Paul Ryan is easily reelected House speaker
Source: The Washington Post
By Mike DeBonis January 3 at 1:42 PM
Lawmakers reelected Paul D. Ryan as House speaker Tuesday, choosing the Wisconsin Republican with a fraught history with President-elect Donald Trump to serve as Trump’s chief legislative partner.
Ryan won the support of all but one Republican, winning with many fewer GOP defectors than when he first won the speakership in 2015. The vast majority of Democrats voted for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who was reelected as party leader last year despite an abortive effort among some colleagues to oust her after November’s disappointing election results.
The near-unanimous vote for Ryan stands as a strong show of Republican unity as the party embarks on an ambitious legislative agenda that, for the first time in eight years, has a real chance to be signed into law.
But the 24 hours preceding the vote showed that unity can be fleeting: His reelection came less than two hours after Republicans held an emergency meeting to reverse proposed changes that would roll back the authority of the independent Office of Congressional Ethics. Ryan opposed those changes ahead of a Monday night conference meeting, but lawmakers voted for them anyway — then agreed to reverse course Tuesday after a public firestorm.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/03/paul-ryan-is-easily-re-elected-house-speaker/?utm_term=.9f1b277af388&wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-politics%252Bnation
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Trump better watch his ass.
Pence will go down like Spiro Agnew, he's Vice President only because they've got a short leash on him.
Then Trump will go down for being Donald Trump. Let's hope, for his victims, it's not something too horrible.
Ryan will be the "sane" guy.
If I had a dime to bet, I'd say even odds.
by frequent inability to control his extremist wing and attacks from Trump and fake media every time he crosses Trump, etc. Extremist as his own libertarian ideology is, after all, he is NOT a social conservative and he represents the right-wing business establishment.
His inability to keep the right-wing ideologues from destroying their ethics watchdog as their very first piece of business was such fun, and just the beginning. Chuck Schumer was pointing out that passionate trumpsters will expect Congress to follow through with ACA "repeal and replace" and they CAN'T. The ACA is already a conservative healthcare plan, and the only 2 possible moves for what comes after repeal (except delay, delay, delay) will be blocked by opposing blocs of Ryan's caucus.
As for Pence, he's a strong conservative who embodies a fusion ideology that serves both the plutocrats AND God. My guess is that and a good presence in front of the cameras should secure him all the support he could possibly need from both business and social and religious conservatives. He of course is an inadequate little man, but he is VP, he has all he will need to continue to be VP and ascend to the presidency if Trump is removed.
That's my take anyway.
The Republican Party leadership is held together by threats and blackmail; a policy off Mutual Assured Destruction.
For all his God talk, Pence is a venal and corrupt man who probably has some scary skeletons in his closet. But he's no Dick Cheney. He's just not that bright.
Since Reagan, the Republican party has selected easily manipulated puppet presidents. Pence was selected as someone who wouldn't interfere with Trump's puppet-masters, and as someone who could carry on as a puppet if Trump self-destructed.
The Republican Party isn't about the "support" of any portion of the electorate. Their politicians are face men for the plutocrats behind the curtain pulling the strings.
But, I'm not arguing with you, it's all just as you observe:
to snatch the presidency if that's what he intended. Unless the date's changed, the EC reports to Congress tomorrow.
Speaking of, left-wing media are reporting TODAY that a new report finds at least 50 Trump electors were illegitimate.
