Paul Ryan is Washington insider!

Can it be true? Paul Ryan has never had a job outside of Congress?

Paul Ryan has never met a payroll, never been in the "market place" he so blithely advocates for others? Never not had government perks? It's astounding!

Can it be true this man has never been in the private sector but has been paid out of our tax revenues his ENTIRE ADULT LIFE?!? If so, this is the best argument ever made for retroactively downsizing government.

No wonder Paul Ryan has so little compassion – he came of age in Washington D.C. He was born on third base, says he hit a triple, then tells everyone else coming to the plate that they should bat without a helmet. What gall. What hypocrisy.

He believes in Ayn Rand but leaves out that atheism is the core of her philosophy, which is baking a cake without adding flour. Or eggs. He says we cannot afford compassion as a country and really, it's a sign of weakness. Does this staunch Catholic think he is quoting Jesus!?

He makes up a silly budget fiction about how to give more money to the rich while cutting food and hospitals and schools for the poor. Then he says Democrats are divisive?! This ego-driven wanker even lies about his time in marathons. He's never even run in Oregon's rain!

Paul Ryan's budgets are a sleight of hand, his "everybody-on-their-own" philosophy heartless in this time of hardship, his adherence to "free markets" uninformed. Ryan is as ambitious as Mitt Romney and just as bogus.

How did Romney-Ryan DO that?

How did it come to pass that rich white men born into immense privilege are telling the rest of us we should just work a little harder, expect a little less, do a little more without? 

Where do they get off telling the rest of the country what life should be for poor white men and women, poor Blacks, Hispanics, single mothers etc.(some of whom actually had those kids that Romney-Ryan say all women who have sex should be obliged to have )? 

Oookay, I got all the "coal miner" symbolism paraded out by the righties at the GOP convention. Too bad nobody had a great uncle who was a logger up here in Oregon (whew!) or worked in the mills around here. Rather, the mills that used to be around here. I bet there would be some great family history of the Wobblies.

Speaking of which, all those descendants of miners at the GOP convention and not a word about horrendous conditions? About mines collapsing because adequate shoring took too much out of profits? About black lung disease so long hidden by the great coal companies? The United Mine Workers didn't send one kid to college? Ever seen a face macerated by a broken saw chain?

But, back to the rant. 

I don't get it. Romney-Ryan don't know and can never know what it's like at the bottom of the pile, and now they want to lower their taxes (when they already pay less of their income in taxes than their drivers, their maids, their cooks, etc.) and they want to raise our insurance deductible, they want to decimate our schools, they want to take away our retirement? While they hide their tax returns and their money in offshore accounts? While telling us we should trust them?!?!

What they really want is to destroy opportunity for the rest of us to get where they are, because we need schools, hospitals and homes we can afford. And clean water to drink. And clean air to breathe. And jobs that protect us instead of kill us. And we want our kids to have some opportunity to get what Romney-Ryan got.

Romney / Ryan will steal our country

The Republicans drove the United States into a ditch so they could grab the White House. We can't let them get away with it.

For the last two years Republicans stonewalled every attempt to get the economy going again. If the economy improved, Obama would be reelected. That would disrupt their business plan.

Paul Ryan is a liar and a hypocrite. He actively sought federal pork while saying he was opposed to pork. He was part of a budget deal that would withhold funds from the military if the Congress of which he was a part did not do its job, which it did not partly because of his efforts, and now he says he will go back on his word. 

Ryan opposes abortion in every situation as dictated by his Pope, as does Mormon Bishop Mitt Romney, and both refuse to admit when and how they would impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us.

Romney will say anything, and has, to get elected. He tears down the Presidency, makes a mockery of America's place in the world, then says our President diminishes the office. Romney plays the bigot in Israel and says stupid things about the English and brags about his wealth. 

 Both men were born on third base and pretend they hit a triple. Romney says culture is what creates success, by which he means the Mormon culture. Ryan is an acolyte of atheist Ayn Rand but picks bits of her "philosophy," such as it is, that justifies his belief in himself. God, what a pair of putzes. With no compassion whatsoever, their hunger for power shows so little class.

Romney/Ryan want the rich to get richer and the poor to suffer: 

Romney/Ryan want to end Social Security to enrich Goldman Sachs, the bankers who ruined the economy then profited from the chaos. 

Romney/Ryan want to end Medicare to enrich the insurance industry which will enrich them in turn and pay their political hyenas. 

Romney/Ryan want to rig the "non-free market"  in favor of large corporations in which they have a stake, to hell with individuals, laborers and small business owners. 

Romney/Ryan will take away individual rights and give them to giant corporations who view all citizens simply as consumers.

Romney/Ryan lie and cheat and steal. We can't let them steal our country. We just can't.

AT&T's lies for all to see

How wonderful this last week to see the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission protecting markets, small businesses and consumers from a rapaciously hungry corporate monster.

Even "The Economist" magazine, hardly a liberal rag, opposed the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile.

AT&T's discomfort at the release of the FCC staff report on the merger is understandable, and wrong. That is OUR government staff, that is OUR report, transparency is GOOD, the people have A RIGHT TO KNOW. The company wasn't opposed to putting its falsehoods out there during the process. It's blatant hypocrisy to affect outrage when the government releases its findings.

In fact, ALL the documents of the proposed merger should be released. They were filed with a public body to get something from the public. We should be able to see them. Distortions and other bad things, like AT&T, grow in the mouldering dark.

Anyone who watched the AT&T CEO in action before Congress, read the canned pro-merger crap AT&T regional presidents planted in newspapers around the nation (it all reads the same!), watched the callously manipulated spectacle of gay and lesbian organizations, Latino advocacy groups, Black community leaders giving pay back by advocating outside their interest, watched AT&T lawyers preen with false outrage, read anything about this corporation or even just dealt with an indifferent AT&T representative after the company attempted to rip them off, knows that AT&T is a company without a soul.

Yeah, yeah, we get there are people working for AT&T who have souls. So far. Leave it alone.

AT&T will eat whatever it can until gorged and then eat some more, the only thing stopping it something larger.

Which is why we have laws against monopolies, why AT&T had to be broken up once before, and why this last couple weeks of courage on the part of the justice department and FCC is only the beginning. AT&T has already said, somewhat ominously, they will pursue "alternate means" to get what they want.

One day, see the ancient James Coburn movie, "The President's Analyst."

At&T's representative from Oregon, Greg Walden, a man corrupted by campaign contributions and who knows what other spores AT&T may have planted in his brain, must be sweating bullets. He will now have to work harder for his host, and risks even greater exposure.