Tag: Paul Ryan

Commentary: Establishment Republicans Snatch Defeat from Jaws of Victory Yet Again with the ‘Infrastructure’ Boondoggle

Arizona Sun Times Staff
Adam Kinzinger

Having been in the D.C. area for over 20 years now, I’ve come to live by the maxim, “Always bank on the GOP snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.” I was proved right again this last week when 13 Republicans in the House helped pass the $1.2 trillion “Gateway to the Green New Deal” otherwise masquerading as an infrastructure bill. 

As I wrote back in August, only 23 percent of this bill is really for infrastructure. The other 77 percent is for things like the $213 billion “allocated for retrofitting two million homes and buildings to make them more “sustainable,” whatever that means. Or the $20 billion for racial equity and environmental justice. Or the mileage tax, as in yes, they want to explore taxing you for every mile you drive in your car.

In the wake of an absolutely stunning clean sweep for Republicans in Virginia from governor to House of Delegates—in a state Republicans hadn’t won statewide in a dozen years and where they’ve lost the last four presidentials—Republicans in D.C. just couldn’t find the nerve to simply say “No.” They couldn’t “Just say no,” kids. It is one of the most beautiful and underused words in the English language, but Republicans appear simply incapable of using it. 

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Commentary: The Right’s New Class War

Arizona Sun Times Staff

Much has been made of the idea that the GOP and the American conservative movement in general are currently in the midst of an ideological “civil war” which began the moment Donald Trump left office. Supposedly, the Paul Ryan fusionist ideology of the GOP establishment is battling a new Trumpian populism, both intellectually and electorally. If such a civil war was ever really under way, it was over by 2016. Trump is overwhelmingly popular with the GOP base, and would capture the 2024 nomination effortlessly. Outside of National Review columns and CNN panels, NeverTrumpers are basically nonexistent, and even House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) now feels the need to adopt the Trump brand to stay politically relevant. The civil war is over. The “populists” won.

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Commentary: Media Begins Its Meddling in the 2024 Primary

Arizona Sun Times Staff
Paul Ryan wearing a red shirt and waving

In March 2018, then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) took to the lectern to announce he had received “assurances” that President Trump was not considering firing special counsel Robert Mueller. “We have a system based upon the rule of law in this country.” A month later, Ryan announced his retirement from Congress. 

In July 2018, Ryan refused to permit an effort to impeach then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for obstructing congressional inquiries into the Russian collusion hoax. Ryan’s protection of Mueller and his untimely retirement helped tip the 2018 midterm elections against his party and Nancy Pelosi has held the speaker’s gavel ever since then. 

Mueller should have been fired and Ryan should have urged Trump to do it. Mueller proved himself to be a fumbling and doddering fool unable to grasp the basics of the investigation he supposedly led. The real directors of the witch hunt, Trump haters led by Andrew Weissman, abused the powers of the special counsel to leak, smear, and harass the sitting president. It was, from the very start, a political operation intended to deny Trump the full freedom and powers an elected president normally would enjoy. It wasn’t quite a coup because power didn’t change hands. But it added to the continuing loss of confidence Americans have in achieving political change through elections. 

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Commentary: Paul Ryan Was an Ineffective Leader of the Republican Party

Arizona Sun Times Staff
Paul Ryan

We aren’t actually governed by Paul Ryan, whose brief time as House Speaker ended in what can only be described as a surrender. Ryan bolted from the Speaker’s chair the minute the 2018 elections were over. He was happy to leave Congress to take a “cashing-in” job on the Fox Corporation board while his party took an electoral bath in those midterms he could blame on Donald Trump.

But as readers of The American Spectator know, in this space we’ve been exploring the premise that Americans are governed by people who suck. And Ryan put himself in that category even from outside the elective-office sphere this week when he offered up a tired and tiresome narrative about the future of the Republican Party.

What is it with these washed-up politicians, who are clearly the party’s past, demanding the GOP follow their instructions as to its future? Do we have to exhume the remains of Nelson Rockefeller and Thomas Dewey or conduct seances with them for guidance in how to defeat the 21st-century Left?

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