Editor’s note: For a man who touts Midwestern values and earnestness, VP candidate Paul Ryan “is a liar at heart,” AlterNet is reporting. Others are reaching the same conclusions. It’s an ongoing problem in politics — in our national and local races. Richard Nixon lied to the nation about Watergate; Bill Clinton lied about a sexual affair. Voters need to sort this out without getting too emotional. Most of the time, they do just that — and the lier loses.
“Paul Ryan gave a feisty anti-Obama speech that will have fact-checkers working for days. His most brazen lie accused President Obama of “raiding” Medicare by taking the exact same $716 billion that Ryan and the House GOP notoriously voted to slash. It was stunning,” according to Salon.
“But that’s not all. He attacked Obama for failing to keep open a Janesville GM plant that closed under Bush in 2008. He hit him for a credit-rating downgrade that S&P essentially blamed on GOP intransigence. He claimed that all taxpayers got from the 2009 stimulus was “more debt,” when most got a tax cut (and the stimulus is known to have saved between 1.4 and 3.3 million jobs). He derided the president for walking away from the Simpson Bowles commission deficit-cutting recommendations when Ryan himself, a commission member, voted against those recommendations.
“He blamed Obama for a deficit mostly created by programs he himself voted for – from two wars, tax cuts, new Medicare benefits and TARP.
“And of course, he riffed on the tired central lie of the GOP convention: that the president said ‘government gets the credit’ for small businesses, not the business owners themselves.
“Other than that, it was a great speech.”
The rest of the article is here.
•Paul Ryan repeats Auto Bailout, Medicare lies — from U.S. News and World Report — is here.
•°”The top 10 repeated Paul Ryan lies” is here.
•”PoliFact” examines one of the lies — about the closing of a GM plant in Ryan’s hometown — here.
An ethics guide to lying, from the BBC, is here.
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That Really Was Something Wasn’t It? So We’ve Heard From Liar Junior Last Night And Learned That Mike Huck-a-Buck Hearts Bono And Junior Loves His Mom And Led Zeppelin (But Probably Not The Immigrants Song. Look It Up Paul). Ryan Talked About His God And His Nature. Jesus Did Too In John 8:44. Jesus Had “A Thing” About Liars. None Of It Good. Aaanyway I Suppose We’ll Hear The “Father of Lies” This Evening. I Was Thinking, Maybe In Homage To Jim Carey They Can Call Themselves The “Liar, liar” Ticket And Have Done With It. Oh And If You Smell Sulphur In The Air At The Sundome That Means Dick Cheney Came To Enjoy His Show…
Pants on fire? Maybe Mitt gave Ryan a spare pair of magic underwear so he figures he is good to go.
Their supposed to be white and cotton, but with these lies they’d better be fire-proof nomex!
How come it’s seeming that the old attage of how can you tell when their lying is coming true….
You can tell, as all you need to do is see their lips moving!
What ever happened to being responsible for your actions?
Great comment Brad. Careful with that 3rd paragraph. I got nagged at a couple of weeks ago for the same comment.
It is easy to feel outrage about this.
It isn’t hard to understand how the Goebbels method of repeating a lie often enough will give it traction but I don’t understand why the press isn’t exposing these lies more vigorously (perhaps they will). I also mostly don’t understand why the Republican leadership apparently accepts these lies and doesn’t see that the result of them would be to destroy the American dream.
On the other hand, it isn’t hard to see that the Democrats are equally responsible for this polarity. It isn’t good enough to deride Republicans a nut cases. It isn’t good enough to ignore the solid sense in conservative principles. It isn’t good enough to focus only on winning elections while losing more and more people.
If WE can’t get out of the box it will sink like a ship.
Let it sink. Civilizations works in cycles. We are seeing the beginning of a new cultural and political system on the North American continent. One in which Washington D.C. will be simply a museum piece. It is a time to rejoice, not mourn.
Greg – you can’t blame democrats for Paul Ryan’s lies. I agree with you that it is hard to understand why the Republican leadership just accepts these lies. The only possible answer is that today’s Republicans are a different breed and they view the American dream on the same level as George Washington and the cherry tree.
Michael and Stephen,
I’m not advocating standing back or blaming anyone. Certainly we must all hope for a responsible future. Making fun at the expense of Republicans is all part of the dance we need to get out. The sooner we do this the sooner we will move on.
Greg,
Agreed, the problem is everything is so convoluted with what we have today it will never get to the place needed to move forward. We need a watchdog that has some power looking over our government and all the bribery that takes place. The problem is we need to get the two institutions that control all of our laws to legislate against their own interests, not likely to happen any time soon.
And Speaking Of Right-Wing Weirdness Reverend Huckageez Dogwhistled Some Fantastical Nonsense About An “Uncle Sugar”…So, Quick Question: Is He Related To Uncle Kracker? I’ll Bet He Is…
He is just a puppet, people.
The question should be- When there is so much wrong with both the democratic and republican party’s, why do they insist on lying? Or in other words they both have more than enough ammunition against each other, why lie? They are both accomplices to everything going on in our country and no matter what issue it is they have their hands dirty, that’s why.
Hey lets keep track of Romney’s lies!
Jeez Anne Romney has enough gold on tonight to sink a battleship.
Lie #1: Paul Ryan has a big heart.
LIe # 2: Americans always come together after election.
“our number one goal is the defeat of Barak Obama’s Presidency” Mitch McConnell.
Lie # 3: Freedom to build a business with their own hands.
Plays on a lie.
LIe # 4: Blames Obama for the impacts of the recession.
LIe # 5: Not really a lie, but he does not say his dad was born in Mexico because his grandad was a polygamist.
OK I really like the rose story.
Hey, a bunch of Anne’s gold disappeared!
LIe # 6: “He took office without the basic qualifications an American has…”
LIe # 7: “I didn’t want to go to hell…” but he would have us invest Social Security in the stock market.
Lie # 8: “The centerpiece of the President entire campaign is attacking success…”
LIe # 9: “….not trying to redistribute today’s [prosperity]“
LIe # 10: “…this President cannot tell you that you are better off than when he took office…”
When do they thing the fuc$ing economy crashed, January 20th 2009?
LIe # 11: “….this Obama economy has crushed the middle class…..”
Middle class real wages have been dropping since 1972.
LIe # 12: “…..his plan to raise takes on small business…..”
Lie # 13: “….his $716 billion cut to Medicare…”
LIe # 14: “…his trilion dollar cut to defense…”
174 Republican House members voted for the sequester.
LIe # 15: “….I have a plan to create 12 million new jobs….”
The CBO already says 12 million new jobs will be create din the next 4 years.
LIe # 16: They are coming too fast now….
Lie # 17: “…unlike Presidnet Obama I will not raise taxes on the middle class….”
Obama cut taxes on the middle class.
Lie # 18: makes climate change a joke….like fighting climate change is a joke…what a tool….he supported REGGI!
Lie # 18: “…President Obama began his presidency with an apology tour…”
OK have to stop for a little Lee Greenwood.
Lie # 19: “…failed to slow Irans nuclear threat….”
Obama tripled the Bush sanctions.
Lie # 20 “…abandoned Israel..”
Lie # 21: “…succumb to resentment and division..”
And who did that?
Lie # 22: “…care for the poor and the sick and honor the elderly…”
The Ryan budget cuts servcices to both…
And playing a cover of James Brown….which I recognized before Rachel…
Good job Steve.
Steve, Great Job. The MSM has been bashing Ryan all day with his bald face lies; hopefully we will wake up in the morning with at least half the job of pointing out Romney’s lies by MSM that you did here.
I am reflecting after the fact, having listened to most of the speeches, on the tenor of the entire Republican National Convention and the cognitive dissonance embedded within it. (I will point out that the Democratic party suffers from its own brand of cognitive dissonance, which I suspect I will get to during its convention)
Cognitive dissonance is the term used to describe the discomfort felt by a person seeking to hold two or more conflicting values or belief systems, motivating the holder to reduce dissonance by redefining existing cognitions or adding new ones to create a consistent belief system.
The net effect of cognitive dissonance is that we lie to ourselves about reality; we alter the facts to meet our most strongly held belief system or values; we make ourselves believe that these conflicting beliefs are consistent.
So Republicans espouse one set of values (inclusion, diversity, opportunity for immigrants, caring for the sick, security for the elderly, equal rights, etc) while embracing policies that exclude homosexuals, eliminate affirmative action, require all undocumented immigrants to leave the country, allow 50 millions Americans to live without health insurance, cut Medicare and Social Security, and make women’s health care a moral rather than a medical issue.
I am wondering how they sleep at night with all of this anxiety.
Steve, cognitive dissonance is what allows them to sleep at night. Tune out the discrepancies and sweet dreams. Maybe an occasional nightmare projected at Democrats.
What I puzzle about and you may know the answer to is do some Republicans know they are lying but tune out the morality or do they just completely believe their stories? It is amazing how they fall into line. In my mind Huntsman was the only viable candidate with integrity. As a conservative, myself, I was really cheering him on.
Greg,
Your first problem is liking someone who has integrity, there are only a handful left in our federal government. One of them were allowed to get redistricted out of their seat in Ohio because he was a thorn in the Democratic Leadership sides. Ron Paul is another one that is tolerated but pushed to the fringe of the Republican Party. Then you have Bernie Sanders who understands the two party’s all to well and is the longest serving independent in the history of the US Congress.
Here is a perfect example of what Steve and Greg are talking about.
http://gawker.com/5939145/republican-delegates-believe-all-candidates-should-have-right-to-choose-abortion-policy-for-themselves
I could give many examples of how the Republican Party claims being pro-life but at the same time being against just about everything that supports life after birth but I will save everyone the predictable rant.
Ben, I like both Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders. Wish Bernie would give it a run although it doesn’t look likely.
Annie,
I think Bernie believes he could do more good in the Senate than running an extreme long shot candidacy. I think he is correct bu I would love to see him run in 2016 for President with Russ Feingold at his side.
I hope so. Of the Republican candidates I liked Ron Paul. He has more common sense than what they ended up with. The lamestream media of Fox didn’t do him any favors either but I was encouraged to see the youth pay attention to the man regardless of that.
Bernie would be out of his mind to trade a Senate seat from Vermont for President of the US. I wonder how quickly one sheds their “better angels” once in possession of the scepter of power; why so many who consider themselves people of virtue, fail the tests when temptations abound. Seems like an endless theme in great literature; and history is filled with armies of men and women whom failed to shine so bright and pure when adults of authority as they did in their youthful dreams.
But Romney and Ryan and their likes–lying just comes naturally, like unearned equity and budgets where we can’t even feed the hungry a can of spam.
All I know is that I couldn’t sleep last night, which must mean my cognitive dissonance must be of an entirely different brand. But I would vote for Bernie, just like I voted for Ben, so that must make me a socialist!
By the way, I plan on a similar cognitive dissonance post about my friends, the Democrats.
As I have been searching for a rationale for the cognitive dissonance of the Republicans, and the path to power corrupting their world view, I ran into this quote from Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung Sang Suu Kyi:
“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it. Most Burmese are familiar with the four a-gati, the four kinds of corruption. Chanda-gati, corruption induced by desire, is deviation from the right path in pursuit of bribes or for the sake of those one loves. Dosa-gati is taking the wrong path to spite those against whom one bears ill will, and moga-gati is aberration due to ignorance. But perhaps the worst of the four is bhaya-gati, for not only does bhaya, fear, stifle and slowly destroy all sense of right and wrong, it so often lies at the root of the other three kinds of corruption. Just as chanda-gati, when not the result of sheer avarice, can be caused by fear of want or fear of losing the goodwill of those one loves, so fear of being surpassed, humiliated or injured in some way can provide the impetus for ill will. And it would be difficult to dispel ignorance unless there is freedom to pursue the truth unfettered by fear. With so close a relationship between fear and corruption it is little wonder that in any society where fear is rife corruption in all forms becomes deeply entrenched.”
Aung Sang Suu Kyi, 1990