Heh. This morning, I got the news (probably as early or earlier than everyone else, certainly as early as the New Yorker and probably as early as the Associated Press.)

Of course, owing to the lingering effects of my Stockholm Syndrome (and those effects are long lasting, in some aspects even permanent) I refrained from commeting about the Ryan pick until my brain had settled down and all the swirling thoughts of what Liberals would predictably say stopped coruscating through my crenelations. I know what they would say. I heard them before they even wrote them.

Now it’s almost 3 in the afternoon and the fireworks show has ended and guess what? You’re right! But Ryan is a GREAT choice for VP. Now we have to be ready to carry the fight and the Romney campaign has to start taking the gloves off and being ready to fight the fight with us.

Paul Ryan is probably the best guy we could have right now to help Romney articulate what the stakes are and more importantly to TELL THE TRUTH just as he said today.

Team Romney/Ryan has come out of the blocks and we’re just getting into the first turn. They have to do a Usain Bolt through the turn.

There’s a very, very clear choice in this country now. It’s not about “backward vs. forward” it’s about how America defines itself and who we are as a nation and whether or not we can deliver on what we promise. We’ve promised MUCH MORE than we can deliver and we’ve created no credible plans for even delivering what we had previously promised.

More later….but my Stockholm Moments lasted only about 2 hours and that’s a GOOD sign. We can do it with this ticket if we have the courage and we make the case to the American people.

But Romney chose someone who can really move in the ring. Now he has to prove that he can listen to some corner coaches other than his own.

Let’s move.

They know they’re going to lie. They’re lying right now! It’s not hard to imagine them to keep lying so they can continue to lie in the future. These things aren’t sophisticated: We’re REWARDING them so far, for lying. Well, it has to stop.

The lying will stop one way or the other, the whole question is whether or not we want the “hard stop” where everyone gets creamed or the “soft stop” where the perpetrators of the lies are kicked out of office and the rest of the people have a chance to recover. I vote for the latter.

I tend to think the main problems in this cycle are simple, probably too simple for my own good:

We all know the American government is going to look like the defaulting governments around the world in a few years unless something is done. The big problem is to start people thinking hard about how to fix it before it happens.

I’m not rich: if the rich get soaked, they’ll leave. I’ll be in about the same situation I’m in right now, maybe on welfare, probably with less opportunity, but basically not much different than where I am right now.

Without controlling spending and growing our economy we’re finished, we’re all going to be on welfare, and that welfare has really already run out. So to me, it doesn’t take a SuperPAC to say it.

You can be poor and on the government dole in Spain, too: and nobody is accusing people in Spain who are on the government dole of living well. But there’s still a long way for us to fall in the next four years. Obama can protect his interests in the government and with the unions, all the money ultimately comes from somewhere else. His paycheck is paid by American taxpayers and Union dues are paid by people who have a place to work. We’re on the verge of a manifold threat: long term default on our entitlements, sagging and listless economy, shrinking wealth, shrinking capital owned by individuals, general lack of investment, too high taxes, unfunded mandates, and what seems to be among Democrats this unbreakable desire to continue to make what is causing the problem worse.

They can do that if they want. They will if they win.

Going on in Europe, where the ECB and the Germans and other countries that are still swimming with their heads above water are being asked to squirt out increasingly large sums of money to keep the corrupt and dysfunctional Socialist governments that are defaulting on everything under the sun afloat. Meanwhile, here in the United States, we keep acting as though we’re immune to that.

We’re immune in the sense that there’s nobody in the Universe big enough to bail out this economy – not out of its entitlement obligations, not out of its deficits, not anything! When we go broke, there isn’t anything in the world big enough to shore the United States up, and every time the Democrats turn around, they keep thinking of a better way for us to go broke, faster.

What I would say to the kids graduating from College right now is:

“You don’t have enough time in your lives to pay the debts the Democrats are trying to impose on you before you even get a job.”

Because they’ve created a society where they cannot see the forest for the trees. If it had been my decision whether or not to allow Greece into the European Union, I would have said:

“Greece is the historic birthplace of Western Civilization. In terms of its ancient philosophy and its ruins, it’s historic architecture and its contributions to Western thought, plus its natural beauty, it’s one of the greatest places on Earth. However, ever since the Onassis-Kennedy merger, Greece has shown itself to be a palace full of thieves. They have an oligarchy that is privileged and rich, a Socialist government that will always add 2+2 to make 3 because it keeps one for itself, and it is to this day a society that has been built upon other people’s money and continues to look away from these facts. Do not allow them to become members.”

There. One paragraph and I could have solved that problem. It has the benefit of being true. I would let them leave immediately and reestablish the Drachma. No remorse, no repent.

But the EU did it anyway and we are now looking at the results.

Because they’ve been ROOKED as hard as any country’s citizens in the civilized world have ever been rooked by their leadership. It’s not any surprise they have to fight off the anarchists: their entire government has shown itself to be comprehensively irresponsible.

They were promised things that could never be delivered. They were sold a pack of lies. They kept listening to the lies because of the feta cheese and the Ouzo and all the wonderful, crumbling marble architecture.

I’d be angry too. But that’s what’s coming to America if people don’t change course, and very soon, because believe me: The Europeans are NOT going to bail us out, and neither are the Chinese.

I realize it’s hard to keep track. There are so many Obama relatives in this country living on the public dole it’s getting tough to keep track of them, but make sure you’ve got the right one, there.

“Onyango, however, told WBZ-TV, “If I come as an immigrant, you have the obligation to make me a citizen.”

There you go. That is basically the official policy of the United States of America right now, courtesy of Aunt Zeituni, who knows what she’s talking about. Her nephew is the President.

I’ve gotten a big kick out of the Associated Press’ description of Ryan’s workout routine as “fiendish.” That sentence has been picked up by almost every major news organization in the country as part of their AP feed:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=Fiendish+exercise+Paul+Ryan&oq=Fiendish+exercise+Paul+Ryan&gs_l=hp.3…1523.8506.0.9123.29.29.0.0.0.0.200.3653.7j21j1.29.0.les%3B..0.0…1c.cw12-sSqpM4

“Ryan is also well-known for his fiendish physical fitness workouts.”

FIENDISH!
fiend?ish (fndsh)
adj.
1. Of, relating to, or suggestive of a fiend; diabolical.
2. Extremely wicked or cruel.
3. Extremely bad, disagreeable, or difficult: a fiendish blizzard; a fiendish problem.

The guy is young, good looking and stays in shape, he exercises and maintains a healthy regimen, and you’d think the AP would describe him as living a healthy life — which would be an asset to someone who aspires to be the Vice President in case of an Emergency Presidential Succession Event – but no. Not for a Republican.

When Paul Ryan exercises, he’s FIENDISH, according to the Dissociative Depressed.

We know Obama’s “Social Darwinism” narrative which obviously the Associated Press was reading from when they wrote the announcement.

FIENDISH physical FITNESS

Count on a lot more from the Hive Mind in the next couple weeks.

The LA Times (of all places) is now offering a much more balanced piece about Ryan’s workout regimen. They’re not going to be picked up in 10 million places like the AP sentence was, though.

Truthfully Ryan should be applauded by people who like to exercise and stay in shape and challenge themselves. That should be perceived as an asset among our politicians and our country in general, one would think. Not something FIENDISH.

Here’s the LA Times take – it paints Ryan in a positive light for taking care of himself and having a challenging workout routine. I’m sure Michele Obama would approve.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-paul-ryan-fitness-buff-20120811,0,3997794.story

Unfortunately, because if Christie had been the pick, Candy would have been appearing on Saturday Night Live to do the skits about him. In a way that would have been fun to watch from a pure gawker standpoint.

“I’m from the Garden State and I spend a lot of my time at the Olive Garden, but not for the free salad…”

“My problem has always been my inability to see New Jersey once I stand up….”

“You can call me fat if you’d like, but you’d be right…..”

“Just signing legislation I work up enough of a sweat to irrigate the midwestern drought….”

Stuff like that. And I *LIKE* Christie.

He wasn’t going to be the nominee. I placed a very very low probability number on him from the beginning and it never rose above 5-6% throughout this whole process. If I had thought he was going to be the nominee, I would have said something here, believe me – because not only did I grow up in New Jersey I actually like Christie’s style.

But it doesn’t travel well. If anything he’s “too” Jersey. It’s like asking Joe Piscopo to be the nominee. There are just some personalities you cannot transplant nationwide and probably shouldn’t. Besides, transplanting them would have taken several tractor trailers ***OH SNAP***

Governor Christie, I say all this with a lot of love. Kind of like a roast.

They’ve all gotten themselves so tangled up with it that extricating themselves from it will be worse than going forward with it.

That doesn’t change the fact that it was the wrong thing to do from the start.

It’s like looking at a guy running a marathon who you KNEW didn’t tie his shoes and saying: “You’re going to faceplant.”

They want US to pay for the faceplant.