a “real job”. It actually seems to offend them.
All I can reaon is that there is a big part of this country for whom the very idea of helping people, anybody, is utterly, viscerally vile. They’ll mouth the obligatory empty words touting charity in theory, when they find themselves dealing with an actual charity in any way, their loathing gets the best of them, and it all comes spewing out.
Rusty
Re: Cole’s surprise that there are org’s who even realize they’re supposed to be apolitical…
St Vincent de Paul’s is one of the very best charities out there for helping the poor, and the management of their individual centers are almost always pretty enlightened. I’d gather there are few directors of their centers who aren’t fully aware of the strictures for remaining apolitical.
I know, I know, you were being sarcastic. But sometimes cynicism gets the best of us.
Yutsano
@cbear: He most likely couldn’t get a $350 bottle of chianti on short notice.
nellcote
Ryan had his own kids don aprons and participate in the fraud as well. Family Values!
geg6
@Napoleon:
We are so close to Y-town that it’s as easy to drive into Y-town as it is to Pittsburgh. It used to be a really great town. Don’t know how old you are, but if we are anywhere close in age, we may have seen each other somewhere when you were in college, especially the Tomorrow Club. Man, I saw some great shows there. That was late 70s, early 80s. Crazy times.
Chris
@Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
The simple litmus test is whether or not they love and agree with Ayn Rand. Simple way to tell whether they’re genuinely against government overreach (on constitutional, philosophical, whatever grounds) or whether they’re actually sociopathic fucks who think anyone less lucky than them has a moral obligation to fucking die.
Ayn Rand, of course, is a fucking saint as far as most of the conservative hard base is concerned. Which tells you all you need to know.
BFR
@nellcote:
Valuable life lesson learned there:
Pretending to care > Actually caring
Higgs Boson's Mate
Ryan was doing us a favor; he was showing us what life would be like for most under a Romney administration.
andy
Yep Ryan fake-washed some dishes just like Bush the Younger “served” the troops that big plastic stunt turkey one Tday in Iraq. Why do anything meaningful when a fake gesture will serve?
ding dong
He probably wanted to check out how many people served by the soup kitchen had cell phones especially those obama cellphones.
Spaghetti Lee
Jesus Christ, this guy’s like the bad guy from a bad political thriller. Forcing your way into a soup kitchen for a photo op and then not actually doing any work? Jesus Christ, even Tom fucking Emmer managed to actually wait tables for a shift, as I recall. Ryan’s such a preening asshole that he won’t even let himself touch dirty dishes.
TenguPhule
To be fair, Ryan is just running to get his picture taken in the White House.
Ralph Wiggum
Malarky!
If they wanted a cheap photo-op, Romney/Ryan would have just bought the soup=kitchen. Poor people are such sore losers it’s insufferable.
Applejinx
HEY! Cut the poor bastard a break.
They told him it was a homeless food shelf! He thought he could pick up a couple for the winter. Field dress ’em if need be. If you ask me, I think he handled the disappointment very well.
For chrissakes they won’t even be in SEASON until he gets elected…
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Oh, but he’s so earnest and slim and dreamy! (I think I’m going to be sick….)
cbear
@Applejinx: Hunting over a baited field, huh? That’s cold, even for a gooper.
pseudonymous in nc
@Rusty:
Yeah, they’re definitely the “social gospel” side of Catholicism, which probably means that the Vatican will be setting the Inquisition on them soon.
Applejinx
@cbear:
No no, you silly! I figure he was expecting just a big shelf with a bunch of fresh homeless on it. What a let-down to just have a bunch of pots and pans.
He’s all like “Will there be homeless in tomorrow? Can I come early, before they’re too picked over?”
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
Did he bring his weights and douche bag hat?
Napoleon
@geg6:
I am 51
Applejinx
In all seriousness, though- once I get over my childish delight at coming up with the line ‘for chrissakes they won’t even be in season until he’s elected’, I will still be utterly dumbfounded that this guy can barge in, endanger the freaking shelter by politicizing it, and pose for pictures pretending to wash unused pans. “He did nothing”.
Um… I guess this is good for J…
Fuck it, this isn’t EVEN good for John McCain. ;P
hep kitty
@Applejinx: It’s good for us! :)
hep kitty
It’s not like Paul Ryan didn’t want to drag his skinny P90X body, lovely wife and kids to a soup kitchen and force down grits and donuts around a bunch of smelly homeless people. He just happened to be late and missed all the fun. Not his fault the only thing left to do was pretend to clean already clean pots and pans!
Lurking Canadian
@geg6: It’s also how the Obama family has spent their Thanksgiving every year since the girls were little
Seriously? My God, they are even more amazing people than I thought. It is possible that the world doesn’t deserve them.
JenJen
What I love the most about this story is that those good people in YTown stood up and told the truth, and they are not people easily snowed.
Also too, obligatory Miami University Frat Boy slam, just because I can. BOBCATS FOREVER
Chris
@geg6:
Didn’t know that, but coming from community organizers, I’m not surprised.
(Yeah, yeah, I know. “Not a real job,” etc).
James K. Polk, Esq.
In all fairness, it’s not like Ryan could have any possible way of knowing what time a lunch would be served.
honus
@geg6: All the great bands were from Youngstown. The joke from the roadies when you asked them where they were from “Youngstown, the music capital of the world” and it was only said half jokingly.
Do the names Law and Freeport mean anything to you?
honus
@geg6: Almost forgot Glass Harp!
AlladinsLamp
I’m surprised they didn’t go there to eat the homeless.
JGabriel
__
__
John Cole:
I’m surprised any charity can remain apolitical at a time when the GOP wants to cut funding for every charity and believes charity is evil — except for pro-business “charity” like ALEC and Crossroads.
.
YellowJournalism
Quote from the a dining hall coordinator:
“It was the phoniest piece of baloney I’ve ever been associated with. In hindsight, I would have never let him in the door.”
If you see the picture, you can totally tell the waiting dishes are clean, and there are so few of them, it’s obvious that there was nothing actually going on at he time. Also, their aprons are spotless.
burnspbesq
I’m surprised that after repeatedly being told that that’s not even close to what the applicable IRS regulations say, you continue to trot out that tired old canard.
Actually, on second thought, I’m not.
Mnemosyne
To be fair, you can’t have actually expected Ryan to show up with his children in tow when the great unwashed were actually on the premises. That might give them the notion that Daddy is full of shit when he spouts Objectivist doctrine at them.
Tonal Crow
Say it again: Romney/Ryan is bullshit lyin’.
Nerull
“If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.” – Ayn Rand
owlbear1
I guess the Rmoney campaign felt Antal would stay quiet because everybody knows not to cross Willard Romney?
mak
Oh, man. Just saw the video of Ryan “washing” a pan. He puts soap on a green scrub pad, grabs one of those deep buffet serving pans (which does look clean), gives it a .5 second wipe on one surface, then spends the rest of the clip rinsing the pan. Either the pan was clean, or he did a really shitty job of cleaning it.
Mr Furious
I can’t imagine those affiliated with this charity will remain “apolitical” much longer.
Original Lee
@YellowJournalism: Not only that, but the pink soap they are using to “wash” the dishes is actually a concentrate that is supposed to be diluted before use, so they actually were wasting resources with that little photo op. Those dishes probably needed to be rinsed eleventy million times before they could be used again.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Original Lee:
Yeah, I washed pots and pans in college for work-study money. One of the best jobs in the kitchen, IMHO – right next to the speaker for the radio, and one gets to work alone at one’s own pace.
Sink full of soapy water, sink full of rinse water, sink full of iodine disinfectant – and the disinfectant also had the advantage of showing if you didn’t scrub well enough, since it would stain any residue. Hard, sweaty work, though I suppose it’s not as hard as running a sub-3 marathon – oh, heh, right, he never did that, either.
Lex
I was delighted to see this blow up on Twitter last night, with people saying such things as, “Hey, Paul Ryan, after you finish washing those clean dishes, how ’bout you come to my house and wash my clean car?”
Jackass. And kudos to the charity for speaking out clearly and forthrightly.
WaterGirl
I was kind of shocked to see Ryan actually shaking hands with people in the video, and then I realized: Of course, these were not the unwashed masses who actually eat at the soup kitchen; these were soup kitchen volunteers.