paul ryan

London's Daily Mail [URL below] is out with a story detailing increasing American poverty, caused by declining wages, aggravated by the Great Recession and budget cuts that already have curtailed social safety net programs. After explaining why 20 percent of all American children are now officially poor, a level not seen since the 1960s, The Mail's reporter went to the chief architect of further budget cutting, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), chair of the House Budget Committee.

One Percent Rubs Affluence in Face of Wisconsin's Middle Class and Working Poor

This Monday, November 5^th the doors will open at 7:30 for the Milwaukee Victory Rally with “Paul and the GOP” at Sterling Aviation on South Howell at Mitchell Field. The event will begin at 9:30. These are the folks who are the “job creators”, the ones whose “Pathway to Prosperity” for the 1% requires the “pathway to Austerity” for the 99%. It is unbelievable that they can say that they understand the middle class, much less the working poor. Especially the working poor whose sweat supports unjust and undeserved affluence of the 1%. John Menard is Wisconsin's example of this excess transfer of wealth although the Walton billionaires are continuing to grow rich with the help of Badgercare for their workers. But, that's another story.

Tonight's post is just to point out how out of touch the Wisconsin Republicans really are.

A fascinating story of how Mitt Romney profited from the auto bailout, one of the reasons he will not release his tax returns, and how Paul Ryan fits into the whole scheme.  Thanks to Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, and Greg Palast for this report.

Time for another rambling dispatch from the great NorthWest of Wisconsin.  The national campaigns are the big news, but as everyone knows most of the policy that really affects your lives happens with the candidates from your own state.  To that end:

• I note that Paul Ryan continues to be too busy to debate with Rob Zerban.  This is deplorable, especially as he has decided to hedge his bets by running for two offices at once. Zerban would be an infinitely better representative of the people than Ryan, and Ryan should be willing to explain to  his constituents why he thinks he is a better choice.  Personally I would love to hear that story.
• While we're talking about better representatives of the people, there are several races up here in my neck of the woods that are crucially important, particularly to the environment and the people in my part of the state  Jim Swanson is running in the 29th Assembly district against John Murtha.  Jim is a friend both to me and to conservation and environment issues in the state. He has been running a "tin-cup" grassroots campaign against Murtha.  At a time when sand mining and other environmental issues are overwhelming around here, it's really important to support environmental candidates.  Jim is a great one.

The real truth hurtsHow does one explain the persistent Republican myth that voter fraud is rampant, thus requiring the onerous "Voter ID" laws enacted in Wisconsin and several other states? Sure, the move is, at bottom, actually a vote-suppression scheme aimed against Democrats. But aside from the masterminds at or near the top of the GOP, it's also true that this effort is based on a truly held belief among many rank-and-file Republicans.

The brain trust at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Politifact took a cheap shot at Rep. Tammy Baldwin today, once again exhibiting the feature's tendency to focus on the foliage of one tree and not the wildfire flames destroying most of the forest.

Although the four candidates for the Republican nomination to US Senate aired the vast majority of TV ads in the primary campaign, unchallenged Democratic nominee Baldwin did run a few ads. Politifact decided to get out its magnifying glass and see if it could spot any Baldwins or Bald-losses. 

It's not often when Markos "kos" Moulitsas, founder and publisher of Daily Kos, comes out into public view to issue a personal comment, but he did so today and he had extremely unkind things to say about Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who is Mitt Romney's running mate.

The concluding comments from Kos in his blog post:

Ryan did nothing to try and stop the closing of a major employer in his town, one that supposedly employed a bunch of his friends. That's called being a dick.