Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

H2O Man

(73,528 posts)
Thu Mar 23, 2017, 10:18 PM Mar 2017

Paul Ryan

“In April, 2011, shortly after the near-shutdown, Paul Ryan released his budget, the most radical policy blueprint to come out of official Washington in a generation. It simultaneously shredded the social safety net, swept away the country's seed corn of investments in the future, and adopted discredited supply-side economics. Even Gingrich called it 'radical right-wing social engineering.' ….In this first version, Ryan privatized Medicare entirely for those under fifty-five.”
Jonathan Alter; The Center Holds: Obama and his Enemies”; Simon & Schuster; 2013


Was it a sign of mental deterioration, as my son insists? Or can be be attributed to the cable news reports on the shared failure of Ryan and Trump to deliver as promised? Either way, while watching a report on Ryan, I said that there was an important paragraph in Jonathan Alter's book, on page 165. Instead, the above quote is found on page 163.

This was shortly after Ryan had expressed report for what President Obama had referred to as “an Ike budget.” Ryan clearly has no conscience. I find it offensive every time he talks about his ancestors immigrating from Ireland at the end of the Great Starvation. He is nothing if not the unethical heir to the “landlords” who ruled the Old Sod with cruelty.

President Obama responded in a speech at George Washington University, by saying Ryan's proposal wasn't “serious,” and pointing out that it “would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we've known.” (Alter; pg 165)

The battle over health care certainly isn't over. It's important that citizens at the grass roots level continue to speak up, and inform their elected representatives – Democratic and republican – that the Ryan-Trump plan is unacceptable.

36 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Paul Ryan (Original Post) H2O Man Mar 2017 OP
KnR Hekate Mar 2017 #1
Thanks. H2O Man Mar 2017 #2
Goood post! furtheradu Mar 2017 #3
Thanks! H2O Man Mar 2017 #4
Kick. dalton99a Mar 2017 #5
Thanks H2O Man Mar 2017 #6
I find myself H2O Man Mar 2017 #7
I'll admit that coeur_de_lion Mar 2017 #8
Martin McGuinness was a wonderful man. A solid leader. H2O Man Mar 2017 #9
Martin was smart enough coeur_de_lion Mar 2017 #10
Every Irishman H2O Man Mar 2017 #11
I didn't know about Darcy coeur_de_lion Mar 2017 #16
Chloe is H2O Man Mar 2017 #20
Cool! coeur_de_lion Mar 2017 #22
I'm considering it through my grandmother. I know of Alice11111 Mar 2017 #27
A number of my cousins have. H2O Man Mar 2017 #29
I need to learn more. Everyone on that side has died off. Alice11111 Mar 2017 #35
K&R... spanone Mar 2017 #12
It's been quite H2O Man Mar 2017 #13
the daily gobsmack spanone Mar 2017 #14
Ryan went down the tubes with Republicans controlling the House... Miles Archer Mar 2017 #15
Maybe, Ryan's tenure as Speaker will soon end. Hugin Mar 2017 #17
Well said! H2O Man Mar 2017 #21
Happy about the rejection of the repeal and replace bill but coeur_de_lion Mar 2017 #18
In my opinion, H2O Man Mar 2017 #19
schadenfreude coeur_de_lion Mar 2017 #24
The "more conservative faction" is an extreme-right Hortensis Mar 2017 #23
Thanks for your analysis coeur_de_lion Mar 2017 #25
If only. No analysis, only questions. Hortensis Mar 2017 #30
Very good questions coeur_de_lion Mar 2017 #34
Umhm. Throw off his whole agenda that actually Hortensis Mar 2017 #36
It was all CYA for 2018. Some Repubs wouldn't get re-elected Alice11111 Mar 2017 #28
Paul Ryan is pulling himself up... dchill Mar 2017 #26
Yes to that last. True libertarians reportedly have one Hortensis Mar 2017 #31
"Ryan clearly has no conscience." and he is an arrogant asshole..(apologies to assholes) Stuart G Mar 2017 #32
K/R Not only is the Ryan/Trump plan unacceptable, the ACA is a mere half measure. Alex4Martinez Mar 2017 #33

coeur_de_lion

(3,676 posts)
8. I'll admit that
Fri Mar 24, 2017, 07:36 PM
Mar 2017

When Obama was President I didn't give this guy Paul Ryan much thought. I knew his budget proposal was wacko but I didn't know anything else. Or care.

Now that he is front and center and I'm learning about him I think he is a disgrace to the Irish everywhere. Protestant or Catholic.

I wish we could force people of Irish descent who act like privileged assholes to change their names.

I've been reading about Martin McGuinness this week. And thinking about the way the Irish were treated in Ireland and how it caused the IRA to be created. And how after Bloody Sunday the IRA had a surge in their ranks that ultimately escalated "The Troubles" to the point that the British were forced to negotiate peace.

I'm taking my musings even further to imagine an America where ugly people like Paul Ryan prevail. How it would feel to have no rights. And how in that case it might be me joining a group like the IRA, wearing a ski mask and carrying a machine gun.

Because I would totally do it if anyone messed with my social security.

H2O Man

(73,528 posts)
9. Martin McGuinness was a wonderful man. A solid leader.
Fri Mar 24, 2017, 09:02 PM
Mar 2017

The difference between Ryan and him is the difference between shit and sugar.

coeur_de_lion

(3,676 posts)
10. Martin was smart enough
Fri Mar 24, 2017, 09:20 PM
Mar 2017

to know when peace was possible. And that peace was worth working for -- no matter how long it took.

Ryan is just a rabidly angry man who thinks anyone who has less than he does deserves to die.

I love how you get my loyalty to my Irish Catholic roots. This is why you will always be my brother.

H2O Man

(73,528 posts)
11. Every Irishman
Fri Mar 24, 2017, 09:25 PM
Mar 2017

inhabiting this house find Ryan offensive. (My daughters do, too, though they aren't here. I told you that Darcy is studying there next semester?)

coeur_de_lion

(3,676 posts)
16. I didn't know about Darcy
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 10:06 AM
Mar 2017

Trinity College? Or elsewhere?

Well wherever she'll be that is wonderful. I know she will love it. The Irish have a special way of making you feel welcome.

I'm jealous of her. Will you be visiting?

H2O Man

(73,528 posts)
20. Chloe is
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 11:51 AM
Mar 2017

planning to drop over and hang out with her. She starts working at a Boston law firm this summer, on immigration, and so her trip is almost "work-related."

Darcy is hounding me to complete the dual citizenship, so that she can get her's. Maybe we will all end up there!

Alice11111

(5,730 posts)
27. I'm considering it through my grandmother. I know of
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 03:11 PM
Mar 2017

two who have gotten Irish citizenship. Then , we would have EU privileges. What an irony...the return of the Irish.

H2O Man

(73,528 posts)
29. A number of my cousins have.
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 03:39 PM
Mar 2017

I talk with relatives in Ireland all the time on Facebook. My boys visited there a few years back, and my brother goes there.

My clan is from the southwest. Where were your's located?

Alice11111

(5,730 posts)
35. I need to learn more. Everyone on that side has died off.
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 05:09 PM
Mar 2017

I am going to do a DNA test. One couple I know did that to get citizenship. My grandmother's family lived around Cork. I've been there a few times. I should go again.

Miles Archer

(18,837 posts)
15. Ryan went down the tubes with Republicans controlling the House...
Fri Mar 24, 2017, 10:28 PM
Mar 2017

...Republicans controlling the Senate, and a Republican President who would have rubber stamped anything that made it through the House and Senate.

I do not believe for a minute that he's going to be given the opportunity to lead the charge on whatever new health care legislation, if any, emerges from the Trump presidency.

Trump moaned about the fact that he got no help from Democrats on this (largely because he did not ask, but even if he did, what Democrat would want their name attached to Ryan's "better way" plan?)

There will be no "help" from Democrats as long as healthcare reform involves a $2.8 billion payday for millionaires and up.

First step for healthcare reform under Trump, if that is even possible, is to take Ryan completely out of the picture. And the only reason Trump would do that is that the egg on his face today was laid by Ryan.

I think we're going to see one train wreck after another, and then, in 2018, we're going to take back the House and Senate.

Hugin

(33,120 posts)
17. Maybe, Ryan's tenure as Speaker will soon end.
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 10:34 AM
Mar 2017

I don't see him finishing out the year after the Obamacare R&R failure. He's pretty much "Boehnered" himself.

I wonder if the possibility of the scale of collapse we've just witnessed occurred to him when he was drinking out of kegs.

H2O Man

(73,528 posts)
21. Well said!
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 11:54 AM
Mar 2017

I think the republicans in DC will turn on Trump, as they must recognize he is a ball-and-chain that will severely limit their prospects for competing in the 2018 races.

coeur_de_lion

(3,676 posts)
18. Happy about the rejection of the repeal and replace bill but
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 10:38 AM
Mar 2017

slightly puzzled about how it happened.

Reading on DU that the protests from their constituents kept many Republicans from voting for the bill.

Then I'm reading on MSM that the more conservative faction of the GOP rejected the bill.

So which was it? Or was it both?

H2O Man

(73,528 posts)
19. In my opinion,
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 11:39 AM
Mar 2017

it was the synergy of those two, plus one more factor: the republicans recognize that the Trump presidency is badly damaged. That damage includes most everything he has tried to do, and very importantly, the Russian influence issue.

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
23. The "more conservative faction" is an extreme-right
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 02:45 PM
Mar 2017

group who call themselves the Freedom caucus, but a more apt name is the Koch caucus. (Aha!?) If they please their backers, they get to come back next term. If they don't, their backers will replace them with someone who will.

Because of that, the party leadership has virtually no control over the Koch caucus.

Nor do their constituents, who have been trained to vote for any Republican on the ballot over a Democrat. It just takes some money infusion at election time to bury any primary opposition and get their constituents out to vote against the Democrat in the general.

Charles Koch, and therefore the giant kochtopus, was against this bill passing because--he said--it wasn't a big enough step toward total destruction of this government program. So it didn't pass. He and his people have a plan B (maybe several) for sure, and whatever that is is already in the works.

As for the other Republicans who wouldn't support it, it's a horrible bill that would replace a good law designed to serve all Americans and all healthcare-related industries well with one that failed everyone. The more hard-core among them were concerned about possible blowback from business and from voters in 2018. Some others were also concerned about blowback but also genuinely deplored a bill so bad that it actually threatened the economy.

What I'd love to have explained is how Ryan, a libertarian every bit as extreme as the Kochs and someone they once pushed on Romney for his VP, ended up being someone they might take out in plan B. Is it more evidence of incompetence in Ryan that he couldn't somehow get them in line? Or did he shrug off their leash for some reason? Or?

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
30. If only. No analysis, only questions.
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 03:50 PM
Mar 2017

It is interesting that the "Freedom" caucus, having gotten the leadership in both houses to agree to their current demand so that it could go forward, then immediately upped their demands to a killer that simply couldn't be agreed to: gutting the section that provided benefits like coverage for preexisting conditions, no annual or lifetime limits, and a lot else precious to voters.

Why'd they do that? Just ultraconservative idiots making their own decisions but only able to obstruct--the way most media portray them? Or a piece being played in a more complex game?

coeur_de_lion

(3,676 posts)
34. Very good questions
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 04:56 PM
Mar 2017

I'm wondering the same.

What would cause the Freedom Caucus to raise the stakes to an impossible level like that? They had to know they would lose. Perhaps they wanted to serve up a devastating defeat to Trump.

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
36. Umhm. Throw off his whole agenda that actually
Sun Mar 26, 2017, 05:54 AM
Mar 2017

included trying to come through on some of his promises to his voters, plus spend, spend, spend on military and infrastructure? And/or Ryan? This from Vox:

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said in 2015 that when he was elected, in 2010, he thought it meant a critical mass of voters supported free-market principles; but when he saw those same voters gravitating to Trump, he realized “they’re just voting for the craziest guy in the race.” The merits of that observation aside, the point remains that the political base of the Freedom Caucus and the political base of the administration with whom they’re negotiating are one and the same.

That political base, of course, is sold on the idea of Obamacare reform because they’re sold on Trump’s promises that they will have better, cheaper insurance than they have right now.


The Freedom Caucus's actions are here diametrically opposed to its voters' wishes.

Wonder what's happening with the Koch alliance. Jane Mayer reported that, after Obama's election, over 700 centimillionaires and billionaires attended their next big meeting. Huge leap in size. Supposedly the Freedom caucus is having something of an "identity crisis" now that they don't have a Democratic president to oppose. Is a large part of the alliance?

Have a nice one.

Alice11111

(5,730 posts)
28. It was all CYA for 2018. Some Repubs wouldn't get re-elected
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 03:18 PM
Mar 2017

If they voted YES, and some wouldn't if they voted NO, some couldn’t decide between the two- lose/lose choices.
Paul Ryan wanted to save them from devastating losses in 2018.
DT played chicken, until time was out. They pulled the bill to avoid the Repubs voting, which would have been even worse for 2018.

dchill

(38,468 posts)
26. Paul Ryan is pulling himself up...
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 03:04 PM
Mar 2017

by OUR bootstraps, and either can't or won't see it. Or maybe he thinks nobody else sees it. Just one more amoral ideologue with a stunted, juvenile intellect. (Libertarian.)

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
31. Yes to that last. True libertarians reportedly have one
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 04:03 PM
Mar 2017

moral principle that outweighs any that might or might not make it onto their list: personal freedom. Altruism, willingness to sacrifice anything for others, is weak to nonexistent in their natures.

I figure that'd explain Ryan's callously ruthless goals for "freeing" people from the burdens of caring for society. He's not deliberately cruel, just a clear-eyed and high-minded visionary who sees

A gloriously simplified society where people are released from the slavery of supporting others.
A truly free society where strength is encouraged and weakness discouraged...
A healthier, more energetic and productive society...
A younger one...
No passing 3 or 4 dialysis clinics in strip malls while just running errands...
All of us maximally free to take care of ourselves and succeed, or not, keeping that 30%+ of our incomes that's now whisked out of our pockets before we even see it. Eliminating that anchor alone will surely help some of us be winners...

Squint your eyes to eliminate peripheral vision and perspective, and you can kinda see the appeal.

Alex4Martinez

(2,193 posts)
33. K/R Not only is the Ryan/Trump plan unacceptable, the ACA is a mere half measure.
Sat Mar 25, 2017, 04:31 PM
Mar 2017

I'm as grateful as can be for it but we mustn't lower the standard, the goal, the ultimate objective.

Obamacare is, at best, halfway to where we want and to be.

We should be grateful for winning these battles but let's never lose sight of how much further we have to go.

Thank you, H2O Man.

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»Paul Ryan