Why you should hate Paul Ryan.

Regardless of your party, Paul Ryan should scare the crap out of you. Don’t be fooled by some clean-cut white man giving you platitudes about family values and real Americans and founding fathers. The man is selfish, misogynist, homophobic, greedy, and more than a little dumb. If you’re gay, old, female, poor, or elderly, Paul Ryan should make you want to strangle the nearest Romney supporter.

Let me spell it out for you: he doesn’t believe in climate change, his healthcare ideas are crap, he sponsors “personhood” legislation, he wants to make you poorer, and he’s anti-gay.

What else is necessary to prove this is a horrible ticket?

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Paul Ryan is a climate change denier.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick, is a virulent denier of climate science, with a voting record to match.

A favorite of the Koch brothers, Ryan has accused scientists of engaging in conspiracy to “intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change.” He has implied that snow invalidates global warming.

(full article)

There are a lot of things about Republicans I can understand…hate, but understand. You’re Jesus-y so you hate everything socially progressive. You’re secret racists so you hate all brown people. You’re greedy so you hate everything that doesn’t give you more money.

I suppose that last one is really the underlying reason behind “believing” climate change doesn’t exist: If we ALL were to acknowledge the existence of global warming and come to a consensus about its drastic effects on the planet, oil companies would go out of business. And oil company higher-ups are Republicans who donate to Republican politicians. So, if Republican politicians were to hop to the side of sound science and agree that global warming is REAL and OBSERVABLE, they’d stop getting money from oil company CEOs.

But here’s the thing…how much is money worth if we’re all drowning from the effects of higher sea levels or starving from lower levels of food production? Why are you so focused on hoarding money and passing it on to your future generations of greedy crumb-snatchers if there will be no planet left on which to spend it?

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Paul Ryan wants to hand out coupons for healthcare.

Paul Ryan has likened his Medicare overhaul to the health-care coverage available to members of Congress. It differs in one main respect: It’s less generous.

Republican vice presidential candidate Ryan’s plan to revamp the health-care program for the elderly wouldn’t have the safeguards against rising costs included in the coverage that lawmakers and other federal workers receive.

Those differences, which help explain the savings claimed in Ryan’s budget, are sparking complaints that Republicans want to impose a plan on the elderly that’s inferior to their own.

(full article)

If you work for the government and participate in their program, you have a number of health insurance options available to you from private companies. You pick what you want/need, and the government pays about 70% of the cost. Want more? Pay more. Want less? Pay less. If costs go up, the government still pays 70%.

Under Ryan’s plan for medicare, you can choose from a bevy of insurance options and the government will still pay a portion, a coupon/voucher pegged to the second-lowest rate in your area. We’ll call that base plan A. If you need plan E and it costs less, you get a rebate. If you need plan X and it costs more, you pay more. But what if you need plan X and costs go up while the cost of plan A pays the same. The government will pitch in to cover the difference. So you get your coupon plus the percentage increase of your plan…up to a point. After it hits that cap, you’re on your own.

People are upset that Ryan keeps comparing his plan to the Federal government’s plan. The key difference is this: if the cost of a lawmaker’s plan goes up, the government (ie, taxpayers) still pay 70%, but if the cost of my plan goes up relative to the base, I have to cover that.

Paul Ryan is basically pushing a plan that he himself doesn’t even have to deal with.

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Paul Ryan believes sponsored personhood legislation.

Despite Mitt Romney’s efforts to court women voters ahead of November, he chose a running mate who is far outside the mainstream on women’s health issues. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) cosponsored a bill that would give fetuses full personhood rights from the moment of fertilization, which was even rejected by voters in the socially conservative state of Mississippi. He voted to defund federal family planning programs, authored a budget that dismantles Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, all of which disproportionately aid and employ women, and voted multiple times to prevent women in the military from using their own money to pay for abortions at military hospitals.

Ryan also supported a highly controversial bill that Democrats nicknamed the “Let Women Die Act,” which would have allowed hospitals to refuse to provide a woman emergency abortion care, even if her life is on the line.

(source)

Do something right now.

Open Word or whichever word processing program you prefer and type “personhood.” You see the red squiggly under it? Yeah, technology doesn’t even recognize it because it’s a STUPID FUCKING WORD and it never should’ve been created in the first place.

According to Paul Ryan, a person is a person from the moment the sperm hits the egg, and if you abort it you should be charged with murder. Do you know how many women all over the world get pregnant everyday and miscarry without even knowing it because the “person” is so insignificant nothing seemed out of the ordinary? How much longer before we get to the point where a natural miscarriage is charged as involuntary manslaughter because the woman’s body “murdered” a person? ”Oh you couldn’t carry to term? You are defective and you killed a baby. Jail for you ma’am.”

These people are so concerned with eggs and sperm and fetuses and unborn babies, but as soon as you take that first breath of air, you’re on your own. Fuck you and the womb you came out of because Republicans don’t give a shit. Any man…and I do stress MAN because these assholes who never have to carry babies are steady trynna legislate vaginas and shit…any man who values the life of an unborn baby over that of the mother carrying it is insane.

If some woman is coming up to you about to die if you don’t terminate the pregnancy, and you pick the baby instead, you’re insane. Call me cold and heartless, but if I have to choose between saving the life of an indistinct blob of a fetus and the life of a grown ass person, standing in front of me, fully formed having feelings and thoughts and shit, contributing to society, having relationships with her parents and her husband and her friends and her other children, I’m gonna pick the grown-ass person. You know how many people are affected when you abort a fetus? Three, tops. Mom, maybe Dad if he’s there, and the fetus if you consider it a person. You know how many people are affected if you let mom die from whatever crazy pregnancy happened by chance? Mom is dead now. The baby you saved has to grow up without a mother. Dad is a single parent now. Grandparents are sad. The other kids are distraught and always looking at the baby sideways for killing their mom (I mean, hello Tyrion Lannister). I’m sorry, but the baby has to go.

I don’t care what side of the abortion fight you’re on. Yes, I think you’re an asshole if you’re trying to take away a woman’s right to choose, but I think you’re a complete idiot if you’re taking away her right to choose to save HER OWN LIFE.

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Paul Ryan is going to take your money and give it to his rich friends.

If the budget Rep. Paul Ryan put forward as the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee had been enacted last year, most Americans would be paying big time.

Under the Wisconsin congressman’s plan, the bottom 80 percent of American earners would have paid about $1,700 more in taxes on average than under President Obama’s plan, according to an analysis by the progressive Center for Tax Justice. Despite the boost, the government would have lost out on $183 billion in revenue 2011 and at least $2 trillion over a decade, thanks in part to tax cuts for the top 20 percent.

It seems that the only Americans getting a tax break under Ryan’s plan are the super-rich. Those in the top 1 percent in terms of income would receive a more than $200,000 tax cut, compared to Obama’s budget proposals, according to the Center for Tax Justice analysis.

(full article)

Pay attention please. This is so important to explain to your Republican friends, especially since most Republicans are poor anyway (TBH, most *everybody* is poor, but whatever).

Paul Ryan is supposed to be Mitt Romney’s big economical saving grace, what with his big fancy Ryan Budget and his expertise in numbers. They are running on these pipe dreams of balancing the budget by cutting everything we need, but making us pay more money for it.

The bottom 80% of the population of this country will be paying an average of $1700 more in taxes, while the top 1% will see an average reduction of over $200,000 and Washington will STILL be running at a $180 billion dollar deficit, swelling by $2 trillion dollars if those plans stay in place through the decade.

Paul Ryan wants you to pay more money and receive less public services while his rich friends get huge tax breaks because they’re supposed to jumpstart the economy. That’s his big plan. The only way to create jobs is for rich people to get tax breaks because they will use that money to make jobs for the little scrubs like me and you.

Oh but except corporations don’t pay taxes anyway! All of these people complaining that corporations are paying such a high tax rate are conveniently overlooking the fact that between tax loopholes and offshore banking, our corporations have an effective tax rate of 9-11% on average.

Paul Ryan’s idea of a balanced budget will only make the poor poorer, the rich richer, and 80% of the population even more upset than they already are.

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Paul Ryan is anti-gay.

“Congressman Paul Ryan’s record on LGBT issues is deeply troubling,” said Drew Hammill, press secretary to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).

“His record includes votes against the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and against a fully-inclusive hate crimes bill - both of which were signed into law by President Obama. As a so-called deficit hawk, Congressman Ryan has been in lockstep with Speaker [John] Boehner’s legal defense of DOMA, which continues to burn through hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars,” Hammill explained, referring to House Republicans’ hiring of attorneys to defend the Defense of Marriage Act after the Justice Department said it would no longer defend the anti-gay law.

(full article)

I don’t expect everyone to go out and vote against Mitt/Paul because they’re anti-gay. But I do expect gay people to have sense enough to realize these people don’t like you and voting them into office just exposes you for the self-loathing, greedy, money-grubbing vile human that you are. Clearly, you care more about your wallet than your own self-respect.

If you look at a candidate who says “You’re not an equal human being in my eyes, but I can save you a ton of money on your taxes” then you’re an asshole. And you’re probably an idiot anyway because unless you’re in the top 20% your taxes will go up under their administration. So what are you GOProud and Log Cabin dickwads doing? Denounce these bigots and keep it moving. How do you defend a candidate who, on one hand, bitches about government spending, then turns around and approves spending gobs and gobs of money just to make sure you can’t marry the person you love? Forreal? The budget is out of control, but keeping me from marriage rights is important enough for you to spend extra money on? That’s really messed up.

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So if you’re voting for Romney/Ryan because you agree with their politics, fine. I think you’re insane, but fine.

But if you’re voting for Romney/Ryan because they happen to be running against Obama, because you think Obama made a bunch of promises he didn’t keep, because you were expecting the Magical Negro Movie Syndrome to kick in and this colored president would fix all of your problems, because you think he’s a Muslim, because you think anybody would be better than our current President, Stop. Breathe. Take a moment. And digest everything written here. If you’re still hellbent on voting for Romney/Ryan after that, then you deserve whatever happens to you, your rights, your bank account, and your healthcare as a result.