Paul Ryan, Really????

What prompts my second blog today is the fascinating news that Mitt Romney introduced Paul Ryan as the next President of the United States, er, scratch that, he meant Vice-President. I have only one thing to say. Paul Ryan -- really?

Okay, I have much to say on the subject, and I imagine that I will be saying it over the next few months, until the wise American voter rejects Romney and Ryan and the policy of richness enhancement on the backs of the rest of us; or turns out to be amazingly stupid and votes to destroy Medicare and Social Security and increase taxes on the rest of us while the rich get more and more breaks. Is it that simple? You bet. Even simpler.

In 2005 Ryan said that the influence that brought him into politics was Ayn Rand but backtracked when pressed by the Catholic Church seven years later. But wait, there's more. In 2008, according to the Wikipedia article I read this morning on Ryan, as a member of the house finance committee he was privy to a private meeting with the lords of finance of the day, including Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, with the aim of urging him and other Congressmen to support or craft legislation to help the troubled banks as the bubble was about to burst. That same day Ryan apparently sold his shares in some of the banks he learned were in trouble, and bought shares in Goldman Sachs.

If that isn't insider trading, I don't know what is. I mean, didn't Martha Stewart wind up wearing an orange jumpsuit for something like that? And Ryan is up for second chair. I'm just saying.

I hear a distant echo flowing across the land, whispering, "I am not a crook, I am not a crook."