News Nuggets 1031

DAYLEE PICTURE:  Green honeycomb coral in Indonesia.  From National Geographic.

America the Anxious: Why We’re Freaking Out (David Frum) from Newsweek 
"The recession is over—but not for you. From penniless retirement accounts to frozen wages, demographic uneasiness to inept lawmakers, Newsweek’s David Frum breaks down the bad news."
A worthwhile longread that incidentally tells you why most Americans will not buy the Romney/Ryan budgetary BS.

On the substance of Ryan's signature credential:
The Ryan Choice (Robert Reich) from his blog
That budget would cut $3.3 trillion from low-income programs over the next decade. The biggest cuts would be in Medicaid, which provides healthcare for the nation’s poor – forcing states to drop coverage for an estimated 14 million to 28 million low-income people, according to the non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Ryan’s budget would also reduce food stamps for poor families by 17 percent ($135 billion) over the decade, leading to a significant increase in hunger – particularly among children. It would also reduce housing assistance, job training, and Pell grants for college tuition. In all, 62 percent of the budget cuts proposed by Ryan would come from low-income programs."

The Electoral Case against Paul Ryan (Alexander Burns) from Politico
"With the political world trying to make sense of Mitt Romney’s surprise vice presidential choice, POLITICO takes a look at the electoral arguments for and against putting Paul Ryan on the GOP ticket. Here’s our best case for why choosing Ryan was a mistake."

It’s Paul Ryan’s Party: With Romney VP Pick, Movement Conservatives Openly Control GOP at Last (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"When Mitt Romney slipped up this morning and introduced Paul Ryan as "the next president of the United States," he spoke the truth. The premise of my April profile was that Ryan had become the leader of the Republican Party, with the president himself relegated to a kind of head-of-state role, at least in domestic affairs. As Grover Norquist put it, the only requirement for a nominee was enough working digits to sign Ryan’s plan."

The inverse view is reflected here:
Just One Reason to Pick Ryan: Blame the Loss on Conservatives (Noam Scheiber) from the New Republic
"There are two ways to think about Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan this morning. The first is how it affects Romney’s prospects for winning in November. The second is how it affects the internal struggle between conservatives and moderates within the GOP."

What Paul Ryan Brings to the Romney Ticket (Peter Boyer) from the Daily Beast
"Mitt Romney finally found a way to fire up the base—the other guy’s base. ... Some conservatives seem almost as happy as Democrats with the Ryan pick. ... In choosing Ryan, Romney is no longer defending a vague set of ideas aligned with Ryan’s reform approach; he’s now taken on the thing itself, and will find himself spending the remainder of the campaign defending it, in all of its potentially damaging details."

How Does the Ryan Pick Actually Help Romney? (Ruth Marcus) from the Washington Post
"Romney needs independents in Virginia, suburban women in Colorado, seniors in Florida. It’s not a question of whether Ryan will help him woo these voters; it’s a matter of whether Ryan — especially once the Obama campaign and associated super PACs get through with him — will make that even harder. ... selecting him as veep doesn’t make sense. It undercuts several aspects of the Romney narrative."

Mitt Romney Would Pay 0.82 Percent in Taxes Under Paul Ryan's Plan (Matthew OBrien) from the Atlantic
"Paul Ryan's plan is a path to prosperity for Mitt Romney."

More along this line:
Why Ryan Makes Romney's Tax Problem Even Worse (Alec MacGillis) from the New Republic
"It seems hard to imagine a running mate who would jibe better with the Democrats' Bain Capital attacks than a well-born Ayn Rand acolyte. More crucially, it is hard to imagine a running mate who will draw more attention to the matter of Romney's taxes than Paul Ryan. Why? Because under the "Ryan plan" that made the congressman famous, Mitt Romney would pay zero taxes."

Obama Response to Ryan Pick: Harder, Faster, More (Olivier Knox) from Yahoo News
"Team Obama's response to the House Budget Committee Chairman's elevation to potential VP made clear that the Democrat's campaign won't overhaul so much as go into overdrive. Aides argue that Ryan amplifies rather than challenges their core message with just 88 days until the election."

Why Romney Changed to Obama’s Game (John Heilemann) from New York Magazine 
"I couldn’t help but detect a gleeful flicker in his eyes when we talked about the fervor on the right for the congressman from Wisconsin. With Mitt Romney’s announcement this morning that he had tapped Ryan, the very same flicker is enlivening the eyes of everyone residing at the Obama for America HQ in Chicago and in the warrens of the White House..."

Hallelujah, It May Be Ryan! (Timothy Noah) from the New Republic
"If it is indeed Ryan, then that’s the final demonstration that Romney will never, ever move to the center. He will never stop trying to establish his bona fides with the Republican party’s hard right wing, even when doing so demonstrably harms his own interest, as it does here. The inmates will run the asylum."

Democrats Can’t Wait To Run Against Paul Ryan’s Budget from Talking Points Memo
"Democrats suggested to TPM that Ryan’s pick represents a turning point they can exploit on two major fronts. ..."

Double the Pomade: The Aggressively Groomed Style Of Romney And Ryan (Robin Givhan) from the Daily Beast
"Robin Givhan on the aggressively-groomed style of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan."
"Aggressively groomed..." -- Good words to describe MOST GOP elected officials! Think Calysta Gingrich.

Allen West's Rise From the Florida Fever Swamps (Tim Murphy) from Mother Jones
"Another longread that examines the short, strange trip into the belly of the anti-Shariah beast."