All aboard the "Being a Republican congressman in the Donald Trump era SUCKS" train! The biggest of the big losers in the GOP-led Congress, speaker of the god-dang HOUSE Paul Ryan, is whispering to his friends that he is definitely about to nope out of this whole "being in Congress" thing, on account of how speaker-ing is HAAAAAAAARD when you have to protect an un-American shitheel Republican president hellbent on destroying every single thing we as Americans hold dear. (Plus the Freedom Caucus, just being dicks as always.) Also, Ryan never really wanted this job in the first place, so it's as good a time as any to go back to Janesville and skip leg day WHENEVER HE WANTS.
Let's see what Axios says:
Friends say that after Ryan passed tax reform, his longtime dream, he was ready to step out of a job that has become endlessly frustrating, in part because of President Trump.
Friends say Ryan was contemplating a minority or slim majority and decided that there was no good time to leave — it was time for at least a stint in private life.
Uh huh, OK, bye, sweet cheeks! So glad you got to fulfill your college wet dream of doing tax cuts to hurt poor people, and sorry you didn't get to gut ALL safety net programs, but oh well, life is tough sometimes, especially for White Paul Ryans from Janesville.
If Axios's reporting is right (and it probably is because this has been rumored for ages), then Ryan is getting out with just a hair's breadth of time left for another Republican to get into the race, as the filing deadline is June 1. (Yes, we know there is a Nazi named Paul Nehlen who is currently banned from social media running for the seat. We mean real candidates.)
[wonkbar]<a href="http: //89.223.24.149/595166/paul-ryan-agrees-to-be-next-gop-speaker-to-resign-in-disgrace"></a>[/wonkbar]Meanwhile, there are already a couple of strong Democrats vying to make Paul Ryan's seat blue (not hisliteralseat, Paul Ryan's literal seat is perky and very white). Randy Bryce AKA Ironstache, who was Ryan's closest competitor, is raising a shitload of money, and that's likely to kick into even higher gear with this news. Of course, Bryce has to come out of the August primary as the Democratic nominee, and his closest challenger is a woman named Cathy Myers, though it would be a long shot for her to outpace Bryce at this point.
By the way, the Cook Political Report still calls Wisconsin's First District "solid Republican," but it should be noted that it's only an R+5 district, so with the incumbent peace-ing the fuck out, prospects for that just got a little better! To underline that point, here is Randy Bryce's spokesperson last week, before this news came out:
“Trump only won our district by 10, he won PA-18 by 19,” spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said in an email.
PA-18 would be Conor Lamb's new seat, which is also perky and very white, we imagine. This is DOABLE.
As Axios notes, the most likely candidate to lead the Republicans in the House after the Democratic massacre in November is the current majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, the man who is in such bro-mantic love with Donald Trump he picks all of the red Starbursts out of the bag and gives them to the president as love gifts. (McCarthy is very stupid, because they sell all-red bags of Starburst now, so there's no need to sift through bags of Starburst to find the president's favorite color.)
Oh well, don't care, Nancy Pelosi is going to be the boss of him, and what he does with Starbursts in his spare time is not our business.
Now that the cat is out of the bag on this news, that frees Paul Ryan up to be a patriot who will speak out against Donald Trump and protect the special counsel investigation and even introduce articles of impeachment if need be, because HAHAHAHAHAHAHA SORRY WE FORGOT WE WERE TYPING WORDS ABOUT PAUL RYAN THERE FOR A SECOND.
Wonder if there's any news today about any other former Republican speakers ...
Meanwhile, one day you're Speaker of the House, next you're dealing dime bags. https: //t.co/rBMBAVIk67
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 11, 2018
LOLOLOL, this day is FUN.
Anyway, the point of this post is that Paul Ryan is going away now, so you only have a few months left to kick him around. Use your time wisely!
Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter RIGHT HERE.
[ Axios ]
I bet you didn't know John Kasich is one of those guys that walks up to you in the locker room naked and puts one foot up on the bench you're sitting on while he's talking to you so his junk is in your face.
Eeek.