Tim Alberta is about to release a new book titled 'American Carnage.' This book takes a look at the tenuous relationships Republicans have with Donald Trump and how they all eventually willingly caved in to him, knowing how bad things were going to get.
Part of the book gives the opportunity to Lyin' Paul Ryan to have his say about Trump and why he decided to retire as he did:
Perhaps no one has had a more tortured relationship with the president than former House speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) — who went from wanting to abandon Trump after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape to working to enact his agenda after the election all while doing his best to avoid commenting on his tweets and controversial statements.
Alberta reports that Trump berated Ryan over a 2018 spending bill because it didn’t include funding for his border wall but then said he would sign it if Ryan were to give him time to build suspense on Twitter. Ryan agreed and then publicly sang the president’s praises after the meeting.
[...]
Now out of office and trading in his power suits for a blue vest, Ryan is back to critiquing Trump in unflattering terms in conversations with Alberta, who writes the former speaker could not stand the idea of another two years with the president and saw retirement as an “escape hatch,” in Alberta’s words.
“We’ve gotten so numbed by it all,” Ryan says. “Not in government, but where we live our lives, we have a responsibility to try and rebuild. Don’t call a woman a ‘horse face.’ Don’t cheat on your wife. Don’t cheat on anything. Be a good person. Set a good example.”
Ryan depicts Trump as uneducated about the government.
“I told myself I gotta have a relationship with this guy to help him get his mind right,” Ryan recalls. “Because, I’m telling you, he didn’t know anything about government . . . I wanted to scold him all the time.”
Ryan says he sees the presidency getting worse, with Trump determined to govern and campaign on his terms, rejecting calls from other Republicans to moderate his message in 2020.
“Those of us around him really helped to stop him from making bad decisions. All the time,” Ryan says. “We helped him make much better decisions, which were contrary to kind of what his knee-jerk reaction was. Now I think he’s making some of these knee-jerk reactions.”
In Alberta’s telling, Trump calls Ryan a “f---ing Boy Scout.”
Ryan wasn't looking for an escape hatch. He went along willingly with Trump's agenda since it so closely matched his own, including things like the GOP tax scam; killing Social Security and Medicare; suppressing voters' rights; and a general dislike of brown and black skinned people. The only difference between Trump and Ryan is that Trump would say out loud what both of them were thinking.
No, Ryan didn't want to escape Trump. The real reason Ryan up and quit was because he was afraid of losing to Randy "Ironstache" Bryce. And even if he would manage to squeak out a victory, he saw the writing on the wall and knew he would lose his position as Speaker of the House.
As we all knew would happen, the deranged orangutan had a twitter meltdown over someone saying something less than praising him:
Paul Ryan, the failed V.P. candidate & former Speaker of the House, whose record of achievement was atrocious (except during my first two years as President), ultimately became a long running lame duck failure, leaving his Party in the lurch both as a fundraiser & leader......
....When Mitt chose Paul I told people that’s the end of that Presidential run. He quit Congress because he didn’t know how to Win. They gave me standing O’s in the Great State of Wisconsin, & booed him off the stage. He promised me the Wall, & failed (happening anyway!)......
....He had the Majority & blew it away with his poor leadership and bad timing. Never knew how to go after the Dems like they go after us. Couldn’t get him out of Congress fast enough!
I seriously doubt that anyone would be surprised by this. Just like they wouldn't be surprised by the fact that Trump is also a pathological liar. As they say, there's a tweet for that:
Speaker Paul Ryan is a truly good man, and while he will not be seeking re-election, he will leave a legacy of achievement that nobody can question. We are with you Paul!
I don't think any fallout between Ryan and Trump is due to any philosophical, ethical or any other type of difference. No, any tiff between these two would be the result of too many similarities and seeing themselves in each other.
But if Ryan felt that strongly about disliking Trump, he really ought to consider challenging him in a primary. Now wouldn't that be fun to watch?
1. You can tell things are boring in Bright Red Oklahoma, because they get to debate on their legislative floor, how much God loves rape and incest.
“Is rape the will of God?” asked Rep. Cory Williams.
Mr Faught replied: “If you read the Bible, there’s actually a couple circumstances where that happened and the Lord uses all circumstances.
“I mean, you can go down that path, but it’s a reality, unfortunately.”
While the massive amount of spending by Walker, underscores how immensely unpopular he truly is, the bigger question is, when will we stop allowing this. While many people are giving their money to make sure kids eat or that the thousands of homeless get meals, the rich amongst us are spending millions buying and trying to buy elections. Which means the rich set policy and the rest of us keep working to help our neighbors. It is a never ending cycle that we need to break.
According to the report, Ellis and the woman were at the same bar when she fell down, hard, suffering injuries. “We want to make it very clear that she was not voluntarily intoxicated. This woman was incapacitated,” the state’s Victim Advocate said on her behalf. “She does believe that she was drugged and that she did seek medical attention the following day because she was in pain and she did indeed have a concussion and other injuries.” Ellis reportedly knew the woman as a “workplace acquaintance at the Capitol” and “offered to help her get home” but the woman says he instead took her to his residence and raped her.
4. If you are not reading Jake's Wisconsin Funhouse, you should be. Here he asks the question not a single reporter in Wisconsin asked while listening to the WISGOP strain their arms patting themselves on the back - When does our State's prosperity start?
"Our prosperity to continue?" Doesn't something need to start for it to "continue"? The US Bureau of Labor Statistics, released their final report for 2018 on average hourly wages in all 50 states this week. And Wisconsin ended up 43rd in the US for wage growth last year, badly trailing most of its Midwestern neighbors.
At times, Trump evinced less rage than a lack of interest. Sims recounts one time when Ryan was in the Oval Office explaining the ins and outs of the Republican health-care bill to the president. As Ryan droned on for 15 minutes, Trump sipped on a glass of Diet Coke, peered out at the Rose Garden, stared aimlessly at the walls and, finally, walked out. Ryan kept talking as the president wandered down the hall to his private dining room, where he flicked on his giant flat-screen TV. Apparently, he had had enough of Ryan’s talk. It fell to Vice President Pence to retrieve Trump and convince him to return to the Oval Office so they could continue their strategy session.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Accused Russian agent Maria Butina pleaded guilty in federal court today to one conspiracy charge, and has agreed to cooperate with the investigation.
Butina, appearing in court in a green jumpsuit, admitted to one count of conspiracy. As part of the plea agreement with the government, prosecutors dropped the other count in the indictment originally brought against her, and agreed not to prosecute her for any other crimes they were made aware of during their plea discussions.
Once again, West Bend made national news, challenging "Florida man" for biggest the Darwin Awards.
Let's rewind a bit first. The Guardian decided to follow The Donald around the country to his "I Love Me" rallies and assigned a different emotion to each rally they attended. The emotion they assigned to the WI rally (where Scott Walker, Leah Vukmir, Paul Ryan, et al spoke), was HATE.
On the morning of the fourth rally, the outside world blasts its way into Trumpland. Shortly after 10am, as CNN anchors are telling their viewers about a series of pipe bombs mailed to the Clintons, the Obamas and to George Soros, they have to rush off air because the network has received its own explosive device. At the same time, Jacob Spaeth and three of his buddies are lining up in a field in Mosinee, Wisconsin. They are all wearing the same distinctive red T-shirt. It bears a cartoon sketch of a smiling Trump urinating profusely over the CNN logo. Today, after the CNN pipe bomb became headline news, a merchant says he’s sold about 15 of them in quick succession at $20 each. Spaeth, a 19-year-old college student, doesn’t want to comment on the bombs. But he’s happy to discuss CNN. “It’s not just CNN, it’s the whole media. They are very unfair to Trump. They’re manipulating kids, telling them that Trump is a horrible guy and that he wants bad things.” Spaeth never watches CNN – he occasionally sees clips of it on Facebook. He gets his information from Infowars, the website of Alex Jones. Jones, a conspiracy theorist, is on the record as saying 9/11 was a government set-up and that the 2012 Newtown school shooting in which 20 children were killed was fabricated. Within hours he will be broadcasting that this week’s pipe bombs are also a hoax. Spaeth embodies one of the most puzzling aspects of my week in Trumpland. Throughout the five rallies, I talk to scores of people, all of whom, without exception, are welcoming and pleasant. Yet hours later, in the pressure-cooker of the rally, they will turn on me and my mainstream media colleagues and hurl insults at us. Spaeth admits that when he went to a Trump rally in Minnesota last month he took part in the finger-jabbing and the chanting of “CNN sucks”. It made him feel happy to be able to express his feelings so openly among like-minded folk. “I don’t see it as bullying,” he says. There’s only one explanation for this pattern of behavior: that Trump enables good, civil Americans to metamorphose into media baiters. “Those people, fake news,” the president says sneeringly at almost every rally, pointing to the caged pen where reporters are cooped up during his speeches. It’s a trigger mechanism: as soon as he says it, the chants begin. “CNN sucks! CNN sucks!” Many of the people chanting are also laughing – it’s that humor thing again. But CNN is taking no chances: they bring private security guards to every rally. Tonight, he talks about the need to “bring our nation together”. It’s an extraordinarily cordial message coming from him. But listen closer. His call to unity is in fact a veiled attack on his political enemies. In the name of “peace and harmony”, he tells politicians to stop treating their opponents – for which read Trump – as “morally defective”, and he references the “mob” – for which read Democrats. Remarkably, he is actually mocking the very concept of national unity while calling for it.
Tonight in Wisconsin, the crowd are focused on only one thing – hearing their leader. It includes Steve Spaeth (no relation), 40, who runs a home exteriors company in West Bend. I ask him who he regards as his political enemies, and whether “hate” is too strong a word. “Not at all,” he says. “I have a deep and absolute disgust for these human beings.” Which ones? He rattles off CNN, Soros, Clinton, Waters, Booker, “Pocahontas” AKA Elizabeth Warren, and others. Why do you hate them? “They want to turn America into a socialistic country. It’s disgusting.” I ask Spaeth how far he is prepared to take his hatred. In reply, he tells a story. The other day he talked to his sister, who is liberal and votes Democratic. He said to her: “If there is a civil war in this country and you were on the wrong side, I would have no problem shooting you in the face.” You must be joking, I say. “No I am not. I love my sister, we get on great. But she has to know how passionate I am about our president.”
Yes Mr. West Bend (does that statement qualify him for Mayor now) will shoot his sister in the face if this guy tells him too:
I highly recommend anyone that is mesmerized with the Donald and the current GOP spend an hour and watch this old 70's movie The Wave.
Dr, Phillip Zombardo, the Stanford professor best known for his famous 1971 prison experiment, feels the answer lies in what people are willing to do to go from a feeling of powerlessness to one of being empowered. “For most people it’s an awful lot,” remarks Dr. Zimbardo. “People will transgress a lot of personal values to step across the line.”
Please do not stay home this election, we need to stop this dangerous crap before it gets out of control and lunatics like Spaeth actually start shooting people.
Vote on Tuesday! Vote blue and if you can not bring yourself to do that, vote libertarian or write in ...we need to change out those in power badly.
We have pointed out before that the Janesville Gazette is having trouble letting Paul Ryan go. After Paul Ryan announced he would no longer be running, the editorial department at the Gazette wore black for days. I would guess that anytime The Donald makes major news, that you can find the editorial staff at the Looking Glass, drowning their sorrows in what might have been!
After much thought, different ideas, and cake the Gazette had to figure out what parting gift could they give their dearly beloved. With the dwindling state of the newspaper industry, coupled with Paul Ryan's extravagant tastes, made a nice dinner out of the question.
The Gazette did the next best thing. and decided to give Paul Ryan one last parting gift, endorsing his clone. They felt that if they can not have Paul in office, his driver would be the next best thing. What really freed up their time though to do this, was they let Paul Ryan's SuperPac - Congressional Leadership Fund write the endorsement for them.
The 1st Congressional District race is a story about Randy Bryce’s shortcomings as much as Bryan Steil’s qualifications. With a lengthy arrest record and a history of falling behind on child-support payments, Bryce is in no way congressional material. How Bryce managed to defeat Cathy Myers, a school teacher and Janesville resident, in the Democratic primary would be a mystery except that Bryce benefited from a much larger campaign war chest.
A candidate’s character matters less today than it once did, but Bryce’s personal failings are extraordinary, even by today’s crumbling standards for our nation’s leaders. The problem is not so much Bryce’s past mistakes but that he showed an inability to learn from them. He didn’t rack up merely one OWI in 1998 (plenty of voters can identify with this). He was then picked up three times for driving with a suspended license and was arrested on a warrant for failure to appear.
Really? The Gazette, who refused to endorse in the last Presidential Race, has decided that Randy Bryce's history is outrageous but The Donald's is not.
And lest there be any doubt as to whether Bryce is a “changed man,” the state of Wisconsin placed a lien on Bryce’s property in 2015 for delinquent child-support payments to his ex-wife. Bryce paid off the debt only after announcing his candidacy last year.
Boudreaux says she is very grateful to Bryce for the "supportive and respectful co-parenting relationship we have" for their 12-year-old son
Now I do not know who to believe, the Janesville Gazette editorial board or the mother of Bryce's child. Diane Hendricks would be so proud!
His background more closely resembles the kind routinely encountered by probation officers, not 1st Congressional District voters. To attempt to twist his arrest record into a symbol of the everyday working man, as Bryce’s campaign has done, is perhaps one of the most cynical and offensive ploys we’ve ever witnessed.
Because no normal person has ever committed the crime of driving to work without a license.
While we’re not fans of negative campaigning and believe every candidate must make a case for himself, Bryce’s personal failings are too egregious to ignore. The stakes are too high for someone of Bryce’s caliber to slip into office.
There is no place for negative campaigning only negative editorials and endorsements.
As for Steil, he is sometimes derisively described as a clone of House Speaker Paul Ryan, though Steil is no Paul Ryan (and we mean that as a compliment to Ryan). Indeed, it’s an impossible comparison for Steil to live up to, as it took Ryan years to develop into the powerful statesman he’s become.
Some people compare Steil to Ryan as a criticism, but we think he is dreamy.
Steil has a lot to learn, including fleshing out his policy positions. One of our criticisms of his campaign has been its underwhelming message and lack of policy specifics. For all the criticism we’ve leveled against Bryce, his platform (as radical as much of it is) leaves no question on where he stands. We can’t say the same for Steil’s.
But we’re not too concerned about Steil’s future, and we suspect he’ll take a path similar to Sen. Ron Johnson’s. As a businessman without any previous political experience when elected in 2010, Johnson had a large learning curve to overcome. He’s matured as a politician and today exhibits a strong handle on many issues affecting Wisconsin.
We like Steil’s eagerness to tackle the nation’s spending problem and hope he can make progress on one of Ryan’s major goals, entitlement reform. Securing the financial future of both Social Security and Medicare should be a top priority for the next Congress, and Steil has an opportunity to shine on this front.
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”― Dwight D. Eisenhower
As Steil learns the job, he’ll likely close the knowledge gap with Ryan. He’ll have to put up with comparisons to Ryan for a while, but we’re confident he’ll leave his own mark on Congress.
The Gazette, in fawning over Paul Ryan and anyone in his entourage(life Steil) has really done a disservice to the great city of Janesville and our state of Wisconsin. They still need to change their name to the Paul Ryan Messenger!
Johnson, who graduated from U-Minnesota in 1977 with a degree in business and accounting, has decided that since he was so successful marrying a rich girl, he must be an expert in everything, so he has dabbled over his head.
“There’s a reason Greenland was called Greenland,” he said. “It was actually green at one point in time. And it’s been, since, it’s a whole lot whiter now.”
A quick reality check shows that Greenland’s ice cap is hundreds of thousands of years old and covers over 80% of the island. The vast majority of land not under the ice sheet is rock and permafrost in the far north. How different could it have been just 1,000 years ago? World History is an F also! Then RoJo, being the uber Catholic he is, dabbled in religion and just as Jesus would do, testified to defeat the victims rights bill so that pedophile Catholic Priests can be protected.
As a member of the finance council for the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay until he resigned to run for Senate this year, Ron Johnson served alongside a bishop named Robert Morneau who, as a Church leader, had been made aware over two decades ago of the abusive tendencies of Rev. John Feeney. Rev. Feeney was convicted in 2003, before Johnson joined the council, for sexually assaulting two brothers in the late 1970s. But according to documents obtained by the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the Church sought to cover up his crimes, which one reverend called “sexually very inappropriate.” Seven years later, Johnson testified before the Wisconsin State Senate against legislation to eliminate the statute of limitations for such crimes, making it easier for victims of sexual abuse to seek damages from the Church or any other culpable institution.
Wow, he was on the council of a local Catholic church that was covering up their own sexual predator, then not learning his lesson and testifying to make sure pedophile priests do not have to pay for their crimes.
Ron Johnson earns an F- in Religion.
Now Ron Johnson is stepping up his ignorance game. In the wake of Dr. Blasey Fords testimony under oath that Brett Cavanaugh attacked her at a party in high school, Ron Johnson used his accounting degree, to diagnose her as having "false memories" .
In a video taken by a local filmmaker of Johnson at Mitchell International Airport on Friday afternoon, the Wisconsin Republican senator said he would be voting to confirm Kavanaugh, calling him a "good, decent person" and a "great judge." Asked what he believes motivated Ford to testify this week, Johnson responded: "Read about false memories. Read about people who have actually confessed to crimes and then later proven totally innocent, OK?"
Apparently after watching Scott Walker and Paul Ryan speak of their incredible accomplishments the lats eight years, Ron Johnson is very familiar with "false memories".
Ron Johnson also fails his Psychology class! F
Unfortunately, for women in America, Dr. Blasey Ford is ten times smarter than anyone who tried to explain away the sexual assault on her and the GOP members who keep desperately trying to do so are embarrassing themselves and their heirs!
More than a year ago, Randy "Ironstache" Bryce introduced to himself to the world and announced that he was running to repeal and replace Lyin' Paul Ryan. The video quickly went viral and his campaign became a juggernaut.
As the gentle reader knows, he already repealed Ryan who announced his retirement rather than try to take on Bryce and his swelling grassroots campaign. In his stead, Ryan offered up his hand picked successor and clone, Lyin' Bryan Steil. In no time, it was apparent that Steil was faring no better than Ryan.
To bolster Steil's flailing and failing campaign, Ryan decided to have his super PAC launch $1.5 million dollars worth of attack ads. In two consecutive days, he's put out two such ads. The first ad tries to besmirch Bryce for 20 year old traffic tickets and a couple of recent arrests when Bryce was protesting Ryan's malicious agenda and standing up for DREAMers.
Ryan's second ad really bottoms out when he has Bryce's own brother expressing faux outrage at Bryce's "anti-police behaviors." This is a rather odd line of attack since Bryce's father was a cop and Bryce's brother is a cop. It's not surprising, though, that Bryce's brother would be a willing participant in this smear job. He is a Republican, has donated to both Ryan and Steil, and had even considered running against Randy himself but couldn't get any support from the Republicans.
Ryan really put his foot in it when he decided to air this ad. He got Momma Bryce very upset and everyone knows that there is nothing fiercer than a mother whose baby is being put in harm's way.
Randy's mom, Nancy, penned a letter and sent it to the media:
The mother of Democratic congressional candidate Randy Bryce said she was deeply hurt to see a Republican group launching an attack ad featuring Bryce's brother.
Nancy Bryce called for that ad, which is part of a massive $1.5 million media blitz by the Congressional Leadership Fund, to be taken off the air.
"I’m used to my sons getting into disagreements with each other — every mom is. And I understand that my boys see the world differently when it comes to politics," Nancy Bryce wrote in a letter provided to the Journal Sentinel by the Bryce campaign.
"There is now a group of people from Washington who consider it a good idea to pit my boys against each other for their own political gain. But they didn’t consider a mother’s pain at seeing her children used as tools in a political fight, splashed with millions of dollars of ads across the airwaves."
Mama Bryce also called for the ad to be taken off the airways.
Randy also replied to Ryan's smear job with his own ad, basically admitting that he had made mistakes and that he owned up to them:
This much honesty is unfathomable to Lyin' Ryan or Lyin' Bryan who haven't taken responsibility for anything in their miserable lives.
Seeing how Ryan is willing to put limitless money into this race, it is all the more important that we support Randy anyway we can. Please help, if you can.
U don’t need Obamacare 2 protect ppl w/ preexisting conditions. It’s just the only thing about O-care everyone likes. Scott will make sure preexsistings r covered, but u can do that w/out horrors of socialized medicine: long waits, cancelled surgeries, gov’t picking who gets care https://t.co/UUJ91aoGCR
As someone who has been battling cancer for the last 8+ years, the fact that Becky has used (and continues to use) socialized health care to fight her cancer and keep her alive, while trying to take my protections away brings me incredible frustration.
I continue trying to decide if she is evil, ignorant, selfish or just incredibly ambitious.
Absolute strangest story in politics right now is GOP govs suing to kill the popular parts of Obamacare while insisting they will pass state legislation to restore the popular parts of Obamacare. https://t.co/o3yTx2BjfB
Kleefisch is featured in a new television ad in which she says as long as she and Walker are in office, people with pre-existing conditions will be guaranteed health insurance.
“Today in Wisconsin, people with pre-existing conditions are already covered,” Kleefisch said, without noting that they are covered only because of the national law Walker opposes. “And as long as Scott and I are in office, they always will be.”
That protection is extended under former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which Walker has been working for years to repeal. He signed off on Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel joining a multistate lawsuit this year that seeks to undo the law and the pre-existing conditions protection.
Scott Walker says we need to repeal Obamacare and do not worry, I will take care of you.
“If something were to change, Scott Walker would call a special session in a heartbeat and get it passed,” Walker’s campaign spokesman, Brian Reisinger, said Friday
The problem with that is Scott Walker does not have that much power. The Legislature has no interest in helping Scott Walker's career at the expense of their own.
But Walker this year also called for the Legislature to pass a state law guaranteeing coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. The bill did not pass.
This is not just about me either. there are close to one million people in Wisconsin with Pre-existing conditions that could prevent us from having health insurance if we repeal Obamacare and go back to the "free market" solutions of the Bush administration health care.
Scott Walker promising that if he gets his way and ends Pre-existing condition coverage, is not a promise I am willing to bet my life on.
Please, when you go to the polls in November, I ask that you also do not bet my life on that promise.
Every since Randy "Ironstache" Bryce ran his introduction video last year, his campaign has only continued to pick up momentum and energy. This led to Bryce repealing Ryan earlier this year and has continued as he steams towards replacing him.
What the reader might not be aware of is that Bryce has to get past a primary first. Bryce's democratic opponent is Cathy Myers, an Illinois school teacher who lives in Wisconsin, just north of the Wisconsin state line. She has been desperately trying for a year to gain any sort of traction, becoming increasingly desperate and increasingly negative.
After the first debate between Bryce and Myers a couple of weeks ago, Paul Ryan's super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, came out with their results of a push poll they did. In their bogus poll, they showed that Bryce and Myers were in a statistical dead heat even though they provided no proof of how they reached their conclusion. Interestingly, it is the only time that Myers even registered on a poll.
Either unaware or not caring that it was a bogus poll put out by Ryan's group, Myers has been trying to run with it, using it as a talking point to raise funds:
Now that there is only a couple of weeks until the the primary on August 14th, there is evidence that Ryan and his super PAC are at it again. People are starting to ask about a push poll phone call they received which was heavily slanted towards Myers and paid for by Ryan's super PAC:
While it is not surprising that Ryan is trying to interfere with the Democratic primary for his old seat in order to help his hand-picked, would be successor, it is annoying. On the bright side, it is a clear sign of just how scared the Republicans are of Bryce and how desperate they are not to face him in November.
Paul Ryan, that profile in courage, took a break from his fundraising and planning to dismantle every social safety net we have left to reprimand Congresswoman Maxine Waters for standing up for American values:
House Speaker Paul Ryan blasted Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters on Tuesday, saying she should apologize for calling on those who opposed the Trump administration's policy, that has resulted in family separation, to "harass" members of the administration in public.
"There is no place for this," Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, said a news conference. "She obviously should apologize."
He said the comments are "dangerous" for society.
"When we, in this democracy, are suggesting that because we disagree with people on political views, on policy views, on philosophical views, that we should resort to violence and harassment and intimidation that's dangerous for our society, dangerous for our democracy, and she should apologize and there's just no place for that in our public discourse," Ryan said.
Over the weekend, Waters called on her supporters to publicly confront and harass members of the Trump administration in response to the "zero-tolerance" policy that led to the separation of families at the border.
In other words, Ryan is more worried about hurting Cheetolini's fee-fees rather than the lifelong damage being done to thousands of innocent children. See? I told you he was a real profile in courage.
It does remind me of other examples of when he fearlessly led on the behalf of Republican-style civility.
Think of how many times Ryan selflessly turned a blind eye and deaf ear to when Rep. Steve King (R-KKK) would say some breathtakingly inane and offensive thing, such as promoting white supremacy.
Side note: Is there any other terminology that contradicts itself as thoroughly as white supremacy? White supremacists are living, breathing examples of why that's a false term.
Anyway, back to examples of Ryan earning his boy scout badge of civility.
How about that time when Ryan courageously pretended to have to tie his shoe when Greg Gianforte physically slammed a reporter to the ground?
Or all those times when Ryan gazed unblinkingly forward with his zombie eyes when Trump would talk about grabbing a married woman's pussy or calling Nazis "fine people." It should be noted that Ryan is only human and did let his control slip a little when Trump mewled about people from shithole countries coming here and said that comments were unfortunate and unhelpful.
It's easy for Ryan to be the civility police. He just uses himself as the yardstick of behavior, like when he mocked a 71 year old man being dragged out of a townhall meeting (when Ryan used to have townhall meetings) and being slammed to the ground by some cops:
From the Journal Times on the Race to replace Paul Ryan(emphasis mine):
“Republicans stand ready to support and elect another bold conservative reformer who will continue to carry-on Paul Ryan’s legacy of getting things done for hard-working Wisconsin families,” said Alec Zimmerman, spokesman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin. “Our candidates stand in stark contrast to the out-of-touch Democrats running on an extreme agenda.” Speaking of their candidate:
Yes Alec your candidates do stand in stark contrast to the Democrats running.
PS: I know a select few have publicly denounced Nehlen(mostly for criticizing Paul Ryan) but things in private are much different.
McKinnon: So you're not a politician? Bryce: No, and I think that's what people like. But I mean, people voted for Trump because he was seen as a non-establishment type guy.
One thing our WImedia does not like, is anyone talking bad about the Golden Boy - Paul Ryan, Bryce has done that, so Politifact decided to "test" Bryce's statement that he is not a politician.
Their findings - because he has run for previous elected positions, that saying he was not a politician was mostly false!
Bryce, a single father who has lost every election he has ran in, is considered a politician? I researched politifact and Tom Kertscher, and find them to be a right wing leaning political tool.
This is the same outfit that said it was false that Scott Walker cut a billion dollars from education and "fact checked" his claim that he paid $1 for a shirt from Kohl's and gave it a "True" rating without any evidence of seeing a receipt or the actual price tag of the sweater. Perpetually protecting the right wing in Wisconsin.
"A Republican legislative staffer was fired amid harassment concerns this month — the same day an open records request was filed asking for information about complaints against the aide. Hariah Hutkowski, a staffer for state Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt (R-Fond du Lac), was dismissed May 3, Assembly Chief Clerk Patrick Fuller said. That was the day the Journal Sentinel filed an open records request for employee complaints against Hutkowski as well as documents from investigations prompted by any complaints.
Another long time Republican and predator, was kept on until his actions became public then was thrown under the bus. Recycle, Rinse, Repeat!
council member Hariah Hutkowski stands out for his far-right agenda. He has a degree in political management from the Pat Robertson School of Government at Regent University in Virginia and works as a legislative aide to Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt (R-Fond du Lac), who led the charge to repeal the state's comprehensive sex education law. Hutkowski worked previously for Wisconsin Family Action, the socially conservative group that championed Wisconsin's constitutional gay marriage ban and is currently fighting to overturn the state's domestic partner registry.
White supremacist on probation for assaulting a woman at a Trump rally headed to jail for attacking his wife
I would say that headline is all you need to see, but as we say:
There is more, there's always more!
Louisville, Kentucky’s WDRB reported Tuesday that white nationalist Matthew Heimbach will serve 38 days in jail after he attacked his wife in front of their two small children over a bizarre love triangle with the TWP’s other co-founder. The TWP dissolved after a March incident in which Heimbach attacked his own wife after Matt Parrott, the group’s co-founder (who was also his son-in-law), found out he’d been having an affair with his wife. Parrot’s wife is the mother of Heimbach’s wife, and when their affair was discovered, the soon-to-be-jailed white nationalist attacked his co-founder.
* Another school shooting, this time in Texas where a junior, killed 10 people and injured another 10. The tone deafness of the media in our country is on full display here.
From the story:
The teen had no previous criminal history and there were no warning signs of the attack, he said.
Also from the same story
- There also is a search warrant out for Pagourtzis' vehicle. He had written in journals and on his computer that he wanted to commit the shooting and commit suicide afterward, Abbott said. - Pagourtzis, a junior, shared photographs on a now-defunct Facebook page of a T-shirt that said "born to kill" and clothes adorned with German nationalist iconography.
I know we have gotten to the point where we think, white nationalists are "very fine people" and that they have a right to speak in any platform they want without repercussions, heck we even legislated that in WI(thanks Robin Vos).
It would seem simple enough to me that if someone is worshipping German Nationalist, you would know what their intentions are.
However, since 1/3 of Americans do not believe 6 million Jews were slaughtered during the Holocaust, we see that the Republican attacks on education are having a real effect on our country and it is not a positive one.
Recycle, Rines, Repeat! * As I have stated numerous times, hate talk radio and far right TV Stations, and even the Donald, squawking 24/7 about how the Democrats are the enemy and coming to take our freedoms and guns away is having deadly consequences.
Less than a month before he killed 58 people and injured hundreds more at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas, Stephen Paddock ranted to a new friend about a supposed government plot to confiscate guns from the American public. The man, whose statement is among many released by investigators this week, told authorities that he met Paddock just weeks before the massacre after the 58-year-old answered an online ad for “schematics to convert semi-automatic guns to fire automatically,” the AP reports. The man, whose identity is redacted, spoke to authorities in a jailhouse interview after getting arrested on a “possession charge.” He told police during the interview that he was an unemployed chef who’d become desperate for cash after his trust fund ran dry. The man said in their conversations Paddock ranted about a popular right-wing conspiracy theory that claims FEMA’s actions after Hurricane Katrina were “a dry run for law enforcement and military to start kickin’ down doors and … confiscating guns.” “Somebody has to wake up the American public and get them to arm themselves,” Paddock said, according to the man. “Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.”
The only thing that has been sacrificed, with the takeover of public airwaves by Republican Hate Talk, is the truth and logic.
"What about erosion?" Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), offered during the exchange. He added: "Every time you have that soil or rock, whatever it is, that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise because now you've got less space in those oceans because the bottom is moving up.
It has nothing at all to do with Global Climate Chang but everything to do with the waves crashing into the shore and rocks being brought back into the water.
It is incredible that the country that was first to the moon. The Country that stepped up when our President challenged us:
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
We met the challenge to be the first one on the moon, now we elect people who ridicule NASA and send the least smartest people in the state to Congress and have them decide the career paths of our most brilliant.
Recycle, Rinse, Repeat!
To be fair though, in case 97% of the Scientists are all wrong and this guy is right, I will be starting a letter writing campaign to make peeing in waterways illegal. #dontpeeinthewater
* Finally, just to show that this is bipartisan(even if heavily weighted to the right), the Democrats are working hard to snatch defeats from the jaws of victory.
Running against Sean Duffy, is Margaret Engebretson. Engebretson is a solid progressive, great on the issues and everything that is good about the Democratic Party.
Margaret Engebretson for Congress is with Joel Sipress. May 14 at 7:35am · We are pleased to announce that Kristin Hansen has joined Margaret's campaign in the role of Campaign Director. Kristin is a veteran of Wisconsin politics who has served in a multitude of campaigns for congressional, senate, and presidential candidates. She will be developing strategies for voter engagement, fundraising, and volunteer action for Margaret's campaign. Please join us in welcoming Kristin on board!
Whis Kristen Hansen, this pillar of Democratic politics in WI? She used to be the WISDEMS chair of the 5th CD and took to twitter, when Bernie Sanders won the Wisconsin Primary:
- Can we get hair and makeup into this Sanders event? Thanks. - There's only 1 Democrat running for POTUS - @HillaryClinton. I'm done pretending this is a primary. It's a hostile takeover. #fightback - Things I am no longer doing: pretending the Dem race isn't over, being nice to Bernie Bros, nod and smile at misogynists. #emancipation - You know why we have superdelegates? Because people who are NOT Democrats and don't give a shit about the party can run AS Dems and fuck us. - Dear Sen Sanders: I will not let you destroy our party. You were never with us: 'It will be a contested convention' Ok
Nothing like hiring someone to develop strategies to reach out to voters with that kind of record. "Hello, I know i told you to FOFF after the primary and liked to ridicule you but would love to sit down and have a conversation about how we can work together to fix the state".
Not sure that is the best pitch. At least there is always Bon Iver:
If you want to win elections as a progressive, stop recycling the same people that have been largely responsible for the Democrats demise.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin (RPW) held their statewide convention this weekend - yeah, because nothing says like respecting the women in your life like leaving them at home while you go off to plot how to attack women's rights next.
They tried to present an upbeat message and show defiance to the Blue Wave that is sweeping the nation but lost the message by pissing themselves every time a new story or poll about their hand-picked president comes out.
The convention started with RPW chair Brad Courtney advising the loyal establishment voters to vote for the candidate, like Scott Walker, and their abysmal records and not based on Trump and his even more abysmal record:
Dems also see the Trump’s poll numbers as one reason to believe a blue wave is headed to Wisconsin this fall.
Courtney, though, argued Walker’s record, not Trump’s, will be on the ballot in November for Republicans to run on.
Still, he said the president needs to do a better job of selling the benefits of the GOP tax overhaul. Courtney, the president of Courtney Industrial Battery, said he signs 31 individual paychecks and with the overtime many hourly employees make, they aren’t necessarily noticing the impact of the tax cut.
“There is obviously frustration in Washington,” Courtney said. “But we’ve done a lot of good things in Wisconsin over the last eight years, and we’ve delivered on really everything that Gov. Walker has ran on.”
Not all Republican leaders must have got that memo, since many of the electeds spent their time singing Trump's praises. Most notable was when Lyin' Paul Ryan broke out his kneepads:
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) called President Trump an asset in the upcoming 2018 midterm elections, saying he has resonated with voters in key states.
"The president is strong in these states," Ryan said on Saturday at the Wisconsin Republican convention, according to The Associated Press.
"He's an asset...Whether I'm running around southern Wisconsin or America, nobody is talking about Stormy Daniels. Nobody is talking about Russia. They're talking about their lives and their problems. They're talking about their communities, they're talking about jobs, they're talking about the economy, they're talking about national security," he continued.
In other words, who cares about Trump's womanizing, adultery, overt racism, ties to Russia or scandal plagued administration - as long as the rich get their massive tax breaks and we get to kick millions off of Medicare, life is good!
What I really don't understand is that they've seen for the past year dozens of Trump-loving Republicans get swept away, yet they're still clinging to him. It's like tying yourself to the railing on the Titanic as its going under. It just makes no damn sense.
With the retirement announcement of Lyin' Paul Ryan, who would rather slink away than face defeat by Randy "IronStache" Bryce, the Wisconsin GOP was thrown in disarray. All of a sudden, their front runner was Paul Nehlen, a white supremacist who was too far out for most of the alt-right, including Steve Bannon.
They had to scramble to get someone in there that won't embarrass them as has happened so often in other states.
Thus they came out with Bryan Steil. Steil is a well-connected Republican from a long line of well-connected Republicans. To make it better for them, he's an unquestioning establishment Republican that will mindlessly promote the same agenda that Ryan was pushing.
Unfortunately for Steil, despite his carefully laid plans, he has not had a stellar start. Just like Ryan, he keeps getting caught up in his own lies while doing the Trump Two-Step.
In fact, he's so much like Ryan, he even looks strikingly familiar to Ryan, leading people to quip that no one has ever seen Ryan and Steil in the same room at the same time:
But the similarities doesn't end there. Steil is a natural born liar as well.
Steil prefers to call himself a former legislative aide to Ryan, but in reality, he was Ryan's personal driver.
Steil had been bragging about raising $250,000 in just the first few days after announcing but in reality, he's been courting the big time Republican donors for a while. One check from the Bradley Foundation, the Koch Brothers or any of the other ultrawealthy could easily explain that amount of money.
Perhaps his biggest blunder has been his boast of having "worked in manufacturing" for the past nine years:
Bryan Steil has spent the last nine years working in manufacturing in southeastern Wisconsin and has seen firsthand how Washington limits economic growth.
In reality, Steil has been a corporate attorney and not actually a manufacturer:
Asked to respond to that comment, Steil pointed to his manufacturing experience. Gousha pointed out that he’s a corporate attorney, and not a “manufacturer per se.”
“But my employer is a manufacturing company,” Steil said. “So every day I come into the office and it’s focused on how do you bring in raw material, manufacture it and get it out of the door.”
His focus is on business development, he said, where he asks the questions, “How do you grow the company and how do you grow jobs for those companies?”
That's when reality raises its ugly head again.
One of the companies that Steil worked so hard with to create jobs was Regal Beloit Corporation, who moved good paying jobs out of the Midwest and into Mexico.
But there's more. There's always more.
Steil still has to answer for being a regent for the University of Wisconsin which has seen a massive decline in their budget and subsequently the quality of the school system and his support for Trump's agenda, among other things.
Perhaps Bryce should make the same offer to Steil that he did to Ryan - send Steil to work the iron and learn what it's really like for a blue collar worker while Bryce goes to Washington to do the really hard work of fixing all the damage done by Ryan.
Meanwhile, don't forget to give something, anything, to help Bryce keep up his momentum in fighting the big special interest money that Steil is already raking in.
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