So George Will just said that the car plant in Wisconsin

[billky]

did shut down after Obama took office. So who's lying? I saw the picture where it had Dec.08 on the sign with the last car rolling off the line. Nobody said he was lying. It was on This Week with George Stephanopolis. ?? Donna Brazille didn't say anything. What is the truth?

[whistler162]

1. Remember unless it is Basenall

George Will is always fabricating truths.

[Indydem]

2. Will is correct.

The plant continued to employee 57 people wrapping up an Isuzu truck contract.

Technical and inconvenient, but true.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

3. It ceased production permanently in Dec. 08. Some functions went on a few months longer.

When you shut down a factory you don't just lock the doors and walk away.

[notadmblnd]

4. You're right. There are machines to dismantle and ship overseas

Those have to be disassembled and crated and shipped. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of steel. That takes time.

[Heather MC]

5. I believe the employees

of the plant before I will believe Will and They say It closed in Dec08. I think employees know the date they become unemployed

[alc]

6. "closed" in Dec 08, "shut down" a few months later

They decided to close the plant and gave layoff notices and stopped the line you saw Dec 08. It took a few more months complete the shut down. They had to finish delivery for a contract and did produce some cars until they completely shut down after Obama took office. There is a youtube video of the news report announcing the final shutdown and I think they said the final car rolled out in April. I didn't watch carefully and may not remember right - maybe it was just that management left in April but I'm pretty sure they talked about cars for the final contract they were delivering.

Anyone can (and will) believe whatever they want. It's probably not the best lie to use to convince undecideds if they are likely to hear from both sides. There are some stories about Saturn wanting to use the plant also that make it even murkier (the Saturn arguments look pretty week, but something else you may need to defend.

[thevoiceofreason]

7. Another concern post from a low volume poster!

GM ceased making GM vehicles in Janesville on December 23, 2008. The plant had a limited term contract with Isuzu to make some of their SUV's until April 2009, but the GM operations were done in 2008. There is no nuance here. Stop buying off on the R spin and talking points.

[Jack Sprat]

21. Seeing much of that recently. nt

[zbdent]

8. Remind me ... ABC had Will on ... right?

You know, the network that had the Anti-"Obamacare" series "V" (the newer version), which was promised to return in 2011 (but didn't, because the months-long political commercial did its trick and changed the House from Dem Rule to Repug Rule) ...

and the "Last Resort" program, which appears to infer that Obama is ordering hits on "our military personnel" ... likely for not following an "illegal order" ...

So, what incentive does ABC have to stop a Republican mouthpiece from lying?

[Scuba]

9. Yet mainstream media will still give him airtime and describe him as "serious".

The plant was ordered closed in July 2008.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

10. The "pushback" on the lie seems to be

that the plant failed to re-open on President Obama's watch (i.e. failed recovery). However, the Repubs have been screaming about how private entrepreneurs "built that" (NOT Government), so WTF are they blaming President Obama for not making it so the plant can re-open? Why hasn't some job creator (or companies like Bain) "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps" and re-opened the plant? Why hasn't Ryan done more to help the plant re-open? I thought that they had problems with the auto bailout and "picking winners and losers" in what is supposed to be a "free market" economic system? In a rush to attack and crush their political opponents, the Repubs seem to always wind up getting tangled up in knots and spider webs created by their hypocrisy!

[JoePhilly]

11. Will also said that the TeaParty was not the GOP right wing base.

He's a lying turd.

[GOPonziconz]

12. Janesville GM Plant Employee says Paul Ryan is lying. HP link below.

[link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/01/brad-dutcher-paul-ryan-janesville-gm-plant_n_1848928.html|

[Mponti]

13. Why didnt Ryan use his power to reopen Janesville?

[garthranzz]

14. Not every distortion...

should be refuted on air. As someone else noted, Will was technically correct. Perhaps that plant closing was the wrong point to push at that time. Perhaps it was the kind of statement the fact-checkers need to go after - they do fact-check This Week all the time. I think the regulars on the show understand the rhythm and the important points. A lot depends on who the guests are. George Will is a permanent fixture - he's on every week. Donna Brazile is part of a rotating panel; I think she's on every other week or every third week. So there's a politics to the show - one has to deflate George Will very carefully, which Donna Brazile usually does. Other guests take the combative role. Some of the authority to take the corrective role - George Will has a Ph.D. in history, Paul Krugman has a Ph.D. - and Nobel Prize - in economics. Different rhetorical battles. But I don't think Donna Brazile concedes anything to George Will.

[Avalux]

15. Semantics. The dicision was made prior to Obama.

However it takes time, a lot of time to cease operations and shut down entirely. Will is playing with the truth, which should be no surprise to anyone.

[Zoeisright]

16. Here's a PICTURE of the last day the plant was operational.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021234056

December 23, 2008

Of course Will is lying. He's a repuke. All they do is lie.

[Jennicut]

17. In ended the main suv line in dec 08.

The small truck division stayed on for a few months after to finish a contract to Izuzu but the decision to shut the plant down was done by Dec. The workers knew while they were finishing that line that it was over. They did not want to break the contract but the plant was not going to keep running. Ryan was an idiot and thought he could pretend that the plant was fully operational in 2009 when it was not.

[hollysmom]

18. Well, technically everyone is wrong

The plant is not closed and Ryan did not say it was closed, he said it was shuttered. The plant has suspended operations and can reopen if demand ever returns to the old numbers.

I have to look for the link now, will amend.

However - it ceased regular production and closed the line on Dec 2008, close enough.

Here's one
PAUL RYAN LIES. ALL THE TIME. ABOUT EVERYTHING

One question is whether when Paul Ryan attacked Barack Obama last night for the closure of the Janesville, WI GM plant, he knew or did not know that the plant had been closed before Obama took office.

He knew.

Lying swine.

Matthew DeLuca:

Paul Ryan Used Government Funds and Power to Try and Save GM Plant: General Motors announced on June 3, 2008 that it intended to close the nearly 100-year-old [Janesville] plant…. [T]he company suspended all operations at the facility by Dec. 23, 2008, eliminating 2,400 jobs. It has been in “standby” mode since….

Ryan was one of 32 Republicans who voted for the $14 billion auto bailout in December 2008…. The task force of which Ryan was a member went as far as to explore the possibility of using funds from the $789 billion stimulus deal approved by Congress, task-force members said, a package Ryan voted against and publicly called a “wasteful spending spree.”…

[BrainMann1]

19. The plant was scheduled for closer in 2110

but the GOP accelerated the closing, by 2009 the economy was in overload by the Bush administration previous years Obama could not help.

[BrainMann1]

20. I also found this tidbit

THE FACTS: The plant halted production in December 2008, weeks before Obama took office and well before he enacted a more robust auto industry bailout that rescued GM and Chrysler and allowed the majority of their plants — though not the Janesville facility — to stay in operation. Ryan himself voted for an auto bailout under President George W. Bush that was designed to help GM, but he was a vocal critic of the one pushed through by Obama that has been widely credited with revitalizing both GM and Chrysler.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/national/2012-08-30/story/ap-fact-check-paul-ryans-speech-rnc?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JacksonvillecomNews+(Jacksonville+Local+News+%E2%80%93+Jacksonville.com+and+The+Florida+Times-Union)#ixzz25KrbB400