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  The pick of Paul Ryan?  A Mormon-Catholic ticket to appeal to a bumptiously Protestant voting base? This’ll get interesting. I’m keeping an eye out for any tantrums of the religious right’s this weekend.


   The recent, long Ryan Lizza New Yorker piece was sent to the roundup this week — here it is if you missed it:
 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/08/06/120806fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all

   And CJR’s overview of it —
 http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/what_makes_paul_ryan_tick.php?page=all
  (& TPM  http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/paul-ryan-new-yorker.php?ref=fpnewsfeed)
  
  They used this pull quote:
 To envisage what Republicans would do if they win in November, the person to understand is not necessarily Romney, who has been a policy cipher all his public life. The person to understand is Paul Ryan.

  Lizza is “genuinely surprised” about the pick:

For one thing, Ryan has no significant private-sector experience. Besides summer jobs working at McDonald’s or at his family’s construction company, or waiting tables as a young Washington staffer, Ryan has none of the business-world experience Romney frequently touts as essential for governing. In the run-up to his first campaign for Congress, in 1998, that gap was enough of a concern for Ryan that he briefly became a “marketing consultant” at the family business, an obvious bit of résumé puffing.

But Ryan’s Washington experience is also light, at least for a potential President—which, after all, is the main job description of a Vice-President. Ryan has worked as a think-tank staffer and Congressman, but he’s never been in charge of a large organization, and he has little experience with foreign policy. Given how Sarah Palin was criticized for her lack of such experience, I’m surprised that Romney would pick someone whose ability to immediately step into the top job is open to question.

And the experience that Ryan does have is not exactly what voters are clamoring for at the moment. The bulk of Ryan’s House career coincided with the Presidency of George W. Bush, during which he was a reliable vote for many Bush policies that have not aged well: Medicare Part D; the Iraq War; and the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Ryan told me that voting for all of that spending, which added trillions to the deficit, made him “miserable,” but he’ll need a better explanation in his October debate with Joe Biden.

 His budget proposal  —
   http://budget.house.gov/prosperity/factsandsummary.htm
http://paulryan.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Pathtoprosperity2013.pdf
http://paulryan.house.gov/UploadedFiles/PathToProsperityFY2012.pdf

Budget Committee Republicans’ Roadmap for America’s Future has a series of videos of him explaining his budget:
 http://roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov



 Paul Ryan’s Health Industry Ties
  http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/04/paul-ryans-health-industry-ties.html

Ryan’s Top 20 Contributors, 2009 -2010:
 http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?type=C&cid=N00004357&newMem=N&cycle=2010
  2012:  http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2012&type=C&cid=N00004357&newMem=N&recs=20

Paul D. Ryan - Congressional Record entries
  http://capitolwords.org/legislator/R000570-paul-d-ryan/


His House site has videos of recent appearances, mainly on Fox News & CNBC
   http://paulryan.house.gov

As does his YouTube channel  — http://www.youtube.com/reppaulryan

  And, too a lesser extent, the House Budget Committee  — http://www.youtube.com/user/HouseBudgetCommittee




 He tweeted these videos:

Paul Ryan on John Roberts  — on ABC’s This Week, July 1
  http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/paul-ryan-john-roberts-16688983

Ryan says Obama can’t run on his record — on CBS’s Face The Nation, July 15
   http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7414950n&tag=mg;ftn



 On Charlie Sykes —
Ryan Warns of New ObamaCare Costs
  http://www.620wtmj.com/podcasts/talk/charliesykes/163702566.html




Ryan’s Address:
 ‘Our Rights Come from Nature and God, Not Government‘ 
  http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/ryans-address_649771.html?nopager=1




Views on a Romney-Ryan ticket from around the web
  http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/165833846.html#!page=1&pageSize=10&sort=newestfirst

VP Pick Sparks Outpouring Of Reaction
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/11/romney-ryan-2012-vp-pick-_n_1684815.html?utm_hp_ref=politics



Media Roundup:

Think Progress roundup:

More News & Analysis:

Wisconsin reacts:

Older media on Ryan & his budget:

Conservative reactions so far:

pre-Veep-pick articles:

“Agree to Agree”:

Paul Ryan may end up being the one thing everyone in this election agrees on. Republicans finally got their dream pick , and Democrats get their dream opponent.

“Join me in welcoming the next president of the United States, Paul Ryan.”
    - Willard Romney, August 11, 2012

 Collective bargaining law may increase state pension costs by $87.5M 

Fools at PolitiFact weigh in on Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca - “70 percent of the people who voted” on June 5, 2012, “just didn’t feel comfortable with the recall of the governor,” weakening any idea that Wisconsin is “fully behind this Walker agenda.”  

Following Ziegelbauer from a couple days ago, Robin Vos pulls his name from attempt to intervene in photo ID case.
  Vos is withdrawing his name from a motion filed in the case after questions were raised about whether he was violating state ethics law by accepting legal help in making the filing. Rep. Bob Ziegelbauer (I-Manitowoc), who also had signed on to the motion, withdrew from it earlier this week.Vos acknowledged a finding by state officials that receiving legal help on the motion would run afoul of the ethics law.”The initial guidance that I received from the Government Accountability Board provided me the opportunity to intervene in the case. Upon further review, the GAB went in a different direction in its final ruling,” he said in a statement. “I continue to support the efforts in this lawsuit and hope we can do everything possible to preserve the integrity of the election process.”

Public sector unions lose in the U.S. Supreme Court - 
  While everyone awaited release of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of Obamacare, the court today released a less-publicized case regarding the campaign activities of public sector unions.  By a 7-2 decision in  Knox v. SEIU, the Court held that public unions could not charge non-union government employees for their political activities - although non-union public sector workers could still be charged for non-political union administrative costs.

The Supreme Court’s Scott Walker Moment -
  Five justices tell public-employee unions they “tolerate” them—for now.

Holding On For Evening in America - 
 Romney’s immediate challenge comes from swing state Republican governors, who are boasting to voters about the economic recoveries in their states. When your entire campaign depends on fomenting gloom about the economy, having such renown liberals as Rick Scott and Scott Walker heralding the morning in Florida and Wisconsin … well, let’s just say it doesn’t help. It exposes a palpable tension between the mixed reality of President Obama’s economic record, and Romney’s caricature of it.
  It’s a rich story.

2012 elections:

Left girds for voting rights battle

Labor targets the Midwest 
 The Midwest is ground zero for organized labor this fall. In the wake of the failed Wisconsin recall attempt, unions are forging ahead with their 2012 battle plan, pouring cash and resources into Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota and Ohio in an effort to recapture ground lost when Republicans made sweeping gains in the 2010 midterm elections.At stake is control of state legislatures, a governor’s mansion and potentially the White House.

From the Milwaukee Area Labor Council:

Union members need to grow up confronting opposition 
  As political strategy, and probably error, the Democrats leading up to June 5 underplayed the impact of what was happening to union workers. That strategy failed — hard — far from big cities. It was the rural communities that handed Scott Walker his victory - and out there, apparently, the word “union” had a bad taste and no contrary fire to dispute the view.While workers – including many non-union workers — remain proud of how quickly they gathered and protested in Madison and collected recall signatures, there were citizens who saw that not as America in action but an America to be afraid of.

A breakdown of the Farm Bill passing the Senate, by Bekah Wilce ,

 and a very helpful interactive graph \ chart of the bill’s {proposed} amendments.

Organic Industry Watchdog Challenges USDA’s Lack of Transparency 

Montana GOP Ad Joins Democrats in Attacking Ryan Budget
A plan to reorganize Medicare as a voucher program with less generous benefits over time is his biggest stumbling block. It’s a particularly sensitive spot for Republicans, who have pushed back hard against Democratic claims that this change would “end Medicare as we know it,” while trying to regain control on the issue by highlighting far less consequential spending changes to Medicare Advantage under President Obama’s health care plan.
“Rehberg refused to support a Republican budget plan that could harm the Medicare plan so many Montana seniors rely on,” the ad’s narrator intones.
It’s an oddly discordant note for the national GOP, who have remained mostly in lockstep behind Ryan, whose rise within the party has made him a popular pick among Republican politicians to be Mitt Romney’s running mate. Democrats are just as eager to tie Romney to the plan, whose combination of cuts to social programs and tax breaks for the wealthy they believe is politically toxic for general election voters.

Wisconsin Redux: Self-flagellating Progressives Continue to Miss the Real Problem
 Article about very real problems with voting machines … aside from the fact the Walker clearly did not “steal” the fucking election, christ.

An excerpt from Anthony Shadid’s House Of Stone.

 He died in Syria Thursday, while covering the uprising there.

In Arabic, the word “bayt” translates literally as house, but its connotations resonate beyond rooms and walls, summoning longings gathered about family and home. In the Middle East, bayt is sacred. Empires fall. Nations topple. Borders may shift. Old loyalties may dissolve or, without warning, be altered. Home, whether it be structure or familiar ground, is finally the identity that does not fade.

Your hand can seize today,

but not tomorrow;

and thoughts of your tomorrow

are nothing but desire.

Don’t waste this breath,

if your heart isn’t crazy,

since “the rest of your life”

won’t last forever.

translated by  Juan Cole,

from Whinfield 30

From John Milton’s Paradise Lost:

“If thou beest he — but Oh how fallen! how changed

From him! — who, in the happy realms of light,

Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine

Myriads, though bright — if he whom mutual league,

United thoughts and counsels, equal hope

And hazard in the glorious enterprise,

Joined with me once, now misery hath joined

In equal ruin; into what pit thou seest

From what highth fallen: so much the stronger proved

He with his thunder: and till then who knew

The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those,

Nor what the potent Victor in his rage

Can else inflict, do I repent, or change,

Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind,

And high disdain from sense of injured merit,

That with the Mightiest raised me to contend,

And to the fierce contention brought along

Innumerable force of Spirits armed,

That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,

His utmost power with adverse power opposed

In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,

And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?

All is not lost—the unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield:

And what is else not to be overcome.

That glory never shall his wrath or might

Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace

With suppliant knee, and deify his power

Who, from the terror of this arm, so late

Doubted his empire — that were low indeed;

That were an ignominy and shame beneath

This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods,

And this empyreal substance, cannot fail;

Since, through experience of this great event,

In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,

We may with more successful hope resolve

To wage by force or guile eternal war,

Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,

Who now triumphs’, and in the excess of joy

Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven.”

  Emphasized section is the opening to John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle, which I’ve been enjoying immensely lately.