On this date in
2015,
2016, as well as
2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the current U.S. Speaker of the House and U.S. House Representative for Wisconsin’s 1st District,
Paul Ryan, and in that breakdown of the 2012 Vice-Presidential candidate, we covered everything from his bizarre fascination with the P90X workout system, to his immense hard-on for the philosophies of Ayn Rand, to the fact that he was literally in bed with a lobbyist, who he ended up marrying. His voting record was laid bare, from his support for fetal Personhood bills, to his staggeringly anti-gay voting record, to the budgets he's written that favor the rich over the poor so much that nuns are willing to follow him around to deal a heaping dose of Catholic guilt in his direction for ignoring Christian values (while purporting himself to have them). Paul Ryan may have been the "ringer" that conservatives were clamoring for to save the presidential aspirations of Mitt Romney, but all they did was shine a spotlight on the Congressman who used to be content fading into the background and grinding out budgets and trying to keep a low profile. That went out the window when he was forced into a position of leadership after the resignation of House Speaker John Boehner, because the Plan A to Boehner’s successor, Eric Cantor, got beat in a primary election and the Plan B to be Boehner's heir apparent that the establishment GOP picked, California Congressman Kevin McCarthy, completely botched his step out into the limelight. The GOP's "House Freedom Caucus" at that point was refusing to accept any establishment candidate as House Speaker, save one... Paul Ryan. Begrudgingly, Congressman Ryan agreed to take the worst job in Washington and hope he could herd cats better than Speaker Boehner did. But he did so only after making a demand that the gig wouldn’t get in the way of his family time. Which is hilarious, because this Randian disciple has previously voted against family leave when the issue’s come up in Congress. (Classic conservative hypocrisy… the people should get no entitlements, BUT I SHOULD!) But yeah, we’re talking about the GOP’s THIRD pick for a job that he didn’t even want. And boy, has he been terrible at it. Barely a few months into the job, he was already fighting with the House Freedom Caucus, too. Hell, they already hated his guts seven weeks into the job, when he first tried passing a budget.
And that’s not Paul Ryan’s only headache. All through the 2016 GOP Presidential Primary, Donald Trump, for a lack of a better term, said a lot of stupid, crazy s***. Comments from Trump that were so outrageous that Speaker Ryan was left with no choice but to condemn him when the Beltway media asks him to comment on it. And while he is forced to distance his party from the frontrunner of the presidential primary, he also went out of his way to still say he’d have to support Trump if he is the nominee. Meanwhile, at the first perceived sign of disloyalty, Donald Trump was threatening to support Ryan’s own hard-right opponent,
Phil Nehlen, in his primary for his seat. That’s how insane things are right now, the GOP candidate for president was backbiting and chafing at their Speaker of the House and nearly sabotaged his own chances at re-election as late as AUGUST of a campaign. Spoiler alert, though… Paul Ryan was re-elected rather easily. But maybe he’d be happier if he’d lost, after all, his daily routine has become… the Beltway media throw a Donald Trump quote, or read a Twitter post from him at Paul Ryan, and he has to pretend like it’s not the ravings of a lunatic, even if it’s straight up tinfoil hat paranoia about having his phone tapped by President Obama himself. Meanwhile, these days any perceived disloyalty or failure Ryan might display trigger Trump and his lackeys at Fox News to lay the blame at Ryan’s feet, with right-wing vultures like
Judge Jeanine Pirro calling for his resignation.