Pictured are Rep. Paul Ryan (left) and former intern Adam Savader (right).
Um, Republican family values?
Adam Savader, reportedly a former intern for Paul Ryan, was arrested and charged with Internet extortion and cyber stalking by the FBI on Tuesday. Savader apparently sent anonymous text messages to 15 women saying he had nude photographs and threatening to distribute them unless he was sent more photographs. If convicted, he faces a maximum of five years in prison.
A 21-year-old Great Neck, New York man was charged in a criminal complaint in the Eastern District of Michigan with Internet extortion and cyber stalking, announced United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade.
Well, they did it again, passing yet another radical budget plan from Rep. Paul Ryan, this one cutting $4.6 trillion over the next ten years, turns Medicare into a voucher system and repeals Obamacare. Every Democrat, along with 10 Republicans, voted no in a 221-207 vote.
The bill is not expected to pass the Senate, where Thursday’s vote comes just as they're kicking off their own budget debate, which will culminate in an unlimited amendment process called votearama.
From the Onion, Paul Ryan is spending the final day of the campaign doing what he loves–reminding America's downtrodden that everything bad in their lives is their own fault.
It's so damn near close to the truth that it's almost not funny, don't you think?
Mitt Romney has stated publicly that he likes being able to fire people. But Big Bird? Yes Big Bird was put on notice, as was the debate moderator, Jim Lehrer of PBS and the entire PBS network.
Debate moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS asked each candidate to describe the difference between his plan to attack the deficit and his opponent’s.
“I’m glad you raised that,” Romney said. “I think it’s frankly not moral for my generation to keep spending massively more than we take in, knowing that those burdens are going to be passed on to the next generation. They’re going to be paying the interest and the principal all their lives, and the amount of debt we’re adding -- at a trillion a year -- is simply not moral.”
Cutting the deficit, said Romney, can be done by cutting taxes, cutting spending and growing the economy. And finally, after being accused continually of failing to give specifics about things like which loopholes he would close in the tax code to offset the tax reductions he’d like to make, Romney spelled out some cuts he’d enforce. “Obamacare is on the list,” Romney said. “I apologize, Mr. President. I used that term with all respect.”
If Romney was trying to throw Obama onto the defensive, it didn’t work. “I like it,” the president interjected.
“OK, good. So I get rid of that.”
Then, looking at moderator Lehrer, Romney said, “I’m sorry, Jim, I’m gonna stop the subsidy to PBS…. I like PBS, I love Big Bird -- I actually like, you too -- but I am not going to keep spending money on things [we have] to borrow money from China to pay for.”
Romney vowed to return the control of some federal government programs to states, though he didn’t specify which programs, and reduce the number of government agencies and departments, and the number of federal employees, though he hastened to add that would be through attrition.
And finally, he slapped at the president for promising to reduce the deficit and instead presiding over a massive increase.
“The president said he’d cut the deficit in half,” Romney said. “Unfortunately, he doubled it -- trillion-dollar deficits for the last four years. The president has put in place almost as much debt held by the public as all presidents combined.”
Whoa...Mitt Romney needs to spend a little more time with his budget reports. It seems that Romney not only likes to fire people, he seemed to really enjoy tossing out bogus "facts." The statement above on the deficit and public held debt? Romney’s claim is close to true, though he’s using a different debt measure than the one his party used at his nominating convention. On the day Obama took office, the total public debt was $10.6 trillion, according to the Treasury Department’s website. Today, it’s $16.2 trillion. That $5.6 trillion increase is a bit more than half of the debt incurred by the chief executives who preceded Obama in the White House. Looking only at the debt held by the public, the measure quoted by Romney, Obama has added about $5 trillion while the presidents who came before him ran up a $6.3 trillion tab.
Of course, a truly honest debate over the deficit and debt reduction can't be had without mention of the pattern of obstructionism on the part of the Republican congress, largely influenced by Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan:
Mr. Ryan’s enormous influence was apparent last summer when Representative Eric Cantor, the second most powerful House Republican, told Mr. Obama during negotiations over an attempted bipartisan “grand bargain” that Mr. Ryan disliked its policy and was concerned that a deal would pave the way for Mr. Obama’s easy re-election, according to a Democrat and a Republican who were briefed on the conversation.
When President Obama pointed out that Ryan’s budget plan offers a “deeply pessimistic” vision for America that would cut crucial investments in the middle class and jeopardize health care for seniors, Ryan took the criticism personally and said it “definitely damage[d]” the chances that he’d accept a bipartisan grand bargain on debt reduction.
And back to Big Bird, someone in the Twitterverse responded to Romney's threat to terminate the beloved Sesame Street Character by creating a @FiredBigBird account, which, as of this writing had almost 23,000 followers.
Portland, Ore., resident Sam Chapman responded to the buzz by creating an indiegogo.com campaign to "Save Big Bird." All funds from the campaign go to PBS, according to the indiegogo site. "Let's show PBS some love," the webpage read.
Update: It seems the Politico report that this "Stench" nick-name originated from was, indeed, satire. I thought it was funny, but apparently it was supposed to be. So...nevermind.
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With 41 days left until election day, according to this Politico piece, Paul Ryan has already bailed out on Team Romney:
Though Ryan had already decided to distance himself from the floundering Romney campaign, he now feels totally uninhibited. Reportedly, he has been marching around his campaign bus, saying things like, “If Stench calls, take a message” and “Tell Stench I’m having finger sandwiches with Peggy Noonan and will text him later.”
Can you believe that in a Romney *cough* administration this cry baby would be one car elevator accident away from running the country?
As Lawrence O'Donnell points out, no candidate has ever won a presidential election without winning the state of Ohio. Mitt Romney is trailing Obama in polls by 8 points in Ohio, and in a local poll in Toledo, Ohio (Lucas County) where both candidates are campaigning today, Obama leads 63.5 percent to 26.6 percent, with 10 percent undecided.
Wow, there simply are no rules on bullsh*t mountain! In this video from 2010, here's Paul Ryan advocating that we lower capital gains so that the wealthy pay closer to the 0% that they can find with offshore accounts.
No criticism of the practice, he wants the practice instituted in the U.S.A.
Like presidential candidates before him, President Obama has released 12 years of tax returns to the American public.
Mitt Romney, however, is bucking the precedent of transparency by refusing to release more than one full year of tax returns, even after asking his running mate Paul Ryan for 10 years of tax returns.
This video from the Obama-Biden campaign takes a look at five reasons Romney is refusing to meet his own standard.
[Caution: Some language may not be suitable for work.]
A satirical comedy short by Qualified Laughter about the Republican National Convention. Made by Negin Farsad (@NeginFarsad), Lee Camp (@LeeCamp), Justin Krebs, and Katie Halper. Featuring Negin Farsad, Lee Camp, Neil Potter, and Ted Alexandro.
Moments after Paul Ryan's speech Wednesday night, Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin got into a fiesty and heated exchange with the MSNBC panel. Walker defended Ryan's false claim that Obama failed to save a Wisconsin auto plant, and even appeared to claim that for Wisconsin workers, the Obama administration's auto bailout hasn't been a success.
The problem with Ryan blasting Obama for the closure of the Wisconsin General Motors plant is that the plant actually closed under George W. Bush.
Ryan said, "Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said, 'I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.' That’s what he said in 2008."
"Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year," Ryan continued. "It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight."
In June 2008, Ryan sent a letter along with his Wisconsin colleagues Senators Russ Feingold (D) and Herb Kohl (D) protesting the closure of General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin.
“We ask that you reconsider the decision to close the Janesville GM plant and request a meeting with you as soon as possible to discuss OM’s plans for the Janesville plant, including the possibility of retooling the plant for different production lines,” said the letter from the three lawmakers to GM CEO Rick Wagoner.
Ryan actually voted for a Bush-era effort to expand government loans to GM, a plan that failed to save the Janesville plant.
In 2008, Ryan supported the Bush loans that Romney infamously opposed in an editorial titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”
Scott Walker was apparently trying to assist the Romney-Ryan campaign's efforts to re-write history, but as you can guess, Rachel, Ed, Al and company didn't let him off the hook.
Maddow kept her cool as she spoke to Walker, "It is surprising to hear you run down the American auto industry at a moment that it really has come back and to see such a bright spot in the economy, you talked as if things haven't worked out in the auto industry since the bailout," she said. "It's a surprise."
Schultz wasn't having any of it, and broke in hitting back at Walker's claims. "It was not Barack Obama's economic policies that closed that GM plant," he insisted. "That plant was closed in December 2008. That's in the Washington Post right now Governor. It has nothing to do with Barack Obama's economic policy whatsoever. You can't get away from that fact."
Walker smugly repeated the tired "managed bankruptcy would have been more effective" meme and Schultz quickly snapped back that Walker could not guarantee the plant would still be operating under that strategy.
Al Sharpton tried to enter the fray, but Walker retorted, "If you want to talk over and not let me talk that's fine. Apparently that's what you do a lot of."
If there weren't so much at stake this November for so many people, this would all be quite the comedy. *Sigh.*
