The immediate reaction of Republicans, about rape

After the buzz created by statements  of Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin,  Republicans responded by creating an internet site on the rape. The website details the actions republican policies for victims of rape. Besides stories of women reported, and ways, of which a woman can find nursing, described.
 

The website is:

http://www.republicansforrape.org/

One of the stories reported is:

Obama On Todd Akin: 'Rape Is Rape' (Video)

In a surprise news conference Monday, President Barack Obama addressed the controversy surrounding a remark by Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) that women who suffer "legitimate rape" rarely get pregnant.

"The views expressed were offensive," said Obama. "Rape is rape. And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we are talking about doesn't make sense to the American people and certainly doesn't make sense to me. So what I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn't have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making health care decisions on behalf of women."
The comments are the most high profile in a series of rebukes from both Democrats and Republicans. Earlier in the day, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney also condemned Akin, who is running to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).
Obama did not call on Akin to leave the race, as some Republicans have done. "He was nominated by the Republicans in Missouri," he said, "I will let them sort that out." He did, however, use the opportunity to contrast his approach toward women's health care with that of the GOP.
"Although these particular comments have led Governor Romney and other Republicans to distance themselves, I think the underlying notion that we should be making decisions on behalf of women for their health care decisions, or qualifying forcible rape versus non-forcible rape, I think those are broader issues," Obama said. "And that is a significant difference in approach between me and the other party."

By Sam Stein / Huffington Post

President Obama discusses the critical role that education plays in America's future (New Video)

Medicare in focus as Paul Ryan, mom appear in Florida

Vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan says his family relied on Medicare to take care of his grandmother, and his mother now counts on the program in retirement.

Ryan on Saturday told a mostly older audience in a large Florida retirement community that Republicans will protect those in or near retirement from Medicare cuts if Mitt Romney wins the White House.
Ryan pointed to his 78-year-old mother who joined him. He says he isn't going to hurt his mother's financial security and wouldn't hurt others, either. He says he saw first-hand Medicare's benefits as a child when his grandmother, with Alzheimer's, moved in with his family.
However, the 42-year-old congressman says the program needs to be overhauled during his generation so his children will be able to count on it, too.
Betty Ryan Douglas was on stage with her congressman son Saturday at the world's largest retirement community as the Republican campaign tried to blunt withering criticism from President Barack Obama and his allies. The Democratic team charges that presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Ryan would gut programs for older people.
Obama planned to dig in on that point Saturday in New Hampshire. Aides say he will cast the voters' choice as one between two fundamentally different approaches to government's responsibility to its citizens and who pays the bill.
Romney's schedule had him raising money in Massachusetts.
The Romney-Ryan ticket is betting big that voters' worries about federal deficits and the Democrats' health care overhaul have opened the door for a robust debate on the solvency of Medicare, one of the government's most popular and costliest programs. Obama has welcomed the conversation, which has temporarily taken attention from the weak economic recovery.
The Democratic campaign, trying to reach female voters, released an ad Friday that sought to undercut Romney by pointing to Ryan's voting record on funding for Planned Parenthood and abortion. "For women, for president, the choice is ours," the ad says. The ad was airing in Colorado, Nevada, Virginia, Ohio, Florida and Iowa.
In the week since Romney announced Ryan as his running mate, Medicare and Social Security have appeared as a driving issue. Florida, Pennsylvania and Iowa are among the top five states in the percentage of people 65 and over, and all three are closely contested this election.
Polling generally shows that the public places more trust in Democrats' ability to handle Medicare than they do Republicans. People also generally oppose plans to replace the current program with one in which future seniors receive a fixed amount of money from the government to be used to purchase health coverage, according to polls.
At the same time, polling shows the public strongly believes the financial security of Medicare as well as Social Security must be guaranteed for the long term. Government reports for years have warned of a looming shortfall if something isn't done to change course.
The GOP ticket's challenge is to convince seniors, who reliably vote, that the GOP ticket is best positioned to cure the ailing system for them and their grandchildren.
"We will not duck the tough issues. We will lead," Ryan said Friday in Virginia.
Ryan's stop Saturday at the gated retirement cluster known as The Villages is familiar ground for presidential candidates. Florida has the highest concentration of voters over 65 in the country. Some 17% of Floridians fall into that group.
New Hampshire, where Obama will campaign later in the day, has 14% of its residents over 65.
While residents of this Florida cluster of retirees make this a conservative stronghold, its builder is H. Gary Morse, a wealthy developer who is backing Romney. But the appearance could be tricky for Ryan, Congress' chief advocate of significantly restraining entitlement programs.
Put simply: Voters like their Medicare and Social Security.
Looking to connect with this group, the 42-year-old Wisconsin lawmaker told CBS' 60 Minutes that the issues hit close to home.
"My mom is a Medicare senior in Florida," he said.
Betty Ryan Douglas spends part of her year in Broward County's Lauderdale-by-the-Sea community and has been registered to vote in Florida since 1997.



By Philip Elliott / Associated Press

Paul Ryan Got Federal Funds To Help With Bush-Era GM Plant Closure He Blames On Obama

GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan took a swipe at President Barack Obama on Thursday for failing to rescue a General Motors factory in his Wisconsin congressional district, calling it "one more broken promise" on the Democratic administration's record.

"I remember President Obama visiting it when he was first running, saying he'll keep that plant open," Ryan said during a campaign stop. "One of the reasons that plant got shut down was $4 gasoline. You see, this costs jobs. The president's terrible energy policies are costing us jobs."

The attack has already received a fair amount of ridicule because the Janesville, Wis., plant actually closed during the last year of George W. Bush's presidency. What hasn't really been emphasized is whether Ryan clearly knew this and made the charge nonetheless.

According to a rudimentary LexisNexis search, Ryan made multiple public pleas to GM, including op-eds in his home state newspaper, to keep the plant open. He and fellow Wisconsin lawmakers went to the automobile company's headquarters to present plans to extend the plant's life. When the Bush administration itself called the decision to close the plant evidence that the auto industry was trimming fat and improving its bottom line, Ryan called the news "gut-wrenching."

And as it became clear in early-fall 2008 that GM wouldn't relent, Ryan publicly touted the federal tax money he secured to help displaced workers -- a use of funds that would seem at odds with his limited-government, fiscal conservative image.

The timeline is worth recounting now that it has popped up in Ryan's stump speech.

In April 29, 2008, it was announced that 750 workers at the GM plant in Janesville would lose their jobs. Ryan, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, said he would "work closely with those in Janesville facing uncertainty in the months ahead and do all that I can to ensure that they get the assistance they need."


On May 1, 2008, then-Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), along with Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Ryan, sent a letter to Rick Wagoner, then GM CEO, urging the company to join government, community organizations and employers to help the affected workers.

"We ask that you give every consideration to maintaining GM's presence in Janesville, as well as taking future steps to ensure the continued success of the Janesville plant, including considering the assignment of new production models at the plant," the lawmakers wrote.

On May 4, 2008, Ryan wrote an op-ed in the Journal Sentinel calling for a comprehensive energy plan in light of the news that the GM plant was firing 750 people.

"As a fifth-generation native of Janesville, I grew up learning the old saying, "As GM goes, so goes Janesville,'" Ryan wrote.

It was announced in early June that GM would indeed close the Janesville plant and three others. Ryan said it was "gut wrenching."

Later, he joined Feingold and Kohl in writing another letter to Wagoner. "On May 1 of this year, we wrote to you asking that GM take future steps to ensure the continued success of the Janesville plant, including considering the assignment of new production models at the plant. We renew that request now," the letter read.

On June 4, the Bush administration framed GM's decision as evidence the troubled automaker was getting its finances in order.

The Bush White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said it was "a sign that Detroit continues to adapt and evolve and address the change in consumer tastes and attitudes. ... They're adapting well and they'll make these changes and hopefully be able to pull themselves up out of what has been a rough several years."

Then-Sen. Obama, who had visited the Janesville plant in February, issued a statement.

"My heart goes out to the workers and families affected by the closing of these GM plants," he said. "Today's news is a painful reminder not only of the challenges America faces in our global economy, but of George Bush's failed economic policies." He finished by pledging to help domestic automakers "with the funding they need to retool their factories and make fuel-efficient and alternative-fuel cars. And we'll invest in efforts to make sure that the cars of the future are made where they always have been -- in the United States."

Ryan was quoted in a Detroit News article that day. "Growing up and living in Janesville, this is something we've always feared," the congressman said, calling the closure "a big psychological and economic blow to our community and our state; but Janesville will survive this, because we simply have to survive this."

By September of 2008, Ryan, who supported the auto bailout so long as the funds didn't come from the financial sector bailout, was still working aggressively to get GM to change its mind. He, along with Feingold and Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), met with company officials in Detroit and "made clear what a tremendous asset the people of Janesville's GM plant are to GM, and how important GM jobs are to the Janesville community." On Sept. 13, the Herald Times Reporter said Ryan and then-Gov. Jim Doyle (D) had presented an "aggressive incentive plan" to GM leaders.

But by then, GM's shutdown plans were set. On Oct. 11, 2008, the Journal Sentinel reported that GM would announce it would close the Janesville plant around Christmas, "at least a year earlier than the company had initially projected."

Less than a month earlier, Ryan was making preparations to help the displaced workers and using federal funds to pick up the tab. On Sept. 18, his office put out a statement that it had joined forces with the U.S. Commerce Department's Economic Development Agency to secure a $450,000 grant to support economic initiatives for the Janesville area.

"This has been a gut-wrenching summer for southern Wisconsin," Ryan said, "and today's announcement provides our community with much-needed support. I remain firmly optimistic that Janesville's best days are ahead."

On Oct. 2, Ryan announced that the U.S. Department of Labor had awarded a $1.6 million national emergency grant to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. The money would help "dislocated workers in Rock County's automotive industry, including workers at General Motors, Lear Corporation, Logistics Services Inc., and United Industries."

By Sam Stein /  Huffington Post

Obama campaign accuses Republicans of smear tactics over bin Laden, leaks

By Mark Hosenball

(Reuters) - Barack Obama's re-election campaign on Wednesday accused Republicans of trying to "Swift Boat" the president, a reference to hardball smear tactics used to attack the war record of Democratic Senator John Kerry when he unsuccessfully challenged George W. Bush for the White House in 2004.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that a group of former U.S. intelligence and Special Forces operatives was preparing to launch a media campaign, including TV ads, that scolds Obama for taking credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden and accuses his administration of leaking U.S. secrets for political advantage.

The group, the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund Inc, unveiled a documentary-style video featuring interviews with former spies and U.S. military commandos on Wednesday.

The Obama campaign hit back.

"The Republicans are resorting to 'Swift Boat' tactics because when it comes to foreign policy and national security, Mitt Romney has offered nothing but reckless rhetoric," said campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.

Romney's "two major foreign policy speeches never even mentioned al Qaeda once, and he hasn't outlined a plan for America's relations with a single region of the world," LaBolt said. "In 2008, the president said he'd end the war in Iraq in a responsible way and refocus on taking out al Qaeda's leaders, and few would question that he's kept his word."

The term "Swift Boat" refers to a discredited political smear campaign used to attack Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, in the 2004 presidential election. As a young U.S. Navy officer during the war, Kerry commanded a class of vessel called a "Swift Boat."

The 22-minute video released on Wednesday by the group known as OPSEC - spy jargon for "operational security" - contains interviews with people identified as former U.S. military and intelligence operatives.

They accuse Obama of claiming undeserved credit for the May 2011 U.S. raid by Navy SEAL commandos which killed bin Laden, and castigate the administration for alleged news leaks.

"Mr. President, you did not kill Osama bin Laden, America did. The work that the American military has done killed Osama bin Laden. You did not," Ben Smith, identified as a Navy SEAL, says in the film.

"As a citizen, it is my civic duty to tell the president to stop leaking information to the enemy," Smith added. "It will get Americans killed."

Leaders of OPSEC said it is nonpartisan and unconnected to any political party or presidential campaign. It is registered as a so-called social welfare group, which means its primary purpose is to further the common good and its political activities should be secondary.

However, the group was incorporated in June in Delaware, a state that has the most secretive corporate registration rules in the United States. It also set itself up as a nonprofit organization under section 501(c)4 of the U.S. Tax Code, allowing it to keep donors' identities secret. Group spokesman declined to discuss its sources of financing.

The group's president, Scott Taylor, is a former Navy SEAL who in 2010 ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for a congressional seat in Virginia. A spokesman for the group, Chad Kolton, served in the Bush administration as a spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence.

A former CIA officer who appears in the OPSEC video, Fred Rustmann, has given interviews to conservative news outlets including the Newsmax website and Fox News.

Responding to LaBolt's comments, Kolton, the OPSEC spokesman, said: "What the president and his administration haven't kept is quiet about critical missions and intelligence and that has put our agents, Special Operations forces and the vital missions they carry out at risk. Protecting the men and women who volunteer to serve our country is far more important than politics."

Spokespeople for the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney did not reply to a request for comment.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and Christopher Wilson)

Via Reuters

Ryan is the Romney' s failed pick

by Jeffrey M. Jones

Mitt Romney's standing in the presidential election campaign has not changed materially in the immediate days after his announcement of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate. 

The first four days of Gallup Daily tracking after Romney's announcement show 47% of registered voters saying they would vote for Romney and 45% for Barack Obama if the election were held today. The four days prior showed Romney at 46% and Obama at 45%.

While the initial indication is no increase in Romney's support after naming Ryan, the data suggest the possibility that Romney may get a delayed bounce, as he fared slightly better in Aug. 13-14 Gallup tracking than in Aug. 11-12 tracking.
The lack of an immediate increase for Romney is consistent with Sunday's USA Today/Gallup poll that found a generally tepid reaction to the Ryan pick, especially in comparison to past vice-presidential choices.

Like this year, Gallup also did not find any significant change in voter preferences for the 2008 election after Obama and John McCain each named his running mate. However, in the 1996-2004 campaigns, the vice presidential choice seemed to have a more noticeable impact on voters.

Gallup cannot accurately assess the effect of vice presidential announcements on voter preferences prior to 1996, given the timing of polls and other campaign events in those years. Specifically, in many earlier elections, the vice presidential choice was made during the party's nominating convention, so it is not possible to isolate any change in voter preferences due to the vice presidential choice from changes associated with the party's conventions, which usually produce a bounce for the nominee.

Understanding Ryan: How I Came to Know the Congressman I Now Call Paul

  By Jay Newton-Small

A few days before Mitt Romney called to ask Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan to serve as his running mate, Ryan took a call from me to talk about one of his biggest rivals for the job: Ohio Senator Rob Portman. The two are old friends—Ryan nicknamed Portman “Roberto”, and Portman calls Ryan “Pablo.” And while Ryan refused to talk about his own chances for the VP slot, it was clear he had been thinking about the job in his characteristically systematic way.

Ryan works with Republican members of the committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 5, 2011. He is flanked by Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., right, with Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas, at left. The pace of budget negotiations in Congress had been quickening, as a deadline for a government shutdown loomed at week's end.(By TIME staff)

As a first principle, Ryan said, he believed a Vice President should be a statesman. Portman, he said, had those skills.

“I define statesman with four principles, four criteria. No. 1, does he have a bedrock of principles? Absolutely. No. 2, does he have a moral compass? Of course. Three, does he have a vision for the country? Yes. Four, does he possess the skills, the aptitude, the leadership to build a consensus to implement and execute that vision?”

For those of us who have covered Ryan over the years on Capitol Hill, such standards-based, logical talk has become the Congressman’s hallmark. The attributes by which he measured Portman’s preparation for the job now may be the ones by which he is judged.

The first time a colleague flagged Ryan to me was in 2005. Ryan was just starting his third term and had made a name for himself as a smart legislator on the Ways & Means Committee, the top tax-writing panel in the House. The media would stake out the Ways & Means weekly lunches in H-137 on the first floor of the Capitol building and the members would chat with us on their way in and out. I quickly learned Ryan was the go-to person for a fiscal conservative quote – a Republican disgusted with his own party’s profligate spending who not only lambasted the President but also voted against every omnibus appropriations bill.
Over the next few years, it became clear Ryan was more than a Club for Growth, anti-tax conservative. He was an ideologue and proud of it. During a 2005 mark-up of legislation overhauling the nation’s defined benefit pensions, which the government insures, Ryan urged his GOP colleagues to do better to protect American taxpayers. He was the only Republican on the committee to vote against the bill. Ryan was about seven years ahead of the Tea Party in that regard. It was the dire situation with defined benefit pensions – potentially putting the government on the hook for trillions in debt despite the overhaul Republicans had passed just two years prior – that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson used to ultimately convince Congress to pass the bank bailout in the fall of 2008.

Some of the media’s generally positive reaction to his selection as Romney’s running mate can be explained by how Ryan carried himself on the Hill. While Ryan was always quick with a quote, he didn’t aggressively promote himself in the press like some of his colleagues did. He was low key and incredibly wonky – even in comparison to the staffers who actually make things run on Capitol Hill. Ryan once told me he liked to talk to no one so much as actuaries. Much of his spare time was spent huddling with economists and think tank budget geeks. And he was non-discriminatory in his intellectualism, as prone to inviting a Democratic fiscal expert over for a diet Coke as he would one from the libertarian Cato Institute.

A former staffer himself, Ryan also insisted that everyone – press included – call him Paul. I resisted this until I spent a day following him around the Racine County fair in his district. At the end of the day there was a goat-milking contest in which Ryan traditionally participated—and lost. “The beauty queens – all former milk maids – always win,” Ryan lamented. Ever the perfectionist, Ryan had been honing his goat milking skills over the years and he drafted his udder strategy for me on a napkin over a corn dog lunch. He came in fourth that year, but Ryan gamely took photos with the beauty queens and vowed revenge next year. It’s hard not to call a man you’ve debated goat udders with by his first name.

Ryan came into his own on Capitol Hill around the time conservative South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint sparked the first big spending backlash of recent years by attacking the Bridge to Nowhere in 2005: it is as a deficit hawk that Ryan would truly make his name three years later. He told me that he’d been mulling the 2008 plan that would eventually become his “Road Map for America’s Future” for years. But it wasn’t until he became the top Republican on the House Budget Committee after the 2006 election that he had the power to get the Congressional Budget Office to crunch his numbers.
He spent much of 2007 exchanging drafts with the CBO before he rolled out his plan in 2008. Republican leaders took to the plan the way a frail invalid might ride a rollercoaster: thrilled, but also terrified the ride might kill them. Despite taking on every sacred cow in the pasture, Ryan’s Road Map became a signature issue for Tea Party candidates in 2010.

Ryan admits his view of the world has been myopic at times, usually bent through a budget lens. He’s not likely to win over the national security hawks or social conservatives. But in a Tea Party era, Ryan inspires enthusiasm and all but dares Democrats to take the low road. As Ryan told me in 2010 about his Road Map:  “I really sincerely hoped that a few other people from Congress from both parties would start throwing their plans out there and then we’d get into the business of debating these things. But, unfortunately, we’re going to have to go through another round of turning these things into third rails and political weapons. What I’m trying to do is change the nature of the third rail from, ‘Touch this program and you die,’ to, ‘Fail to fix the problem and you die politically.’” Romney is about to put this theory to the test.

Ryan always swore he had his eyes on one goal: chairmanship of the tax-writing Ways & Means Committee. It’s why he turned down becoming Bush’s budget director in 2005 and why he’s resisted calls to run for Senate or for House leadership. He always talked about how his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all died young, of heart disease and how he felt he had precious little time with his own children. He didn’t want to squander it with “delusions of grandeur” or other “distractions.” He said he had a mission to balance the budget, and that was a noble enough goal. Now he’s betting his place on the GOP ticket will get him there faster.

(Via TIME)

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2012/08/13/understanding-ryan-how-i-came-to-know-the-congressman-i-now-call-paul/#ixzz23Qxj34F6

Obama' s team picks up the gauntlet

Within a few minutes after the interview Romney - Ryan on the show "60 minutes" a spokesman for the Obama campaign, Danny Kanner, blasted out an email: 

"If Mitt Romney needed to examine several years of tax returns to determine whether Paul Ryan was qualified to be Vice President, why won’t he let the American people see his own returns and determine if he himself is qualified to be President?"

 

Ryan responds to Obama for taxes (VIDEO)

The presidential candidate Mitt Romney and hiw running mate Paul Ryan gave a response to Obama's campaign, in an interview for “60 minutes”. The discussion revolved around Ryan’s proposals for more taxes on the middle class.

Yesterday the Obama team accused Ryan that he has prepared financial plan of whith the main axis is the new taxes. Read

Ryan said that: “It is a confidential vetting process. So there were several years. But I'm going to release the same amount of years that Governor Romney has. But I got to tell you Bob -- two, I'm going to be releasing two, which is what he's releasing -– what I hear from people around this country, they are not asking, 'Where are the tax returns,' they are asking where the jobs are? Where is the economic growth?”

Also Romney urged this: “Fairness dictates that the highest-income people should pay the greatest share of taxes, and they do”.

He continued: “And the commitment that I've made is we will not have the top income earners in this country pay a smaller share of the tax burden. The highest-income people will continue to pay the largest share of the tax burden and middle-income taxpayers, under my plan, get a break. Their taxes come down."

The Obama's War against Romney - Ryan (The Video)

All "weapons" technology used by the Obama team to attack the Republicans.

Within two days the Democrats built a video with Ryan's statements on economic policy. The Democrats support that "Paul Ryan is the mastermind behind the extreme GOP budget plan. It's a plan Mitt Romney endorses".

Also they wonder: "But what does that budget mean for America? The GOP budget plan hurts seniors, it hurts middle-class families, and it hurts students. All to pay for tax cuts for those at the top".

Finally, the Obama team believe: "Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan: back to the failed top-down policies that crashed our economy".

Watch the video:

The War Begun: Obama attacks Ryan

Barack Obama VS Paul Ryan

Barack Obama notes five facts for Paul Romney to personal website. The war will become harder and harder for two parties to win, until the elections.

After the Romney's announcment Ryan for candidate for vice-President, Ryan is the Obama's "target".

So, Obama and his collaborators claim that:

1. Paul Ryan’s top-down budget plan is a sham

Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney both support trillions in budget-busting tax cuts for millionaires that will result in tax hikes on the middle class and deep cuts in education and other investments we need to grow. Ryan’s extreme budget plan, which Mitt Romney has embraced, would make deep spending cuts now to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, which would weaken the recovery and cost the economy jobs.

2. Paul Ryan’s plan would raise taxes on the middle class and cut taxes for the wealthy

Ryan’s extreme budget plan would benefit the wealthy while raising taxes on middle-class families, slowing our economic recovery and hurting seniors and the middle class.

3. Paul Ryan’s plan would gut middle-class investments

To pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest, Paul Ryan would gut investments critical to middle-class security.

4. Paul Ryan’s plan would end Medicare as we know it

Paul Ryan’s extreme budget would end Medicare as we know it, turning it into a voucher program which would increase seniors’ health costs by $6,350 a year. Ryan has also proposed a plan that would have privatized Social Security, subjecting seniors’ retirement security to the whims of the stock market.

5. Paul Ryan is severely conservative

Like Mitt Romney, Ryan’s severely conservative positions are out of touch with most Americans’ values. He would take us backward on women’s health and equal rights.

Obama's response to Romney's choice of Ryan

Via Huffignton Post

President Barack Obama's campaign says Mitt Romney's selection of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate shows a commitment to "budget-busting tax cuts" for the wealthy and "greater burdens" on the middle class and seniors.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina calls Ryan is the "architect of the radical Republican House budget" proposal and says the plan "would end Medicare as we know it."

The Obama campaign said Saturday the Republican ticket would return the nation to "reckless Bush economic policies that exploded our deficit and crashed our economy."

Democrats are expected to seize upon Ryan's authorship of a House-backed budget plan that would curb overall entitlement spending and changes Medicare into a voucher-like system.

The president is traveling to Chicago on Saturday but had no public events planned.