Paul Ryan: A One-Man Fiscal Cliff?

Paul Ryan demonstrating his patented "Budget Karate Chop"

There were a couple of funny hashtags trending on Twitter the day Romney announced Paul Ryan as his choice for Vice Presidential running mate. Republicans were giddy about the prospect of a Romney/Ryan ticket, and together with horrified Democrats, they propelled the #RomneyRyan2012 hashtag to the number one spot for at least a full 14 hours. One excited tweeter cited the top-trending status as proof that Romney had knocked it out of the park, to which I felt obliged to reply, "Yes, haven't seen this much excitement since McCain picked Palin."

The thrust of the #BidenDebateLines thread seemed to be that Biden was a doddering fool, and that the silver-tongued Ryan would give him a sound thrashing in a debate. My contribution to the campaign is this debate line: "My opponent is on record as wanting to dismantle Social Security and Medicare... I think we're done here." Go ahead, Joe. That joke is on the house (pun intended).

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The Right's Social Security Strategy: Lie Big And Lie Often

Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels’ best-known quotation is probably the following, a pithy commentary on truth and deliberate lies:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Picking The Lock Boxes At Social Security And Medicare

Sociologist and author Margaret J. Wheatley once made the eminently sensible observation, "Everyone in a complex system has a slightly different interpretation. The more interpretations we gather," she said, "the easier it becomes to gain a sense of the whole." Sadly, Dr. Wheatley neglected to add a necessary exception to her otherwise serviceable rule—politics.