These guys are out of control

As is becoming increasingly clear to anyone paying attention to the 2012 presidential election, the Ryan/Romney campaign has given up all hope of winning on the issues and on their record and have resorted to unprecedented lying — literally making things up about President Obama and then putting it out as truth in stump speeches, online videos, television ads, appearances by surrogates on news programs and in fundraising emails.

There is a new one this week and it takes the LYING and HYPOCRISY to a new and rather incredible level.

The Ryan/Romney campaign is claiming that President Obama stripped $716 billion out of Medicare benefits “to pay for Obamacare”.

This is a lie.

Also, those same cuts, which I’ll describe in a moment, are in the Ryan budget plan that Mitt Romney has endorsed.

Details and more after the jump.

A long history of corruption

As Michigan Republicans work to suppress voting rights in our state under the guise of “election reform”, one of their own, disgraced former Congressman Thad McCotter, has had long history of election fraud. After being busted for submitting fraudulent nominating petitions THIS year, MIRS news service is now reporting that he did the same in 2010.

Details after the jump.

Shameless shilling for their corporate benefactors

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been around for 37 years. They are listed as a charitable organization, a 501(c)(3), and yet their entire goal in life is help pass laws around the country that favor corporations and wealthy individuals while harming their political enemies. Their model legislative bills are aimed at destroying unions, expanding voter suppression, restricting women’s access to abortion services, imposing harsh anti-immigrant rules, weakening gun control and expanding “stand your ground” laws, and limiting corporate liability when people are harmed by a product or in their workplace.

Across the country, ALEC is having an impact. Their model legislation is being passed into law at an alarming rate, aided and abetted by the influx of tea party lawmakers. Conservative and dogmatic, they are easy targets for ALEC’s cookie cutter laws. They simply make a few changes (or not, in some cases) and sponsor the bill. No need to write the law themselves; all of the hard work has been done for them.

This week, Progress Michigan published a 73-page report on ALEC in Michigan.

You wanna schplain that one to us, Mitt?

Mitt Romney made an astonishing promise today: he told a crowd of coal miners that he will have the USA energy independent from sources outside North America by 2021.

It’s particularly astonishing given that he is against subsidizing renewable energy sources.

So, how is he going to get us off foreign energy sources? That’s a fine question and one that Romney hasn’t really answered.

This, of course, surprises exactly nobody.

Much more after the jump.

Let’s you and him fight…

Tea partiers in western Michigan are taking on a strange adversary this month. In a widely-blogged screed from the Tea Party of West Michigan (“Influence policy, effect [sic] elections, protect the Constitution”), Tina DuPont is outraged the Right to Life of Michigan is supposedly supporting the formation of a state-run health insurance exchange mandated by the Affordable Care Act.

Details after the jump.

Taking back control

In the wake of the suspension of Public Act 4, Michigan no longer has “Emergency Managers”. We now have, once again, “Emergency FINANCIAL Managers”, men and women with reduced power and a singular focus on financial matters. Several school districts and municipalities around the state have wasted no time in reasserting their power as elected officials.

Many examples and commentary after the jump.

Who’s really in charge here?

Last year, Vice President Dick Cheney said THIS about Paul Ryan:

“I worship the ground the Paul Ryan walks on. I hope he doesn’t run for president because that would ruin a good man who has a lot of work to do.”

That’s high praise from the man most people think was the real President of the United States between 2000 and 2008.

When you look at how much clout Paul Ryan has gotten over the past few years, particularly as the GOP’s budgetary whiz kid, it makes you wonder who will be the brains of a Romney/Ryan White House.

More after the jump including a new Eclectagraphic suitable for sharing.

You are NOT alone!

As I wrote about back in July, our friends at Working America have launched the “Dear David” campaign where workers, unionized or not, can get answers to their labor and work-related questions.

Well, now you can access the “Dear David” website directly from their widget on Eclectablog. Just click through on the widget at the top of the right sidebar to see answers to questions others have asked or to ask one of your own. The response to their project has been fantastic with nearly 200 questions submitted since it began.

More details after the jump.

Hoo boy…

You have to hand it to Pete Houkstra — the man has gall. He’s running for Senate against Senator Debbie Stabenow and yet he wants to repeal the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that allows for the direct election of Senators.

I wish I were kidding.

And so it begins…

Right out of the chute, Mitt Romney flubbed the announcement of Paul Ryan as his choice for Vice President.

“Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan.”

He left the stage, Paul Ryan ran up, then he had to come back up on stage to correct himself.

Two rich white guys, neither of whom ever served in the military, making their major announcement on the deck of a military ship. How typical of the Republicans is that?

In the process, Romney gave the Democrats the best photo op they could hope for:

“Every now and then I’ve been known to make a mistake,” he said, pointing at Paul Ryan.

Screen cap, video and more after the jump.

Please. Stop. You make the rest of us look like the idiot you are.

I’m getting pretty used to Michigan being the laughing stock of the country. Between tea party whacko and Troy mayor Janice Daniels and some of the most absurd tea party Republican legislators you will find in the USA, we really have a big lead in the “Who has the biggest idiots” race.

But Walt Wawra of Kalamazoo has taken it to “11”.

Sorry, pathetic, embarrassing details after the jump.