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Romney: Paul Ryan Will Be My VP (Or, Everything You Wanted To Know But Were Afraid To Ask)

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Mitt Romney has chosen Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate, the GOP presumptive nominee’s campaign announced minutes ago. Republican Congressman Paul Ryan serves as the U.S. Representative for Wisconsin’s 1st congressional district and is Chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Romney, whose approval rating has been dropping fast as President Obama opens a seven to nine point lead in some mainstream polls, needed to change the conversation and focus of the campaign, and will personally make the announcement this morning at a press conference on board the USS Wisconsin, as he kicks off a four-state bus tour. Besieged by questions about his taxes and unable to recover from Obama’s attacks, no doubt the Romney campaign is looking forward to some new and young blood — and Ryan fits that prescription.

Ryan, who is only 42, married, and has three children, is a Roman Catholic. If elected, Paul Ryan would be the fourth-youngest vice president in U.S. history, with only Dan Quayle (1989), Richard Nixon (1953), and John C. Breckinridge (1857) preceding him.

Congressman Ryan has been labeled a “rising star” since John Boehner became Speaker of the House, but as early as 2007 was one of the self-described “young guns.” Ryan is extremely popular among Republicans and the radical religious right wing, including the Tea Party and Evangelicals.

MAKING THE CHOICE

NBC News late last night noted that Ryan’s “budget plan — which would substantially transform Medicare and Medicaid — is a lightning rod.”

In fact, Democrats argue that Ryan’s selection marks an opportunity to highlight Ryan’s desired changes to Medicare, which include giving future seniors a voucher or premium support to help pay for their health insurance. Under Ryan’s plan, future seniors would have the choice of using the voucher/premium support to purchase private insurance or through Medicare’s traditional fee-for-service model.

“We’ve spent 18 months trying to make House races about their plan for Medicare and Mitt Romney just did it for us overnight,” said one Democratic operative.

Also last night, The Washington Examiner wrote:

Romney might have been hinting at the selection when he described his intended running mate to NBC’S Chuck Todd.

“I certainly expect to have a person that has a strength of character,” Romney said. “A vision for the country, that, that adds something to the political discourse about the direction of the country. I mean I happen to believe this is a defining election for America; that we’re gonna be voting for what kind of America we’re gonna have.”

And The Weekly Standard last night pointed to their May interview with Ryan, in which he stated:

“It’s very clear from his [Romney’s] last three or four speeches – and he’s very involved in writing these, setting this message – that he wants to bring this to a choice. Not just a referendum on Obama’s bad stewardship but on the American idea itself and a choice of two futures. It seems clear to me – because he’s embraced the kind of economic reforms we need to get the American idea back on track and prevent a debt crisis – that he is willing to bring this thing to the clear, clean choice it needs to be to give to the country. And that he’s ready to do that. And that for all the risk-aversion stories that have been written about him he seems to me that he’s gotten himself in the mindset of understanding the moment we are facing and the need to bring this real clear conversation to the country about the choice they have to make. And that these founding principles are really important. And so I really feel like – this is probably not the election he thought he was going to run, say two years ago when he first decided to run, but I think he’s become extremely comfortable and accepting of what it is and what it needs to be. Everything he says and does gives me a sense of that.”

But NBC News notes:

  • Ryan’s budget plan has become a lightning rod, and it will be a focus of Democratic attacks in the fall. The most controversial component of the plan is that it significantly transforms Medicare, which is regarded as the government’s most popular program.
  • In addition to Medicare, Ryan was one of the driving forces to partially privatize Social Security after George W. Bush’s victory in the 2004 presidential election.
  • There are also holes in Ryan’s budget-hawk armor: He voted for some of the biggest drivers of the deficit/debt — the Bush tax cuts, the Iraq war, and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, all of which weren’t paid for. Moreover, Ryan voted against the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles recommendations.
  • Has never held statewide office and has no foreign-policy experience. Both could be liabilities.
  • As a member of Congress, Ryan currently works in — and is a relatively high-profile member of — one of America’s least popular institutions.
  • And while Romney has criticized Obama for not having private-sector experience, the same is largely true of Ryan: As the New Yorker has written, Ryan briefly worked for his family’s business as a “marketing consultant,” but most of his adult life has been spent as a congressman, congressional aide, or speechwriter/analyst at Jack Kemp’s Empower America think tank.

PAUL RYAN’S POLITICAL POSITIONS ON CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUES

Paul Ryan is strongly anti-gay, having voted to constitutionally define marriage as “one man-one woman,” voting “yes” repeatedly on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, and even voting to ban adoptions by gay people in Washington, D.C.

Paul Ryan earned a 0% rating from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights advocacy organization. Ryan has a 13% rating from the ACLU, and a 36% rating from the NAACP.

Last year, Congressman Ryan, who is also strongly anti-abortion, voted to ban any federal funds to pay for abortion, and has voted to restrict interstate transportation of minors to get abortions. Ryan, who has a 0% rating from NARAL, voted to prohibit federal funding for Planned Parenthood, and has voted against expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines.

Paul Ryan has a 90% rating from the anti-gay hate group, Family Research Council (FRC), voting for nine out of the ten actions FRC supported.

Congressman Ryan scored a 100% rating from the Christian Coalition, which includes voting against the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010,” voting against the funding of ObamaCare, and voting “yes” on the ludicrously-named “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act,” the GOP’s signature legislation.

In “Paul Ryan as VP Would Match Mitt Romney on Homophobia,” The Advocate notes:

One area where the two differ is on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Ryan voted in 2007in favor of the law, which would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. Romney was once also in favor of ENDA but changed his mind.

Romney told the Log Cabin Republicans in 1994 that he would sponsor ENDA if elected to the U.S. Senate. Then in 2006 he told National Journal that ENDA would “open a litigation floodgate and unfairly penalize employers at the hands of activist judges.” He dismissed ENDA, saying, “I don’t see the need for new or special legislation.”

PAUL RYAN’S BACKGROUND

Paul Ryan is the Chairman of the House’s Committee on the Budget, and he sits on the extremely powerful Committee on Ways and Means. Ryan is a member of the socially conservative and controversial Republican Study Committee caucus, which is often praised by the National Review, a highly-conservative publication known to often publish racist and bigoted authors.

The AP once reported that Ryan “was voted prom king and the ‘Biggest Brown-Noser’ of his 1988 high school class before leaving for college in Ohio.”

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog asks:

How important could God be to Paul Ryan if his number one inspiration for going into public life is the works of a militant atheist?  Republican leaders always claim that God is their number one inspiration, and Jesus their favorite philosopher.  Not a militant anti-religious activist.

Aravosis, who offers an extensive background on Ryan, adds that “what’s interesting to me is that he only has a bachelor’s degree.”

While that’s not, in the modern era it’s not at all uncommon for presidential candidates to have gone to graduate school as well (though, as the GOP now has disdain for a college education, per Rick Santorum, this likely won’t hurt Ryan with the Republican minions).

This also means that Ryan’s supposed “expertise” in economics and budgeting comes from undergrad courses in economics.  Milton Friedman he ain’t.

The other problem with Ryan’s bio is that he has next to zero experience outside of Washington politics.  His only real work experience outside of government (or “consulting” to the family business), is working as a waiter at Tortilla Coast, as a trainer at a gym, and driving the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.

Congressman Ryan’s biography on Wikipedia states:

Born and raised in Janesville, Wisconsin, Ryan graduated from Miami University in Ohio. In the mid to late 1990s, he worked as an aide to United States Senator Bob Kasten, as legislative director for Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, and as a speechwriter for former U.S. Representative and 1996 Republican vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp of New York. In 1998, Ryan won election to the United States House of Representatives, succeeding the two-term incumbent, fellow Republican Mark Neumann.

Ryan currently chairs the House Budget Committee, where he has played a prominent public role in drafting and promoting the Republican Party’s long-term budget proposal. He introduced a plan, The Path to Prosperity, in April 2011 as an alternative to the budget proposal of President Barack Obama, and helped introduce The Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal in March 2012, in response to Obama’s 2013 budget. Ryan is one of the three co-founders of the Young Guns Program, an electoral recruitment and campaign effort by House Republicans. He endorsed Republican presidential candidate, former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney for the 2012 United States presidential election.

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OPINION

Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

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15 hours ago

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April 26, 2024

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Republican Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a top potential Trump vice presidential running mate pick, revealed in a forthcoming book she “hated” her 14-month old puppy and shot it to death. Massive online outrage ensued, including accusations of “animal cruelty” and “cold-blooded murder,” but the pro-life former member of Congress is defending her actions and bragging she had the media “gasping.”

“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” Noem writes in her soon-to-be released book, according to The Guardian which reports “the dog, a female, had an ‘aggressive personality’ and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.”

“By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going ‘out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life’.”

“Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, ‘grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another’.”

READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

“Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like ‘a trained assassin’.”

Except Cricket wasn’t trained. Online several people with experience training dogs have said Noem did everything wrong.

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote, calling the young girl pup “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.”

“At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.”

“It was not a pleasant job,” she added, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

The Guardian reports Noem went on that day to slaughter a goat that “smelled ‘disgusting, musky, rancid’ and ‘loved to chase’ Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes.”

She dragged both animals separately into a gravel pit and shot them one at a time. The puppy died after one shell, but the goat took two.

On social media Noem expressed no regret, no sadness, no empathy for the animals others say did not need to die, and certainly did not need to die so cruelly.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

But she did use the opportunity to promote her book.

Attorney and legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold says Governor Noem’s actions might have violated state law.

“You slaughtered a 14-month-old puppy because it wasn’t good at the ‘job’ you chose for it?” he asked. “SD § 40-1-2.3. ‘No person owning or responsible for the care of an animal may neglect, abandon, or mistreat the animal.'”

The Democratic National Committee released a statement saying, “Kristi Noem’s extreme record goes beyond bizarre rants about killing her pets – she also previously said a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to carry out her pregnancy, does not support exceptions for rape or incest, and has threatened to throw pharmacists in jail for providing medication abortions.”

Former Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah Griffin, now a co-host on “The View” wrote, “There are countless organizations that re-home dogs from owners who are incapable of properly training and caring for them.”

The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson blasted the South Dakota governor.

“Kristi Noem is trash,” he began. “Decades with hunting- and bird-dogs, and the number I’ve killed because they were chicken-sharp or had too much prey drive is ZERO. Puppies need slow exposure to birds, and bird-scent.”

“She killed a puppy because she was lazy at training bird dogs, not because it was a bad dog,” he added. “Not every dog is for the field, but 99.9% of them are trainable or re-homeable. We have one now who was never going in the field, but I didn’t kill her. She’s sleeping on the couch. You down old dogs, hurt dogs, and sick dogs humanely, not by shooting them and tossing them in a gravel pit. Unsporting and deliberately cruel…but she wrote this to prove the cruelty is the point.”

Melissa Jo Peltier, a writer and producer of the “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan” series, also heaped strong criticism on Noem.

“After 10+ years working with Cesar Millan & other highly specialized trainers, I believe NO dog should be put down just because they can’t or won’t do what we decide WE want them to,” Peltier said in a lengthy statement. “Dogs MUST be who they are. Sadly, that’s often who WE teach them to be. And our species is a hot mess. I would have happily taken Kristi Noem’s puppy & rehomed it. What she did is animal cruelty & cold blooded murder in my book.”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

Published

19 hours ago

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April 26, 2024

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President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

 

 

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News

CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

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21 hours ago

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April 26, 2024

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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

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