Hey @SpeakerRyan how's this going so far? pic.twitter.com/29LP344fnG
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) November 8, 2017
Nobody loves a quitter, but dayyum Paul Ryan has a lot of enemies! Of course, he’s taken credit for a budget bill that will explode the deficit while giving still more of our common wealth away to the least deserving plutocrats, while failing to rein in the worst impulses of the leaders of “his” party. And he’s abandoning ship just in time for an actual avowed white supremacist to take the lead in the GOP primary for his replacement, and guaranteeing that we’ll all get to watch at least two of the least appealing Repub congresscritters (Kevin McCarthy & Steve Scalise) fight like crazed weasels to take over his “throne”. Also, he’s the Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver. But the Media Village Idiots always seemed to love him — yet the concensus of public comment right now seems to be GOOD RIDDANCE, at best. Of course the NYTimes is still slobbering over his “bravery”, and there may be television pundits still standing up for their Pauly Blue Eyes…
STAFF: Mr. Speaker, the CBO now estimates trillion-dollar deficits through the current administration.
RYAN: What a great tax bill. I’m living the dream! Time to step down now… https://t.co/i0F32E6doY
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) April 11, 2018
Spend two years enabling an anti-democratic, incompetent man-child. Do long-term damage to the nation’s fiscal health. Exacerbate the nation’s political divides … Walk away when it’s clear that your party will lose the House. Never change Paul Ryan
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) April 11, 2018
Paul Ryan announced this morning that he's cashing out and heading for a country with a non-extradition treaty before Republicans finish imploding the country.
Well, OK, I might be paraphrasing Ryan's retirement announcement a bit.
Just a bit.
1/— Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) April 11, 2018
Paul Ryan leaves the House intelligence committee in tatters and trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see
— Justin Miller (@justinjm1) April 11, 2018
This is true but Paul Ryan's defining legacy is being complicit in the shredding of democratic norms. https://t.co/WsALECOxFe
— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) April 11, 2018
House Speaker Paul Ryan's abrupt move to retire leaves gaping void in GOP as midterms near https://t.co/l5uYOdEHm9
— The Japan Times (@japantimes) April 12, 2018
He’s kind of been more gaping void than man all along. https://t.co/AburvZpuZD
— Schooley (@Rschooley) April 12, 2018
Just do yourself a favor today: immediately tune out anyone who tells you this is a good thing for Republicans.
It’s not. Period.— Paul Kane (@pkcapitol) April 11, 2018
Paul Ryan rose to prominence by weaponizing Obama-era deficits and winning plaudits from centrists for his austere math.
He leaves office mere days after a CBO report finds GOP govt has, in a matter of months, increased deficits in the 2018-22 period by more than $1.2 trillion.
— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) April 11, 2018
Paul Ryan’s one real accomplishment as a politician was repeatedly conning gullible journalists https://t.co/IVWaAyhEuP
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) April 11, 2018
Not every day you see a Speaker up against a potential loss of majority just say "fold." Decision could wreck remaining GOP morale in fight for House. https://t.co/GsXPNbrsdQ
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) April 11, 2018
“expecting a Trump defeat, Ryan planned a speech on Election Night to denounce Trump’s racially polarizing agenda as a betrayal of conservatism’s ideals. Instead, Ryan folded the speech back into his jacket pocket—where it has receded deeper ever since.” https://t.co/C2Z2HZhOle
— Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan) April 11, 2018
Inside story from the district on why #PaulRyan called it quits. "He knew that people felt unserved and that they were tired of it." https://t.co/ldWyWHW8uB pic.twitter.com/Ba1S8yOdC6
— Tom Watson (@tomwatson) April 11, 2018
Say what you will about Paul Ryan but I think he's proven you can stand for nothing while also ruining everything.
— Louis Virtel (@louisvirtel) April 11, 2018
Romney brought Paul Ryan onto his 2012 presidential ticket, a sign that Ryan's brand of austerity had reached the GOP mainstream.
Govt spending that year was $3.5 trillion.
Ryan leaves the speakership with spending levels at $4.2 trillion.— Damian Paletta (@damianpaletta) April 11, 2018
Paul Ryan is a "policy wonk" if you define a "wonk" as someone who lies effortlessly about policy and shifts his positions based on the political winds.
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) April 11, 2018
Remember when Paul Ryan lied about how fast he ran that marathon? Remember when he pretended to wash those dishes that were already clean for a photo op? Never forget that he is a petty image-obsessed worm.
— Caissie St.Onge (@Caissie) April 11, 2018
Fiscal hawk Ryan leaves behind growing deficits and a changed GOP, via @ericawerner @damianpaletta https://t.co/dNJ5WfRNXN
— John Wagner (@WPJohnWagner) April 11, 2018
Speaker Ryan’s retirement will be interpreted as practically conceding that the GOP will lose the House. Probably will stimulate more R retirements. https://t.co/QbP0SeKdqE
— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) April 11, 2018
Paul Ryan helped make Wisconsin the most rigged state in the country with voter suppression, gerrymandering & dark money. Even that was not enough to protect him now https://t.co/OKuiwW7jr5
— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) April 11, 2018
Baud
The Great White Dope.
donnah
Paul Ryan truly and accurately represents the Republican party in his greed, willingness to dismiss and disable the poor and needy, blind obedience to terrible leadership, cowardice, and inability to make a stand for honesty and morality.
Yep, Ryan’s a real winner. Enjoy the rest of your terrible legacy!
Nicole
I appreciate the number of op ed writers pointing out Ryan’s obsessive desire to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, but I wonder where they all were five, 10 years ago?
Bruuuuce
Also known as “a Republican”
wormtown
He made millions; and now will make more lobbying or, god forbid, as a talking head.
JMG
Nancy Pelosi lost the Speakership eight years ago and stayed and fought. Mitch McConnell, whom I despise, lost his majority in 2006 until 2014 and stayed and fought. Both McConnell and Pelosi are seen as self-serving pols, but they obviously have 1000 times as much commitment to what they believe in than the allegedly policy-driven Ryan. Or maybe it’s just that they’re not punks and Ryan is.
Kay
@Nicole:
Obama was President so it was time to tighten our belts. It’s a consistent pattern. Democrats= belt tightening, Republicans = wild spending sprees.
I geniunely believe they do not understand how many old people rely on Social Security for survival, what a huge group of people there are in that category. I’m often shocked myself, in my practice, how little people have. A lot of older people have DEBT. They’re in negative numbers.
Droppy
And the extra-Ryanny part: someone who doesn’t actually know what the meanings of all those financially-sounding words are.
germy
Baud
@Kay: And they disproportionately vote GOP.
Nicole
@Kay: So true, and yet it’s just about impossible to persuade someone to really look at the things they believe to be so. Vox had an article about the ways the brain has evolved to actively work against accepting information that does not coordinate with what we want to be true. Or, as the saying goes, you cannot reason a man out of something he did not reason himself into.
Amir Khalid
@Bruuuuce:
Back in 2012, I said Ryan was practising a cargo-cult approximation of economic wonkery.
MattF
The giveaway, IMO, is that Devin Nunes is still in charge of the (oxymoronic) House Select Committee on Intelligence. Does anyone think Nunes would be there for an attosecond longer without Ryan’s full approval? Just consider Nune’s campaign to ‘impeach’ Deputy AG Rosenstein– putting aside the completely wacko aspects of that– does Nunes realize that doing that would require a vote of some sort? By, y’know, the Congress? Nunes is just a Trump lickspittle, and Ryan is fine with that. And still is.
NotMax
We’ll be glad when you’re gone, you rascal you.
@Amir Khalid
Asteriskian economics.
Kay
@Nicole:
I wish the Social Security administration still sent out paper statements. People used to bring those to me. They need to understand that people rely on this. It isn’t optional. Old people aren’t sleeping in doorways because of this specific payment. They can’t just muse idly about it around the campfire at Miami University.
The thing that drives me crazy is the LACK of seriousness. No one cares about their theories! Ayn Rand was a novelist you reckless moron. 50 million people are vulnerable because Paul Ryan read a crappy novel in undergrad? It’s so arbitrary and senseless. What if liberals did this? “My economic plan is based on The Hobbit”
NotMax
Underpants gnome jumps ship. Film at 11.
Bruuuuce
@Amir Khalid: Well put. And too bloody true.
geg6
@NotMax:
That was my thought exactly. Whenever someone would mention the underpants gnome, I always pictured the gnome as Paul Ryan. He embodies the whole thing perfectly.
kingweasil
he’ll probably end up as faux news pundit.must be eligible for his entitlement pension…
Kay
And it is of course, TRUE, which is why Trump’s vast army of corrupt friends paid him off.
Conservatives had 5000 rumors about Obama including but not limited to that he was gay, that he was not a citizen, that he was a drug addict, that he evaded selective service, that his wife was in fact A MAN…
And Obama didn’t pay anyone off to stop the rumors because he didn’t have to- they weren’t true.
TRUMP, on the other hand, HAS to pay people off because these are not “rumors” but instead FACTS. That’s why “payoff” is called “hush money” and is presumed to be covering something up- because it always IS covering something up.
Jeffro
@Kay:
Well for one thing, it’d automatically be a better plan than one based on “Atlas Shrugged”
FlipYrWhig
@Kay:
It’s because all Republicans, most important media figures, and some Democrats think spending = deficit = welfare. They think Democrats are going to screw the hardworking in order to dole out goodies for Those People, which isn’t Fair or Responsible, insert spurious olde-timey quotation about voting themselves money from the public treasury. Since Republican spending isn’t on Those People it’s not a grave public emergency that is also cheating the very serious American political system that demands Hard Choices and Leading With Leaderly Leadership. I was born in 1971 and they’ve been pulling this maneuver my entire lifetime.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Kay: My budget is intended to get everyone a little closer to the lifestyle of Kilgore Trout. It also protects streams and fishery funding because I dig Richard Braughtigan.
Ksmiami
Ryan needs to pay. He needs ostracization not veneration. Again, the GOP hates government so they should all find a different line of work.
debit
@Kay:
That would be a key part of my platform. Second breakfast for everyone!
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: And it legalizes marijuana, shrooms, and acid because Ken Kesey. I like this novelist-inspired governing!
MattF
@debit: Everyone will gain ten pounds! At least!
WaterGirl
It was so gratifying to read all those tweets calling out Paul Ryan for the person he truly is that for a second I thought I was reading the “Happy Thoughts” morning thread.
Kay
I can’t find any reports of media outlets paying to bury the rumor that Obama was born in another country.
Because it wasn’t true. Therefore it never occurred to anyone to bury it. Media and Donald Trump spread that rumor for 5 years, but Obama wasn’t sending people out with bags of cash to bury it.
Donald Trump sweats rumors because they aren’t rumors, but instead are facts that he and his buddies in media kept from voters.
Nicole
@Kay: Plus, as the number of people who remember the Great Depression gets smaller and smaller, there’s less of an understanding of how bad things can be. It’s like the anti-vaxxers. They’ve never had to know a time when summer came with fears of their child getting polio, so they are free to put forth unsubstantiated and false ideas about vaccines and autism.
Funny thing is, Paul Ryan doesn’t even understand AynRand. The big bad guy in Atlas Shrugged is a wealthy crony capitalist. I’m not saying she was a champion for the working class, she certainly wasn’t, although I think it’s very important to always look at her work from her point of view- a Russian Jew whose family had everything taken from them in the Russian revolution, but I’m always astounded at how many right wingers cite her work and clearly don’t understand it. Because, it’s not that hard to understand. It’s freaking Ayn Rand, not Nietzsche.
So Paul Ryan is really dumb, and hurt a lot of people, and the media let him get away with it, as what I’m saying.
Waldo
Some wishful thinking from the NY Times:
Right. While packing boxes, he just might find the spine he’s rumored to possess.
schrodingers_cat
Tell me if I am being naive, is the right turn of the NewsHour new (since Judy Woodruff took over the helm from Jim Lehrer) or has it always been the case and I did not realize it.
Yesterday to debate Paul Ryan’s quitting she had on a guy from a website called American Greatness and a Never T, Republican, Charlie Sykes. AG is a white nationalist pro-T website/thinktank that also published a lot of stuff by Michael Anton ( the other White Nationalist in the WH besides Miller) who just resigned this week.
When she has people to discuss foreign policy the lefty view is represented by BushII officials some of whom are also career officials like Nicholas Burns but not all. I find this trend of Nazification of the supposedly intellectual discourse in this country disturbing. See also the recent upheaval at the Atlantic and house favorite Vichy Times.
MattF
@Waldo: Doesn’t need a spine because he has an exoskeleton.
debit
@MattF: It’s okay! I will also push for more biking infrastructure so we can cycle those pounds off.
ETA: Also, too, everyone gets a pony.
Quinerly
Apologies if this has been posted. Staining my porch and didn’t get chance to read all the comments. Highly recommend this piece:https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-takes-out-paul-ryan-and-its-going-to-be-a-civil-war
Kay
@Nicole:
I said this a lot during the financial crash but the success of safety net programs threatens the continued survival of safety net programs because they are just THERE, operating in the background. When we went to 16% unemployment here food stamps kicked in, which meant there were no breadlines, which meant idiots on tv could attack the very safety net programs that were working as designed.
bystander
@Kay: You forgot Obama was an undercover Kenyan Muslim, also. That’s the point that explains why he started the war in Syria.
SFAW
Anne Laurie –
PLEASE change the title of this post. “Farewell”? No fucking way.
As I said yesterday: I want that motherfucker to suffer financial catastrophe so bad that he ends up becoming one of the poor people he’s been trying to kill for at least eight years. And let’s see how he does when he’s not living off the Government dole. He’s stupid, worthless, and evil, and does not merit any wishes in the same galaxy as “Farewell.” No “adieu,” no “adios,” none of that. Just “eat shit and die.”
WaterGirl
@Nicole: Or even on Monday!!
Spanky
@Kay:
I wish quite sincerely to subscribe to your newsletter.
SFAW
@wormtown:
Worcester? (Re: your nym/nom)
Bruuuuce
@Kay: You’re right. As with the Y2K potential for disaster, it took enormous amounts of work and resources to head it off, but extremely successfully, to the point where people ridiculed the possibility afterward without acknowledging all the work and attention.
NotMax
@Kay
Shire and shire alike.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
And let’s not forget the fact that Paul Ryan was able to go to college(at a college funded in part by public money) after the death of his father, largely due to Social Security death benefits:
https://www.rawstory.com/2011/04/paul-ryan-already-benefitted-from-the-social-security-fund-he-now-wants-to-gut/
afanasia
@Jeffro: Sam Gamgee’s elderly father seemed happy. He always had money to spend at the pub.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: It has taken the back to back presidencies of President Obama and the current one, to open my eyes to the racism and bigotry of our respectable media. I am looking at you PBS, NYT, Atlantic etc.
raven
@Kay: I wonder if it is opt out, I still get mine in the mail.
PIGL
@Jeffro: one way it would be a better plan is, it involves destroying the ring of power, not using one as the basic energy source for your economy.
Another way is that prosperous rural squirearchies such The Shire have actually existed when corn prices were high enough such that agricultural labor paid above starvation wages. Galt Gulch? Not so much.
eric
@schrodingers_cat: I think that no idiom better encapsulates the view of the establishment towards Obama than “Stay in your lane.” They resented that he was smarter and funnier and more handsome and more accomplished than all of them. Plus, he appears a loving husband and father with a charming family. He is everything they say they want to be, but failed.
Duane
Missouri governor Greitens is likely to lose his job. He should write a book about his experiences. He can call it “Fifty Shades of Greitens.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly:
too funny.
schrodingers_cat
@eric: You can add Balloon Juice favorite Charlie Pierce to that list of jealous Obama detractors.
Jeffro
@NotMax: WIN
tobie
@schrodingers_cat: My husband and I disagree pretty vehemently about Judy Woodruff. I stopped watching the News Hour about 6 years ago because I thought she brought the level of discussion down and truly hated that whenever she had a spot on fiscal matters, she would invite deficit-scold Maya MacGuineas on, whose mantra was “entitlement reform, entitlement reform, entitlement reform.” I’m not sure Woodruff’s personal convictions are conservative. She just goes with whomever she thinks is the accepted authority on an issue and, since DC is wired for Republicans, this inevitably leads her to Republican figures.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly: And here, I thought the first comment would be about the “crone cave” line and the substance of the piece (written by a Repug operative) would be lost in the comments. Glad someone read the entire piece.
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
I’d have gone with: Paul Ryan — Requiem for a Lightweight
OzarkHillbilly
-Unnamed GOP rep to Erik, son of Erik.
clay
For those of you who missed Rachel Maddow last night, she absolutely tore into “the myth of Paul Ryan”, and those media idiots who fell for it.
Here ya are, enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnFt52707Fg
EDIT TO ADD: The best part is that she did it in her jocular Rachel way, smiling and laughing as she dismantled every pedestal Ryan ever put himself on. It was brutal!
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@schrodingers_cat: They fall for Republicans’ “treat me ‘fairly’ – or else” racket. When Neo-Nazis and KKKers demand to be treated with respect and have their ideas taken seriously in the political arena, you’re not supposed to be so accommodating, MSM!
Jeffro
Btw do we have any early leaks (er, I mean REPORTS) yet about how the GOP dinner at the White House last night went? Did president* bwah bwah bwah settle down enough to enjoy his burnt steak and ketchup with such distinguished guests?
schrodingers_cat
@tobie: It really doesn’t matter what her convictions are, she has used her lead anchor chair at the Snooze Hour promoting Rs in power and these days that means unreconstructed white nationalists and bigots.
Did you see her drooly interview with the then senate candidate Joni Ernst?
Snooze Hour’s economic correspondent is pretty awful too, Paul Solomon.
p.a.
@Kay: As of today, paper statements will return, I believe for 2019 (just had my “when am I reduced to eating petfood?” meeting w my financial advisor, in which he mentioned this.) Obviously, nothing written in stone in Twittlerworld.
SiubhanDuinne
Consensus, please.
(Where all the other pedants at?)
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly: Nah, I am well acquainted with Wilson’s trump hate. He mournfully laments to ad nauseum the death of the wholly discredited GOP econ policy that Ryan’s resignation apparently signals to him. but I expect that of him too. I enjoyed it anyway.
ETA Also too I liked this closing:
“The rubes still think Trumpism sells. It doesn’t, outside of the deepest deep-red seats. They seem to honestly believe that in the 25 swing seats where Donald Trump is as well-liked as a case of genital herpes that muh wall and MS-13 TV ads are going to save the majority.
“They still think that races are won with MAGA hats and badly photoshopped Hillary Pizzagate memes. They conflate Trump’s Russian-supported, celebrity-driven win against the luckless, joyless Hillary with actual campaigning.”
schrodingers_cat
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: They are Nazi enablers. Period.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Can’t argue with that.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly: I agree with Wonkette…. Pretty sure that was Peter King.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
Thought you could sneak that one by, did youse?
tobie
@schrodingers_cat: I agree with you. She has a powerful position as anchor. She doesn’t just report the news but shapes the narrative and, in routinely inviting right-wing commentators and guests, she’s tilting the conventional wisdom on events of the day in a right-wing direction.
Nicole
@Kay: And yet. I fear if the programs are severely cut or go away, the media will still the Democrats for not “fighting for them hard enough. “. Because, everyone expects GOP to screw over the working class and are fine with it. Boys will be boys after all.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@schrodingers_cat: At least we have Balloon-Juice, where you can call a Nazi a Nazi. Judy W would have the vapors.
Cermet
@Nicole: The entire bases of all religions and I’m looking at all christians here. While all liberals can (and in the case of religious belief’s are), at least most will look at facts and (sometimes) slowly calibrate their views to adjust for reality.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly: Sounds like him but supposedly this was a retiring GOP rep. As far as I know, King is not retiring.
Waldo
@Amir Khalid: Perfect!
schrodingers_cat
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:Snooze Hour tut-tutted but did not air the shit hole countries remark or say it out loud.
ETA: Yes its good to have Balloon Juice where we don’t have to mince words.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Nicole: “Boys will be boys” – that really nails the media attitude towards us namby-pamby Dems that lets the Republicans get away with anything and everything.
tobie
@clay: One conservative who has questioned Ryan’s legacy is Steve Schmidt.
He also attacks him for exploding the deficit.
Spanky
@Quinerly: I’m pretty sure Ewick’s “congressperson” was as real as King Fu Monkey’s Tyrone.
A useful, fictional character who mouths the author’s POV. In this case, though, Ewick is desperately trying to avoid being fingered as having those opinions.
(Edited because of my damn typoing sskillz.)
Cermet
@Nicole: And this differs from so-called christians and their reading/knowledge of their bible? No where in the bible is abortion denounced or considered a sin; just the opposite because one has examples of where woman who are pregnant are executed yet the people could have waited for them to give birth first. Not reading nor understanding the principles by which they use “well known knowledge” that is false, is common by rightwingers.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
A joke from many years ago:
Person A: Can you tell me where the bathroom is at?
Person B: At Hahvahd, they taught us not to end a sentence with a preposition. (Said in the stereotypical Harvard/preppie/rich WASP accent)
Person A: Hmm. OK — can you tell me where the bathroom is at, asshole?
rikyrah
True, cause they wanted to be conned.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
OT – There’s some sort of Baptist/Calvinist convention going on in Louisville (I think the twitter hashtag is T4G18, or something similar). Anyway, the thing is whiter than white (I’ve been blinded by the sight of groups of them wandering about), and you have the usual twitter complaints from servers about the poor tipping, although grindr is probably super busy.
So if you follow the event tweets, one or two of the speakers had some critical things to say about racial attitudes, MLK and the composition of congregations in the Baptist and Calvinist world. Judging by the whining, the butthurt and the pushback, the vast majority of participants are Trumpers and some of the worst people on earth, many of them identifying as pastors.
It is an ugly, ugly event.
rikyrah
Sex scandal gets vastly more serious for Missouri’s GOP governor
04/12/18 08:00 AM—UPDATED 04/12/18 08:06 AM
By Steve Benen
In contemporary politics, sex scandals are not always career-ending controversies. The public is often forgiving, for example, when politicians are contrite about mistakes in their personal lives.
But make no mistake: the allegations surrounding Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) are vastly more serious than routine controversies about adultery. The Kansas City Star reported overnight:
The full report is online here. I should emphasize that it’s quite graphic and explains in some detail alleged non-consensual sexual assaults.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Not intentionally, at least. Let’s hope DuWayne Gregory fixes that.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: They are not send us their best, they are sending rapists and..
GregB
Forrest Trump.
rikyrah
Maddow was BLISTERING on Paul Ryan last night.
Blistering!
Loved it.
Paul Ryan legacy gives lie to Beltway’s deficit hawk mythology
Rachel Maddow shows how the Beltway media spun up an elaborate myth about Paul Ryan as a budget hawk focused on reducing spending and debt. Ryan announced his retirement two days after the CBO announced a record deficit resulting from the budget Ryan oversaw.
Barbara
@Duane:
It’s strange and unsettling that we are living with such chaos that this isn’t THE headline in every newspaper. It even has sex — real sex, kinky sex — and it’s barely registering outside of Missouri (I think or hope, anyway).
My theory with Paul Ryan is that as someone who lost his father young he molded his beliefs and goals to please wealthy patrons who served as alternative father figures. He might have ideals, but he certainly seems to shed them at the drop of a hat when a donor tells him that tax cuts are more important. He is an empty vessel with an appealing exterior. He will always be the “future” of the Republican Party, the way Bobby Jindal will always be the bright Rhodes scholar who became the “youngest” guy to do — fill in the blank. They can’t sink into oblivion soon enough.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Don’t worry MSM R-enablers will switch their affections to Sassy Ben, he is so cute and dreamy.
Ruckus
@Kay:
How many old farts here on this blog are in that position of relying on SS for retirement.
Slowly raises hand. I’m better off than some of the people you mention but only by a small percentage. I have very little debt and can get out of it at any time. But your SS payment has to be maxed out and you have to have something in the way of healthcare other than Medicare to survive. And what with the assholes in the WH and congress screwing up the economy we will probably be in a recession soon. That means no work for me, that means far less for retirement and makes the situation dire. And as you point out I’m no where near alone in this.
Am I bitter? No, not in the least. And if you believe that, I’ve got a few bridges that I can let go on the cheap.
Barbara
@OzarkHillbilly:
Darrell Issa? He would talk like that as well. Possibly Charlie Dent or one of the other departing Pennsylvania legislators, but less likely to talk in that tone.
Droppy
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone:
As Charlie Pierce says when he mentions this, “You’re welcome, asshole.”
Ruckus
@Kay:
Well for one thing it would work far better.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly: I missed the part about retiring. Will have to read the entire piece again.
A clue: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/erick-erickson-provides-small-clue-about-identity-of-mystery-gop-lawmaker-who-torched-trump
Steeplejack
@Nicole:
Hell, I wonder where they were one year ago.
Quinerly
@Spanky: I thought that at first. Then haven’t been that sure.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly: Reread the piece. I may be off my rocker this AM… Can’t find the part that the guy is retiring. Have I now missed it twice?
catclub
@Kay:
Getting gold from Smaug was easier than getting taxes from the Koch brothers.
burnspbesq
@debit:
Ponies are high-maintenance. Can I have a turtle instead?
rikyrah
@Kay:
Tell it Kay.
TELL IT!!
Yarrow
Remember when Ryan was one of the Republican “Young Guns?” Eric Cantor was another one. They’re both gone. Kevin McCarthy is the last one standing.
Calouste
@clay: The media idiots, the rich white legacy hires, didn’t “fall” for Ryan’s bullshit. He gave them what they wanted to hear, a story that fitted in their narrative, their world view, and they ran with it.
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
Love that joke! The version I learned was “Okay, where’s the library at, bitch?” but it works in many contexts and with many epithets ;-)
debit
@burnspbesq:
How about a nice, juicy fish instead, Precious?
The Other Chuck
@Spanky: I dunno, the account probably is embellished, but the Gump thing is a tell that I’m not sure (Erik) son of \1 is talented enough to fabricate on his own.
SFAW
@debit:
Just don’t put it in your pocketses, OK?
Stan
Yes. Umbrellas….it’s as if they do not understand umbrellas. They keep you dry. It doesn’t mean you throw them out when it isn’t raining.
MCA1
I love how some of these GOP pundits and strategists are NOW taking Paul Ryan to task for the most irredeemable, most damaging part of his stint as Speaker, which would be the blind fealty to Beloved Dotard. He has done at best generational, and at worst irreparable, harm to the republic by abdicating all power of the Congress over the Executive. Instead of actually holding Trump to account, even once, for any of his daily shows of depravity, his constant running roughshod over every norm of civility, duty to country, and democratic governance, he’s empowered and protected Devin f’ing Nunes, Trump’s slavering toady in Congress. I know Ryan gives lie to other Republican myths – ability to actually govern, fiscal responsibility, etc. – but his primary legacy in my mind will always be as the living embodiment of Party over Country Always Forever that now defines the GOP.
Paul Ryan has been a transparent coward forever and was never motivated by anything other than his own ambition and opportunism, and other than Steve Schmidt no one from the Republican side of the world could bring themselves to admit this glaringly obvious fact until yesterday.
Duane
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: That shitshow is coming here this weekend. Given the scandals that they’ve foisted on us, they should be shamed of being seen together in public. Or scared of being tarred, feathered, and ran out of town.
catclub
@Calouste:
They leaped to embrace it.
Librarian
@clay: Lawrence O also.
Barbara
@OzarkHillbilly: I read the link and the problem with Wilson is the problem with all of the “fiscal probity” types that equates probity with reducing “your” benefits in order to reduce “their” taxes, and that is: voters don’t like it. They won’t stand for a direct assault on Social Security and Medicare, (when George Bush barnstormed the country based on privatizing Social Security in 2005 it had all the resonance of a sinking ship) so that’s why most of the assaults involve the two step approach of cutting taxes first and then wringing hands mightily over the resulting deficit, which they insist can only be addressed by cutting benefits or the euphemistic version known as entitlement reform. That hasn’t worked either, or not well enough for their taste, so Paul Ryan got the tax cut, threw up his hands and got out. This has been going on for more than 25 years and people like Rick Wilson still can’t seem to grasp that, ultimately, it’s up to voters, most of whom rely on these programs. I don’t know what kind of bubble Wilson lives in that he can’t seem to grasp that people aren’t willing to starve in order to serve his vision of a meritocracy.
randy khan
@Quinerly:
The thing that’s striking about the Daily Beast piece is that this is a guy who feels (and expresses) deep contempt for the Democrats’ ability to run competent campaigns, a fair amount of it unjustified, and still thinks that the Republicans are likely to suffer 1974-level losses in November.
Duane
@catclub: As Jim Wright put it they sidled up to it and licked it in the ear.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Continuing the basing-your-politics-on-The-Hobbit (as opposed to Atlas Shrugged) meme from below (because I’m always late to the fun discussions), could I suggest a policy of no more Nazgul in Cabinet positions? That would be good.
I’m still feeling optimistic about us not tripping over our feet in the 2018 elections, but increasingly pessimistic about how bad the damage will be by then. Just think about the flurry of destruction an outgoing lame duck Congress could accomplish in the November to January period alone.
Mayur
@Kay: . “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
Sounds good to me.
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: I keep seeing copies of “Young Guns” in the local Dollar Stores. (It’s Eric Cantor’s former congressional district.) I do not notice folks purchasing them.
LOL. Two down, one to go.
Shell
I cant believe they’re still using that old wheeze, “Spend more time with my family.” Well, I guess when your party itself has become a joke…
Uncle Cosmo
@GregB: Bangalore! – With the proviso that “Forrest” is pronounced farce.
Uncle Cosmo
@OzarkHillbilly: Where’d’ya get that “supposedly”? There’s no support for it in the quoted passages – only that the snarler thinks he might be retired by the electorate come November.
Shurzell sounds like Petey Pawn (IRA – NY) to me.
Uncle Cosmo
@Yarrow: “Young Guns” -> “Young Goons” -> “Young Gones.” Arwin’s Theory of Devolution hard at work…
Bill in Section 147
Can he please fly solo to Syria and try to broker a peace treaty. Rudolph Hess thinks it is time for history to repeat itself.
No Drought No More
Bannon’s “time travel legal strategy” for Trump to Triumph is as contemptuous of America and Americans as those times when GW Bush lies and states that only future generations can possibly gauge the ultimate “success” or failure of the 2003 War in Iraq.*
*Unlike Cheney, who remains defiantly proud of their treason.
Unlike congressional democrats that once supported them, too; whose fifteen year, shamefaced silence in the face of that great betrayal has so ill served our national security interests- internationally, of course, but above all, in terms of our domestic politics, and that, across the board. Americans know the score, know they were lied into waging war. The fuckers plotted war succeeded, but have never since been seriously challenged for having made war criminals of us all.
Kathleen
@donnah: My fondest memories are how cruel he was to children. Every time a child was enrolled in Medicaid Ryan tore off an angel’s wings.
Turgidson
@Nicole:
Back then he was “brave” and “bold” and “sincere” and, most hilariously, “was very concerned about the budget deficit.”
The gullibility of some of the press in believing his bullshit and never bothering to check his record or the accuracy of his claims or the consequences of what he was proposing to most non-rich people, the willingness to go along with his con among others, and refusal to take seriously the people who actually knew what they were talking about (Krugman most prominently but there were plenty who saw through him) among both of these groups, was like a mini-Iraq war runup sequel. And it was a non-trivial reason why Obama didn’t have the political capital to push more stimulus into the economy when it desperately needed it in 2010-11.
My contempt for the heinous piece of soulless shit known as Paul Ryan knows no bounds.
Citizen Alan
@catclub:
It was legal to simply shoot Smaug through the heart with a Black Arrow and then just go take his stuff. Which, come to think of it, maybe a compelling reason to adopt the Lord of the Rings platform for economic Justice.
Shana
@Jeffro: And we’d get two breakfasts.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
I’m afraid you’re sadly mistaken about them.
They know, but they don’t give a shit.
Poor people dying from lack of money is a feature to them, not a bug.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
We’d have utopia because everyone would be guaranteed at least 8 meals a day?
EthylEster
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’m ignoring the missing “are”!
But I can’t let you off on the “at” abomination.
Where are all the other pedants?
No “at” required.
TenguPhule
@catclub:
It helped to kill Smaug first.
TenguPhule
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Nitpick, there are no Nazgul in the Hobbit.
Llelldorin
@Stan: What’s amazing is that this understates the stupidity of the argument. The Republican argument is closer to “we should throw out our umbrellas because it isn’t raining under these umbrellas anyway.”
Barbara
@TenguPhule: More precisely, worthy people won’t need Social Security — they will do what it takes to save for retirement. Unworthy people don’t deserve to retire.