Paul Ryan is a liar. He seems unaware that we all know what Paul Ryan’s stance on choice is (not a fan) and that Paul Ryan’s pre-Akinfreude anti-choice views are the same as his post-Akinfreude views.
During an interview with a Pennsylvania CBS affiliate yesterday, Paul Ryan claimed that he is not “splitting hairs over rape” even though he sponsored federal legislation that splits hairs over rape, and even though the GOP platform contains a personhood plank that splits hairs over rape. (As Steve Benen notes, “Under the legislation Ryan pushed, if a 13-year-old girl who was impregnated by a 24-year-old man would not be able to use Medicaid funds to terminate the pregnancy, unless she could prove she’d been “forcibly” raped.“)
Ryan also claims that “nobody is trying to deny birth control to anyone” even though he sponsored federal legislation that denies birth control to everyone and even though the GOP platform contains a personhood plank that denies birth control to everyone.
In short, Paul Ryan is a liar, as his interview with KDKA Pittsburgh’s Joe Delano demonstrates.
[read full post at ABLC]
Zifnab
Sing it loud and sing it proud and sing it repeatedly all the way to November.
Violet
Hey, ABL, I was listening to BBC “World Have Your Say” in the car a little while ago. The topic was rape and they had a panel on, including someone named Esme(?), who was introduced as writing for the Angry Black Lady Chronicles. I was like, “Hey! I know ABL!” Unfortunately, I got to my destination before I could listen to any more of the program.
rikyrah
keep on it, ABL.
Got to keep on spreading the word:
Paul Ryan is a GENERAL in the GOP WAR ON WOMEN
Violet
@rikyrah:
Love that! Will borrow it to use with some friends who are “independent voters.” (Ugh.)
Turgidson
It doesn’t matter that he’s a liar. The beltway media either doesn’t care or is simply too lazy or bad at their jobs, or both, to keep up with the lies spewing forth from the lie volcano that is Romney/Ryan.
I kept getting glimmers of hope that the coverage of that campaign would start to cast a meaningful and harsh light on the lies, only to have them dashed. I’m done being optimistic. They’re going to lie with virtual impunity and they’re going to get away with it. And they might even win the fucking election this way. I’m glad we have the best Democratic campaign team in my lifetime in the trenches for this fight, but it may not be enough.
Felinious Wench
I really don’t get this forceable rape distinction at all. The only way it makes sense is to say some rape is not forceable, which contradicts the definition of rape in the first place. And the only “consensual” rape I can think of is statutory rape, and there, the point is the person is too young to give consent.
From what I can tell, it’s supposed to be a dog whistle for “women who claim rape to get an abortion.” So, unless a certain level of violence exists, a women does not qualify for the exception. What does that equate to? Vaginal bruising? Facial lacerations? A certain amount of bleeding?
I want definitions, damn it!
Triassic Sands
I’m afraid this would be a more accurate characterization of what Ryan knows.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Felinious Wench: A rape is considered forced when a wealthy Republican’s taxes are raised.
Violet
@Felinious Wench:
Any non-forceable rape is when the woman is a slut. Hope that helps.
Dennis SGMM
@Violet:
FTFY
Mudge
All Republicans lie. All the time. They are like the scorpion in the parable, it’s in their nature. This is nothing new, and the base doesn’t care. The question is who cares and how do we ensure they get the proper info.
Pittsburgh is a very Catholic city in a swing state with massive voter suppression underway. It was a smart interview for Ryan. And, of course, no one at KDKA would ever know enough to call Ryan on his lies.
Calouste
@Dennis SGMM:
And any woman who is not a good white Christian woman married to a good white Christian man is a slut who is asking for it. And of course marital rape doesn’t exist.
Dennis SGMM
@Mudge:
The media has given them carte blanche to lie for years so why shouldn’t they take advantage? When the previous administration was caught lying during the run up to Iraq, the media just overlooked it and kept on echoing the lies. The GOP lies for the same reason that a dog licks its balls: because they can.
ding dong
Being that they were in Pittsburgh perhaps Ryan should have been asked if Jerry Sandusky raped that kid in the locker room or if that’s one of those illegitimate rapes.
tamied
@ding dong: That was State College, not Pittsburgh.
Dennis SGMM
@ding dong:
Ryan would explain that not only was the kid a vile sodomite, he was asking for it.
Mudge
@Dennis SGMM: Certainly the stenographic media are complicit, where or not it is intended. But..the Republican base doesn’t care even if the media call the Republicans on it (bring out the victimizing whine). The lizard brain hears “death panels” and knows all it wants to know.
For my money, Medicare is the issue. Any sensible woman with a modicum of interest in politics will see the wretched positions of R&R towards women. The folks who screamed “Repeal Obamacare” and “Down with Socialized Medicine” then followed with “Don’t Touch My Medicare!” (yes, I know, lizard brains…morans) in 2010 need to be convinced that R&R are going to touch that Medicare.
karen marie
@Mudge:
I’m not sure that they don’t care so much as they don’t believe they are being lied to. And why should they? The media, as we’ve been discussing, doesn’t correct the record, or when it does, it is so far after the lie has had a chance to take hold that it has no effect.
Since forever Republicans have been painting Democrats as the very devil and there’s been no one able or willing to stop that. “Liberal” is a dirty word now. “Conservative”? All that’s good and right with the world!
I don’t think the base doesn’t care, they’ve just been armed with disinformation and pointed at the wrong target for too long to even begin to grasp how badly they’ve been had.
Dennis SGMM
@Mudge:
You’re completely correct about the Republican base; the party could tell them that shit was peanut butter and they’d all start eating shit-and-jelly sandwiches – on white bread, of course. The danger of having an incurious, unquestioning media is that the Republicans need more votes than their base can provide to carry national elections and when they lie with no consequences non-base voters are swayed.
Ruckus
He is a conservative. If his lips are moving and words are coming out about policy, politics, religion, global warming, even his beloved Rand and possibly just about anything… he will be lying. It’s his nature. It’s the frog and the scorpion.
ETA should have read first Mudge beat me to it.
Ruckus
@karen marie:
The correction, if it comes, is on page 42 below the fold in 6pt type. No one over the age of 50 can even read it even if they find it.
elmo
@Felinious Wench:
Not exactly correct. There are plenty of instances of rape in which no force is used, at least not in the conventional sense of “force used to overcome resistance.”
Sex with a woman too intoxicated to consent is rape.
Sex with an unconscious woman is rape.
Obtaining consent to sex by inducing fear of bodily harm is rape, even if no actual force is used.
But conservatives don’t think any of those should be punished as rape, and certainly don’t think that a woman raped in that manner should have the option of abortion. That’s the purpose of these distinctions – to delegitimize the claim of “rape” in instances such as the above, and to return to the law the way it used to be, in which the woman would have to prove that she had physically resisted to the fullest extent of her ability, before her claim of rape would even be considered.
xian
forcible/shmorcible. it’s all about “real rape” vs. “lying that you were raped to get around the pro-life loopholes of convenience”
rikyrah
@Violet:
if they want evidence, give them the following:
Ryan was a SPONSOR of the following:
1. HR3 – the bill that wanted to REDEFINE RAPE
2. A FEDERAL Personhood bill
3. A FEDERAL FORCED ULTRASOUND bill
He voted to defund Planned Parenthood
He has said he was AGAINST EXCEPTIONS FOR RAPE AND INCEST.
As Rachel Maddow said last night on her show, when asked about bills making abortion illegal and what that would mean to women, and whether or not they would be put in jail, he flippantly said, ‘ well, illegal is illegal’.
Todd Akin ONLY has a 90 percent rating from the Right -to-Life people.
Paul Ryan’s rating?
100 PERCENT.
He is no damn foot soldier.
HE IS A GENERAL.
rikyrah
@Violet:
Ask these independent voters.
1. Do they have 6,400 dollars for Mama’s medicare when the coupon runs out? Remind them that’s 6,400 dollars TO START.
2. Do they have the money to pay for Grandma’s Nursing home bill? Do they know ANYONE who can afford to pay Grandma’s nursing home bill?
The true savagery of the Ryan Budget is the decimation of MEDICAID. We will see MILLIONS of old people thrown out into the street, because those nursing home bills will not be paid.
I will remind people once again, that while poor children are the largest numbers of the people on Medicaid..
In terms of MEDICAID DOLLARS, it’s not even close.
the top two largest percentages are:
Nursing home residents
Disabled adults
So, ask them if they know someone taking care of a disabled family member, and if they have the money for their healthcare.
Caz
There’s a huge difference between denying birth control and denying money to pay for birth control. Birth control is very inexpensive compared to just about anything else. That someone is against taxpayer funds being used to pay for birth control is not the same as being against birth control or denying women birth control.
All women are free to use birth control, no one is trying to deny them that right. The question is whether taxpayer funds should be used to pay for the birth control for women.
If you see the distinction, then stop saying people want to deny women access to birth control. They have plenty of access to it and an absolute right to use it. It just might not be free for them.
lol
@Caz:
No one is trying to deny women the right to birth control except for all the Republican politicians, Ryan included, who are trying to ban birth control.
Mnemosyne
@Caz:
The Ryan/Akin bill would ban specific forms of birth control that are allegedly “abortifacients,” including most forms of the estrogen/progestin birth control pill. That means that the Pill that most women take for birth control would be banned under the Ryan/Akin “personhood” bill.
Republicans are proposing laws that will ban birth control. Deal with it.
Sidney18511
Robert Altemeyer, a professor of psychology has been studying the rightwing and evangelicals since 1966. His work was used by John dean author of conservatives without conscience.
Altemeyer has his book available FREE ONLINE. It is a MUST READ.
Theauthoritarians.com
Cthulhu
@Felinious Wench:
The dog whistle here is so the misogynists in the GOP can tell their people that women who get pregnant after a rape were asking for it, deserved it, and ENJOYED it enough to get pregnant.
After all, if they resisted enough, didn’t like it enough, and we’re asking for it enough, those magical anti sperm secretions would have kicked in and stopped the preganancy, right?
It’s disgusting, it’s disgraceful, and it’s a plank in the GOP platform. These people must be defeated and then dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.
K R Ben
I think Akin and Ryan need to go to Planned Parenthood for instruction on reproduction instead of their church.