Janesville: Candlelight Vigil Against Cuts Planned For Ryan's Office

Tweet

We just had an election in which one candidate, Mitt Romney, proposed to lower tax rates for the richest 2% of Americans and cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. He lost.

Source:
Now, we are asking Congress to respect the will of the voters by promising to:

1. Let the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% of Americans expire.

2. Oppose benefit cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Join us around the state on Monday, December 10 as we participate in a Candlelight Campaign Against Cuts to lobby our Congressperson to do what is right for the American people during the lame duck congressional session.

In Janesville: 4:00 p.m. candlelight vigil outside Rep. Ryan’s Office, 20 South Main St., Janesville, WI 53545.

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!

Click here for more locations around Wisconsin.

Also: "Fiscal Showdown Event" planned for Rep. Sensenbrenner's office in Brookfield.

With DeMint Resignation, Only Half Of U.S. Conspirators Remain In Office

Tweet

With the announcement by Sen. Jim DeMint that he will be resigning from the US Senate to serve as director of the Heritage Foundation, only seven of the original fourteen members of the pact that conspired to use the power of their congressional office to destabilize the U.S. economy in a treasonous campaign to make Barack Obama a one-term president, remain in office.

Eric Cantor - Continues To Hold Public Office, U.S. Representative (VA-7)

Dan Lungren - Lost his re-election bid in the November 2012 House (CA)election against Democratic challenger, Ami Bera

Kevin McCarthy - Continues To Hold Public Office, U.S. Representative (CA-22)

Jeb Hensarling - Continues To Hold Public Office, U.S. Representative (TX-5)

Pete Hoekstra - served in the House from 1993 until 2011. He was a candidate for Governor of Michigan in 2010 and was defeated by Debbie Stabenow in the United States Senate election in Michigan in 2012

Paul Ryan - Continues To Hold Public Office, U.S. Representative (WI-1)

Jim Demint - Announced in Dec. 2012 that he will resign from the Senate to become president of the Heritage Foundation.

Tom Coburn - Continues To Hold Public Office, U.S. Senator (OK)

John Ensign - resigned from the Senate amid an investigation of an ethics violation in May 2011.

Pete Sessions - Continues To Hold Public Office, U.S. Representative (TX-32)

Bob Corker - Continues To Hold Public Office, U.S. Senator (TN)

Jon Kyl - announced in Feb. 2011 that he would not seek re-election to the Senate in 2012 and would retire at the end of his third term, which concludes on January 3, 2013.

Frank Luntz - GOP Party Operative. Does Not Hold Public Office.

Newt Gingrich - No Longer Holds Public Office.

Paul Ryan Trying To Sucker Latinos through Rep. Gutierrez

Tweet

You gotta know Paul Ryan's mentality pretty good to understand exactly what he's trying to pull here with Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D) of Illinois. I've seen this all before with Ryan when he co-opted the local UAW in Janesville for nearly a decade until he threw them under a bus when he politicized the plight of the Janesville GM Plant. Only then did his hometown and county voters figure out that Ryan never was for them. Finally, for the first time in Ryan's career, he lost his hometown at the ballot box to his democratic challenger.

The same can be said for the Tea Party. Always leery that the tea party would run a congressional candidate against him for his position on TARP and his miserable borrowing and spending record, Ryan co-opted them as well when he attended their rallies during the 2009 health care debates and wowed them with his anti-Obama fascism and "pretend" fiscal conservatism. Paul Ryan really thought the state's Walkerized tea party enthusiasm would defeat Barack Obama and carry him to victory into the White House. Well, that didn't happen and as soon as Ryan was re-installed as the House Budget Chairman, he proceeded to kick two tea party congressman off the committee. Who needs them anymore? Not Ryan.

So when I first read that Rep. Gutierrez said that Paul Ryan had reached across the aisle to work with him on immigration reform, I knew immediately that Ryan is simply looking for a new prop for the next publicity phase in his staged presentation.

Politico Excerpt
“I saw my good friend just coming off running for vice president of the United States, Congressman Ryan, we’re going to see each other next week. We’re talking. He says to me, ‘Luis, I want to do it because it’s the right thing. I don’t want to deal with it from a political point of view.’ I think that’s very, very encouraging,” Gutierrez said on MSNBC.

On Capitol Hill, when a politician calls another "my good friend," that is usually code for someone who knows that the only reason why he was approached is because the other guy needs something. From Chicago, the popular Gutierrez was the first Latino from the Midwest elected to Congress. He has also been in Congress for 20 years, so I would think he understands exactly why Ryan injected, "I don't want to deal with it from a political point of view" because THAT is precisely why Ryan breached the subject with Gutierrez to begin with. It's strictly politics my friend. Yes it is.

The simple truth is, Paul Ryan is unconcerned and clueless about blacks, Latinos and minorities. Heck, Ryan doesn't even know the whites in his own neighborhood well enough to understand our struggles and positions to formulate a case of honest representation on our behalf in Congress. To many of us, Congressman Ryan is like an alien from outer space.

Politico Excerpt
Gutierrez said it’s the kind of bipartisan conversations lawmakers need to start having about immigration. And he called the recent rhetoric coming from Republicans and Democrats about immigration reform “flourishing.”

“You know, just think about it, [Ryan] walks up to me – someone that he knows absolutely didn’t vote for him, right, he just lost for vice president of the United States – he walks up to me and what does he say? He says, ‘I want to work with you to make the country better. I want to work with you on immigration reform.

This is beginning to scare me because Ryan did the same thing with Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon who joined Ryan on a proposal to remake Medicare along premium-support lines. In my view, it was a big mistake for Wyden to link his name to any proposal that creates an option out of Medicare. Ryan later attempted to use Wyden as an example of his outreach for bipartisanship.

So there's just no way that he suddenly wants to work on immigration reform with Luis Gutierrez after getting shellacked at the polls by what Ryan racially coded as the urban vote, simply to "make the country better." It's always about Paul Ryan.

Video: Tax The Rich - An Animated Fairy Tale

Tweet

UPDATED: This is the replacement video. The scene showing the trickle-down effect has been removed. Narrated by Ed Asner. Almost eight minutes long, it's still worth every second.

Once Again Paul Ryan Misappropriating Campaign Funds

Tweet

Media Matters Excerpt:
CBS News political analyst Frank Luntz had a major undisclosed conflict of interest while appearing on the network. While Luntz used his pre-election platform on CBS to praise Rep. Paul Ryan, his consulting firm, Luntz Global LLC, received $40,000 in consulting and polling fees from Rep. Paul Ryan's congressional campaign.

Wow. There's alot wrong there. Once you get past the outrage from the obvious conflict that political analysts and commentators are being paid to promote political candidates and their campaigns on major network news shows without issuing a disclaimer, you'll then have to understand that Paul Ryan is the sort of politician who has to pay to get positive reviews. In this particular case, Frank Luntz was not only paid to attack Joe Biden and promote Ryan for VP on CBS and Cable Fox News, he was paid by Ryan from funds designated for his congressional campaign.

This latest finding by Media Matters appears to be separate and in addition to a complaint filed in October by One Wisconsin Now with the Federal Elections Commission alleging that Ryan has improperly used his Congressional campaign funds to promote the GOP presidential ticket. According to OWN, Ryan purchased $2 million in ads from his Congressional campaign account, but none of the five ads specifically mention he is running for Congress. Just the same, it appears Luntz never referenced Ryan's house race or his challenger, Rob Zerban, during his paid reviews on network news shows.

MORE RYAN IN THE NEWS:

The Nation - Is Paul Ryan Making Americans More Inclined Toward Socialism?

Democurmudgeon - Frank Luntz paid by Ryan to spread Media Propaganda on CBS and Fox News

Huff Post - House Budget Committee Drops Tea Party Reps Who Voted Against Paul Ryan Budget OR After Co-opting the Tea Party, Paul Ryan Throws Them Off The Cliff.

Non-partisans On Government Board Don’t Strike The Right Balance Republicans Seek.

Tweet

From the “reality has a liberal bias” file comes one of Wisconsin’s premier partisan hacks, State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, who said the state's nonpartisan Government Accountability Board (GAB) should be reconstituted to include political appointees from the state legislature. This he claims, would create a more "balanced" board. Republicans currently control both houses of the state Legislature.

Wisconsin State Journal Excerpt:
But Fitzgerald said the GAB should look more like the Elections Board, with partisan political appointees. That approach, he said, "seems to strike more of a balance than what we're up against now."

No. Really.

Anything going by the the name of “government accountability board” isn’t supposed to be politically balanced or politically unbalanced - it’s supposed to strive for and be as completely apolitical as possible.

ADDITIONAL:

Democurmudgeon - One Party Wisconsin? Sen. Fitzgerald’s Crony Government.

Why Isn't The USA Swimming In Jobs?

Tweet

Wisconsin Business Assures Worker They Won't Opt Out Of Obamacare

Tweet

Scott Walker made a stop in LaCrosse on Thursday and surprisingly accepted a few questions from foundry workers at Torrance Castings. According to the report, many of the questions revolved around the new federal Affordable Care Act that Walker has refused implement. One worker was concerned that his employer would follow in Walker's footsteps and opt out of Obamacare.

LaCrosse Tribune Excerpt:
Many of the questions concerned the federal Affordable Care Act, putting Walker in the awkward position of explaining the law, which he fought politically and in the courts.

One worker worried that the company would opt to pay the new $2,500 per worker penalty rather than supply health insurance, for which he now pays $5 a week. (Owner Bill Torrance assured him that wouldn’t be the case.)