The Person Paul Ryan Fears

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His name is Rob Zerban and he's running for Congress against Paul Ryan. Ryan claims he's not afraid to show his ideas to anybody and wants to debate the issues. But that doesn't make much sense if he doesn't have the courage to juxtapose those convictions in an honest debate with his congressional challenger. There's a word for that.

Watch this video of Zerban with Ed Schultz and you'll get the feeling that he represents everything Paul Ryan stands against. District constituents deserve to see these opposing views side-by-side in debates and hear them for ourselves. Zerban wants the debates. Where's Paul Ryan?

Go to Rob Zerban For Congress Website here to donate, volunteer or sign the petition telling Paul Ryan to debate Zerban.

Despite Paul Ryan, Janesville's Turnaround Sparked By Government

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Here they go again. Another story about Janesville's modest economic recovery and in the typically bizarre fashion of partisan journalism, mixing in a story about VP candidate Paul Ryan as if it is even remotely possible that the two are somehow interconnected. They're not. Not even close.

Posted in the Wisconsin State Journal and titled, In Janesville, political spotlight and hundreds of new jobs are sparking local economy, but should have been, "Despite Paul Ryan, Janesville's turnaround sparked by government." Just to state the obvious here, this article should have been separate articles.

To make his point about Janesville's growing economy, the writer takes the liberty to name a handful of businesses in the Janesville area that have expanded or are in the process of expanding, including the new start-up medical technologies firm, SHINE. No problem. All of the people behind these businesses have accepted some level of risk in their private-for-profit venture as it should be. But what the writer failed to mention is that nearly every jobs growth and business expansion described in the article has been seeded by government action in one form or another.

I won't be picking out each business and matching them with the help they requested, but rest assured that the government assistance includes "forgivable" loans, taxpayer funded rental lease agreements, TIF District surplus cash, employee quota-based city tax credits, state funded tax credits and enterprise zones, government contracts, Federal grants and government guaranteed loans, just to name a few. Some have even received free land paid for by the local taxpayers. Yet, the word "government" or a rundown of the taxpayer funded incentives spurring the business growth does not appear in the article at all.

Okay, so we have an article naming some of the businesses behind Janesville's recovery over the past two years. Big deal, right? But out of the blue, the writer drops Paul Ryan in to finish off the second half of the piece. Truly bizarre, but this actually could have been a good premise to build on only if the writer made an attempt to inform voters of Ryan's diametrically opposing Atlas Shrugged mentality to the government stimulus blueprint (failed policies according to Ryan) driving Janesville's economic turnaround. But the writer did not. In short, there is absolutely no relationship between Janesville's economic recovery and Paul Ryan, unless your aim is to expose that non-relationship, the contradictions or the co-opted business base.

Instead, he omitted the role of government entirely and then used the modest recovery as a positive backdrop for Ryan by linking supporting abstracts and comments from several willing locals to defend Ryan's dubious RNC comments about Obama breaking promises he never made to Janesville GM workers. Yeah they said, Ryan "has local values" and "he understands the working man's point of view."

Just wild.

Atlas Society Wink and Nod With Paul Ryan

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Paul Ryan continues to squirm away from Ayn Rand and her stomach turning "Atlas Shrugged" fictional nightmare and apparently believes people will forget his lifelong devotion to the sociopathic writer. According to this story from TPM, Ryan is now denying that he views Social Security as a "collectivist" program,

However, we know Ryan has consistently described our government and its constitutional powers of taxation as an over-reaching redistribution collectivist superstructure of statism that he believes must be dismantled. I can't count high enough the times Ryan used Rand's false argument of pitting collectivism against individualism and claiming that our social safety net programs have become hammocks and drain away personal ambition. There's no backing away now although Ryan is certainly hammering away in reverse at every chance he gets.

TPM OccupyYourLocalMedia Comment:
Atlas Society realizes that no true Randian will ever get elected, therefore they provide cover by saying "he never was truly one of us". You know who also thought that? Ayn Rand, about anyone who ever tried to follow in her footsteps.

Paul Ryan is banking on people not using critical thinking skills to realize that you don't go around claiming that someone inspired you to do what it is you do and suddenly for political expediency you just "disown" words you yourself said that we all know your side believes. Ask Rand Paul, another acolyte of Ayn Rand what is Social Security. Ask almost any of the Tea Party Politicians what they think of Social Security.
What? Did you think Paul Ryan was going to be honest?
Funny thing is the Atlas Society people already know that Paul Ryan has no other choice but to escape from his own words, which is why they don't feel betrayed in the slightest - because Paul Ryan is not actually disowning his words, he's just hoping you will believe him when he says he is... this time. But once you buy this politician, there are not backsies.

Nothing to add to that comment. It nails it. The primary feeling I pick up from the Atlas Society and the Tea Party towards Paul Ryan can only be described as they are "willingly co-opted."

People have to start wondering why Mitt Romney chose Ryan to be his running mate if Ryan is left repeatedly denying his signature identifiers - his Randian messaging and his alternative "budget" to the American social compact. The story about the Koch Bros. paying Romney $100 million for the VP seat is beginning to look like the only reasonable possibility. Because, if you cleanse (or pretend to cleanse) Atlas Shrugged out from Ryan's budget and out from his arguments - you'll still have his toxic mentality - but you'll have a budget exactly like Barack Obama's, all the way down to the $716 billion in cost savings for Medicare.

Janesville Greets Bain Workers Bus Tour In Solidarity

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It was a sunny Sunday afternoon for the area folks who turned out in front of the sprawling vacant GM plant in Janesville to greet the Bain Workers Tour bus. During the rally, which lasted about 45 minutes, a handful of workers gave heart wrenching stories of their personal experience when they found out their jobs were being outsourced to China. They also delivered a singular ominous message - that it's time the American people stand up and defend their country and their jobs right now because time is running out.

Brief Slideshow Of GM/Bain with Sound


Workers from the Bain-owned Sensata, an auto-components factory in Freeport, Illinois, (about an hour drive from Janesville) distributed a flyer inviting area residents to their "Outsourcing Pig Roast" protest and feast to be held on Saturday, Sept. 29th. For more information on this event visit Bainport

ADDITIONAL:

Lost Continents - Janesville/Bainport

WKOW - Bain Bus Tour Stops In Janesville

Never Forget Paul Ryan's Struggle To Destroy Social Security And Medicare

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For the sake of not rehashing this story from the National Catholic Weekly about a Paul Ryan speech at the Atlas Society’s "Celebration of Ayn Rand" event, I'll just touch on a couple of my immediate thoughts drawn from the article.

Although some of Ryan's statements in the story have been public knowledge for some time, I think most will find the added transcripts amazing considering they are from 2005 and how Ryan's "Shrugging" words back then closely match his rhetoric on the campaign trail today despite recently claiming an estrangement to Ayn Rand's world view.

You'll even find the reason as to why Mitt Romney believes 47 percent of Americans are moochers and victims and why Ryan thinks Romney's only mistake was that he was obviously inarticulate making his 47 percent point, but he still stands by the message. The truth is, Ryan and Romney are both class warfare-breathing demagogues who are willing to divide the population in an effort to win over more converts to their Atlas Shrugged world view.

America, The National Catholic Weekly Excerpt:
This philosophy leaves no room for Catholic notions of Government in service to the common good, there is no room for a social conception of the human person.

In several previous blog postings, I’ve described Ryan’s budget and debt solutions as being tabulated using an ideological calculator. We know when government collects $3 trillion in revenue but has $3.5 trillion in bills, simple arithmetic would show we’re $500 billion short.

So let’s put all our heads together and come up with a balanced plan to A.) generate more revenue and B.) make some spending cuts, and continue to adjust accordingly. Let’s burn the debt crisis candle at both ends to double-time the speed to solvency. The American people get that.

That’s what Bill Clinton was talking about at the DNC. It's arithmetic and common sense. But in walks Paul Ryan with his one-man plan largely extrapolated from a fictional novel and tabulated with Norquist-pledged trickle-down Laffer curve voodoo economics. There’s no math calculator and no real numbers showing any additional revenue or cuts. It’s simply a sales-pitch he tells that uses a projected debt crisis to transform not only government but our entire contemporary American society into something completely cold, dark and alien.

Not long ago, Ryan actually called this personal mission to deconstruct the constitutional role of government “his struggle” and repeatedly claims we have excessive collectivism, this coming from a man whose policies and principles have played a significant role in legislating more than half of the nation's debt. Indeed, a sure sign of excessive collectivism would be excessively large surpluses. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

As a nation, I believe we need an adult conversation about balancing a budget using simple math, not someone who wants to add and subtract using arguments and abstracts for personal responsibility, individualism vs collectivism, public vs private, the concept of subsidiarity, church vs state, God-given rights, hammocks, upward mobility and the morality of capitalism - but no numbers and no math. We want to balance a budget and solve a debt crisis and Paul Ryan is trying to solve the crisis in Atlas Shrugged.

WTF??

Recommended: Secret Ryan Transcript: Social Security and Medicare are the Target

Former Janesville GM Workers Speak Out On Paul Ryan

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LETTER:

I’m amused watching Paul Ryan attempt to reinvent his congressional record while he is being exposed for his fictional marathon time, fuzzy math skills, alleged foreign policy experience, and his fake claims as a budget hawk!

Mr. Ryan likes to remind us that we are his employer. Doing an adequate job responding to constituents’ individual needs is the minimum requirement of the job; but let’s also look at what Mr. Ryan has been doing the last 14 years in Congress as our alleged representative.

Eight of those years, Ryan walked lock step with the agenda of former President Bush where the rich got richer and the rest of us poorer. Ryan voted AGAINST the minimum wage increase; stem cell research; ethics reform; lowering the cost of student loans; union organizing; troop withdrawal from Iraq; and lower prescription drug prices! Ryan advocates privatizing Social Security and diminishing Medicare to a more costly voucher program.

While he talks of reducing the deficit he supported the very causes of the largest budget deficit in U.S. history: two unfunded wars, unnecessary tax cuts for the rich and corporations, Wall Street/Bank bailouts, and the deregulation of financial markets.

Now Ryan seeks election to not only his congressional seat, but also Vice President of the United States. Seriously, do we need to employ this obstructionist ultra conservative career politician any longer when it is apparent he collects a salary from the taxpayers, but serves the masters of privatization, deregulation, and the “ownership society?”

Signed in Solidarity by 55 Former Janesville, Wisconsin, General Motors Assembly Plant Dislocated Workers who now commute to Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Tim Rutter * Jamie Schmeling * Terry Nyhus *
Dianna R. Applebeck * Donald Clauer * James Wegner *
Bret Bailey * Erin Meinen * Charlie Monday * Randy S.Kozak * Chad Perkin * Teresa Pearson * David Belm * Holly Tillman *
Dale Granlund * Jeff Pearson * Daryl Crawford * Gerald Balis * Randy Tunks * Rodney Moen * Yoomi A. Saldana *
Donald R. Duoss * Randy Gorman * Steve Behm *
Dennis McKeown * Jamie Teller * John C. Deems *
Brian Biggerstaff * John Dohner, Jr. * Frannie Carpenter * David Dare * Joe J Steinman, Sr. * Gail Sockness *
Glenn Wille * Jeffrey Kosharek * Douglas Keepers *
David Draves * Dennis Huber * Alan Schneider *
Jeff McCulloch * Kevin D. Johnson * David Gaddine *
Terry Kundert * Daniel Brankhoff * Jon Bartz *
Brian J. Linfvedt * Jim Brandt * Michael A. Hoof *
David Harnack * Sarah Wille * Joe Cary * Rob Teubert *
Todd Condo * Robert Petsma * Pam McCullick *

Bain Workers Bus Tour Coming To Janesville

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Workers from Sensata, a manufacturing company based in Freeport, Illinois, are hitting the road to tell the nation just what a Mitt Romney Economy looks like. Sensata is owned by Bain Capital, a private equity firm founded by Romney that makes money by buying up companies, loading them with debt, stripping them of their assets and then finally shipping jobs overseas.

True to Romney's cannabalistic profit model, Bain is closing the Sensata plant before the end of the year and moving good manufacturing jobs to China. In fact, the Sensata workers are training their Chinese replacements right now.

They want America to know the truth about a Romney/Ryan Economy and are stopping in Janesville on Sunday, Sept. 23, to bring the message to Wisconsin.

A Romney/Ryan Economy means:

Steep tax breaks for for the rich ($160,000 goes to the average millionaire in Paul Ryan's budget)

Trillions in cuts to the safety net (food stamps, college grants, unemployment benefits)

The destruction of healthcare (huge Medicaid cuts and the destruction of Medicare as we know it)

A Romney/Ryan Economy benefits only one class of people -- the richest 1%. If you believe in a fair economy where we all have a chance to prosper, then you need to be in Janesville to let America know the truth!

Facebook event

Say NO! to a Romney/Ryan Economy
When: 3 pm
Sunday, September 23
Where: 1000 General Motors Drive
Janesville

Note: This posting is subject to updates.

It's Constitution Day In Wisconsin??

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Excerpt:
"There is a time and place for free speech,and we reserve the right to regulate that a little bit." - WI Capitol Police Capitan David Erwin

The Progressive Excerpt:
Article 1, Section 4, of the Wisconsin State Constitution, on them. That section states:

“The right of the people peaceably to assemble, to consult for the common good, and to petition the government, or any department thereof, shall never be abridged.”

What is it about “shall never be abridged” that Scott Walker doesn’t understand?

I think I figured out this "courageous" thing republicans like Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie and Ron Johnson bandy about and heap on each other during their political stunts and speeches. I think it does take a tremendous amount of courage to openly oppose the pillars of the Constitution and long-held concepts of freedom and liberty set in stone by the Founding Fathers and to do so in a rubbing-salt-in-the-wound sort of way by daring millions of freedom-loving Americans to do something about it.

CapTimes - John Nichols: Scott Walker reduced to name-calling to defend struck-down Act 10

Phil Hands Cartoon - Erwin Scaling The Capitol Building To Issue Lady Liberty A Citation