“Braaaaains”
On the surface, Romney’s choice of zombie eyed granny starver Paul Ryan as his VP running mate shouldn’t make any sense. This is the guy who is determined that everyone who isn’t wealthy or well-connected take a severe haircut in services, that we pay for, by the way, so that the wealthy and well-connected never have to pay us back for all the money we let them have in the past 30 years. If Romney was up against the *old* Democratic party, it would be a piece of cake to shoot this down.
But the fact that Romney even made this choice in the first place indicates something entirely different. For one thing, the Republicans have been saving their ammunition, and they must have a ton of it, while Obama has been burning through campaign money like a wildfire trying to cripple Romney and he hasn’t gotten much traction. Obama even threw the tax return issue out there, probably because he felt he had to. Romney can stonewall that from now until doomsday but the best time to have brought it up would have been just before the election. What do the Democrats have left?
There must be an advantage to Romney picking Ryan or he wouldn’t have done it. Republicans play to win. I’m going to guess that the deficit hawkery is really important to the GOP to ensure its wealthy base pays nothing in taxes. But it doesn’t want to necessarily kill the donor as long as there are still organs to harvest. You don’t want full scale insurrection on your hands. So, choosing Ryan might have been a safer choice. Let’s try to reason this out:
1.) By getting Ryan out of the House, the pressure is off the GOP to actually go through with any severely drastic cut his plan would have provoked the Tea Party lunatics to demand. The Tea Party won’t be happy until no one gets anything they PREPAID. It’s a power thing, not a rational objective. They’ll push the envelope because they can, not because it’s wise or good for the party. But with Ryan out of their hair, the GOP leadership can claim they now have a power vacuum and who is going to take his place for pushing and whipping like he did? They will look in vain for a replacement but all of the up-and-comers will fall short of Ryan’s brilliant political skills. Maybe they won’t be able to get all the way through Atlas Shrugged or they have a nugget of compassion that hasn’t been bred out of them. Who knows, but for some reason, they’ll be more self-effacing and compliant than Ryan.
2.) By getting Ryan in the VP spot for the election season, the GOP has a twofer: It can run on the deficit issue, which means that it will be all deficits, all the time on TV and in the papers from now until November, AND it can deep six Ryan in the VP position after the election where we will never hear from him again. The VP spot is where politicians go to die, er, not literally but functionally. Think about it, how many VPs have gone on to become president after running a successful campaign instead of after some catastrophic event? I can only think of one in the recent past- George Bush Sr. So, what Ryan stands for is important to the GOP message machine, but Paul Ryan himself is not so important or they would have left him where he was.
3.) It will force the Democrats to either out deficit hawk the Republicans, driving the election season narrative to the right, or it will give Democrats an opening to defend the American people from additional demands for sacrifice and economy killing cuts in government spending. Ehhhh, I’m going to guess that the GOP knows Obama really well and anticipates that he will continue to go right. It’s what he was hired to do. The bankers want him to get rid of all entitlements so they won’t feel obligated (do they even have feelings of obligation and responsibility?) to discipline themselves and not gorge on more than they can swallow. If Obama hadn’t come down so hard on the Occupy movement on the bankers’ behalf, he might have something to hide behind- a moral message about how wrong it is to hurt the 99% of us who work hard and play by the rules. But he did and now he can’t.
All in all, I’d say this was a win for the GOP. They know their message and propaganda machine is more than adequate to skew the Democrats’ counterpunch in their direction. Obama has done a lousy job and he can’t run on the things that are really important to the 99%. If unemployment were not an issue, the deficit problem wouldn’t be a problem, would it? If more of us were back at work, we wouldn’t be collecting unemployment benefits, we’d be paying our taxes. But because unemployment was NOT the focus of Obama’s four years in office, he’s not only allowed the little Depression to impoverish people, he’s added to the deficit because revenue has fallen off. Sure, running up a big deficit during a recession/depression is not a bad thing, but you’ve got to have a plan to replace the money you spent someday while jump starting an economic recovery and this is not an argument that Obama has chosen to make.
Krugman, Stiglitz, Romer, and some other economists have tried to convince him to do it in order to put people back to work, but he only wanted to listen to his banker friends and now he’s stuck. In order to turn this around, he’s got to grow a unibrow and become a FDR style Democrat on steroids. Cewl, swave and deboner will not cut it, especially when there’s more desperation than commitment behind the nasal stopped Chicago accented delivery. He had four years, two of them with his party in majority in BOTH houses of Congress, and he wasted them, falling right into the trap the GOP laid and the rest of us anticipated. Republicans wanted to make life so difficult that the only way to make it better would be to apply New Deal strategies, which they would try to oppose. A skillful politician would have gone bold and big. Alas, we got Obama.
For a guy who has so many political gifts {{cough, cough}} and plays a mean game of 11-dimensional chess, he should have seen it coming.
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One other thing that should be glaringly obvious: the *presumptive* lineup for both parties will contain…
four men
You know, this is the 21st century and it’s almost like the 20th never even happened when it comes to women. All of the other countries in the world are at least struggling with their females in government problem. Here, we act like there is no problem.
Even Pakistan has had a female head of state. Pakistan. But here? Not even on the radar.
I’ve always wondered why women stay in abusive religions where they’re not considered the equal of men. What’s in it for them? And why don’t women ask that question of their parties?
Just curious.
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And here’s a blast from the past. This goes out to Paul Ryan and his buds:
Filed under: General | Tagged: Democrats, GOP, Mitt Romney, paul ryan, Republicans, VP, zombies |
The Confluence 
It’s going to be really interesting to see how having Ryan on the ticket affects the Democratic message. Will they pretend to move to the Left as a contrast? Or will they be “forced” to move Right?
I’m going to guess that they will feel they need to move right. The narrative in the media is set. That’s the direction the Village is pointing. They’re going to treat anyone who doesn’t talk about the deficit as “unserious”. It would take a visionary leader with a strong commitment to fairness and democratic principles to make a different argument that will get attention. Like I pointed out, crushing Occupy and making them look like wild-eyed, violent, dirty, sex addled tramps was probably not a good move.
OTOH, Occupy absolutely knows for sure now that Obama is not their guy.
This Ryan thing does give me the same sick feeling I had after hearing Obama’s Convention speech (2004?) …. I think we’re in for a bad couple of months.
Oh, absolutely! In order to change the narrative and gain the upper hand, the Democrats are going to have to go back to their roots. Otherwise, this is going to be a contest between which party is going to be able to control the deficit better.
Well, you know I’ve always advocated shutting off TV and radio news broadcasts…
I’m not getting this feeling from either TV or radio (the news here in KC is all about some football player who just signed with the team — no mention of politics at all) … I’m getting it from my Twitter Feed. Somehow Romney Picking Ryan proves that Obama is great. Or something. Even EmptyWheel seems off her usual message.
Heck, there are millions of religious Americans who have been convinced for decades now that the Rapture is right around the corner. No matter how many times one of their false prophets get it wrong, they fall for it again and again. You can’t talk to these people. They want to believe what they want to believe no matter how unrealistic it is.
I don’t think Emptywheel or any of the Democratic party loyalists have any clue what’s really going on with the average American voter. They were only successful in 2008 because anyone with a D beside their name was going to win. That’s gone to their heads in the wrong way.
Or which party is going to starve granny better…..
I don’t know. I think Ryan solidifies the Democratic base pretty well. Take me, for instance. Whereas I once was going to vote 3rd party. I’m going to vote now for Obama. I won’t rah-rah, because I think Obama is a hideous choice, but I’ll do my part to keep Ryan out. Whereas Obama is a psychopath, Ryan is a well-known would-be hatchetman with lots on the Congressional record to show for it.. Ryan’s eyes ar dead because he has no soul and he isn’t afraid to do everything but say so. I think this goes to the very successful meme as Romney the hatchetman. Ryan is the social hatchetman.
I predict Obama in a landslide. It won’t even be close. Romney won’t be able to get the over-60 vote.
On the contrary, I think the Republicans are going to make this a real run for the money. They’ve guaranteed grandma her bennies. This is about generational warfare. The grandmas are going to pull up the ladder and get behind Romney now.
No, I disagree. The grannies, by definition, have children and grandchildren. This is a kiss of death. I predict millions, among them former Dems and Dems-in-exile, will now vote for Obama. Not me, of course, but I’m an outlier.
R/R has now out-Wall-Streeted Obama and his decision not to prosecute Goldman Sachs (or any other banksta).
Some of this depends on how Rocky Anderson and Jill Stein respond. THIS is the year they should take their candidacies seriously. They have a window of opportunity here.
There is no functional difference between the two major parties — at this point, they’re in a race to the bottom.
The 3rd parties have the chance to raise the bar.
Are you kidding? Have you seen what has happened at some of the former PUMA sites? You are living in an echo chamber if you don’t think this is a great play by the most evil people on earth.
We are now talking about the deficit 24/7, just like we were last year at this time. The only think that changed the narrative was Occupy Wall Street. And Obama, very handily, put them on mute.
The Democrats who are political junkies will think this is the thing that saves Obama. But they forget that the narrative is set to push for deficit cutting and if Obama takes the bait, he’s going to have to prove that he’s serious about making cuts *before the election*. And who is that going to alienate? That’s right, the very same people who are having a field day today. Obama is just not into them but they refuse to believe it.
Democrats have a choice: become the party of deficit reduction or go back to the party of economic stimulus. All signs point to Obama throwing liberals under a bus.
This is NOT a stupid GOP move. For one thing, we’ll be talking about it for days. Mitt’s taxes? What about them?
Progressives were had in 2008 and they will be paying for it for generations to come. Wait and see.
If Obama wins, you should plan on living your old age future without any meaningful social security or medicare to speak of. If Obama wins,
you should start reading books and articles by Kurt Saxon, Dmitri Orlov, Sharon Astyk, The Contrary Goddess, John Robb, etc. And applying the information in your own life.
Lernnit Livvit Luvvit!
FWIW, I think Romney’s choice indicates that he’s less serious about tackling the deficit than having the appearance of doing so.
You can vote for who ever you like but I’m not interested in playing by the two party system anymore. I’m tired of kabuki and lying to people about the deficit and dissing people who have no jobs and all of the mean, nasty, hard hearted behavior I’m witnessing today. I’m sick of only poor people going to jail and losing everything over misidentification or the mounting fees of collection agencies that the courts hire to pursue them. I’m disgusted by the way that banks get away with economic terrorism with a slap on the wrist and a pile of cash they can light on fire in another global casino.
You couldn’t pay me enough money to vote for either party at this point. They don’t represent my America.
I said below that: “Anderson and Stein have to step up and make it inescapably clear that Obama/Biden & Romney/Ryan are on the same side of the Catfood issues.”
But, I guess that’s actually OUR job, too.
I’m Irish but I don’t use this phrase often: I’m gobsmacked that Romney picked Ryan, a man who turns off seniors immediately and permanently.
Increasingly, it’s looking like our Lords and Masters took Mitt aside and told him to take a dive, hoarsely whispering, “It’s not your night, kid.”
Anderson and Stein have to step up and make it inescapably clear that Obama/Biden & Romney/Ryan are on the same side of the Catfood issues.
yep
I think he knows *exactly* what he’s doing. They’ll make sure the seniors who are already collecting benefits won’t suffer.
Democrats have the crazy idea that the Republicans are amateurs. These people are not amateurs.
The way you can tell is that the media has been lining up behind Ryan for months now just like they lined up behind Obama and murdered Hillary. The fix is in. The narrative from now until November is going to be deficit, deficit, deficit and those of us who object will be portrayed as unserious people who refuse to make sacrifices and eat our poisoned mushrooms. Indeed, I won’t be surprised if we’re not made to feel guilty that we are asking too much for ourselves at the expense of the elderly. We’ll be told we’re being selfish. Mark my words, it’s coming.
Yesterday, on another blog, I said that the Obama machine could point a gun to the head of every calico kitten in America, threaten to shoot, and I still wouldn’t check the box for BO.
Today, for the first time in years, I don’t know.
Everyone, here, knows I’m no troll and I’m not saying that I’d vote for Obama, but it’s not written in stone as it was, yesterday.
We’re not rich, not by a long shot and will need that Medicare and SS to live–I know that makes us losers, amirite?
Being only human, drones and kill lists aren’t going to mean much if I’m living in a pup tent and dining on Nine Lives-Fancy Feast on holidays.
I just feel so played.
Stop and think about it, sue. For the past 30 years, the wealthy have been reaping the benefits of us prepaying our social security bennies. If they want to continue not paying taxes, they can’t come right out and kill it. That would be stupid and only something Democrats would do.
No, they want to give the *appearance* of taking on the deficit problem. Sure, they’ll probably do something to Medicare but you can bet your sweet ass that no one over 55 is going to suffer.
They got Ryan out of the house where he was beginning to be a liability and into the spotlight where they can solidify their base around denying people unemployment insurance and food stamps. This is about discretionary spending and the military.
The choice of Ryan doesn’t frighten me a bit, or at least, no more than Obama and his confederacy of dunces.
I agree with Sweet Sue. R/R just lost millions of voters. I personally could never vote for Obama; however, this is a serious shocker to those of us who care about the social safety net, which is already crumbling, but now faces complete extinction if R/R get in. IMO, this also assures a Dem victory of epic proportions.
You’re not seeing the big picture yet. They didn’t pick Ryan because they are stupid.
Well, I don’t think the Repubs are all that smart. They may have been worried about their Tea Party base. And, of course, the Dems may be stupid and venal and compassion-less enough to play into the deficit-as-the-only-issue-in-town game, but I still think the lesser-of-two-evils approach (as odious as it is) may gain some traction now.
I agree with those suggesting that purity on SS and Medicare is the main test of voting for a politician in November. Preserve those programs as they are – no changes whatsoever, except perhaps an expansion to Medicare for All and a lowering of the age to qualify for SS. That means a “no” vote for both R/R and O/B.
I think it was r u reddy who pointed out on another blogpost that Congressional Dems would make bleating noises if a Prez Romney wanted to cut SS and Medicare. But when it’s Obama they do nothing at all.
So SS & Medicare may actually be safer with the Mittbot, assuming the Dems still control one House. The Zombie-eyed Granny Starver doesn’t change that calculus, as far as I can see.
I think it was r u reddy who mentioned earlier that Congressional Dems would make bleating noises if a Prez Romney wanted to cut SS and Medicare. But when it’s Obama they do nothing at all.
So SS & Medicare may actually be safer with the Mittbot, assuming the Dems still control one House. The Zombie-eyed Granny Starver doesn’t change that calculus, as far as I can see.
I used to agree with me on that very point until a couple days ago when I read and thought about two posts Colonel Lang wrote at his Sic Semper Tyrannis blog. One was about the crazed warhungry beasts who staff all the thinkership/strategery foreign policy posts and offices of the R Party now . . . the neoconservatives and so forth. Colonel Lang expects more wars here, there, and everywhere under a President Romney. If Obama is re-elected I will lose my social security and medicare. But if Romney is re-elected, we may lose the whole country. Qhite the choice, eh? And if we lose the whole country, economy, etc. . . . then by definition we lose SS/Mcare anyway even if the Democrats pretend to oppose RuanOmney’s overt efforts to repeal them.
So I may well be voting third party. I won’t be voting for “stealth Ryan” Obama in any event. And I will start redirecting my mental focus to state and loca affairs both political and economic. Everyone should ask themselves: if the Corporate Soviet States of America should collapse and break apart the way the Uniion of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed and broke up, how separately viable is the particular little piece you find yourself living in? Is your piece of a post breakup America more likely to survive at some low level of semi-western culture like Poland or the Baltic States? Or is your region more likely to become a fountain of spectacular corruption like Ukraine or the Russian Federation? Or is your area most likely to become an “orientaloid” despotism like the post Soviet Ickystans? People might consider moving to the sort of area they wish to find themselves
living in.
(Is that my perfect world future scenario anyway? No. But I would prefer a soviet-style breakup over seeing America become One Big North Korea, which could also happen).
About the only purposeful thing the Democrats have left is to defend SS, Medicare and Medicaid from assault. They’ve already abdicated issues like full employment, fair taxation, wealth and income inequality. If O agrees to cuts in social insurance, the Democratic Party will fold up like an old lawn chair. There would be no reason to support them whatever.
I get the sense that O is like the CEO of a failing corporation who is preparing it for takeover. He personally won’t be affected, he’ll get his golden parachute but everyone in his company will be left to lie like dogs. ( apologies to dog lovers )
(To Greg T actually . . . )
Greg T, it isn’t that O is “agreeing” to these cuts. He is the Prime Instigator In Chief actively consPIRing to achieve these cuts. These cuts are part of what he expects to be paid millions of dollars for after he leaves office.
Greg T — I’m stealing this comment:
It’s too good.
Once again we have the single issue, actually two issues, if a Democrat wants your support they must be 100% behind Social Security and Medicare. Any poli-speak about it means no vote.
This should be the message you are sending your Democrat Representatives and Senators today.
” I’ve always wondered why women stay in abusive religions where they’re not considered the equal of men. What’s in it for them? ”
My belief is that those women want to be taken care of. They have no personal ambitions and very few talents and certainly are not independent types. They want the men to do all the heavy lifting even at the expense of their personal goals. They are lazy and beholden to Papa. I find them vapid and akin to leeches.
Whoa, don’t hold back.
Sounds like a men’s rights group.
vapid leeches, really?
Well, I certainly wouldn’t want a klown like that representing me as a lawyer in a divorce, would you?
Honk, Honk (tee-hee), I sure wouldn’t.
insanelysane, it’s possible that after years of systematic abuse, these women believe the batterer–that nobody else would want them and they are lucky to have what they do have. Or they are fearful of retaliation. Or they are fearful for their children. They may have had abusive childhood experiences and subconsciously chose their current relationship for the familiarity factor. Then there’s denial. There are other reasons. It’s complex.
Soph, you are always the voice of sweet reason, I really mean it and thanks.
I have my own issues with women who stay in abusive religions but I challenge you to look at the 80% of American sisters and nuns who are currently taking on the Catholic hierarchy instead of submitting to church authority or leaving the church that they love. Many of them, including, their current leader went to Central America as missionaries when their kind were being raped, tortured and murdered by the rightwing death squads. They are doctors, lawyers and university professors as well as nurses, teachers and social workers. They support themselves and their goal is to live their lives in service to other people and to God as they believe Christ did.
Your entire comment reeks of misogyny.
Yup. I’ve never understood why they waste their talents on sexist jerks either, but some of them clearly have their eyes fixed on Noah’s great rainbow. I can respect that, even though I don’t understand it. (Myself, I’d cut out the middleman and go for the rainbow.)
On the contrary, those very same sisters are wrestling with the very question of why they’re putting up with a religion that continues to treat them like second class citizens. There is absolutely no logical reason why the catholic church has to behave like that to them and yet they do. The catholic church has just one interpretation of the bible out of many but in general, Judeo Christian religions have put a stamp on female inferiority.
What’s the point??
There are other religions out there. Tge sister’s can start one of their own where they’re in charge. What’s stopping them? Tradition? That wouldn’t be a good enough reason for me.
It all just feels like a big, lousy shadows on the cave wall puppet show.
As my sister says, “Bread and circuses-without the bread.
RD says:
That’s how I see it too, and I’m a bit puzzled that Romney’s pick of a VP apparently can make voters who have up until now been strongly opposed to Obama suddenly reconsider? Even to the point of calling Obama a ‘psychopath’ and still chosing to vote for him!
I’m most certainly not neither advocating voting for Romney nor chastising anyone for their vote, I just don’t quite understand this. I mean how much of a VP’s politics/ policies have been carried out by former presidents?
… OK, not counting Bush/ Cheney, I guess.
Well, it’s the symbolism of the pick, for one thing.
In choosing Ryan, Romney just gave a big FU to seniors and soon to be seniors.
It just makes no sense, and the really funny thing is that RandR are rolling out their campaign in Florida-God’s waiting room!
The GOP is taking a dive, imho, and I’d love to know why.
I live in Ohio and a vote for anyone not on the ballot doesn’t count; sure hope that Anderson or Stein makes it on.
Sue, it makes perfect sense if you look at this from the perspective of the 1 %. They want entitlements cut, who better to do it than a Democrat? Even if Paul Ryan scares off enough voters to cost Romney the election, the 1 % wins if they can get Barack Obama to ignore his base and cut social insurance. ( I hate the word “entitlement” in this context. ) If Romney wins, that’s an acceptable outcome for them, but it will be harder to execute their plan. Ryan’s presence on the ticket won’t matter much if Mitt Romney wins the presidency.
Personally, I think the elites WANT another term for Barack Obama. Why? Because he’s pliable, he neuters leftist opposition and he can sell castor oil to a public that doesn’t want it. Romney can’t do that. I know, riverdaughter, you think the GOP is going for the win, but they’re arranging things to win regardless of the electoral outcome. Romney is an insurance policy for them. The Paul Ryan selection, excites the base, and turns attention to deficit cutting. What they want is to maneuver Obama into a deficit-cutting corner. Force him to position right so that he’s pressured to slash social insurance. If Romney wins, it will be much harder to accomplish this, despite Ryan’s presence on the ticket.
Anyway, for me nothing has changed. I won’t be voting for Barack Obama.
Oh, so you read my latest post.
Yes, as long as the pressure is on to cut the deficit, this is a win-win for the powerful elite no matter who wins the White House.
Knowing that, what Democratic voter in their right mind would put up with this crap?? The last thing you want is a quisling like Obama in the White House.
I keep saying that he’s only the *presumptive* nominee. The party can change this whole narrative around if it asks him to step aside.
If the ‘last’ thing we want in the White House is a quisling like Obama,
what is the ‘second last’ thing we would want in the White House? And if the only way to keep the ‘last’ thing out of the White House is to put the ‘second’ last thing into the White House, do we bite that bullet and vote for the ‘second’ last thing to make sure the ‘last’ thing loses?
That said, Colonel Lang’s reminder of just what sort of vile filth and crypto-humanoid scum staff the various thinkership levels of the R Party . . radioactive leech vomit like John Bolton and Elliot Abrams and so forth . . . has made it more difficult for less sure about foting for the ‘second’ last thing than I was up till a few days ago.
(And if my comments look ugly, it is because the combination of microsoft and the confluence’s bloghosting service are strobelight-pranging my field of vision again.
“I think the elites WANT another term for Barack Obama.”
Agree. The fix is in.
The fix can be broken if enough people are committed to breaking it . . . and can figure out how. Voting against Obama . . . one way or another . . . is a good way to start.
The bottom line is that we all have to organize against this. The money people will use propaganda and every trick in the book to manipulate us into doing their will. We need to put a stop to it.
Yes, historically, the Vice presidency has become a political graveyard ever since it was constitutionally split off from second place in the Presidential derby. The first two VPs (second placers) became President (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson). After that, only four VP candidates made the leap without assuming the office: Martin Van Buren, FDR (only losing VP, after 12 years), Richard Nixon (after 8), and George H.W. Bush. Ironically, both Van Buren and Bush succeeded old fart myths and paid the price for cleaning up at least part of the old fart’s mess with one term Presidencies. Whatever else you think of Nixon, he was a master political strategist and so was FDR. That certainly doesn’t fit Paul Ryan. Romney is not an old fart myth.
This is proof, if we need it, that the banksters control the legacy parties. Mere prosperity and profitability is not good enough. Class warfare is required with the 1% and their employees running the show.
If Ryan gives up his House seat he relinquishes real power for the possibility of what? This reeks of McKinley choosing TR to remove “that damn cowboy” from the New York Governor’s mansion.
Excellent historical background, David. Thank you.
Yes, the banksters control the legacy parties. The evidence, I think is that the financial sector, and the health care sector now REQUIRE massive state intervention to maintain profitability. The main Wall Street banks could not have survived without TARP and large scale involvement of the FED as well as regulatory forbearance. The ACA keeps the private insurance sector in place by mandating coverage premiums paid to them.
This is why we’re seeing a full-throated attack on social insurance. THese industry cartels are effectively competing with the public for resources. THey want state resources for themselves which means the public must be denied its share. The focus is not on growing the pie, but transferring a grater percentage of a shrinking pie to themselves. This, of course, implies class warfare.
Its only class warfare if both classes wage war. As long as the upper class is the only class waging stealth shadow warfare, we could call it class aggression. Then we could give ourselves due and rightful permission to call an organized response “class defense”.
If their Deficit narrative is already set, then perhaps we can still put our brand on their narrative. Always and everywhere call it the Bush Deficit or the Bush Debt or the Bush’s Base Ripoff Deficit or something like that. Always try jamming into the discussion who engineered the debt and deficit on purpose and why they diddit.
Obama/Biden a lousy ticket…but Romney/Ryan? No way!
Well, I guess that’s it then! It’s a wonder how we didn’t realize this choice in such stark terms before you clarified it with such brevity.