What's your reaction to Paul Ryan's acceptance speech last night?

1. 64

   Ralph Deedsposted 11 years ago

   Ryan is a compelling public speaker. He did a convincing job of supporting Romney, but his attacks on Obama were lies and misrepresentations:
   
   1. He criticized Obama for not acting on the Simpson-Bowles Commission's budget recommendations, BUT he failed to mention that he was a member of the commission and that he voted AGAINST the recommendations because they called for a combination of tax increases and budget cuts.
   
   2. He blaimed the closure of GM's Janesville assembly plant on Obama, BUT he neglected to mention that the plant actually closed toward the end of the Bush administration and that he voted in favor of the auto industry bailout.
   
   3. He claimed that he would preserve Medicare BUT neglected to mention that his plan would for our children and grandchildren be turned into a voucher plan, requiring them to "eat" future health care cost increases.
   
   4. He criticized Obama for taking $700 million from Medicare BUT neglected to mention that the Ryan-Romney Roadmap would also reduce Medicare funding by an equal amount without doing anything to reduce escalating health care costs. (Obama care does provide a number of cost savings measures.)
   
   5. He promised that he and Romney would create 25 million jobs, BUT didn't anything about how they would accomplish that.

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      rhamsonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I almost never watch these Pep Rallies as they are full of the fodder that the attendees come to hear and cloud issues with political smearing and skewed facts to suit their need at that moment. To say that Paul Ryan is a hypocrite is redundant as using the word politician. I am more interested in who is funding the candidates and the superpac groups to find out who the candidates will be beholding to once elected. And that is the real story yet to be told.

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   2. 93

      habeeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Ralph, did you see this?
      
      http://mrctv.org/blog/politifact-lies-a … e-gm-plant

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      1. 64

         Ralph Deedsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         No, I didn't. Thanks, but I don't credit Gutowski as a reliable, unbiased source. Did you see this? It's more objective.
         
         Separating Fact from Fiction on Ryan's Claims about Obama's Remarks about Janesville Plant:
         
         http://www.freep.com/article/20120830/N … e-GM-plant

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            Mighty Momposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I read "somewhere" recently that Paul Ryan has not done a heckuva lot as congressman to represent his district. Can't find where I read that, but did find this.
            Which, if one were so inclined, could easily become an anti-Ryan mantra:
            
            "And what did Ryan ever do for Janesville? Well, he did name their post office."
            
            http://www.snopes.com/politics/ryan/passedbills.asp
            
            BTW, the freep.com article is the first I've seen to get to the meat of the matter.
            The Janesville plant produced SUVs.
            No WONDER they've gone (in Hub Pages parlance) "idle."
            Why isn't the Obama team all over that?

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            habeeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks, Ralph. I didn't know anything about the source.

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2. 94

   thooghunposted 11 years ago

   Pretty much the same as yours. Both impressed and a little nauseated by the deception. But it's nothing new, candidates (both) should rise above the propaganda.
   
   But they know their audience too well, and while they may laugh about their own use of rhetoric, the damage is done, and the myths are spread and reinforced by the illiterate, uneducated megaphones that comprise their political base.

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3. 93

   habeeposted 11 years ago

   Ralph, I agree with some of what you said, but you failed to mention that with Ryan's plan, future Medicare recipients can choose the voucher system OR traditional Medicare.I thought his speech really revved up the base and might have swayed a few fence-sitters. Did you see the focus group of undecided voters on CNN? After the speech, almost all of them felt better about Ryan. When asked if any of them saw Ryan as "scary," none of them did. Of course, they haven't heard the DNC speeches yet. lol

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   1. 71

      rhamsonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Habee I try to not watch the pundits on either Fox or CNN. They pick and choose their focus and facts and often slant them towards the direction they were headed anyway. I find the faux agreement is usually shortlived and comes back to the way they were headed in the first place. I have also read that Ryan's medicare plan on average would require the individual participant to pick up an additional $6,800.00 per year in premium hikes to stay on the plan. The problem I have with the GOP plans are that they are only willing to make cuts to the poor without touching the military and the rich all the while facillitating more corruption in the banking sectors through de-regulating it. On the other hand we have the string of broken promises form Obama and the inability to achieve any success with congress in balancing a budget or pulling back on the military excess. Do we really need eleven air craft carriers. We do if we wish to continue the imperialistic aims of the people who own the government. This is where both candidates are mirrors of each other. Did you know that Bain Capital donated over $118,000 to Obama?

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      1. 93

         habeeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I don't see as much slant with CNN as I do FOX, NBC, or MSNBC. That's why I like to watch the news there. They just seem fairer to me. BTW, though, I get news from many sources.

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         1. 64

            Ralph Deedsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            That's true, but I can't stand Wolf Blitzer.

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      Ralph Deedsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I haven't read that future eligibles will have a choice between traditional Medicare and Ryan's voucher plan. I'll keep my eyes open.

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         habeeposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         This explains the Wyden-Ryan plan for Medicare, which is almost identical to Romney's. Ryan's first plan was scrapped. This later plan was made with Wyden, a Democrat.
         
         http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73590.html

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         1. 64

            Ralph Deedsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks, Habee, I missed that. I retract my comment above. Wyden apparently got Ryan off the hook.

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4. 60

   KK Trainorposted 11 years ago

   I thought he was fabulous, as were all of the other speakers. He is an impressive guy and the only one out there with any ideas he's not afraid to talk about.
   
   I'm not worried about cuts to Medicare because they are inevitable anyway. (Who thinks it can just keep going the way it is now?) 
   
   He didn't blame Obama for the plant closing, he quoted Obama saying that he (govt) would save the plant and didn't; (‘I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years,’” Ryan recalled. “That’s what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day.”)  different things.
   
   He will be a great Vice President and then maybe President. Yeah!!

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   1. 64

      Ralph Deedsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      The decision to close the plant was made and the plant was closed while Bush was president. I don't know what the timing of Obama's visit to Janesville and his comment was. Ryan's speech on this point was misleading, to say the least. The Bush-Obama auto bailout saved GM and Chrysler and upwards of a million jobs in the midwest--Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin. Obama's speech about the Janesville plant was apparently a bit optimistic.

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         Petra Vlahposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         saving the auto industry was the only bail out that made sense; at least those people are producing something as opposed to the banks which are there only to make a big profit at other people expense.
         As for Ryan, at least he had the decency to mention some of the problems that Obama inherited from Bush.
         I believe Ryan's speech was designed to capture some of the people who voted for Obama in 2008 and are now unhappy with the state of the economy. Could Obama have done more? Maybe so, but considering the disaster he was face with and without a magic wand would have been close to impossible for anyone.
         
         Was Ryan speech misleading at times? What else is new? All politicians are choosing  only that slice of pizza that suits them best while ignoring the rest.

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         1. 64

            Ralph Deedsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Yep.

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5. 79

   Uninvited Writerposted 11 years ago

   When someone from Fox News accuses you of lying and mistruths, you know there is something there.
   
   http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/ … ree-words/

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   1. 64

      Ralph Deedsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Wowl! That says it all. And from Fox "News" no less.

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6. 92

   Jean Bakulaposted 11 years ago

   I felt the same way as Ralph Deeds. Ryan and Rice were the only two I watched. Both came across as likeable and gave better speeches than I thought they would. But my mouth dropped open by all the misrepresentations (dare I say lies) from Ryan, he voted for the bailout, among other things. Rice just deflected the blame for anything done on Bush's watch on Obama. I felt sad that she did that, I thought better of her than that. But it still seems none of them make a compelling case why Romney will be a good President. They barely mention him, until the end of their speeches, or make a nasty remark about, "We'll get rid of Obama!" and they all cheer, like that's the solution to our country's issues. And after all the money Bush spent finding Bin Ladin, nobody gives Obama credit for that, instead they criticize him for it and pretend Obama is taking credit for what the Navy Seals did. That's how it works, the President doesn't go on the battlefield. The drones are launched from somewhere in VA, not far from D.C., I think?

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   1. 79

      Uninvited Writerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      And you know had Bin Laden been killed during Bush's term the Republicans would have been praising him to high heaven and dancing in the streets.

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         Reality Bytesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         An interesting read:
         
         
         Sense and nonsense about Obama and Osama
         
         http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/29/opinion/b … index.html

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