“I’ve got a factory up in Beaver Dam,” Nehlen said. “I started out as a maintenance mechanic at 18 years old. I eventually ran that business; I ran businesses all around the country. I’m an engineer, I’m an inventor. I’ve got U.S. patents, I’ve got foreign patents. I was in charge of Europe, the Middle East and Africa for a Fortune 500 (company). I’ve run businesses in Mexico, Canada, China. I know about business and about trade. I’ve made payrolls. Paul Ryan’s driven the Wienermobile, for god’s sakes. So for him to suggest he’s got the solution to small businesses, as he wrote in his op-ed for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that’s offensive to small business owners.”
Good. More Republicans should stand by their principles… if they have any.
U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday that he cannot currently support Donald Trump, complicating the presumptive nominee’s efforts to unite the Republican Party around him.
“Well, to be perfectly candid with you, I’m just not ready to do that at this point,” Ryan told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “I’m not there right now. And I hope to, though, and I want to.”
Story Continued Below
Ryan, who has previously said he would support the nominee, said Trump needs to do more work to show that he is a true conservative who can unify the different wings of the Republican Party.
“I think what a lot of Republicans want to see is that we have a standard bearer that bears our standards,” he said, adding, “I think conservatives want to know does he share our values and our principles on limited government, the proper role of the executive, adherence to the Constitution. There are lots of questions that conservatives, I think, are gonna want answers to, myself included. I want to be a part of this unifying process. I want to help to unify this party.
A wealthy businessman with tea party ties confirmed Sunday that he is mounting a primary challenge to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, saying that after donating to the Wisconsin Republican’s past campaigns he feels “betrayed” by the speaker on trade deals and immigration.
The businessman, who is not yet revealing his identity, promised that his run will “shake up the establishment in a profound way,” according to a political consultant close to the prospective candidate.
It seems that Trump is motivating rich guys to run.
“When I see something that runs counter to who we are as a party and as a country, I will speak up, so today I want to be very clear about something,” Ryan said.
“If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party, there can be no evasion and no games. They must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry. This party does not prey on people’s prejudices. We appeal to their highest ideals. This is the party of Lincoln.”
He added: “This is fundamental. And if someone wants to be our nominee, they must understand this. I hope this is the last time I need to speak out on this race.”
Ryan appeared heartfelt in his denunciations, which were plainly aimed at Trump’s failure to disavow David Duke over the weekend, as well as at Trump’s casual use of his mighty twitter feed to promote the rantings of racists. And Ryan deserves credit for doing this, just as he deserved credit for denouncing in unequivocal terms Trump’s call for a temporary ban on non-citizen Muslims from entering the United States. There’s little doubt that Ryan personally finds Trumpism to be horrifying.
So… we are in a situation where if Trump wins the nomination and makes it into the White House, he already has a worse relationship with the Republican leaders in both chambers of the Congress than he does with the Democratic leaders.
“While we don’t yet know the details of the plan, the president is at minimum subverting the legislative branch, and potentially overturning its will. His proposals to restrict gun rights were debated by the United States Senate, and they were rejected. No president should be able to reverse legislative failure by executive fiat, not even incrementally. The American people deserve a president who will respect their constitutional rights – all of them. This is a dangerous level of executive overreach, and the country will not stand for it.”
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) announced to the House Republican Conference on Tuesday night that leaders have reached a sweeping year-end deal on taxes and funding the government after days of intense negotiations.
The full text of the 2009-page omnibus bill was posted online early Wednesday morning at about 1:30 a.m.
The delayed posting of the omnibus text means that in order to adhere to the so-called three-day rule, House GOP leaders will have to wait until Friday to hold a vote on the legislation.
Lawmakers had exited a Tuesday night House GOP conference meeting with the expectation of voting Thursday on the spending package. But Ryan is unlikely to want to waive the self-imposed rule less than two months into his Speakership on such a massive bill, meaning the vote will likely slip to Friday.
So a giant crap sandwich of legislation that is a 90% capitulation to Obama is 2009 pages that legislators will have less than 72 hours to read, digest, and vote on… looks like Ryan is just a skinnier, younger, bearded version of Boehner.
Shortly after becoming speaker on Thursday, Ryan said he wouldn’t bring immigration-related legislation to the House floor while Obama remains in office. Today, he explained his rationale in his first meeting as speaker with Wisconsin media via conference call.
It would be “ridiculous” to move on the issue when “a president that we can’t trust” is in office, Ryan said.
by Owen | 0652, 27 Oct 1515 | Politics | 3 Comments
My column for the West Bend Daily News is online. Here it is:
Fatherhood got a boost last week from the realm of politics as two powerful politicians decided to lead by example by being strong fathers. In an age when fathers are often absent and frequently dismissed by our culture, it was a positive development.
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, will almost certainly be elected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives this week, but it was not without conditions. Ryan did not want to be the speaker. He was quite happy, as he frequently reminded everyone who would listen, as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House. And why wouldn’t he be happy? Being the chairman of arguably the most powerful committee in the House and having his hands directly on the levers of government policies was the dream job for a congressman who has spent his career making his name as a policy nerd.
But the Republicans in the House were having difficulty deciding on a leader. The conservative advocates, who are on a mission to accomplish things and are frustrated with what they believe to have been weak and uninspired leadership from Speaker John Boehner, are pushing for a conservative crusader as the new speaker. But they represent a hardened minority of the caucus who can scuttle any candidate for speaker, but do not have the votes to win the day. The moderate and liberal Republicans want a more moderate Speaker who will compromise for the small victories instead of dying on the hills of greatness.
Into this chasm steps Ryan. He is a fiscal and social conservative with a reputation for pragmatism. He is also young and articulates the Republican message well in both friendly and hostile environments. He quickly became the one hope for both conservatives and moderates to bridge the factions and represent the party and lead the House.
But Ryan has some conditions. As is becoming more common with men who are in high demand in their professions, Ryan said he would only take the job if the responsibilities would be adapted to accommodate his responsibilities as a father. Perhaps because Ryan lost his own father at a young age, he is making his priorities clear: family first, job second.
On the other side of the political spectrum and at the end of a lengthy career, another politician is sending the same message — as he has throughout his career. Vice President Joe Biden has always been a good father and family man. As a senator, “Amtrak Joe” was known for regularly taking the train to and from home from Washington to be a father to his kids. While too many other politicians all but abandon their families as they spend all of their time in Washington furthering their careers, Biden spent hour after hour, year after year, decade after decade riding the train home to be with his family.
Up until last week, Biden was considering another run for president. His son, Beau, died last year of brain cancer and his Biden said that Beau wanted him to run. In a weak Democratic field and as the sitting vice president, Biden stood perhaps his best chance of winning the nomination of his lifetime. But in the end, Biden decided not to run. Among the reasons Biden gave for his decision was that he wanted to be home with his family — especially his grandkids, who will now grow up without their father.
Our culture too often disdains the importance of fathers. In our movies and television shows, fathers are far more often portrayed as stupid, abusive or lazy instead of loving, hardworking and clever. Fatherhood is dismissed as irrelevant or even harmful. But any kid who has grown up without their father never loses the longing for the cornerstone of their foundation that was never set.
Two men from different political persuasions in different phases of their careers reminded Americans that being a father is more important than any job — even jobs such as president or speaker. The Biden and Ryan kids are lucky to have the dads they have.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Paul Ryan on Thursday formally declared his candidacy for speaker of the House after getting unified support from across the Republican conference.
“After talking with so many of you, and hearing your words of encouragement, I believe we are ready to move forward as a one, united team,” Ryan said in a letter to colleagues. “And I am ready and eager to be our speaker.”
The Wisconsin lawmaker and onetime GOP vice presidential nominee will be all but assured of triumphing in elections next week.
Here’s the thing… Ryan will be a fine Speaker. And he is certainly the most conservative Speaker in my lifetime. But it’s a thankless job, and as someone who hoped that Ryan would one day ascend to higher office, being the Speaker make that much less likely.
Ryan helped the GOP leadership team that in January 2014 put together “principles” for “comprehensive” immigration legislation. He has expressed support for legalizing “Dreamers” whose parent brought them to the United States illegally. His website indicates he backs a pathway to citizenship for all illegal aliens. That would effectively give them legal status during a “legal probation” period that occurs before getting the chance to become full citizens.
“A conservative deals with the world as it is — not how it should be,” he lectures on his website.
Ryan also voted for — and went out of his way to promote — the Obama-negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership. The agreement is anathema to many conservatives concerned about ceding U.S. sovereignty to a regional trade deal, and about the pact’s effect on U.S. workers.
He just doesn’t rate well. Literally. The conservative HeritageAction organization gives him only a 57 percent rating for the current session of Congress, compared to an average for House Republicans of 68 percent.
Washington (CNN)Rep. Paul Ryan is telling House Republicans privately he is considering running for speaker, several members say.
Ryan informed several members on the House floor of his deliberations, Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, told CNN. Stewart added that he urged Ryan to run, with the Wisconsin Republican replaying that he was “thinking and praying on it.”
“I have decided that I am not going to run for president in 2016,” Ryan said in a phone interview, noting that he is “at peace” with the decision he made “weeks ago” to forgo a bid for the White House.
Well, this is disappointing. Not a single Wisconsin Republican member of the house voted against Boehner for speaker. We’ve come to expect this of Paul Ryan, who talks a good game at home and consistently votes for whatever the leadership wants. Jim Sensenbrenner is occasionally willing to stand by his conservative values despite what the establishment wants, but not this time. Perhaps most disappointing is newly elected Glenn Grothman. He built a reputation in Wisconsin as a staunch conservative who was always willing to buck the leadership when they went wobbly. He also railed against Boehner during the campaign. But in his first chance to demonstrate the reasons he was elected, he cast the same vote that his RINO predecessor would have. Congratulations, Republicans of the 6th Wisconsin Congressional District. You apparently reelected Tom Petri after all.
On tax inversion, Ryan said the answer is not passing legislation to block such transactions but embarking on tax reform that would reduce American corporate tax rates, which he said are the highest in the industrialized world.
“The U.S. government should stop inversions by doing comprehensive tax reform,” Ryan said. “The only way to stop inversions is to make our tax system more competitive.”
Anti-tax-inversion legislation actually would lead to more foreign companies buying American companies, he said.
“Simply putting up a fortress around America and these anti-inversion rules, all that will end up doing is it will accelerate the takeover of U.S. corporations by foreign corporations,” Ryan said.
Do you know what countries like Ireland are doing to combat inversions? Nothing. They don’t have to because they have a tax structure that attracts multinationals instead of driving them away. America should do the same.
