Whatever happened to the notion of politicians actually being embarrassed when they get brazenly caught lying? I’m just curious because Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan lie so frequently that it leaves one with the impression that they really just don’t care. But I think it’s also because they think you’re just that stupid. I’m not kidding either. If he were a DJ – they’d call him MC “Lie A Lot”.
Let’s break down the most recent lies and then we’ll get to the old stuff. On September 3rd, 2012 – Paul Ryan actually said this:
In 1980 under Jimmy Carter, 330,000 businesses filed for bankruptcy. Last year, under President Obama’s failed leadership, 1.4 million businesses filed for bankruptcy.
Of course Paul Ryan has continually tried to paint President Obama as the 2nd coming of a President Carter with the assumption that Mitt Romney is the 2nd coming of President Reagan. Except there is a problem with Paul Ryan’s speech … it’s not true. Surprise, surprise.
The NY Times reports HERE:
But he appeared to conflate business bankruptcies and much more numerous personal bankruptcies. Of the 331,264 bankruptcies in 1980, only 43,694 were for businesses, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.
Of the 1,410,653 total bankruptcy filings last year, 47,806 were business bankruptcies, according to the institute. And, again, the numbers are falling. In 2009, there were 60,837 business bankruptcies. In July, the latest month with complete statistics, business bankruptcies were 22 percent lower than a year earlier, and personal bankruptcies were down 11 percent.
And normally I’d be inclined to give someone the benefit of the doubt but given his track record … it is clear that he intends to spread blatantly dishonest information. This is part of a greater trend. The “numbers guy” of the Republican party somehow conveniently shares the wrong numbers that coincidentally make President Obama look bad.
Paul Ryan was interviewed on the Hugh Hewett radio show HERE a couple of weeks ago:
HH: Are you still running?
PR: Yeah, I hurt a disc in my back, so I don’t run marathons anymore. I just run ten miles or yes.
HH: But you did run marathons at some point?
PR: Yeah, but I can’t do it anymore, because my back is just not that great.
HH: I’ve just gotta ask, what’s your personal best?
PR: Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something.
Not so much. But worse than getting caught lying about how fast he ran that marathon. The fact checking investigative journalist to find out this lie …. Runner’s World magazine. You’ve hit a new low as a politician when Runner’s World debunks your lies. You may want to officially hang those spikes up because that’s just embarrassing. They write HERE:
It turns out Paul Ryan has not run a marathon in less than three hours—or even less than four hours.
A spokesman confirmed late Friday that the Republican vice presidential candidate has run one marathon. That was the 1990 Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, where Ryan, then 20, is listed as having finished in 4 hours, 1 minute, and 25 seconds.
I keep hearing people say that there are 23 million unemployed Americans. No – that’s not true … Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney present it intentionally in a way that sounds like that but they’re actually saying there are 23 million unemployed and underemployed Americans. Not good … but it is said to give people the wrong impression that in fact 23 million people are unemployed. But in fairness – they’re just taking advantage of stupid people and this seems to be within the boundaries of standard politics by historical standards.
Who could forget the hugely dishonest speech that Paul Ryan gave at the Republican National Convention. He repeated 28 lies within 37 minutes; I debunked them HERE. That new level of dishonesty led the media to completely eat Paul Ryan’s lunch with even the most straightforward news sources calling out Paul Ryan for dishonesty in the headlines … they almost never do that. You can see those HERE.
But worse than Paul Ryan making almost one lie per minute in his big time speech on tv … the Washington Post is now reporting that Paul Ryan denies that he said anything dishonest HERE:
Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan aggressively defended himself Tuesday against allegations that his GOP convention speech last week stretched the truth, saying that opponents and fact-checkers accusing him of false or misleading statements should “read the speech.”
Ryan aides vigorously defended the Wisconsin Republican, accusing Democrats of trying to weave a false narrative about him to distract from Obama’s failures in office. Asked whether the heightened scrutiny of Ryan’s convention speech poses a danger for the Republican ticket, one aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, responded: “The only danger is lazy reporters.”
And that’s not even including the big, big lie. Paul Ryan’s entire budget is a HUGE lie. Paul Krugman explains it better than I ever could HERE:
So the Ryan budget is a fraud; Mr. Ryan talks loudly about the evils of debt and deficits, but his plan would actually make the deficit bigger even as it inflicted huge pain in the name of deficit reduction. But is his budget really the most fraudulent in American history? Yes, it is.
To be sure, we’ve had irresponsible and/or deceptive budgets in the past. Ronald Reagan’s budgets relied on voodoo, on the claim that cutting taxes on the rich would somehow lead to an explosion of economic growth. George W. Bush’s budget officials liked to play bait and switch, low-balling the cost of tax cuts by pretending that they were only temporary, then demanding that they be made permanent. But has any major political figure ever premised his entire fiscal platform not just on totally implausible spending projections but on claims that he has a secret plan to raise trillions of dollars in revenue, a plan that he refuses to share with the public?
