I am against those things, totally. Your 'government handout' is my 'economic stability measure' and I'm more than happy to pay taxes, and to have that money spent, to provide universal, necessary public services to all Americans, covering the whole spectrum from food stamps to Social Security to Medicare to the Army. 'Government control' is fundamental to the any non-anarchist social construct - look back at our Declaration of Independence, which clearly espouses a government 'deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.'

Tom if you spend some time doing some research on Paul Ryan you will soon realize that he is absolutely NOT for low government control. He ascribes to pure social Darwinism with respect to society and big government control with respect to personal rights.

Personal responsibility? Paul Ryan has benefited his entire life from the good graces of everything he condemns and would deny other U.S. citizens.

- 1) His college education - paid for by Social Security benefits. Did he go to an in state school to keep costs down? No. Ryan went to an out of state school.

-2) His professional career - Government worker with a gold plated healthcare plan that he will have for the rest of his life as well as a well padded pension plan. Where do his pay checks and benefits come from? The American people.

Lower taxes? Ryan is only in favor of lower taxes on those of us that are already financially well off. He is gutless when it comes to addressing the root causes of our economic problems...The financial sector, tax loopholes, corporate welfare a.k.a. "subsidies" the American peoples tax dollars being handed in fistfuls to multi-billion dollar corporations who should be using their own profits to re-invest, not the American peoples money.

Ryan's votes on government spending during President Bushes eight years makes him a hypocrite.

I will not be staying home on election day, because the United States must remain a civil democratic society, not an Oligarchy.

Paul Ryan = Right Wing Social Engineering - "Newt Gingrich"

i feel like im living in a third world communist country now i cant wait to vote for romney / ryan all that they need to do is lower the corporate tax rate to 5ppp

Wait...Paul is full of his own self interest..all you need to do is look at his voting record. Yes bills he helped pass under Junior is the problem with today's deficit. To get a true gauge of how much of the debt is on Obama's watch you have to remove all the holdover policies that have not reached an expiration date or the 9% approval rating loser house will not pass bills proposed to get rid of many of these Bush era policies that have caused the debt to rise. Any one who is willing to take time and due true fact checking will see the truth.. By the way look how much Paul Ryan helped add http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/187865/no-bullshit-paul-ryans-votes-created-6-8-trillion-in-deficits-under-bush/

The absolute most stupid criticism of Paul Ryan I have heard to date is that he "went to college at an out-of-state school" as some sort of counter-argument to personal responsibility. Did Ryan - or his family - eventually pay off his college debt. That's all that matters!

What a reach ...
If that's the best the Dems can do, this should be a walk in the park.

Can't wait to watch Ryan eviscerate Biden in the VP debate! Funny that no one ever talks about the very scary fact that Joe Biden is just a heartbeat away from The Presidency!

I think Ryan, like Mitt is a polished liar.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/ryan-risks-reputation-with-misleading-nomination-speech.php?m=1

I am with you Jim, Gerlach is like the invisible man. I watch CSPAN probably to much; and he is never on there, and I mean never. What is he doing down there except collecting a check?

Stevie B. - You are the man!

Well said.

Since when is abortion about religious beliefs? Protecting innocent life is a universal moral imperative.

So gullible. What makes you think that Fact Checkers are any more reliable? They may not be "partisan", but the surely have a bias!

Tara, can you really be that mis-informed? Direct from the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" . Apparently, the truth is no longer self-evident ....

You beat me to it, Tim. Amazing how little some people know about our country's origins and how the FFs structured our government!

From Twitchy.com:
“The Paul Ryan-deranged Left developed a strange new respect for Fox News overnight.
Progressives lavished praise on Fox for publishing a “fact check” of Ryan’s GOP convention speech that called it “an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies.” Naturally the highly retweeted column included too-good-to-check falsehoods like this one:
While Ryan blamed President Obama for the shut down of a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, the plant was actually closed under President George W. Bush.
The plant closed in 2009 while Obama was in office.
What these genius libs failed to note is that the piece was an opinion column written by progressive activist Sally Kohn.”

So much for your comment about the FACT CHECKERS at Fox!!

Bill: Please tell me that you understand the different between an Opinion and a Fact. Please also confirm for me that you understand that an OpEd piece can indeed contain facts.

If you're disputing any of the facts that Sally Kohn posted in her article, by all means -- show me where those details have been proven false.

I won't hold my breath.

Wait - are you actually proudly flaunting that FOX itself didn't bother to fact check this? "Don't worry everybody - the fact-checker was a liberal! You can now resume blissfully paying no attention to the veracity of this speech!"

And FYI... the decision to close the Janesville, WI plant was made in 2008 when Bush WAS in office. And then in October 2008, GM announced that the plant was going to be idled as of December 23, 2008 (which was when the SUV production ended). While minor assembly work continued (for work on a remaining contract that wasn't completed when the plant shut down the year before) at the plant into April of 2009, it was in essence closed down in 2008. When Bush was in office.

When the last bit of remaining work from 2008 was completed in 2009, it was decommissioned.

Now, now, Marc ... Sally Kohn, while indeed a Fox contributor, is as Liberal as they come. So let's not kid ourselves as to where her loyalties lie. Saying Fox News was calling Ryan a liar is more than a little disingenuous; and I'm sure you knew that.

In the meantime, maybe your fact checkers can tell me where the "lie" was in this part of Ryan's speech:

"President Barack Obama came to office during an economic crisis, as he has reminded us a time or two. Those were very tough days, and any fair measure of his record has to take that into account. My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.

"A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.” That’s what he said in 2008.

"Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight."

Ryan makes no accusation; places no blame; and doesn't even claim that then-candidate Obama made a promise he couldn't keep. Factually, everything Ryan said was truthful.

The claim that a lie is in there somewhere is an amazing over-reach, even for a bunch of Democrats!

Mike: The full quote from Ryan is this-

QUOTE
Especially in Janesville where we were about to lose a major factory. A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that G.M. plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said, ``I believe that if our government is there to support you,
this plant will be here for another 100 years.'' That's what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that's how it is in so many towns where the recovery that was promised is no where in sight.
UNQUOTE

His crystal clear insinuation is that Obama was to blame for not only the plant closing but for that promise to keep it open not being kept.

There are quite a number of other lies and untruths that peppered his speech.

Let's all believe what Mike says and not what are "lying eyes" saw. You cannot put perfume on that pig Mike, he lied and he did it more than once.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/ryan-risks-reputation-with-misleading-nomination-speech.php?m=1

Oh, I get it now ... It's not WHAT he said, it was how you INTERPRETED an insinuation that somehow equates to a lie.

How convenient!

At least Mitt just whips his Etch-a-sketch out and tries to recreate himself as a conservative. Ryan is just a bald-faced liar--end of story!

Mike, if not that, then how do you interpret it? If there's no correlation and he's just rattling off facts, then why say it at all if not to conflate the two? And how, then, is that not actually dishonest?

Morgan: From the text of the speech, I took Ryan's riff on the Janesville plant as a commentary on the failure of "Hope & Change" as it was sold by candidate Obama. There realy is no accusation made by Ryan. And to say he was "blaming" the plant closure on Obama is an interpretation requiring a lot of reading into Ryan's words.

To me, Ryan's point was that the people of Janesville was told that Government involvement would make everything all right - economically speaking. Of course, after four years an improved economy with more jobs for the working class didn't happen. It's time for a change.

That's what I think Ryan was saying.

A.W., that is the precise reason the Reps are striving to suppress legitimate voters. They just do whatever it takes to keep power (lie, misrepresent, and where possible deprive people of their Constitutional rights); it really is shamefull.

Now he's lying about his athletic prowess. This guy is incapable of telling the truth.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/80554.html

I guess he will say it was an honest mistake. The only honest mistake will be the votes for him and his buddy. Now the buddy is more clever with his lies-he is more into reinventing himself and missinterpreting history. These guys the most untrustworthy canidates I have ever saw.

So what, Earnest?

I can believe that Social Security and Medicare are going to be the death of American society, yet still take the full measure of benefit afforded by a system I have paid thousands into for decades, as Ryan's parents certainly did. I claim benefits my family justly deserves ... and paid for. I'd be stupid not to.

But just because Ryan benefitted from all that his parents "paid in" does not mean that he is now so beholding to those programs and unable to suggest corrective action, especially when everyone can see the economic peril they pose to everything else the Government does that's good.

Your correct there Earnest about the Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA), or what is commonly known as Obamacare. My problem is I do not see Obama, who is trying to expand access to health care, would take measures that would specifically target senior citizens(Medicare) , and deprive them of care. Does not this whole Rep. Fairytale just not make sense? Are people not capable of seeing the obvious anymore?

There's a lot of pixel noise so it's hard to tell - the limitations of the camera confuse the issue. There's definitely some blurring and out of place cut-and-paste-ish lines running through the crowd to the left of Farrakahn's head, but that could just be the result of a smeary low quality digital camera. If you were going to fake it, though, that's about the perfect shot to do so - the crop from the railing and the hard lines of the collars at the neck, black suits are common attire, and stadium lights are everywhere so unusual shadows would be hard to pick out. It seems likely that if this were a real occurrence there would be other photos from other angles.

The comment right below the photo states that it is not from the olympics, but was from an event in Jamaica, where you can see another photo that provides more detail:

http://largeup.okayplayer.com/2012/08/08/impressions-the-jamaica-50-independence-grand-gala/

You can see that the organizers set the seating arrangement and for security reasons (I have put on larger events like this) you sometimes have to clump your "celebrities." And given that this took place in Jamaica, which can be specifically dangerous and also probably a lower security budget, there would be nothing unusual at all about this.