March 23, 2016

Paul Ryan said: "Looking around at what’s taking place in politics today, it is so easy to get disheartened."

"How many of you find yourself just shaking your head at what you see from both sides of the aisle these days?"
Speaking Wednesday in the House Ways and Means hearing room, Mr. Ryan spoke broadly against divisiveness but once again stopped short of specifics. He did implore his young audience to be thoughtful and civil, a clear swipe at Donald J. Trump, the front-runner for his party’s presidential nomination.

“All of us as leaders can hold ourselves to the highest standards of integrity and decency,” Mr. Ryan said.

50 comments:

rhhardin said...

Integrity is sexist. It means untouched.

rhhardin said...

Takes two to tango.

rhhardin said...

What's needed is tact.

Heartless Aztec said...

You can vote for a toilet full of diarrhea or a toilet full of vomit. Hold yer' nose and choose yer' poison.

Chuck said...

Personal attack on Paul Ryan incoming in 5...4...3...3...1...

Heartless Aztec said...

Addendum: Or you can just push flush. I'm moving if either one wins.

Mary Beth said...

"These days"?

A lot of us have been shaking our heads at what we see for a long time.

Divisiveness is bad unless you're speaking against Trump.

Carol said...

Love the vague way everyone talks..so you can just fill in the blanks as to what he's saying. Careful, don't name names.

jg said...

I'm sure Mr. Ryan has done exactly that. Maintained the highest standards. That's how you get to be speaker of the house.

YoungHegelian said...

“All of us as leaders can hold ourselves to the highest standards of integrity and decency,” Mr. Ryan said.

Yeah, well, can, but don't. Otherwise, we wouldn't be looking at governmental travesties like this. And the list could go on & on.

What Ryan considers "integrity & decency" is not going to get a government bureaucracy which, thanks to the Obama administration's incompetence, is now running wild with the bit in its teeth. I'm not sure that anything short of finding some guilty bureaucrats & publicly breaking them on the wheel in Lafayette Park is going to make any difference.

mdlcfp said...

Now is the time for great leaders to show their mettle...

mccullough said...

Ryan has been around too long. Retire and let the next generation of leaders emerge. And speaking of integrity, where does Eric Cantor work now? Bob Dole? Bob Bennett? Trent Lott? Why is it that when these guys leave office they stay in DC instead of going back to the states and districts where they are from?

Where do their wives work? Their sons and daughters? Their brothers and sisters? Their former aides?

People with integrity don't do what these guys do. They don't peddle influence

Bay Area Guy said...

Ryan and his former patron, Romney, both have a lot of personal dignity and decency.

The problem, though, is that government continues to expand, our culture continues to get more coarse, and, worst of all, a lot of 50-somethings have been shunted out of the workforce.

If you add Islamic radicals shooting people and blowing up stuff, it gets worse.

If you add hordes of illegal immigrants and a lax enforcement policy by design, it gets worse.

If you add Ferguson riots, and cops getting killed, it gets worse.

If you add tens of thousands of college graduates, who can't find jobs and have massive debt, they get upset too.

So, although I am not an angry soul, I can see why others are angry, why political discourse has deteriorated and why choir boys Ryan and Romney, provide little comfort to these times.

Myself, when I get angry, I like to get away from the computer screen, go work out and then relax with a beer afterwards. It works wonders.

Curtiss said...

Divisiveness, for lack of a better word, is good. Divisiveness is right. Divisiveness works. Divisiveness clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

jg said...

amen, mccullough

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Say anything Trump and a criminal who is in denial about her own criminal behavior and also desperate to attain and maintain ultimate power so she can keep the criminal gravy train going - and whole swaths of celebrities support her criminalness.
Amazing.

I'm Full of Soup said...

How come GOP leaders never viciously and regularly bash Dem leaders?

Seems, instead, they just quietly take a regular pummeling whenever Reid or Pelosi or Shumer or Ugly Debbie or Hillary bashes Repubs or Repub ideas.

That is what Trump does not do. He punches right back twice as hard.

Ryan must think Dems will miraculously change one day and support his wonderful ideas. What a dope he is.

Every Repub shoud be yelling every day about the crimes Hillary committed with her private server.

madAsHell said...

All of us as leaders can hold ourselves to the highest standards of integrity and decency

Unfortunately, the other side of the aisle doesn't play by these rules.

Fabi said...

Ideally there would be no gutter politics. An opponent called Thomas Jefferson a bastard -- the rest is history.

JCC said...

The Senate Republicans are much more about dealing with their opposites, while (some, but enough) House Republicans are convinced they were elected to hold firm, not compromise and not further the Democreat agenda by one more inch regardless. A number of these House Republicans feel that Harry Reid et al are Satan personified and they wish only to get some payback for the years of all-Dem majorities in both houses and the White House, when Harry and Nancy ran roughshod over the GOP.

Anyway, those compromise bills from the Senate are not getting any traction in the House, where Repubicans see no need to buy into any of the Democrat priorities piggybacked onto Republican legislation.

JackWayne said...

Every day I am disheartened and dismayed by the actions and inactions of Ryan. Perhaps he should consider actually working for a living instead of sucking on Uncle Sugar's enormous teat.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

A malaise speech.

Roughcoat said...

Personal attack on Paul Ryan incoming in 5...4...3...3...1...

Challenge accepted. He's a hack. Once upon a time I liked him a lot. Not anymore. I'm sure I don't have to explain why.

While he exhorts us to play nice we're getting eviscerated by the governing class.

I'm all for rancor if it prevents me from being gutted.

Roughcoat said...

Oh, and this: Ryan is full of shit.

Roughcoat said...

I mean, seriously people. Ryan gives this weepy "disheartened" speech. What a crock. What a pussy.

Anonymous said...

Roughcoat: I mean, seriously people. Ryan gives this weepy "disheartened" speech. What a crock. What a pussy.

I admire your charitable restraint.

Hagar said...

They now have Mitt Romney making low jokes in public about Trump's wives.

I think Carly Fiorina is the only politician who has actually raised her reputation in this campaign season - of either party.

machine said...

"How come GOP leaders never viciously and regularly bash Dem leaders?"


for realz?

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Wasn't Ryan the goon who crapped the bed in 2012 as VP? Where has he been in the years and years of anti-Bush and anti-Tea Party and anti-republican hate-rhetoric being puked out by democrats from harry reid, barney frank, chuck schumer, barry obama, joe biden, alan grayson, hillary clinton and all the rest of the vile bomb-throwers of the left?

Answer: Absolutely silent.

Fuck Paul Ryan and the rest of the republican establishment lackeys.

Big Mike said...

He did implore his young audience to be thoughtful and civil, a clear swipe at Donald J. Trump, the front-runner for his party’s presidential nomination.

Does Ryan have sufficient introspection to grasp his own role in the rise of Donald Trump? Probably not.

As Lem said, a malaise speech.

Michael K said...

I have a crick in my neck, almost decapitating me, at the GOP Congress behavior that past six years.

"I think Carly Fiorina is the only politician who has actually raised her reputation in this campaign season - of either party."

She had a great opportunity to be the Trump/not_trump but she weaseled out on immigration and Muslims.

Too bad. I liked her and sent her money.

Chuck said...

mccullough said...
Ryan has been around too long.


? ! ?

Even as I write this, I am still not sure if you are being serious. But if you were joking, you've done it in a such a witless way, it is no better than if you attempted some seriousness.

Paul Ryan has been the Speaker of the House for less than six months. Six Months! He's the youngest Speaker of the House since James G. Blaine, in 1875. He had no ambition for the job before being drafted to accept the election. He's been a Congressman from the Wisconsin First Congressional District since 1999. (17 years, but that is routine in the House of Representatives, and is due in large part to the fact that Ryan was so young -- 29 -- when he was elected to the House.)

This is a person who you think "has been around too long" ?!?

Etienne said...

...as he writes another IOU to China.

mccullough said...

Chuck,

Ryan is finishing up his 18th year in Congress. Career politician.

mccullough said...

Chuck loves career politicians.

Christopher said...

I shake my head at Ryan and more than that actually.

Geez, he's clueless even now.

Anonymous said...

I am proud to have Paul Ryan as the Speaker of the House and as a voice of reason for our party. I truly consider him a true public servant, who still understands the meaning of that phrase. His speech mirrored my own thoughts on this political season. Civility is not a dirty word. We should be debating ideas and developing concrete plans for turning ideas into actions, not competing to see who can get the most free air time by saying the most outrageous things and crafting the most colorful insults.

Jupiter said...

Chuck said...
"mccullough said...
Ryan has been around too long.
? ! ?
Even as I write this, I am still not sure if you are being serious. But if you were joking, you've done it in a such a witless way, it is no better than if you attempted some seriousness."

Chuck, Paul Ryan was Mitt Romney's running mate. They lost. But they were very polite about it. Now he is Speaker of the House. And what he has been able to accomplish, with the Republican majority he inherited, is to rubber-stamp the Democrats' agenda. I will say, in defense of the supposed integrity of Paul Ryan, that if he sucked Barack Obama's dick, which seems pretty likely, he at least had the decency not to make a sex tape. Or at least, it hasn't been released yet.

Paul Ryan has been around *way* too long.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I think Ryan worked in the Imperial City in a govt job for 6-7 years before he was elected to Congress so he has been there for 25 years or more. He has no clue as to how the rest of the country functions.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

If Ryan were a great statesman, he would have been defending his peers, his politics, and his country against the pernicious defamations and calumnies of the democrats through crafted speeches, on-air interviews, timely press releases, and newspaper editorials. Instead, he sat mute while Obama and the rest of the democrats gave him the finger. But now that someone outside the beltway is threatening to take the biggest prize of all, it's time to speak up. It's time for all good politicians to unite together to defeat their common enemy, the outsider.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Jeez, talk about civility bullshit.

Somehow Trump has driven these GOPe weaklings to out themselves. Regardless if Trump wins or loses, these mokes are damaged goods.

Chuck said...

I still do not understand why you foulmouths who all proudly proclaim your hatred for the Republican Party and Republican leadership, are all so worked up about the Republican Party and its nominees.

Go get your own party, if you are serious about all of your populist/nationalist/independence. Good luck, winning 50 Senate seats and 218 House seats. And good luck, displacing our 23 "Trifecta" states, with the governorship and both houses (1 house, in Nebraska's case) of the state legislature Republican-controlled.

But you all just seem so miserable, when it comes to Republicans; do yourselves and the Republicans a favor and just back off. Don't get so upset about a political party that apparently causes you so much heartburn.

Unknown said...

Trump followers: your hero is now tweeting pictures of his wife versus an unflattering picture Ted Cruz's wife. Evidently, those are the beans he was going to spill: surprise, Melania is prettier.

His Twitter followers all seem to think it's great.

What a "real man" . Let's give him the nuclear codes.

He'll have to win without me.

#neverTrump

Etienne said...

Mrs Cruz got him elected to the Senate. Her employer (Goldman Sachs) financed it. Cruz is a Senator today because of his wife.

Plus, she still looks good in jeans, and can ride on my motorcycle any time she wants. I'll show her the backroads...

Mike Sylwester said...

All of us as leaders can hold ourselves to the highest standards of integrity and decency

You leaders can begin by insisting that our Government enforce its own immigration laws.

Brando said...

"Trump followers: your hero is now tweeting pictures of his wife versus an unflattering picture Ted Cruz's wife. Evidently, those are the beans he was going to spill: surprise, Melania is prettier."

Good lord--that's Trump's response? It's like he stopped maturing at age 10. He's proud of the fact that he basically bought himself arm candy, while Cruz (who is not a good looking man by any standard) managed to snag a very attractive wife who also is incredibly intelligent (Goldman doesn't hire morons). I'd say points to Cruz on that.

Not to mention I highly doubt Cruz personally had anything to do with that silly ad about Trump's wife (I can't imagine why Cruz would think a glamourous picture of Melania would work AGAINST Trump, but of course an insecure weirdo like Trump has no end to his paranoia about everyone and can believe anything that justifies his own nasty childishness).

Support this petty thug, Trumpkins--you really seem to tolerate a lot in a candidate. I guess character is just ballast, eh?

Unknown said...

I'm not sure asking young people to be civil is a clear swipe at Trump. Anybody who voices political beliefs has been the target of online trolls who go after them personally. Some trolls go so far as to target their family, their livelihood, etc. simply because they have a different opinion than the trolls do. It's vicious on the internet and it makes me fear for our country. I wish we could all get back to disagreeing with each other without making the person who disagrees with us our enemy.

Anonymous said...

Brando: Good lord--that's Trump's response? It's like he stopped maturing at age 10.[...]I guess character is just ballast, eh?

And at what age has someone who confuses "character" with "lack of vulgarity" stopped maturing? But I'm confident the non-batshit Trump haters around here have plenty of adult reasons for holding Trump's character in lower esteem than they hold that of other pols.

Trump is vulgar. I'd find his vulgarity personally distasteful. The subject of this thread, Paul Ryan, has not, to my knowledge, ever been criticized for vulgarity. Still, I've managed to form a very low opinion of his character.

Brando said...

"And at what age has someone who confuses "character" with "lack of vulgarity" stopped maturing?"

Who's confusing the two? The man exhibits both vulgarity and lack of character--the latter being the fact that he devolves into unmerited nastiness towards someone who, as far as he knows, didn't do anything to him. That's poor character in my book. It's as though no one ever taught him to be a decent person, and he parades that fact as a plus.

I don't think I really mind his "vulgarity" though--if we mean swear words or talking about sexual exploits--we're all guilty of a little crudeness. The petty nastiness and obsessive insecurity are to me far more troubling.

If that makes me batshit, then so be it. And no, the fact that other pols are often just as bad doesn't absolve him.

Sammy Finkelman said...

I am not shaking my head.

I am just pondering the possibilities of avoiding checkmate.