How Paul Ryan Captured The Republican Party

The New Yorker:

One day in March, 2009, two months after the Inauguration of President Obama, Representative Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin, sat behind a small table in a cramped meeting space in his Capitol Hill office.

Read the whole story at The New Yorker

Comments

[Stebbytubby]

11:34 AM on 07/31/2012

Just another Koch Suckah....well, after they have lost their election and spent billions trying to disenfranchise the Americsn people maybe their lucre will dry up and Ryan and his ilk will have to find some other source of income to suck on ....

[sonoflars]

09:13 AM on 07/31/2012

Paul Ryan is employed by the Koch brothers. He might as ell get a monthly check from Wichita Kansas.

[CynAnne]

06:45 PM on 07/30/2012

The CBO said Ryan's 'Reapercare' plan, which Bishop Romney thinks is (and we quote), "Marvelous!", is, in actuality, 'craptastical' and will HURT Americans (especially the elderly and working-poor):

http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-national/cbo-confirms-paul-ryan-s-budget-slashes-medicare-benefits-while-increasing-debt

http://www.factcheck.org/2011/05/ryans-budget-spin/

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/04/americas_budget

[zelduh]

06:09 PM on 07/30/2012

It is frightening to see a TOTALLY ideologically driven person in Congress who simply IGNORES the people he represents.

[jhNY]

06:59 PM on 07/30/2012

who simply keep returning him to another term as their Representative. Having lived in the area, I would never have thought it was possible for anybody to give Janesville a bad name. But Ryan has managed it.

[Whisper Loudly]

06:04 PM on 07/30/2012

From the Archives: On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare Bill, establishing a health insurance program for the elderly, and Medicaid, a health insurance program for the poor.

The first Medicare registration cards went to 81-year-old former President Truman and his wife Bess.

More info: http://wh.gov/1yvh

[crazyalice]

05:01 PM on 07/30/2012

the fatal conceit of socialism...? still with the ayn rand fascination.

i disagree about ryan's intelligence. he may be a hard worker but i don't think he's that intelligent. manipulative? yes. for him to practically worship rand is proof enough for me.

[mrhandyman3105]

04:28 PM on 07/30/2012

Tomorrow July 31st, I may have the chance to participate in a telephone Townhall meeting with Duncan Hunter (R-CA 52nd District). Just got an email indicating they'll contact me once the meeting begins. I don't believe that I'll get my chance to talk as I have not been approving of the job he and other republicans in the House have been doing. I've got some tough questions for him which if I get the chance to ask, I don't think I'll get a straight answer. But we'll see anyway.

[demisfine]

03:41 PM on 07/30/2012

Extremism accepted as leadership.
Ryan was hurt that his budget was presented as a swap of benefits for kids with down's syndrome for tax breaks on millionaires??
Awww.
Poor Paul Ryan doesn't approve of that representation.
Not that it isn't TRUE, he just doesn't like the optics.

[jsgaetano]

03:27 PM on 07/30/2012

I love how Paul Ryan's failed and fraud-based budget has become the poster child for the Goop's failed and fraud-based agenda. They aren't even hiding behind the thin veneer of pseudo-intellectualism they used to- now they're going Full Metal Bircher.

[FoonTheElder]

03:12 PM on 07/30/2012

Ryan is the new king of fiscal conservative frauds. His plans do NOTHING to the deficit but make it larger. He is the king of big corporate welfare. His original plans were to eliminate corporation income tax, estate tax and taxes on capital gains and dividends...all major tax cuts for the most wealthy. He would replace this with cuts in social security, eliminate medicare and raise taxes for over 90% of Americans. It's just another shift and shaft program by the Republicans.

[Levonsky]

03:06 PM on 07/30/2012

ryna is the gop. he peddled a bunch of big lies. lies so big that people believe they couldn't possibly be lies. the right wing media and pundits were all told the believe in the big lie to and that tha twould give it more "authority". a bunch of lies concocted in their think tanks and given to ryan to pull off as his own ideas and the right wing echo chamber went to work labeling it as "bold, audacious, courageous".
a lie is still a lie and the person presenting it still just a liar in a three piece suit. alot of them around these days.

[stormkrow]

02:42 PM on 07/30/2012

"My religion is just Ayn Rand's philosophy with ceremony and ritual added."
- Anton LaVey, founder of The Church Of Satan
http://www.churchofsatan.com/Pages/SatObj.html

[jsgaetano]

03:28 PM on 07/30/2012

Proving what kind of "god" conservatives REALLY serve.

[demisfine]

03:42 PM on 07/30/2012

None of them seem to appreciate that Rand wrote FICTION.
About as valid as base for economic strategy and governance as Dr Seuss.

[blinkthink]

02:42 PM on 07/30/2012

"Ryan had aligned himself with Cantor and the self-proclaimed Young Guns, who made life miserable for Boehner, their nominal leader. They were the most enthusiastic supporters of the Ryan plan, while Boehner had publicly criticized it. Cantor’s aides quietly promoted stories about Boehner’s alleged squishiness on issues dear to conservatives, and encouraged Capitol Hill newspapers to consider the idea that Cantor would one day replace Boehner.

As the Republican negotiations with the White House fizzled in the summer of 2011, Barry Jackson, Boehner’s chief of staff and a veteran of the Bush White House and Republican politics, blamed not just Cantor, who in media accounts of the failed deal often plays the role of villain, but Ryan as well."

Last summer's debt fight cost this nation 1.3 billion dollars. Now we know who to thank for that travesty. Cantor and Ryan led the carnage as Cantor even walked out of meetings as he bet against America. Those actions were unAmerican, and that's a perfect description of the "young guns."

[demisfine]

03:44 PM on 07/30/2012

They have cut Boehner off at the knees.
I am no republican, but I sympathize with Boehner, early on.
He was trying to live up to the job of Speaker.
He seemed sincerely awed by the responsibility.
Then the toddlers got cranky, and it all fell apart.

[blinkthink]

09:20 PM on 07/30/2012

Worst of all, they cut Americans off at the knees, too.

[CynAnne]

06:54 PM on 07/30/2012

Ah, yes...Mssrs. Cantor and Ryan, who were quite taken with the notion that they could make their bills into law, without any further review: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/07/house-passes-bill-to-grant-congress-veto-power_n_1135030.html and http://midwestdemocracyproject.org/blogs/entries/it-takes-both-houses-congress-enact-bill-right/

[janmB]

02:41 PM on 07/30/2012

It was the weakness in the GOP to only have a choice like Ryan with his 'work experience' in govt being mainly interning and working for conservative politicians HE WAS A GO-FER. Essentially, Paul Ryan is a 'rich kid-career politician' from old Wisconsin money who has 'not a clue' about the real world he represents.

[doodlebug2]

03:03 PM on 07/30/2012

"who has 'not a clue' about the real world he represents. "

Like many of our fine representatives

[janmB]

05:04 PM on 07/30/2012

Plenty of them couldn't make it it the real-world so they went into politics

[Sartre01]

02:14 PM on 07/30/2012

This guy has the demon seed - or semen - in him. He is pure evil.