Charles P. Pierce: The Only Way Paul Ryan Wins Is if Millions of Americans Lose

[babylonsister]

The Only Way Paul Ryan Wins Is if Millions of Americans Lose

The GOP Tax Bill is the culmination of a dark, dangerous dream.
By Charles P. Pierce
Dec 20, 2017


If you want to be a good American citizen, and an American citizen that likes to believe that we are a nation that has progressed at all in establishing social justice, a viable social-safety net, and at least a passing attempt at achieving social and economic equality, here is what you have to do now.

Ignore any news report that calls what the Congress did “historic” in any sense except the ironic.

Ignore any news report that prioritize what a “win” this is for the Congress and for the president*.

Ignore any news report that describes what the Congress did on Tuesday as “keeping a campaign promise.”

Ignore any news report that describes without the appropriate scorn the fact that this bill culminates a decades-long dream of Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin. This culmination is roughly akin to the New Orleans Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878’s having been the “culmination” of a successful breeding program for the Aedes aegypti.

Ignore all of this and concentrate on what’s really happening to the country.

Paul Ryan dreamed of this day because Paul Ryan dreams of plutocracy. And now, with this bill, he has successfully arranged the first piece of his career-long effort to turn the clock of the American economy back to the 1890s. When he comes for what he calls “entitlement reform”—which he will, as soon as this idiot bill explodes the deficit—that will be the second piece. The Supreme Court (through Citizens United, McCutcheon, and Shelby County) already has cooperated in this great project. The president* is on board because he’s basically made of greed and ignorance. The large media conglomerates will go along for the ride because they are conglomerates first, and news-gathering entities second. This state of affairs could well be generational, and there’s no indication that the Second Gilded Age will be as vulnerable to progressive ideas as the first one turned out to be. The franchise is under assault. Citizenship itself is under assault.

This is the world about which Paul Ryan has dreamed since he was a young lad, heir to a substantial fortune, yet going to college on Social Security survivor’s benefits that you and I and our parents paid for. You’re welcome again, dickhead. This is the world about which Paul Ryan dreams in his 13-room Georgian mansion in downtown Janesville, Wisconsin. He was born well and he married well. He has had few moments in his adult life in which the government wasn’t picking up his tab. Golden bootstraps, this guy had, and we paid for most of them.

more...

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a14470051/paul-ryan-tax-bill/

[bronxiteforever]

1. Kick and recommend.

[Botany]

2. "Youre welcome again, dickhead."

He is treasonous bastard too.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/paul-ryan-keeps-it-family-kevin-mccarthy-russia-trump

Paul Ryan Keeps It All in the Family

In the transcript published by the Post, McCarthy speculates that the Russians hacked the Democratic National
Committee’s computers and, in the process, discovered whatever opposition-research materials the Democrats
had gathered on Trump.

“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy said, according to Entous, a superb
reporter who heard a tape recording of the colloquy. “Swear to God.”

snip

In the Post piece, McCarthy’s remark is met with laughter, and Ryan cautions his colleagues, “This is an off
the record . . . No leaks! . . . All right?”

And then, amid more laughter, Ryan says, “This is how we know we’re a real family here.”

[dalton99a]

3. A timely reminder

[Botany]

5. Feel free to share that story around .... America and the world needs to know the truth

Almost nobody knows that story but everybody knows about Hillary and
her emails.

[smirkymonkey]

4. K&R

How do people like Paul Ryan live with themselves? How can he sleep at night?

[zentrum]

6. He's a sadist.

He's enjoying himself.

He loves the cruelty. The sense of power. Loves his sense of entitlement and slyness.

[mac56]

10. How can he sleep at night?

Hanging upside down from the roof of a cave.

[bdamomma]

13. There are things I wish I could say here.

but I am sure we are all thinking the same thing.

[smirkymonkey]

14. Yep, probably.

What I am thinking would probably get me arrested.

[bdamomma]

15. nt

[calimary]

7. Kicking this. I love Charlie Pierce!

[MineralMan]

8. Yes. That's the plan, all right.

[2naSalit]

9. Yup.

[Hekate]

11. Chaz Pierce, once again. Thanks, Babsis

[bdamomma]

12. I hate these people

[longship]

16. Charlie Pierce!!

I ❤️ Charles P. Pierce