Der Stern Paul Ryan more Dangerous than Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin was not physically present when Paul Ryan, her successor as Republican vice presidential candidate, took the stage at the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Wednesday night. Nevertheless, she loomed over the proceedings.

With Palin now largely an object of ridicule, it is easy to forget just how engaging she was four years ago when she made her opening speech as John McCain's vice presidential candidate. Immediately, she transfixed both the convention and millions watching on television. And her speech culminated in the now famous sentence that the only difference between a "hockey mom" and a pitbull was lipstick.

The world listened with fascination because they sensed the fighting spirit of a woman who was once nicknamed "Barracuda" on the basketball court. And they also listened in fear. Within half and hour, Palin had, in the view of many Europeans, ousted George W. Bush as the defining symbol of a hard and sometimes ruthless America.
Paul Ryan is not being compared to a barracuda. Instead, he reminds some more of the Jimmy Stewart character in the film classic "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," which tells the story of an upstanding citizen who travels to the US capital to remind politicians of their obligations. Like Stewart, Ryan also comes across as an amiable man next door -- a normal guy who, with a smile but also with resolve, tells his fellow citizens to finally put the public finances in order.
Determination of a Crusader
That was how he came across in Tampa. While Palin attacked the Democrats like a pitbull, Ryan resembled more "a pitbull with a smile," as New York Times correspondent Jeff Zeleny wrote on Twitter. At times, he even seemed like a harmless puppy. After all, Ryan is just 42, the same age as Mitt Romney's eldest son. The candidate looked more like a choirboy than a political extremist.
But behind Ryan's puppy-like face is the determination of a crusader. His soft words during the convention speech revealed a hard line.
Unlike Palin, who became candidate without much preparation, Ryan has been preparing for his appearance on the grand political stage ever since he entered Congress 14 years ago. Romney's running mate has a battle plan ready that will have a bigger impact on America's democracy than all of Palin's rhetorical attacks put together. It is nothing less than a declaration of war on social solidarity in America.
Ryan's political philosophy draws on the writings of the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek, who condemned the modern welfare state as a "road to serfdom." As a young man, the Republican politician devoured Ayn Rand's capitalist Bible "Atlas Shrugged," which glorifies selfishness as a noble virtue. Rand depicted the world as a kind of jungle, where the strong are always right and the weak have only themselves to blame for their own weakness.
Slash-and-Burn Approach
Ryan's own philosophy calls for making cuts that will affect the weak. Ryan would like to see the introduction of a voucher system to replace Medicare and supports the repeal of President Barack Obama's healthcare plan, which would affect the 30 million Americans who would receive health insurance under his reform. But cuts would also reach further, to government protection against epidemics, for example, or even to fire fighters. In Ryan's stripped-down state, there would be little money available for such luxuries.
But wouldn't such a slash-and-burn approach actually reduce America's massive debt? Many experts believe it is very unlikely. After all, Ryan also wants to give more to the rich. He would reduce their taxes, so that Mitt Romney, say, who has an estimated personal fortune of around $250 million, would only face a tax rate of 0.82 percent.
The people this would benefit most are billionaire Republican donors. But Ryan still sees himself as a man of the people. He loves to quote Ronald Reagan's assertion that, when the rich have more, their wealth will "trickle down" to all citizens. He seems to forget that the results of that experiment are well known. In 1982, Reagan had to massively increase taxes because the US budget deficit had grown so huge.
But that doesn't shake Ryan's convictions. In terms of hypocrisy, he is a worthy heir to those Republicans who condemn the state but are happy to use it when they want to ban something that does not fit into their worldview. Ryan, who is supposedly so skeptical about government, has supported more abortion restrictions than his party colleague Todd Akin, who recently caused a scandal with his remarks about "legitimate rape."
Cold Comfort
In terms of foreign policy, too, Ryan supports a strong state of the hawkish variety touted by American neocons. Even the right-wing Weekly Standard, the same conservative publication that drove George W. Bush to invade Iraq and who "discovered" Palin four years ago, recommended Ryan as candidate.

Palin was not able to prove herself as a leader of the angry conservatives, for want of expertise and ideas. Ryan, on the other hand, knows exactly what he wants to achieve in the White House -- better, in fact, that his boss Romney does. It is strange that the number two has a plan ready, but the number one does not, wrote The Economist.

Mitt Romney, 65, will be quickly forgotten among Republicans, should he lose the election. Paul Ryan, 42, however, is likely to win, even if he loses now at Romney's side. He still has many years to influence the American right.
And even if the man has a warm smile, that prospect is cold comfort

Republican Candidate Paul Ryan of Wisconsin Born into Family of Wealth

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John "Sly" Sylvester, a radio commentator and Democratic operative in Madison, Wis., was dining at a Mexican restaurant in Washington with then-Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold about 20 years ago when a young Paul Ryan walked up.

"He was our waiter," Sylvester said. Feingold knew Ryan's late father and, as they chatted, Ryan "said he even used to listen to my show when he was a kid," Sylvester recalled.

Examples like that have helped Ryan, soon-to-be the GOP's vice presidential nominee, burnish his credentials as a youthful working-class guy.

"I don't know about you, but when I was growing up, when I was flipping burgers at McDonald's, when I was standing in front of that big Hobart machine washing dishes, or waiting tables, I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life," Ryan recently told a crowd at a high school in suburban Denver. "I thought to myself, I'm the American dream on the path or journey so that I can find happiness however I define it myself."

It drew big applause.

And yet Ryan, 42, was born into one of the most prominent families in Janesville, Wis., the son of a successful attorney and the grandson of the top federal prosecutor for the western region of the state. Ryan grew up in a big Colonial house on a wooded lot, and his extended clan includes investment managers, corporate executives and owners of major construction companies.

The seeming contradiction appears to have its roots in a family crisis in 1986, when at the age of 16, Ryan discovered his father dead of a heart attack.

The death of Paul Murray Ryan forced the family to make adjustments. Ryan's mother went back to work. And Ryan took up jobs, as well.

After graduating in 1992 from Miami University, a public college in Ohio, he went to work as an intern and then as a committee professional staffer on Capitol Hill for Sen. Bob Kasten, a Wisconsin Republican, who was defeated that same year by Feingold. When Kasten was voted out, Ryan lost his job. He went to work at the Tortilla Coast restaurant on Capitol Hill, where he ran into Feingold. In 1993, he left behind his hourly job and began as a speechwriter at Empower America, the think tank formed by former congressman and George H.W. Bush Cabinet secretary Jack Kemp and other conservatives, according to a Ryan campaign spokesman.

The spokesman said people could interpret the candidate's messages about his youth "however they like, but I don't know that I'd say it's a message of humble beginnings. Rather a message of hard work and upward mobility. And, of course, work was also important as a young man with the passing of his father while still in high school."

But there was also more to it than work. Ryan's rise to political power and financial stability was boosted by family connections and wealth. The larger Ryan family has repeatedly helped the candidate along in his career, giving him a job when he needed one and piling up tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.

In the year after his father's death, Ryan's maternal grandmother set up the Ryan-Hutter Investment Partnership, which remains an important part of Ryan's finances with assets of up to half a million dollars, according to the congressman's 2011 financial disclosure statement. Ryan continues as the general partner running the entity for the family.

Court records indicate Ryan's father left a probate estate of $428,000, though the number of assets existing outside the will or the probate remains unknown. Ryan was to receive $50,000 when he turned 30. The will leaves the bulk of the estate to Ryan's mother, who now lives in an oceanfront condo in Florida.

In addition to the Ryan-Hutter Investment Partnership, Ryan also benefits from another family entity, Ryan Limited Partnership, which was established in March 1995 by an aunt. Ryan's share of that is worth up to $500,000. Ryan makes no investment decisions in either partnership, the campaign spokesman said.

By the time Ryan had entered Congress in 1999 at the age of 28 and filed his first disclosure statement, he reported assets between $167,000 and $1.3 million, owned a home and had three rental units.

The next year, Ryan married Janna Little, a tax attorney, and his income skyrocketed. (Ryan reported gross income of $323,416 in 2011.)

Of the Ryans' maximum estimated assets of $7.6 million, Janna's holdings account for about $6.5 million. She is the daughter of Dan and Prudence Little, two lawyers in Madill, Okla., who over the years have overseen a vast network of land and oil and gas mineral rights in the Red River area straddling southern Oklahoma and northern Texas.

The wealth derived from Janna's grandfather, Reuel Winfred Little, a self-made millionaire several times over in oil and gas interests and other ventures. He arrived in Madill in 1927 after graduating from the University of Oklahoma law school, with just $25 and a second-hand typewriter. He invented and patented a type of injector used to poison trees, the Little Tree Injector. He made separate fortunes in legal work and redeveloping former military housing.

Meanwhile, the Ryan extended family was building up its own empire in construction, starting with Patrick Ryan, the congressman's great-grandfather. Ryan's branch of the family did not stay in the construction business, and Ryan has no financial interest in it today, the campaign spokesman said. But in 1998, when Ryan returned to Janesville to begin his first run for Congress, he briefly took a job with Ryan Inc. Central, a Wisconsin-based road grading company.

The Ryan roots run deep in Janesville.

Patriarch Patrick Ryan sent Ryan's grandfather, Stanley M. Ryan, to the University of Wisconsin law school, and he was named U.S. attorney for the western district of Wisconsin when he was 24 by President Harding. He rose to prominence in Janesville as a private attorney, serving on a bank board and as chairman of the fire and police commission. When he died, judges from all over the state came to his funeral. Ryan's father was also a prominent attorney, practicing in Janesville until his death.

Ryan and his family now live in a Georgian Revival home in Janesville that was once owned by the president of the Parker Pen Co. and former chairman of the state Republican Party. The congressman's aunt, uncle, cousin and brother all live within blocks of his home in the historic Courthouse Hill district.

Since first running for Congress in 1998, Ryan has brought in at least $40,000 in contributions from cousins, second cousins and others in the Ryan Inc. construction business. And that's not counting money received from his siblings and many other cousins. Ryan's brother Tobin, an private equity firm executive, has given him $4,250; Stanley, another brother, has given $4,000; and Janet Ryan Rock, a sister, has given $4,000.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ryan-assets-20120826,0,3026282.story

Guess who is not invited to the Republican Convention Tampa Florida August 2012

The 2012 Republican National Convention Tampa Florida

AUGUST 27, 2012 – AUGUST 30, 2012 | TAMPA, FLORIDA

Welcome to the official website of the 2012 Republican National Convention.
History will be made in Tampa August 27-30, when 2,286 delegates and 2,125 alternate delegates from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories gather together to nominate the next president of the United States at the 40th Republican National Convention.
GOPConvention2012.com is your first source for news and information about the Republican Convention. You can learn about our party’s history, share some Conventional Wisdom (our official blog) and learn about “Convention Without Walls,” an innovative program that allows you access to the convention from anywhere in the world.

Have fun guys and Pop-Corn and best of luck.

Mitt Romney Republican Candidate Do Not Cry Baby

Do not cry baby You Do not have to vote for me.