Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People are weird.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

In after Baud. Damn.

Second rate reporter says what?

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

We won’t go back.

I was promised a recession.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Not all heroes wear capes.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

You are here: Home / Economics / Austerity Bombing / Late Night Open Thread: Return of The Zombie-Eyed Granny-Starver

Late Night Open Thread: Return of The Zombie-Eyed Granny-Starver

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The anaerobic activity in the GOP septic tank has churned a familiar turd to the top again. Here’s Jon Chait’s take at NYMag:

Paul Ryan has spent more than a year furiously distancing himself from the wreckage of the 2012 Republican campaign. Even in the closing weeks before the election, Ryan gave a high-profile speech about poverty that amounted to a personal escape pod from Mitt Romney’s disastrous caught-on-tape denunciation of the moocher class. Since then, Ryan’s team has openly discussed the need to rebrand him and the particular danger, in the wake of the 47 percent tape, of his association with Ayn Rand-ism.

Today, we see the next step in Ryan’s rebranding, in the form of a largely credulous Washington Post story outlining his plans to launch himself into anti-poverty policy…

And that of the estimable Mr. Charles P. Pierce, the man responsible for coining the ZEGS epithet:

… Paul Ryan is an opportunistic hack who never has earned a dime outside of the government-quasi-government bullshit industrial complex. He cares less about the poor than he does about Medicare, which he would like to shred, so that it no longer wrecks old people by keeping them alive. It should be noted that, ever since Ronald Reagan proved you could kick the poor and crush the middle class and still get elected, as long as you did it with a smile and were charmingly dim about it, the Republican party has come out with something like this latest scam every time the general electorate catches on to the fact that modern conservatism is growing nostalgic for the economic and social order of the 1880’s. There is nothing new in Republican charlatanism, not even Paul Ryan…

… Paul Ryan’s solution to poverty — which is “light on specifics” as the Post later admits — is largely theological and, as the Jesuits at Georgetown demonstrated, it is not even very good theology. More to the point, though, let’s go back to that brief biographical sketch, shall we? Paul Ryan’s father died, but Paul Ryan’s father was extraordinarily well off, especially in Janesville. He also was politically connected enough that young Paul never lacked for sugar daddies while, at the same time, young Paul was pulling down Social Security benefits that got him through high school and college. (I was working at the time and glad to help such an earnest young man. You’re welcome, dickhead.) He also got wealthy in the most American way of all. He married well.

So here’s my question. All those years when my money and the money of millions of other Americans were helping this already well-off young man hold body and soul together while he went through college, how come his incentive wasn’t damaged by all the taking he was doing? How come he wasn’t crippled by “dependency”? How come his work ethic survived long enough to guarantee that he would never draw anything but a government salary for the rest of his life? How come, as a congressman, on my dime, he hasn’t felt the slow, stultifying hand of government strangling his individual initiative? How come the only people all this quasi-mystical horse-pucky applies to are the people too poor for Paul Ryan’s party to care about? If I do nothing for the rest of my career here than point out what a complete fake this guy is, while embarrassing the fatheads who still take him seriously, I will die a happy blogger.

And Alex Pareene, at Salon:

…Fun fact about Lyndon Johnson’s much-derided “War on Poverty”: It was working! From the enactment of the Great Society through 1970, “the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent.” That’s huge. There’s never been another comparable drop in the poverty rate. That might be, in part, because Republicans and neoliberal Democrats, beginning with Nixon, went on to dismantle most of Johnson’s original programs. They didn’t, though, roll back his expansion of Social Security, which became the most successful anti-poverty program in American history, lowering the poverty rate among the elderly from a shocking 28.5 percent in 1966 to 10.1 percent today. What kind of crazy program is Social Security, that it’s so successful? It’s a program that gives money to old people. That’s all! It taxes lots of people and then gives money to old people and then they’re not poor, or not as poor, anymore.

I can save Ryan’s staff some trouble, too. There are already existing conservative intellectual policy prescriptions for reducing poverty, and most of them amount to “give people money.” The Earned Income Tax Credit, the Ford and Reagan administrations’ alternative to the poverty-fighting programs of Johnson (and Roosevelt), gives poor people money. Even Ryan’s supposed philosophical idol, Friedrich Hayek, supported a universal basic income. For a while, conservatives seemed to understand that the main problem poor people face is that they don’t have enough money, and not that they lack the desire or incentive to make more money. Ryan, though, is an adherent of more modern conservative thinking on the subject, which says that poor people are the victims of government programs that help them buy food to feed themselves and their families….

Most annoyingly, it’s just accepted, without much pushback, that Ryan is exactly what he’s shrewdly marketed himself as. He’s a wonk, he’s an ideas man, he’s reorienting the Republican Party toward real policy solutions to big problems, he’s just as at home drinking a Miller Lite in Kenosha as he is ministering to recovering addicts (or hanging with Reince Priebus). This is what Ryan is selling: An even harder-line version of the conservative policy agenda of the last 30+ years. There’s never, ever any there there in his proposals. And we’ve learned this from the last 600 “budgets” he’s released!… Ryan may be very sincere in his sympathy for the poor and perhaps even convinced that he can come up with a better way to lift them from poverty than liberals, but there’s no coherent way in which slashing food stamps for millions and replacing those cuts with nothing — wait, sorry, I meant replacing the program with “dreams” and “spiritual redemption” — doesn’t have the immediate effect of making a lot of poor people’s lives harder and meaner.

Reader Interactions

54Comments

  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    A commenter on that Daily Intelligencer post:

    totalhealth
    This is the photo taken during the campaign when he actually MISSED all the work and was rewashing clean dishes. …

    Paul Ryan’s a phony through and through, even when he doesn’t need to be, and he doesn’t even have the sense to be subtle or secretive about it. No “re-brand” is ever going to change that. If he has the force of personality to succeed anyway, he sure as hell didn’t show it last year. He might have a safe seat in the House, but it’s hard to see him rising any higher.

  3. 3.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Why does Ryan need to rebrand? Being a hypocritical granny starver is a plus in the GOP, if anything he would need to double down on it.

  4. 4.

    andy

    “there’s no coherent way in which slashing food stamps for millions and replacing those cuts with nothing — wait, sorry, I meant replacing the program with “dreams” and “spiritual redemption” — doesn’t have the immediate effect of making a lot of poor people’s lives harder and meaner.”

    As ever, a feature, not a bug- a real knee slapper to every troll who ever shitted up a comment thread or pulled the lever for an expensively-dressed grifter princeling.

  5. 5.

    NotMax

    Ryan’s stint as Romney’s running mate did irreparable damage to him and to his brand. Like it or not, he has the un-Febreze-able Romney stink on him.

    It is not instantaneous but rather slow-building damage, much like syphilis. Should hit the tertiary stage right around 2016.

  13. 13.

    Schlemizel

    @Mustang Bobby:

    Sorry to be pedantic but the 2nd acts quote gets me. The second act is not a sequel. In the 3 act play the 2nd act is where the exposition takes place. The 1st act is set up and the 3rd is the payoff. What Scotty was pointing out is that Americans have no patience or interest for the detail they want the big O s soon as they start. Everyone knows we are big on rebranding here, in fact I think those two are tied together the inability to focus on the whys and hows allows people to be duped by the same proposed payoff in a different wrapper.

  14. 14.

    Schlemizel

    @raven:

    Sorry if I missed it, how did things work out at the doctors?

    My own whine is I have been so buried at work & home for the last month that I only get maybe 10 minutes each morning and the occasional 5 minutes before bed to hang around here. I am missing out on whats going on & making drive-by comments.

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Here’s a fun game: Think of every movie monster since the beginning of Hollywood, and replace them with Paul Ryan. Instantly the terror factor in every movie doubles at a minimum.

    The Mummy > Paul Ryan
    Freddie > Paul Ryan
    Dr Jekyll and Paul Ryan

    See?

  20. 20.

    dmsilev

    @PsiFighter37: Pretty good chance, yes. Seeing Pat Leahy come out in favor of pulling the trigger was a turning point; besides being Chair of Judiciary, he’s one of those “traditions of the Senate” guys. If he’s reached the end of his tether with the GOP, there probably aren’t all that many Dem holdouts left.

  21. 21.

    agrippa

    It appears that Ryan feels that he has to act as if he cares. When he does not care. He wants to hold office and ( probably) has higher aspirations.
    He does not care; but, is afraid to come out and say what he really feels.

  22. 22.

    WereBear

    @agrippa: Ryan cares about Ryan.

    Have you seen him put on his “earnest face”? You can see it change! A first grade teacher wouldn’t be fooled.

    But of course our MSM pretends to be.

  25. 25.

    GregB

    Haters are gonna hate. I thought Paul Ryan was an awesome hero in The Hunt for Red October. Not to mention he’s so dreamy.

  26. 26.

    Cervantes

    Not worth analyzing Ryan at this point — he’s transparent, as are his “policies” — but as for this:

    He also got wealthy in the most American way of all. He married well.

    Is Pierce, in fact, correct? Is marrying well “the most American way” of becoming rich?

    I wouldn’t have said so. (Probably I’m over-thinking it.)

  29. 29.

    Paul in KY

    @Cervantes: It’s ‘American’ in that you generally don’t have to put in many years of hard labor to get the money. There might be a few years of tough going (while you woo him/her), but not many years (the married years don’t count as you presumably have got access to dough by then).

  32. 32.

    Rob in CT

    So here’s my question. All those years when my money and the money of millions of other Americans were helping this already well-off young man hold body and soul together while he went through college, how come his incentive wasn’t damaged by all the taking he was doing? How come he wasn’t crippled by “dependency”? How come his work ethic survived long enough to guarantee that he would never draw anything but a government salary for the rest of his life? How come, as a congressman, on my dime, he hasn’t felt the slow, stultifying hand of government strangling his individual initiative? How come the only people all this quasi-mystical horse-pucky applies to are the people too poor for Paul Ryan’s party to care about?

    Preach, brother Pierce.

    That there is a damn fine question, and I’ve asked it before of conservatives. I don’t recall getting anything beyond squirming and look-over-there-at-the-rich-Democrat.

  33. 33.

    Suffern ACE

    @WereBear: well, the rags to riches story we like to think is true about ourselves is often told as we sit around the campfire, waiting for the next shyster to come along with a get rich quick scheme.

  35. 35.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @PurpleGirl:

    Yes, but GregB was tossing some snark out.

    Not that the twits of the MSM know the difference, mind. A simple google search would tell them…but that is way beyond their level of competence.

  37. 37.

    Fred

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: But the GOPers just hate them a looser.
    And on a slightly more petty note: Ever notice how when Ryan moves his eyebrows up and down his forehead just seems to glide up and down under his signature widows peak? I mean really, a fake widows peak?

  38. 38.

    sherparick

    My only problem with brothers Chait and Pierce critical look at Lori Montgomery’s love note to Paul Ryan that she and the editors, Marty Baron and Garcia-Ruiz ran on the front page of the WaPo is their failure to name the reporter who produced the press release for Paul Ryan’s next campaign. I don’t know Ms. Montgomery, except from what she writes which indicates that is a conventional member of the Village (Democratic liberals are equally nutty as Tea Party, Social Security is bad, and everything would be perfect if we could get a “Bi-partisan” deal to cut it, thereby solving the “the Deficit,” at least until the Chris Christie/Paul Ryan corporate and rich people tax cut of 2017 blows it up again). But I think this piece is mostly about a big wet kiss to get “access” to Ryan and Ryanites in the Republican House for future stories on the budget and budget negotiations. I think this is where the incentive comes in.

  40. 40.

    slippy

    @Fred:

    Fred, in any society based on actual merit, Paul Ryan would be nothing more than a has-been loser, a last-place fuckup.

    One of my big issues with Murkin life today is the near-complete takeover of our social order by incompetent, lazy, stupid people.

  41. 41.

    SFAW

    @slippy:

    One of my big issues with Murkin life today is the near-complete takeover of our social order by incompetent, lazy, stupid people.

    Bullshit.

    If that were true, I’d be at the top of the social order. And commenting here – although it performs a function badly needed by civilization – is not exactly the ne plus ultra of something-or-other.

  42. 42.

    kindness

    Esquire occasionally blocks me from commenting over at Charles site. I’ve learned to tone down my comments but still find myself blocked as I did yesterday. Anyone else have that happen to them over there?

  43. 43.

    slippy

    @SFAW:

    And commenting here – although it performs a function badly needed by civilization – is not exactly the ne plus ultra of something-or-other.

    Other than bluntly dismissing what I said, you appear to have said precious little else by way of refutation. I do however work at a Fortune 500 corporation, and the disease of incompetence and friends of important people is fucking rampant and I assume it is the same everywhere.

  44. 44.

    dollared

    My email thread with Lori Montgomery, who was at least responsive:

    i have written endlessly about ryan’s budgets. ii have covered ryan’s budgets. this story is about ryan trying to move past those budgets. perhaps people need a refresher, but i think his reputation and the facts of those budgets are well known

    Sent from my iPhone

    On Nov 20, 2013, at 6:30 PM, “> wrote:

    Hi Ms. Montgomery,

    Thank you very much for responding.

    I think the exact point of failure for political journalism – your profession – is that you can discuss Ryan’s desire to rebrand as compassionate, without adding to the article some facts that clearly indicate that that rebranding is deeply hypocritical unless he advocates policies that are actually compassionate. You allow him to create a complete and impenetrable dichotomy between the policies he advocates and the public image he wishes to portray. In fact, you facilitate it.

    The policies he advocates are facts. You were free to include them in the article. In fact, putting the facts next to his words would have been a service to the truth, with ever going near the editorial page . Instead, you facilitated his deceitful goal, with no attempt to hold him up to the light of day.

    I appreciate your attention to this. I realize in this day of Politico-style journalism, journalists functioning as conduits for the powerful is a reality. However, I urge you to apply skepticism, and to focus on the actual effects of people’s political activities, and not on the public persona they would like to display.

    Thanks for listening,

    /dollared/

    ——————————————————————————–
    From: [email protected]

    Subject: RE: Paul Ryan Puff Piece
    Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 23:20:13 +0000

    i’m not sure why you see it as a puff piece. the story makes clear that ryan may feel he is in need of rebranding because of his budgets, which cut medicare and spending on the poor, and his association with romney. ryan is also close to priebus, who has said the whole party needs a compassion makeover.

    i find all this interesting, given the past 3 years. but it’s not my job to say they’re insincere.that’s up to the opinion writers. we won’t be able to assess the situation objectively until we see the policies they come up.

    thanks for reading — and for writing.

    lori

    “it’s not my job to say they’re insincere.” Sigh.

    ——————————————————————————–
    Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2013 9:11 PM
    To: Montgomery, Lori A
    Subject: Paul Ryan Puff Piece

    Dear Ms. Montgomery,

    I found your worshipful and credulous piece on Paul Ryan well beneath the standards of a respected journalist.

    If, as you claim, you are federal fiscal policy and budget expert, then surely you are aware of the ways that Mr. Ryan’s policies have impoverished millions of Americans and how, if he had his way, he would impoverish millions more Americans. To innocently suggest that he cares about the poor and not show the other side of his life of advocacy for hurting the poor, is misleading. It is a lie.

    You owe us all better than this. And if you did this for “access,” then you should find another profession.

    Wishing you a better future,

    dollared

  47. 47.

    SFAW

    @slippy:

    Other than bluntly dismissing what I said, you appear to have said precious little else by way of refutation.

    It was a fucking joke, OK? Did you bother to read my second line?

    If that were true, I’d be at the top of the social order.

    Do I still need to explain it to you?

    FSM spare me from the humorless.

  49. 49.

    SFAW

    @Cervantes:

    They block me with the cunning expedient of requiring a Facebook account.

    Could be worse – could have made it MySpace or Compuserve. Or made you send them a vid on a Betamax tape.

  51. 51.

    SFAW

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    You should have just cut to the chase and asked Ms. Montgomery if she swallowed.

    No need to be crude. This is Balloon Juice, after all.

    (“Gentlemen! No fighting in the War Room!”)

  52. 52.

    JustRuss

    Since then, Ryan’s team has openly discussed the need to rebrand him and the particular danger, in the wake of the 47 percent tape, of his association with Ayn Rand-ism.

    Isn’t this the guy who for years gave every member of his staff a copy of Atlas Shrugged? How do you rebrand that?

  53. 53.

    mclaren

    The anaerobic activity in the GOP septic tank has churned a familiar turd to the top again.

    Boy, you are on fire today. Great line. You are becoming one of the best writers on this site.

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