A post earlier today looked at the now incessant dishonesty of the GOP. No lie is too big or too preposterous. And related to all of this is an arrogance that believes most of us are too stupid to figure out that we are lied to by GOP politicians. Paul Ryan has offered up a stellar example of how the truth just doesn't matter any more. He is now blaming Barack Obama for the closure of the GM plant in his native Janesville, Wisconsin when in fact it was closed BEFORE Obama took office. And it's not an oversight by Ryan concerning the plant's closure date - he wrote GM numerous times before the plant's closure. Meanwhile, Ryan tries to depict himself as the pious former altar boy even as he utterly ignores the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness. Here are highlights from a story in Huffington Post:
GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan took a swipe at President Barack Obama on Thursday for failing to rescue a General Motors factory in his Wisconsin congressional district, calling it "one more broken promise" on the Democratic administration's record.
The attack has already received a fair amount of ridicule because the Janesville, Wis., plant actually closed during the last year of George W. Bush's presidency. What hasn't really been emphasized is whether Ryan clearly knew this and made the charge nonetheless.
According to a rudimentary LexisNexis search, Ryan made multiple public pleas to GM, including op-eds in his home state newspaper, to keep the plant open. He and fellow Wisconsin lawmakers went to the automobile company's headquarters to present plans to extend the plant's life.
And as it became clear in early-fall 2008 that GM wouldn't relent, Ryan publicly touted the federal tax money he secured to help displaced workers -- a use of funds that would seem at odds with his limited-government, fiscal conservative image.
In April 29, 2008, it was announced that 750 workers at the GM plant in Janesville would lose their jobs. Ryan, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, said he would "work closely with those in Janesville facing uncertainty in the months ahead and do all that I can to ensure that they get the assistance they need."
By September of 2008, Ryan, who supported the auto bailout so long as the funds didn't come from the financial sector bailout, was still working aggressively to get GM to change its mind. He, along with Feingold and Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), met with company officials in Detroit and "made clear what a tremendous asset the people of Janesville's GM plant are to GM, and how important GM jobs are to the Janesville community." On Sept. 13, the Herald Times Reporter said Ryan and then-Gov. Jim Doyle (D) had presented an "aggressive incentive plan" to GM leaders.
But by then, GM's shutdown plans were set. On Oct. 11, 2008, the Journal Sentinel reported that GM would announce it would close the Janesville plant around Christmas, "at least a year earlier than the company had initially projected."
Yep, all of this happened BEFORE the 2008 presidential election. Yet, Ryan has shamelessly and deliberately lied about the matter. He obviously has acquired his sense of morality and truthfulness from the child rapist protecting Catholic Church hierarchy. He has also conveniently forgotten that Mitt Romney opposed the GM bailout and would have preferred to let the automaker go bankrupt.
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