Super-Speaker Paul Ryan Says Soulful Goodbye To House, Just Kidding, He Sux
Outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan said his goodbyes to Congress today after spending 20 years working tirelessly to steal from the poor and give to the estate of Ayn Rand. During a speech on the House floor, the soulless Men's Wearhouse model expressed gratitude to the people of Wisconsin's 1st District for always coming second to his billionaire donors. Ryan's tenure is only notable for the degree to which he buckled under completely to Donald Trump while making sad-eyed-doe faces about how hard it was to be blamed for buckling under completely to Donald Trump, so it's only fitting that he also took some time today to engage in the president's favorite pastime: making baseless accusations of voter fraud.
Before retiring to go hunt elderly Social Security recipients he's trapped on a private island, Ryan gave an interview with the Washington Post Live where he commented on the curb stomping Democrats delivered to Republicans in California. It was basically a slow-motion electoral poisoning, with one GOP representative after another clutching their throats and falling to the floor in a twitching heap. However, Inspector Ryan has examined the scene, sniffed a few wine glasses, and suspects ... foul play!
Considering his tenure as speaker, we see why he has trouble with the concept of "counting" "votes."
RYAN: "We were only down 26 seats the night of the election and three weeks later, we lost basically every California race."
That is suspicious! In fact, just the day before the election, you were up almost 20 seats. What skullduggery is this? Look, dumbass, an election took place and it takes time to count all the votes properly.
RYAN: This election system they have — I can't begin to understand what 'ballot harvesting' is.
People dunk on my girl Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for apparently fumbling "basic civics," but Mr. Fancy Pants Policy Wonk "can't begin" to comprehend something he could've easily Googled while waiting for his buddy Dana Rohrabacher to expire. "Ballot harvesting" is not like your blind date stealing your kidney after slipping something into your drink. It just means someone picks up your early mail-in ballot and drops it off for you. Despite the many legitimate reasons for doing this (disability, infirmity, etc.), Republicans think this practice is shady because it helps citizens vote.
Ryan then compared the election process for Wisconsin, a state with a population of six million, to that of California, which is almost 7 times larger.
"In Wisconsin, we knew the next day. Scott Walker, my friend, I was sad to see him lose, but we accepted the results on Wednesday," Ryan said. In California, "their system is bizarre; I still don't completely understand it."
California will count your absentee ballot if it's mailed by Election Day and arrives by the Friday after the election. Because this nation refuses to invest in time travel technology, preferring instead to tear gas children, it is literally impossible to know the results of most elections, especially close ones, on election night or even the next day. This isn't that difficult. The only thing that's "bizarre" or hard to "completely understand" is why you or anyone else would consider Scott Walker a "friend."
.@SpeakerRyan, in California we make sure every ballot is properly counted and accounted for. That's not “bizarre,”… https://t.co/bZJiImv2Cn— Alex Padilla (@Alex Padilla) 1543514453.0
"The way the absentee-ballot program used to work, and the way it works now, it seems pretty loosey goose," Ryan said. "When you have candidates who win the absentee ballot vote and then lose three weeks later because of provisionals, that's really bizarre. I just think that's a very, very strange outcome."
Sweet fancy Moses! Is all that manly stubble somehow cutting off the blood supply to Ryan's brain? No candidate has won anything before all the votes have been counted. A team can be ahead the first quarter of the Super Bowl but if they have fewer points than the other team once the game is actually over, then they don't get a ring. Why do Republicans think that only the later ballots are the ones that are rigged?
You'll notice that honest people like Stacey Abrams object to officials -- especially one simultaneously running for governor -- making it more difficult for citizens to exercise their right to vote. People like Ryan are suspicious of voting in general, especially when they don't like the result.
"There were a lot of seats in California we should have won and we got massively outspent," Ryan said. "If you've got a couple of billionaires dropping $100 million on your head, that leaves a mark."
Maybe you think you should've won those seats, but the voters thought otherwise. That's how democracy works. And don't whine about "a couple of billionaires" dropping wads of cash on an election. You literally wear the mark of the Koch brothers. Ryan's spokesperson Jeremy Adler rushed out a statement insisting that Ryan "did not and does not dispute the results." That requires ignoring every word that came out of his mouth, which is probably not a bad deal. Good riddance, Mr. Ryan. Don't let the door hit ya...
Follow Stephen Robinson on Twitter.
Yr Wonkette is supported ONLY by reader donations, and it's the end of the month! If you've got spare scratch lying around, why not shoot it to us?
Stephen Robinson is a writer and social kibbitzer based in Portland, Oregon. He writes make believe for Cafe Nordo, an immersive theatre space in Seattle. Once, he wrote a novel called “Mahogany Slade,” which you should read or at least buy. He's also on the board of the Portland Playhouse theatre. His son describes him as a “play typer guy."
