"Pinocchio Paul" Ryan blames his latest whopper on one of Scott Walker's hired liars

Rep. "Pinocchio Paul" Ryan (R-WI) says this lie isn't his fault!

. . . Should [Ryan] get a pass because he heard this from a witness before Congress? It really depends on the circumstances. In this case, he referenced the story in a major speech. The burden always falls on the speaker, and we believe politicians need to check the facts in any prepared remarks.

In this case, apparently, the story was too good to check. We appreciate he is regretful now. But a simple inquiry would have determined that the person telling the story actually is an advocate for the federal programs that Ryan now claims leave people with "a full stomach and an empty soul." So he also earns Four Pinocchios.

-- Washington Post "Fact Checker" Glenn Kessler,
in "A story too good to check: Paul Ryan and
the tale of the brown paper bag"

by Ken

Now you know they had to be whooping it up in all the known offices of Wisconsin Rep. "Pinocchio Paul" Ryan (known to his closest friends back home as Lyin' Ryan), in Washington, Wisconsin, and wherever (there must be a branch office in Hell), with loads of high-fiving interspersed with group shouts of "Four more Pinocchios! Four more Pinocchios!" Yes, Lyin' Ryan has done it again! Snagged another four stars from the Washington Post's connoisseur of confabulation, "Fact Checker" Glenn Kissler.

Oh, it was touch and go there for a while. I imagine that all of Ryan's People held their breath as it began to look like Checker Glenn might let Pinocchio Paul off the hook on the technicality that his lie -- or that particular part of his gnarled web of lies -- was stolen rather than original. But in the end, as you see above, Glenn didn't bend. Pinocchio Paul shoulda oughta have checked the borrowed lie.

But perhaps we're getting ahead of the story, which begins in a dark and murky place in the festering District of Columbia. Each year at this time, the group of stars known as the Stars of No Hope align precisely over the vortex that preceded the polar one, the First Vortex, the Vortex of Evil, at the intersection of the Axes of Imbecility and Bad Faith. In layman's terms it's known as CPAC, the Conservative Pack of Asswipes and Cretins. Where this year Pinocchio Paul, always a great favorite there, regaled the assembled A's and C's with a newly made-up grim-fairy tale.

The left is making a big mistake here. What they're offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul. The American people want more than that. This reminds me of a story I heard from Eloise Anderson. She serves in the cabinet of my buddy, Governor Scott Walker. She once met a young boy from a very poor family, and every day at school, he would get a free lunch from a government program. He told Eloise he didn't want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch, one in a brown-paper bag just like the other kids. He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown-paper bag had someone who cared for him. This is what the left does not understand.

Very moving, no? A brain-dead galoot name of Patrick Brennan was moved to celebrate this stirring parable with a piece called "Paul Ryan’s Moving Story That Explains the Difference Between Hard Work and Dependency" for (who else?) National Review.

The only problem is that every word, every comma, every breath in Pinocchio Paul's psychotic embabblement is an unmitigated lie, backed up by nothing more than an insatiable will -- or maybe just uncontrollable compulsion? -- to lie. It's a will, or compulsion, that is obviously shared by the National Review imbecile. It's as if these people all harbor a deep-rooted conviction that if at any moment for even the tiniest microsecond they ever tell the truth about anything they will instantly burst into flames.

"This was an interesting statement made by the 2012 GOP vice-presidential candidate," says Checker Glenn, "equating school lunches to an 'empty soul.' Recalling how moved National Review's chump was by the tale, Glenn notes that "one would think the anecdote . . . would be rock-solid." But Glenn's lie-dar was aroused. "The story seemed a bit pat," he says.

And the first thing he wondered was: "Did Eloise Anderson, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, ever meet such a child?" So the first thing he and his people did "was look for Eloise Anderson and stories about brown paper bags." And they turned up "a congressional hearing, held on July 31, 2013, and chaired by Ryan, that focused on the War on Poverty," where "Ryan asked Anderson, who appeared as an expert witness, what should be done to make the food stamp program, also known as SNAP, work better." And she replied:

My thought has always been around the SNAP program even when it was called "food stamps" is, why do you have this program, school program, school breakfast, school lunch, school dinner, when do we start asking parents to be responsible for their children?

You know, a little boy told me once that what was important to him is that he didn't want school lunch, he wanted a brown bag because the brown bag that he brought with his lunch in it meant that his mom cared about him. Just think what we have done. If this kid tells me a brown bag was more important than a free lunch, we've missed the whole notion of parents being there for their children because we've taken over that responsibility, and I think we need to be very careful about how we provide programs to families that don't undermine families' responsibilities.

"Okay," says Glenn, "so Anderson had testified about this boy, and claimed that she had spoken to him and realized that welfare programs were draining any sense of responsibility." And he recalls the part of her statement where she says, "If this kid tells me a brown bag was more important than a free lunch, we've missed the whole notion of parents being there for their children because we've taken over that responsibility."

"But the story doesn't end there," says Glenn.

Wonkette, a satiric blog, wondered if Anderson's story was actually derived from a 2011 book titled "The Invisible Thread," by Laura Schroff, which is about a busy executive and her relationship with an 11-year-old homeless panhandler named Maurice Mazyck. His mother was a drug addict, in jail, who had stolen things and cashed in food stamps to pay for drugs. At one point, Schroff offers to bring Mazyck lunch every day so he won't go hungry.

And Glenn quotes the exchange reproduced in the book. Remember the significance of a brown-bagged lunch as interpreted by Pinocchio Paul, the National Review imbecile, and Scott Walker's minister of mis-education.

"Look, Maurice, I don't want you out there hungry on the nights I don't see you, so this is what we can do. I can either give you some money for the week -- and you'll have to be really careful about how you spend it -- or when you come over on Monday night we can go to the supermarket and I can buy all the things you like to eat and make you lunch for the week. I'll leave it with the doormen, and you can pick it up on the way to school."

Maurice looked at me and asked me a question.

"If you make me lunch," he said, "will you put it in a brown paper bag?"

I didn't really understand the question. "Do you want it in a brown paper bag?" I asked. "Or how would you prefer it?"

"Miss Laura," he said, "I don't want your money. I want my lunch in a brown paper bag."

"Okay, sure. But why do you want it in a bag?"

"Because when I see kids come to school with their lunch in a paper bag, that means someone cares about them. Miss Laura, can I please have my lunch in a paper bag?"

And to Glenn, "This actually seemed a little strange."

Could the tale told in congressional testimony really be drawn from a book? It did not make much sense in part because Schroff and Mazyck are partnering with a group called No Kid Hungry to help end childhood hunger in the United States. One key part of the program is connecting hungry kids with federal programs such as school lunches and food stamps. The group also opposed Ryan's 2013 budget for its proposed reductions in the food stamp program.

So Mis-education Minister Anderson was asked "when she met this boy and heard his story." And he got the following answer from the ministry mouthpiece, Joe Scialfa:

In the course of giving live testimony, Secretary Anderson misspoke. What she had intended to say was the following:

"Once I heard someone say, ‘what was important to him as a boy was that he didn't want school lunch, he wanted a brown bag because the brown bag that he brought with his lunch in it meant that his mom cared about him.'"

"Secretary Anderson was referring," Glenn explains, "to a television interview which she had seen with Maurice Mazyck."

It's important to note that there is no discussion in the book about the school lunch program, and we could find no interview with Mazyck in which he said that. He simply repeats the story as told in the book, without any larger political context about federal programs to help hungry children. Moreover, this incident happened more than 25 years ago; Mazyck is no longer a boy but in his late 30s.

Kevin Seifert, a spokesman for Ryan, said: "It's unfortunate to learn that while testifying before the House Budget Committee, Secretary Anderson misspoke, but we appreciate her taking the time to share her insights." After our inquiry, Ryan posted a notice on Facebook saying, "I regret failing to verify the original source of the story."

And here Glenn cuts Pinocchio Paul a bolt of slack. It's not just the "source" of the story that's a tissue of lies in PP's telling. The entire point of the story has been turned on its head. As a child Maurice Mayck was speaking on behalf of federal programs to help the poor, and reports indicate that as a grown-up he's still a fervent believer. To him the story meant and means the exact opposite of what the right-wing doodybrains want us to think.

But then, Total Truth Inversions come effortlessly to the lying liars of the Right. It's apparently the only way their brains work. And Checker Glenn has no doubt that Minister Anderson earns a solid four Pinoccchios, for her whopping lie about having heard the tale of the brown bag out of the mouth of the babe in question and for "ripp[ing] the tale out of its original context." The only question that remains is whether Pinocchio Paul deserves to be let off the hook for having merely borrowed the mis-education minister's lies. And as we've seen, his answer is a decisive no.

And even here Glenn cuts Piniocchio Paul too much slack, saying, "We appreciate he is regretful now." In fact, all Lyin' Ryan has owned up to in his Facebook follow-up is a minor technical correction: a minor mixup about the source of the grim-fairy tale. As Glenn does note, "A simple inquiry would have determined that the person telling the story actually is an advocate for the federal programs that Ryan now claims leave people with 'a full stomach and an empty soul.' So he also earns Four Pinocchios."

Of course, even if you had an impulse to share the Ryan grim-fantasy, you know perfectly well that Pinocchio Paul has no interest in helping those hungry kid's parents provide them with brown-bag lunches. He doesn't give the slightest damn about them. Or, apparently, about the kids who in many cases without those school breakfasts and lunches wouldn't eat all day.

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