.
NYMag‘s Margaret Hartman, reporting yesterday:
Paul Ryan is set to unveil a new budget framework this week, and in a preview on Fox News Sunday, he confirmed that his budget assumes Obamacare will be repealed. An incredulous Chris Wallace responded, “Well, that’s not going to happen,” but Ryan would not be deterred by reality. “Well, we believe it should, that’s the point. That’s what budgeting is all about,” he said. “It’s about making tough choices to fix our country’s problems. We believe that Obamacare is a program that will not work.”…
Ryan and his GOP con-conspirators released that budget today. Since allowing Chris Wallace to look like ‘the politically sophisticated half of the conversation’ is not a Power Move, surely Ryan has at least improved his argument since Sunday? Not according to Dave Weigel:
… The first question from the press: Why did Ryan assume the tax revenues from the fiscal cliff deal? He’d voted for that deal, but he wanted lower rates.
“We’re not going to refight the past,” said Ryan, “because we know that that’s behind us.” The “anti-growth tax code” would be replaced, in a manner to be dealt with by the Ways and Means Committee.
Second question: Why did the budget assume the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, given that this can’t happen while Barack Obama is president?
“We don’t like this law,” said Ryan. “More importantly we believe that this law is going to collapse under its own weight. Please know that when Americans see exactly what this law entails—they have not seen all these details—people who lose their health insurance, their jobs, they’re not going to like this law.”…
Yeah, well, *I* don’t like that potato chips are high-fat calorie-delivery systems, but I don’t pretend that asserting a contrary opinion really, really strongly will have much impact on the width of my hips, Paulie boy.
scav
Ahhh, data creation in place. Are we to the synergy yet?
Roger Moore
Shorter Paul Ryan: My budget is a political statement, not an attempt and governance.
Nemo_N
The new CW seems to be that the President’s outreach is not sincere and it will therefore fail.
Apparently one must not only kiss intransigent morons’ assess, one’s heart must be filled with joy while doing so (and they will know, because they are able to read people’s hearts).
Brendan in NC
As Wile E. Coyote, Super Genious prepares to…refight the past.
My head hurts, and there’s a head sized dent in my kitchen table…the Farce is strong in this one.
Ash Can
How about just plain fucking stupid?
Chris
“We believe Obamacare will not work.”
Actually, I think you’re terrified it will, and even more terrified that people will notice.
kindness
“We’re not going to re-fight the past”*
*except Obamacare and giving the rich even more of our money so you middle class & poor can heave the wealthy’s weight around YOU DAMNED SLACKERS!
He forgot to tell us to get off his lawn.
Chris
@Nemo_N:
Look here now, if Bush could read Putin’s eyes and see his soul, I don’t think it’s so much of a reach that they could know what’s in your heart.
Hill Dweller
In more wingnut news, McConnell says they’re going to demand a ransom for increasing the debt ceiling…again.
The Dangerman
First Rand, then Jeb, now Ryan; the 2016 primaries have started early this cycle.
ranchandsyrup
Contradictions, fearmongering, an appeal to authority. Good stuff Lil’ Galtie. Good stuff.
Caliph Garrett
“We’re not going to re-fight the past”
But y’are, Blanche! Y’are!
Waynski
Can you imagine if the Democrats had ignored a national election this way with a Republican in the White House? The Villagers would be calling them traitors.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Dangerman: They don’t seem to be opting for a move toward the center and/or sanity, do they?
quannlace
Forget ‘Atlas Shrugged’, I think Ryan was read ‘Peter Pan’ a few many times in his younger years.
Belief is all! We can save Tinkerbell if we all believe in fairies. Clap your hands if you believe. Clap! Clap, dammit.’
BGinCHI
Everything everyone is going to say here is true about Ryan and all the Republicans, but until they pay a political price for it we are not going to get anywhere.
Who can make them lose elections so that they can’t wreck the government?
PeakVT
Paul Ryan, Fantasist, Liar, or Both?
Can I put in a vote for delusional asshat? This is a stalwart defender of the rich who listens to RATM, after all.
Roger Moore
@Hill Dweller:
Yertle is just desperate for attention; his opinion doesn’t really matter. If Boehner isn’t up for another debt ceiling fight, enough of the Senate Republicans will cross over to pass it that a Filibuster threat is pointless. If Boehner does pick another fight over the debt ceiling, the House is where the real fight will be.
Roger Moore
@Waynski:
IOKIYAR. You can’t repeat it enough.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Little Paulie trying to refight Obamacare makes me think of Little Marco’s SOTU response, a whiny talk radio talking point hissyfit about an imaginary Obama, and whatever snotty, would-be witticism I heard Reince Priebus try to make about Obama today. Besides what I see as the essential childishness of contemporary Republican politics (and Randianism), they still think they can win by running against Obama in terms of personal resentment. They can gum up politics today, I don’t think it’s gonna do them a lot of good down the road, especially the two alleged rising stars who seem to think they can be president.
Hill Dweller
@Nemo_N:
The Village will do anything to absolve Republicans of any responsibility/blame for their behavior.
Redshift
Ryan is a bullshit artist, not a liar. He doesn’t know or care whether what he’s saying is true, only whether he can convince people it’s true by saying it.
When Chris Wallace isn’t willing to give him a pass on his bullshit, it suggests that he’s not as successful a bullshit artist as he used to be, but the Village seems to have an endless appetite for bullshit, as long at it contains the words “deficit reduction.”
I agree with Josh Marshall on this round (I think it was him.) Yeah, Ryan is a blatant hypocrite, but that’s less important than the facts that:
1. He once again claims his “budget” balances by specifying all the things that (for a Republican) are easy and assuming balancing amounts from the hard things that someone else will do later.
2. He claims his objective is a balanced budget, and he starts by cutting taxes for rich people.
It’s entertaining to mock the things he says (and portraying him as a buffoon is not a bad thing.) But it’s important to highlight the things he does.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Ginning up personal resentment against nonwhite people and those who represent them (and Obama’s both) worked for them for close to 50 years. They just don’t understand why it’s not working now. They’re still at the “angrily push the button on the remote multiple times” stage, haven’t yet reached the “damn, I guess the battery’s out” realization stage.
kay
It’s a campaign flyer, like the last one. That’s why numbers and reality don’t matter.
It’s not a budget.
Political media and pundits made another category error. Because Paul Ryan insists it’s a “budget” doesn’t mean they all have to go along. Words have
meaning.
Now they’re way out in his fantasyland, and they’ll never get back. TWICE. He duped them twice, and right out of the gate! First word!
Comrade Dread
Look, I’m not saying it’s ideal, but I think we can make this work.
Step 1: Have the Congressional janitorial staff hide some melee weapons under the desks of the representatives and senators
Step 2: Have the President call for a joint session of Congress.
Step 3: While Congress is waiting for the President to arrive, drop a large steel dome over the Capitol building.
Step 4: Thunderdome
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The people who vote in presidential elections and not off year. But to anticipate your question, I don’t know how we get there from here.
a couple danger signs for Republicans: the Iowa King wing of the party digging in on immigration, and an even bigger backlash from women, especially if they turn the hate machine on Hillary. And Rick Santorum.
Redshift
@quannlace:
You didn’t clap loud enough! Tinkerbell is dead!
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI:
“What miserable drones and traitors have
Iwe nourished and brought up inmy householdthis country, who lettheir lordtheir government be treated with such shameful contempt by alow-born clericbunch of Randian assholes?”bemused
Ed Kilgore has a piece on Ryan and company pretenses of caring about seniors, Medicaid, food stamps, etc. with a great title, “Love You to Death”.
Yutsano
@Chris: This. After universal health care has passed in just about every other country the conservative party gets banished to the wilderness for a generation at least. Paulie Boy is just smart enough to see that.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
The thing is that it still works at least some of the time and in some places. They’re sure that the only reason it doesn’t work everywhere all the time is because they aren’t trying hard enough. Hey, it works on them, so they don’t get why it doesn’t work on other white people.
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, we can’t have Canterbury Tales without breaking a few
headseggs now can we?burnspbesq
As a great man once said, “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
The Moar You Know
“We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
This will be the only budget that comes from the House. Period. Bank on it.
The money people are going to shit their pants when they realize that Ryan and his band of berserkers aren’t fucking around here. They’d rather burn it all down than make it work.
muddy
I said that to Jehovah’s Witnesses who ordered me to put my dog indoors.
Turgidson
@Redshift:
Oh, he’s a liar. As evidence, I point you to…just about everything he said while he was the VP nominee.
I think you’re probably right that he doesn’t much care whether what he’s saying is true if it’s helping achieve his ends, but I think he definitely knew that at least some of the bullshit he said in his convention speech, and then put into his stump speech, was simply false (in a 2+2=5 kind of way, not a more vague, plausibly deniable way). And that makes him a liar.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: Beckett?
@kay: I think the key to understanding Ryan is his line about “we need a social safety net, but not a hammock”, including the pious little sad Paulie face he wore when he said it. I’ve never heard the Beltway talk about the deluded, self-serving moralism that, in different ways and to different degrees, underlies Republican blather about deficit and spending. The Brokaws and the Cokies don’t see it because they largely agree with it, talking about it would be like talking about air. Everyone we know knows we have to stop giving people free stuff. Little Paulie the Philosopher Prince is sad, Angry Boner the grasping drunk is mad, Obama wants to take his money (the President got his tax increase) and give it to the undeserving poors, who aren’t real citizens (steal it from the American people).
aimai
@Hill Dweller:
Maybe if he says it in a high, squeaky voice, while standing in a box.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Henry II regarding Beckett, yes.
MomSense
@Chris:
“We believe Obamacare will not work.”
The problem is that they BELIEVE things regardless of the facts.
Not yelling at you–just so frustrated that we are having to deal with this nonsense.
TriassicSands
This is one of the problems with religion. Taking such profundities as the origin of the universe on faith prepares believers for taking virtually anything on faith. Believing something is so, makes it so, even in the absence of any evidence.
For a religious zealot, believing ridiculous and unfounded economic theories is a simple task, because everything is preceded by certainty that what is believed is automatically true. This kind of belief is much more powerful than evidence based belief, because new evidence can change that kind of belief, whereas zealotry, whether it is religious or economic accepts that belief is fixed.
BGinCHI
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Spot on.
As long as the machine that relates these ideas to the public is composed of people whose interest is to support the status quo at all costs, things aren’t going to change.
In fact, it’s only the extremity of the GOP’s ideas and positions lately that have gotten them any negative notice. You can tell the beltway media would like them to just play nice so that they can go back to propping up the system.
kay
And why shouldn’t he?
He ran two cycles in Wisconsin screaming about Obama cutting Medicare, came back to DC and told a completely different story and none of them called him on it.
His House campaign and his presidential campaign were contradictory AND simultaneous, for God’s sake.
Todd
@muddy:
Oh, fuck no. That should earn them a kick in the nuts and a command to the dog to attack.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“A safety net not a hammock?” I read that on a right wing blog years and years ago, back in the heart of the Bush era. I’m guessing that, like Romney’s 47% comment, it was a right wing meme long before the politicians got to it.
kdaug
Pains a bit to say it, but:
[Footage, paraphrasing] Ryan: “We lost, but does that mean we give up our principles?”
Al Sharpton: “No, Senator, it means take the hint.”
Hee.
Villago Delenda Est
This vile lump of shit needs to be flushed.
Along with the rest of the teatard waste.
Petorado
In a just world where the media was honest and astute, they’d bust Republicans for pulling this “tough choices” crap. It is the easiest frickin’ thing in the world for Paul Ryan to screw people he won’t associate himself with and doesn’t care the slightest bit about. I think he rather enjoys this kind of stuff actually.
A tough choice for a politician, in reality, would be having to choose against something he’d really prefer to do, but has proven expendable because something else must be addressed first. Starving granny is not a tough choice for Paul Ryan.
Chris
@TriassicSands:
The trouble is, it’s not religion, it’s ideology. The reason blind faith works in religion is that the central tenet (“there is a higher power, it’s like this, and it wants you to do this”) is inherently unprovable and therefore will never be disproved.
People like this take that same principle but actually apply it to real world problems, which is why it’s such a mess.
Turgidson
@MomSense:
I think you’re both right. The teatards, and maybe even Paulie himself, may sincerely believe that Obamacare won’t work – I mean, they seem to sincerely believe a lot of far crazier shit than that about the deficit and other things.
But I think the GOP establishment, of which Paulie is a member, is genuinely scared that it will work just as it is supposed to. A successful ACA, combined with the demographic trend (and, maybe a Hillary juggernaut in 2016 and 2020), could really fuck the GOP for a while on the national level.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Nah, that’s just a racist dogwhistle. You’re supposed to imagine lazy, shiftless blah people resting in a hammock while hard working whites pay for it.
Redshift
@Turgidson: I agree that I was probably incorrect in saying that he doesn’t know; it a lot of cases, he probably knows he’s lying. Per Harry Frankfurt, the key difference between a liar and a BS artist is that the BS artist doesn’t care whether what he’s saying is true or false. The liar is constrained by the effort to keep his lies going, and maintain some consistency (which is why the lies tend to grow.) The BS artist is harder to fight because if you debunk one lie, he’ll throw it away and make up a new one with no effort at all (or just ignore the debunking and pretend it didn’t happen.)
Ryan’s whole schtick is saying whatever is necessary to create the impression that he’s serious about the budget, mostly by telling the Village the wingnut end of the spectrum of what it wants to hear. This includes labeling as unserious people who point out that 2+2 doesn’t equal seventeen.
polyorchnid octopunch
A little bit off side on this, but what I really want to see sometime is a press person (can’t call those folks journalists, really) ask him this question:
“Have you ever worked for a living? You know, really worked?”
With the followup being
“given that you’ve lived on the government tit for your entire life, is there any reason we should think you’re anything other than an ungrateful whiner whose words are for sale to the highest bidder, and if so, what would that be?”
jeffreyw
Puppeh sees what Ryan did there…
Hill Dweller
@Turgidson: They know Obamacare will work, which is why they’re attempting to undermine it at the state level. Many of the Republican-controlled states are either refusing to expand medicaid, or agreeing to it on the condition they can make it medicaid administered by private companies, which costs far more than traditional medicaid.
They’re also going to try and eliminate/undermine many of the cost-saving measures in the law at the federal level. For example, blocking confirmation for any IPAB members.
BGinCHI
Paul Ryan.
Experience in the private sector?
Selling hot dogs (Oscar Mayer).
Advanced degrees?
None.
Litlebritdifrnt
Ryan’s position on social security (which he benefited from) is akin to someone who got a degree with the GI bill voting to cut off funds for that program. It is the very epitome of pulling up the ladder once you are on the boat. This is what these fuckers want to do, they are safely on the lifeboat and they are scrambling to drag up the ladder because the last thing they want is someone else on that damn lifeboat. I hate them with the heat of a thousand suns.
kdaug
@Chris:
Yup.
PeakVT
Murray vs. Ryan.
It’s not even close.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore: It’s a racist dogwhistle, I agree, but not just a racist dogwhistle. Ryan is a hothouse flower, a precocious rich boy (or at least upper middle class) who read Ayn Rand and never recovered and never had to. I don’t know that he’s a racist. Boehner is a better example, I think. If you’ve ever heard him talk about his ten siblings, from all rungs of the socio-economic ladder (I thnk that’s how he describes it). He got rich, apparently some/most of his siblings didn’t. I’m sure there’s at least one drunk, one dummy, one dreamer and one public school teacher or some other wool-gathering ‘profession’ in the Boehner family. If they chose to be poor and he didn’t, why should he have to pay more in taxes? I’ve known a lot of John Boehners, guys (mostly) who started poor or working class, did well and nobody ever handed them anything etc etc. They really hate public school teachers.
Roger Moore
@BGinCHI:
He sold sausages for Oscar Mayer, and he’s still selling bologna today.
eemom
OT, but related to the general theme of inmates solid rule over the asylum: Bolling won’t challenge Kook as an independent for the VA governorship. Worthless chickenshit.
JPL
@Waynski: During a time of war is it fair to criticize a President. What will the terrorists think? Those were good times.
kay
@efgoldman:
It must be incredibly freeing: here’s a “budget” with all the laws I don’t like repealed.
He’s just taken the standard minority Party bullshit political aspiration-wish list “roadmap” and renamed that a “budget”.
Imagineering!
They don’t even bother to make up words anymore. They just take words and redefine them. Give us BACK our WORDS :)
Tim Connor
Paul Ryan is a full time employee of the plutocracy, like much of the MSM. He says what he’s paid to say.
Full stop.
I refer you to the English folk song, “The Vicar of Bray”:
In good King Charles’ golden time, when loyalty no harm meant,
A zealous high churchman was I, and so I gained preferment.
To teach my flock, I never missed: Kings are by God appointed
And damned are those who dare resist or touch the Lord’s annointed!
(Chorus)
And this be law, that I’ll maintain until my dying day, sir
That whatsoever king may reign, Still I’ll be the Vicar of Bray, sir.
When royal James possessed the crown, and popery came in fashion,
The penal laws I hooted down, and read the Declaration.
The Church of Rome, I found, did fit full well my constitution
And I had been a Jesuit, but for the Revolution.
When William was our King declared, to ease the nation’s grievance,
With this new wind about I steered, and swore to him allegiance.
Old principles I did revoke; Set conscience at a distance,
Passive obedience was a joke, a jest was non-resistance.
When Royal Anne became our queen, the Church of England’s glory,
Another face of things was seen, and I became a Tory.
Occasional conformists base; I blamed their moderation;
And thought the Church in danger was from such prevarication.
When George in pudding time came o’er, and moderate men looked big, sir
My principles I changed once more, and I became a Whig, sir.
And thus preferment I procured From our new Faith’s Defender,
And almost every day abjured the Pope and the Pretender.
The illustrious House of Hanover and Protestant succession
To these I do allegiance swear – while they can hold possession.
For in my faith and loyalty I never more will falter,
And George my lawful king shall be – until the times do alter.
StringOnAStick
Tenacious little fucker, isn’t he?
gbear
Via Steve Benen, the quote of the day from fuckwad Ryan:
Nice way to put it right out front and step in it, asshole. You jumped on it with both feet.
Mike in NC
Ryan unwraps his “new” Randian budget, which is pretty much the exact same shit sandwich he wanted people to take a bite of last time. It just came in a different color wrapper.
fuckwit
Via random websurfing, I ended up reading a bit of Marx and Engels in their own words, and came across something stunning.
Marx and crew HATED the state as much as the teabaggers do! Actually, even more so: teabaggers just hint and dogwhistle at violent revolution, Marx and his followers considered it inevitable and worth encouraging.
Seriously. Marxism was all about CRUSHING the state, not submitting to it. They were way more serious about it than Ryan. The goal was to replace The Nation-States (whose boundaries were established and enforced by ethnicity, inbred 1% hereditary aristocracy, and robber barons), with global cooperation of local workers collectives.
In other words, what Marx was arguing for sounded a hell of a lot more to me like what Occupy Movement, Anonymous, internet civil liberties advocates, anti-globalization folks, or Burning Man socialist-anarchists have been re-inventing from internet-tech-based first principles.
Where the fuck did the slander that communism means state-based totalitarianism come from? Who is to blame for that? Lenin? Stalin? Mao? Nixon? Ayn Rand? McCarthy?
Really, who fucked up the brand, and how did this get so broken?
I remember a friend getting annoyed with Naomi Klein for attempting to present ideas as her own which she could have done some research first and realized everything she was saying was “prior art”– territory well-tread by Marx, et al. I thought he was being pedantic. Now, actually having read some of this stuff, I think it’s bizarre that so few people– including some teabaggers!– advocating what is really the core of Marxism, won’t just admit that’s what they’re going for.
As a side note which brings me back on-topic again: if it was in fact Lenin and Stalin who really wrecked the Marxist brand by screwing it up from within, I wonder if the Rethug and Glibertarian brands are now wrecking their own brand, at the hands of Ryan, et al.
Also the more I research politics, the stupider it all seems.
Turgidson
@Litlebritdifrnt:
…all the more so if the people coming up the ladder behind them are those people.
I’ve met those types. Children of immigrants whose working class parents worked their asses off to get them a decent education. To their credit, they then succeeded (oftentimes with help of govt loans or other assistance) and accumulated some wealth, but grew up to be insufferable pricks who spew the “every cent I have is because I’m a self-reliant hard worker” delusion and wouldn’t spit on a low-income immigrant if they were on fire. Loathsome.
NotMax
Following up on the word thread down below, we need a term for Ryan and his ilk.
I suggest Irrealists.
(Alternatively, while not as orthographically elegant, Errealists might do.)
phil
“people who lose…their jobs, they’re not going to like this law.”
like the republican representatives that get voted out in 2014?
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’ve met a few “poor people made good” who consider themselves conservative success stories who stood on their own two feet without handouts.
“Really? So how did you do it, exactly?”
Then you go back through their life story, and inevitably you get to that ONE TIME when they – or their parents – actually did take government help (food stamps, Medicaid, whatever). But “it was just ONE TIME!” “it wasn’t a LOT of money” “but I REALLY needed it, it’s not like I was MOOCHING or anything…”
And now that they’ve gotten to the top, clearly there’s no one else still down there which might be like them, so shut it all down.
Frankensteinbeck
@Redshift:
SPOILER ALERT: At the end of the book, Peter Pan says that he thinks Tinkerbell is dead, but he wasn’t paying attention so he’s not sure, and anyway who cares?
That is one fucked up children’s book – and I say this as a man whose passion is writing fucked up children’s books.
Fezzik
Is it a sign of how off the radar Colorado politics are, or merely a sign of the times (in a good way), that the Colorado legislature has passed a civil unions bill, which the gov is expected to sign, and none of the front pagers even mention it?
MomSense
@Turgidson:
I guess we should first try and figure out what “working” means to them. They make think that paying insurance companies 114% for Medicare supplemental plans works just fine. I don’t know what his motivations are but he does have a history of telling lies even about things as stupid as percentage of body fat and his marathon time. Who can say why a person feels the need to do that.
He may be incredibly manipulative in stating his belief. He could be cynical or sociopathic. He could be a true believer–I really don’t know. I do know that in my conversations with ordinary people who also “believe” these demonstrably false things–they are not swayed by evidence. I had a conversation with the father of a friend of mine. He is highly successful and had a terrifically successful business career. He was complaining about the ARRA (stimulus) and all the money that went to unemployment benefits and food stamps. I explained to him that these are actually the two most effective forms of economic stimulus in terms of getting the most money flowing in the economy quickly. Of course he pooh poohed me. I explained to him that he didn’t have to take my word for it. He could look to Moody’s Financial, not exactly a liberal source, and Mark Zandy.
He got angry with me, told me I didn’t know what I was talking about.
I’m sure we all have many, many stories about trying to reason with people about issues–but it is incredibly difficult to reason with people who believe what they believe because they believe it.
Brendan in NC
@Hill Dweller: Yertle needs to act all “Hulk Smash” or he’s gonna get his shell handed to him by a “Hollywood Liberal”, with ladyparts no less, in 2014.
Brendan in NC
@Chris: or they used the GI Bill to be able to afford college, etc…
mai naem
@Litlebritdifrnt: I would go a little further. This is like four severely retarded people not letting anybody else not letting anybody else in the lifeboat whose only close landing spot is a deserted island. Yeah, they may make it to the deserted island but they aren’t going to have anybody in the boat who’s going to make actually surviving on the island an actual possibility.
TriassicSands
@Chris:
Except they have their own deities (Adam Smith, Uncle Miltie, etc.) and despite all the evidence to the contrary they will still claim the central tenets are true. Religion may be unprovable, but economic ideology, as religion, is also unprovable in the minds of the true believers.
No matter what archaeological evidence is uncovered and what it says about the actual history of the ancient Middle East, true believers will ignore that evidence and revert to the source, i.e., the Bible. Economic zealots do the same thing. In the case of religion,
Zionists (religious) believe that God signed over the deed to certain prime real estate and that has had, and will continue to have, some very bad real world effects. If you believe that God gave you this land, then there is no other authority to consult and everything that happens as a result is ordained. Economic fundamentalists have their own sacred texts and they will always interpret real world events in the light of the infallibility of those texts.
Religious fundamentalists make a mockery of rationality, no less than do economic fundamentalists.
(Rereading your comment I’m not sure if you were disagreeing or simply pointing out that there are real world problems associated with pretending economic beliefs can not be disproved. No matter what the subject matter, if you approach it with the zealot’s mind there will be real-world problems.
mai naem
I listened to the Ryan presser on the radio. Why do the big GOP pressers always sound the same? They say something that is obviously projection or a total lie. Always. I also heard a Politico(so take it fwiw) reporter discuss the budget negotiations and she said that the Senate Dems warned Biden and Obama that the fiscal cliff deal was a bad deal and not to take it and let the Repubs come to the table which they would. The Obama people say that while they may not have gotten the best deal the Repubs would not have come to the table. I don’t remember hearing about the Senate Dem stuff during the negotations.
BBA
@kay: No, it’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.
sparky
@gbear: Oops!
kay
@BBA:
I read the last one. I’m convinced none of the people who raved about it read it.
Chris
@TriassicSands:
I’m saying that religions never die out because you can’t prove their central tenets wrong.
For ideologies, you can. Not to the hardcore true believers. But any Russian with half a brain could see by the eighties that Marxism-Leninism wasn’t delivering on its promises. I think we’re increasingly getting to that point for Reaganomics too.
Patricia Kayden
@Brendan in NC: As if fighting Obamacare by trying to repeal it isn’t fighting the past. I don’t get these people.
PeakVT
@mai naem: They all sound the same because they are telling the same lies: taxes too high, spending too high, we really luvs us some middle class, Imadinnerjacket is worse than Hitler, etc.
Bubblegum Tate
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the wingnut I know who’s most fervent in fapping to Ryan thinks that 100,000 uninsured people gaining health insurance is “ObamaCare rationing” because why wasn’t it 200,000 people?!?
MomSense
@fuckwit:
And while you are at it, I suggest reading Acts starting at 4:32 “The Believers Share Their Possessions”
Roger Moore
@Chris:
But religions do die out. Just look at how many people still worship Baal, Zeus, Odin, or Mithra. You may not be able to disprove their central tenets, but you can pull people away to competing religions.
NotMax
@BBA
Note to Ryan: A BINGO card has a lot of numbers, too.
Still doesn’t make it a budget.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Also too, for a modern example of a religion in the process of expiring, see the Shakers.
raven
@NotMax: The Shaker Dance is badass!
Southern Beale
First question, second question, oh fercrissakes. The answer to any and all head-scratching over the Ryan budget is simple: House Republicans have no intention of being serious on the budget. None. Zip.
They just want to shred the social safety net, lower taxes on rich people, increase defense spending, make the poor suffer. Same ol’ same ol’. You’d think Weigel would have figured this out by now.
gene108
Friend of mine died over the weekend. Seems a lot of folks I know are dropping dead or getting cancer or some shit.
Really bizarre.
Used to be I could go years without anyone I knew dropping dead, but now it seems like a matter of weeks.
I’m 38, so I figured I wouldn’t hit something like this for a few more years.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: IIRC the Shakers have dissolved their charters, etc., so they are just waiting for the last few to pass on and the sect will be gone.
kay
Elizabeth Warren is standing up for Richard Cordray.
Because he’s a COP on the BEAT :)
Except he really is, cop-like…cop-ish. Which is probably why they want to get rid of him.
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: Kay, do you have a link?
MikeJ
@kay: Tom Coburn from Oklahoma also had nothing but nice things to say about him but he’ll never get confirmed.
kay
@MikeJ:
Because there’s nothing bad to say about him. Nothing.
They don’t want anyone qualified in that job.
His job wouldn’t exist if the corrupt captured crooks in Congress had done THEIR jobs, and regulated. Now they’re whining he’s taking their authority?
Really. The balls on these people. They won’t do their jobs but they’re busy protecting their turf.
debbie
I was listening to an NPR discussion of Ryan’s Plan. My favorite part was his Medicare plan when he said that he and Romney had won the senior vote in the election, which to him meant that his plan must be right.
Omnes Omnibus
@kay:
He did go to Michigan State.
kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
No, I’m on the phone and I can’t…become upright and go ALL THE WAY to the other room :)
It’s on TPM.
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: Okay. Will do.
kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Did he? I think I told you I can’t really talk to him. He was like…leaning in and he’s so quick. Firing questions. It felt a little like a cross-examination :)
“Something, something, CREDIT UNIONS…?”
I do not RECALL, sir!
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: Yeah, I think I may have mentioned that his wife was my evidence prof. Rich was the first politician to whom I gave money – back when he looked like he was 12 years old.
Turgidson
@debbie:
Like Bill Clinton said, it takes some brass for Ryan to say shit like that. The only reason they won seniors was that Ryan was forced to exempt current grannies from being starved. And lying so often and so shamelessly about their views on Medicare, and Obama’s, probably had an effect too.
That asshole needs to go skydiving without a parachute and leave the country the fuck alone already.
lojasmo
The MN gay marriage bill just passed the final house subcommittee 10-7.
The bill now goes to the house and senate floor.
If it passes both houses, it goes to conference, then back for a second passage.
Then Dayton will sign it.
Good times.
TriassicSands
@Chris:
Chris, apocalyptic religions can die out because the day of reckoning comes and goes and nothing happens. Now, Christianity is apocalyptic and the return of Christ has been eagerly predicted and awaited for a couple of millennia, but the payoff never comes. Will Christianity eventually die out because vital central tenets never happen. It keeps going by constantly putting off the time of JC’s return, but won’t there come a time, even if it takes another millennium when his failure to appear finally invalidates the promise. This isn’t a minor point, the return of Christ is at the heart of the religion and any reasonable person would have realized long ago that this isn’t a case of tardiness, but the inerrant words of the Bible are simply wrong. By any reasonable reading of the Bible, JC is already so long overdue that there is no reason to continue to hold out hope that he’ll ever show.
My main point is that Modern Republicanism has more in common with religion than some might suppose. Republicans believe implausible things without proof. When contrary evidence appears it is explained away, but the central beliefs are maintained. Like religion, Republicanism is irrational — some would argue that religion isn’t irrational, it’s non-rational, and that case might be made for some sets of beliefs, but not for beliefs that rely so heavily on what is essentially magic. But today, that’s where the GOP is. They continue to cling to trickle down, the Laffer curve, the job creators, etc., despite all the evidence over the past forty years that contradicts these core beliefs. Yet, the Republicans, like any good religious zealots continue to cling to this nonsense.
Frequently, in recent years I’ve characterized the GOP as dependent on myth, fantasy, and wishful thinking. That sounds a lot like religion to me.
mai naem
I want to know what the freaking turnout was in Ryan’s district and especially the Dem turnout. There needs to be a special effort to get every freaking Dem out to vote for whatever Dem candidate they put up against him in 2014. This mofo not only badly needs to go down but he needs to go down badly. Like humiliatingly bad.
danielx
We don’t like…we believe…and pigs MIGHT have wings. I believe the moon is made of extremely edible green cheese, and I’m planning to have some with crackers yet this evening.
And yes, Paul Ryan’s economics are very much a statement of political philosophy. He believes (there’s that word again) the poors get too much from the rich via the government, and plans to do something about it. Taking away unearned(?) government benefits like health care, for example, will actually benefit the poor, especially the working poor who don’t receive insurance but make too much to qualify for Medicaid. This will motivate them to lift themselves by their bootstraps (translation: pick up a third part time job). It’s not even philosophy, it’s faith – like believing that supply side economics work or that tax cuts are the answer to all government financial problems.
Dexter's new approach
My girlfriend is an (American) Russian Professor that has lived in Russia. She says it’s a common understanding there that Lenin was wrong about communism, but right about capitalism. That’s classic Russian fatalism, but It seems like Ryan et al are intent on proving that notion correct here.
serena1313
I also posted this in the most recent open thread:
Ryan let something slip today on C-SPAN that Iam sure he wishes he could take back:
“This to us is something that we’re not going to give up on, because we’re not going to give up on destroying the health care system for the American people.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/12/17286141-ryans-unfortunate-slip?lite