Mitt Romney announced Paul Ryan as his number two, making it the first presidential ticket where both candidates sound like phone menu announcers. A new poll finds that Ryan isn't very popular with the national electorate, something that might have to do with his plan that would hasten the return of elixirs. And Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra wants to repeal the 17th Amendment and have state legislatures choose senators, either because he's a staunch originalist or because he's sick of shaking hands in VFW halls. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Monday, August 13th, 2012:
ROMNEY AND RYAN HAVE DISAGREEMENTS - And not just whether the stripes of a repp tie should go from bottom to top or from top to bottom. Dave Jamieson and Sam Stein list the issues where the two men don't see eye to eye: "Republicans have long sought to repeal Davis-Bacon [labor law requiring companies working public works projects to pay certain minimum wages], and it was Romney himself who tried to make a campaign issue out of the law earlier in the campaign season... Ryan supported the auto-bailout, for instance, at the same time that Romney was writing op-eds calling for Detroit to go bankrupt...When Congress and the White House came to an agreement to extend the debt ceiling in exchange for trillions of dollars in current and future cuts, Ryan lent his imprimatur to the final deal...In the midst of a Republican presidential primary at the time, Mitt Romney struck a different note. 'While I appreciate the extraordinarily difficult situation President Obama's lack of leadership has placed Republican members of Congress in, I personally cannot support this deal,' he said." [HuffPost]
HUFFPOST LIVE: MOVING PICTURES, ON YOUR COMPUTER, MADE BY US - No one liked our slogan, despite its obvious catchiness. Anyhoo, we launched a live streaming TV station today, HuffPost Live. The web channel will feature original content from our team of reporters, editors and contributors. HPH might even make an appearance now and then. [HuffPost Live]
FamousDC catches a screenshot of Paul Ryan's inbox
'A GUY WHO USED TO BE STAFF' - In 2000, Ryan Donmoyer profiled first-term congressman Paul Ryan for POV magazine. The story, a PDF of which Donmoyer put on his own website, opens with Ryan racing to a vote. "Without a thought, he blows past the metal detector, a privilege afforded all members of Congress -- provided, of course, you are easily identifiable as such. Unfortunately, 29-year-old Paul Ryan isn't. A Capitol policeman springs to his feet. 'Excuse me sir,' the cop says politely but firmly. 'But you have to go through the metal detector.'" The cop didn't believe Ryan was a member of Congress until looking at his profile in the congressional directory. [RyanDonmoyer.com]
@BuzzFeedAndrew: Paul Ryan is listed in the 1991 edition of "Roll Call's Guide to Capitol Hill's 91 Summer Interns."
BANKER ERSKINE BOWLES ON RYAN: "THIS GUY IS AMAZING" - Former Clinton adviser Erskine Bowles, a Morgan Stanley director, could plausibly be Treasury Secretary no matter who wins the election in November. Need to know anything more about our political system? "Have any of you all met Paul Ryan? We should get him to come to the University. I'm telling you, this guy is amazing. I always thought I was okay with arithmetic. This guy can run circles around me and he is honest, he is straightforward, he is sincere, and the budget he came forward with is just like Paul Ryan," Bowles said last fall. [YouTube]
DAILY DELANEY DOWNER - Here is the latest in our ongoing series PASTED: The Emails of the Jobless. "I was let go from a position as a Compliance Paralegal in March of 2009," writes a 55-year-old Pennsylvania woman who asked for anonymity to protect her job prospects. She said she'd previously earned a $55,000 salary. Now she's earning half as much at a part-time gig as a legal assistant. "I have applied to hundreds of jobs, I have had my resume professionally created, I have networked, I have attended workshops....My spirit is broken. I have very good support from my family, but this ordeal has shaken me to my core. I have been unable to perform well on interviews. I am so nervous that I freeze up and cannot talk. This will not get me a job. But I can't get past it. And I never used to have this problem. I used to be able to ace an interview. Now I can't even talk!" [Hang in there!]
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POLL: PAUL RYAN UNPOPULAR CHOICE - A new survey indicates that a great many Americans aren't enamored with the guy who wants them spending their golden years subsisting on ramen noodles and strenuously networking to land jobs as Walmart greeters. Ariel Edwards-Levy: "Americans' initial reaction to Paul Ryan is decidedly lukewarm, with more rating his selection for vice president as negative than positive, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll taken after the announcement. Ryan's ratings were less positive than those for any other vice presidential pick polled on by Gallup since 2000, including Sarah Palin, Joe Biden and Dick Cheney. The only other recent vice presidential selection to gain net negative ratings was Dan Quayle, in 1988. Ryan was rated as an 'excellent' or 'pretty good' selection by 39 percent of Americans, and an 'only fair' or 'poor' selection by 42 percent. Just 17 percent said the pick made them more likely to vote for Romney, continuing a trend of vice presidential selections that don't immediately have much effect on presidential races." [HuffPost]
Under Ryan's plan, Mitt Romney would be able to expand the size of his car elevator to accommodate dressage trailers. Atlantic: "In 2010 -- the only year we have seen a full return from him -- Romney would have paid an effective tax rate of around 0.82 percent under the Ryan plan, rather than the 13.9 percent he actually did. How would someone with more than $21 million in taxable income pay so little? Well, the vast majority of Romney's income came from capital gains, interest, and dividends. And Ryan wants to eliminate all taxes on capital gains, interest and dividends." [Atlantic]
'EXHAUSTED' ROMNEY CANCELS EVENT, DOES SOME CARDIO - Is declaring oneself exhausted and then immediately hitting the gym the inverse of doing crunches and grunting "nine hundred and ninety ninnneeeeeeeeeeee...... one thoooooussaaannnnndd" when someone walks in the room? ABC News: "Following reports that he had cancelled a campaign event in Orlando due to exhaustion, Mitt Romney hit the gym this afternoon. An aide to the candidate said that after staff meetings and speech prep, Romney spent 30 to 40 minutes at the hotel gym. Romney typically uses the elliptical machine, although it was not clear what equipment he used today." This is really going to hurt Orlando's self esteem. [ABC News]
Paradoxically, Paul Ryan would be ineligible for the presidency if Mitt Romney's agenda were fully realized. In May, the former Massachusetts governor proposed a constitutional amendment requiring commanders-in-chief to have three years experience in the private sector -- a requirement that'd keep Paul Ryan from the White House, given his Congress-only CV (he was a staffer before he took office). [BuzzFeed]
PRESIDENT DENOUNCES RYAN AS ENEMY OF CORN - Corn: It's so much more than a trendy pasta ingredient or the mushy thing wedged between your bicuspids, it's also Paul Ryan's archnemesis. That's the claim (more or less) that President Obama made today while on a campaign swing in Iowa today. According to prepared remarks, the commander-in-chief assails Ryan for opposing the farm bill that is currently stalled in Congress -- a bill that includes disaster assistance for drought-weary farmers and ranchers (because our country can't seem to suffer a cataclysmic economic downturn without an attendant scorching of the middle of the country -- thanks, God!). "Now, I'm told Governor Romney's new running mate might be around Iowa these next few days. And he's one of those leaders of Congress standing in the way," the text reads. "So if you happen to see Congressman Ryan, tell him how important this farm bill is to Iowa and our rural communities." [HuffPost's Sabrina Siddiqui]
These words actually appeared on Speaker Boehner's website today: "The president continues to blame anyone and everyone for the drought but himself." They have since been removed. [TPM]
ROMNEY CAMPAIGN KEEPS UP FALSE WELFARE ATTACK - A new ad from the Romney campaign renews its demonstrably false charge that an Obama administration ruling removes work requirements from welfare eligibility, thereby creating a nation of ineffectual citizens sprawled out on their couches, seal-on-rock-style, sucking precious points from the GDP as they stare vacantly at yet another episode of "Ellen." "On July 12th, Obama quietly ended work requirements for Welfare. You wouldn't have to work and you wouldn't have to train for a job." The ad quickly shifts from its panicked "Law and Order: SVU" music and photos of President Obama's shame faces to well-lit images of Mitt Romney shaking the hands of presumably not lazy people in hardhats. [HuffPost's Sabrina Siddiqui]
Former Michigan Representative and Republican Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra doesn't want to run for Senate...at least not in the traditional sense. During a debate earlier this year, Hoekstra expressed his support for overturning the 17th Amendment, which allows for the direct election of senators. "Yeah, because what happens now is that a lot of the stuff where the federal government has assumed power, legislatures are absolutely pissed!" he said in January. "Y'know, so, if a Senator had gone and voted for No Child Left Behind, the legislature would've said, 'Hey man, you ain't going back!' In terms of getting back to Constitutional roots, absolutely. It's one of the unintended consequences of making them popularly elected. Yeah, I think it'd be a good thing." It's unclear whether he also wants to revert to a 3/5ths person clause for black people -- although some of the early voting cutbacks in Ohio seem just as effective. [Roll Call]
JACKSON JR. RECEIVING BIPOLAR TREATMENT - Times: "Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr., who has been on medical leave since early June, is being treated for 'Bipolar II depression' at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, according to a statement released by the clinic Monday providing the most recent update on the congressman's medical condition. 'Many Americans have bipolar disorder,' said the brief statement, which the clinic said it was distributing at Mr. Jackson's request. 'Bipolar II disorder is a treatable condition that affects parts of the brain controlling emotion, thought and drive and is most likely caused by a complex set of genetic and environmental factors.'" [NYT]
PRESIDENT WILL UPEND EVERYTHING TO SERVE OUR MICROBIAL MARTIAN OVERLORDS - President Obama today called the NASA crew managing the Curiosity rover to congratulate them on a job well done and to make clear that if life is discovered on Mars , he will be intrigued. "If in fact you do make contact with Martians, please let me know right away," he said. "I've got a lot of other things on my plate but I expect that would go to the top of the list. Even if they're just microbes that would be pretty exciting." He also made a topical reference to the flight controller with a mohawk. "You guys are a little cooler than you used to be," he quipped. [The Hill]
Ghosts of DC, one of our favorite local blogs, dug up this 1967 Washington Post article documenting the Romneys' genetic predisposition to awkwardness: "When Governor George Romney of Michigan was on the premises at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue recently, he accidentally smashed the glass chimney on an 18th century lamp, part of Jacqueline Kennedy's historic restoration project... Everyone stopped startled. Everyone except Romney. He was in such a hurry to confer with a politician on the opposite side of the room that he blithely disregarded the toppled table that had gotten in his way. He glanced only fleetingly at the debris under his feet and proceeded elsewhere with a preoccupied look...The damaged antique lighting device was a French 'Argand' oil lamp. That's the type ordered in 1790 by George Washington..." [Ghosts of DC]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - What if the Olympic closing ceremony had fewer trips to historical fantasy worlds and more marching geese?
LOOK AT THIS, POORS - HuffPost DC:"Given how expensive normal houses are in the D.C. area, The Huffington Post was wondering what you could get if you were ready to shell out the big bucks. And wow, check out these residential show-stoppers!" [HuffPost]
COMFORT FOOD
- A mashup of Robin yelling "Holy...!" from the old "Batman and Robin" series. [http://bit.ly/MWWopv]
- NBC edited out some of the musical performances from the Olympic opening ceremony so it could air the debut of "Animal Practice." Here are the scrapped performances from, among others, the Kinks and the Who. [http://bit.ly/PeocLr]
- Dolphins befriend an underwater camera. The relaxing guitar accompaniment is what we imagine dolphins hear all the time. [http://bit.ly/SdZDuZ]
- Dog really doesn't want a bite of that low-fat lamb jerky. [http://bit.ly/MrFELk]
- A countdown of the 100 best fits of maniacal movie laughter. Spoiler alert: laughter. [http://bit.ly/Ond9zV]
- Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, WHALE, nothing, nothing, nothing. [http://bit.ly/PiVHZK]
- Dressing classical marble statues in hipster clothes. It makes the Met feel like a J. Crew. [http://bit.ly/TyIqii]
TWITTERAMA
@pourmecoffee: Today in 1961 construction of Berlin Wall began. It stood until Reagan tore it down with a hammer made from US flagpoles.
@gilbertjasono: AMERICA SHRUGGED RT @Hoont: It's a little scary that 54% of the country has no opinion of Paul Ryan as of yesterday.
@JoseCanseco: Yes time travel is possible. Will explain later
ON TAP
Tomorrow - Wednesday: Shoot some things and trick sea creatures into biting into a sharp hook at Mike Crapo's annual "Hook 'n Bullet" getaway. Vegetarians can watch. [Bellevue, ID]
Tomorrow, 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm: Jeff Flake continues his bid for the Senate seat being vacated by Jon Kyl with a fundraiser at the home of a (presumably wealthy) doctor. So if someone gets a ham cube stuck in their throat...boom: doctor. [Paradise Valley, AZ]
Wednesday: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg gathers up all his bestest Wall Street friends and has them over to his house for a Scott Brown fundraiser. The candidate will be there himself, but we can't possibly imagine what the conversation will entail. [Mayor Mike's Pad]
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