“Koch Industries ranks as the Wisconsin Republican’s sixth-largest source of campaign money throughout his career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which says the company’s PAC and affiliated individuals have given him a total of $65,500 in donations.”
– from Bob King’s Politico post, “Koch brothers have Paul Ryan’s back”
“He has never held statewide office and has no foreign-policy experience. Both could be liabilities.”
– from NBC News.com’s First Read on “Paul Ryan’s Strengths and Weaknesses”
“Ryan “was voted prom king and the ‘Biggest Brown-Noser’ of his 1988 high school class before leaving for college in Ohio.”
– from Bryan Bakst’s Associated Press profile of Ryan
Wikipedia deleted the “biggest brown-noser” comment from its bio page on Ryan this morning.
— from Dylan Byers’s Politico post, “The Paul Ryan Wikipedia edits begin”
Politifact gave him a “Pants on Fire” animated gif rating for his statement that “President Barack Obama “has doubled the size of government since he took office.”
– from Politfact Wisconsin’s “Paul Ryan’s File”
He may be Mr. Deficit Hawk now. But twas not ever thus: “He was the sponsor in the House of a bill to create new private accounts funded entirely by borrowing, with no benefit cuts. Ryan’s plan was so staggeringly profligate, entailing more than $2 trillion in new debt over the first decade alone, that even the Bush administration opposed it as “irresponsible.”
— from Jonathan Chait’s New York magazine article on “The Legendary Paul Ryan: Mitt Who?”
Further, “There are also holes in Ryan’s budget-hawk armor: He voted for some of the biggest drivers of the deficit/debt — the Bush tax cuts, the Iraq war, and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, all of which weren’t paid for. Moreover, Ryan voted against the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles recommendations.”
– from NBC News.com’s First Read on “Paul Ryan’s Strengths and Weaknesses”
Worse, “Ryan has been a steady voter for unwise bailouts of big banks, unfunded mandates and unnecessary wars. Few members of Congress have run up such very big tabs while doing so little to figure out how to pay the piper.”
— John Nichols, The Nation
“Ryan is just a “hyper-ambitious political careerist– who has spent his entire adult life as a Congressional aide, think-tank hanger-on and House member,” says Nichols. He “wants to keep on climbing until he’s America’s real life John Galt. He knows he could control a doddering fool of a puffed up CEO type like Romney as easily and thoroughly as Cheney controlled Bush,” adds the Paul Ryan Watch.
– from “Paul Ryan? Seriously?” by The Nation’s John Nichols, via The Paul Ryan Watch
Romney may have just booted Florida.