Free Republic

Some Re­pub­lic­ans are so des­per­ate for Paul Ry­an to step up as the next speak­er of the House that they’ve star­ted talk­ing about re­tir­ing if he doesn’t, ac­cord­ing to a group that works on be­half of the House GOP’s more mod­er­ate mem­bers. After Ry­an, those mem­bers have no second choice or even a second tier of po­ten­tial speak­ers, said Sarah Cham­ber­lain, chief op­er­at­ing and fin­an­cial of­ficer for the Re­pub­lic­an Main Street Part­ner­ship, a group that backs “main­stream” Re­pub­lic­ans and plans to spend mil­lions help­ing them pro­tect their House seats in 2016. “De­pend­ing on how this shakes out, you may see...

In the two weeks since establishment Republican House Majority Leader Keven McCarthy unexpectedly dropped out of the race to succeed his mentor, Speaker of the House John Boehner, the inside-the-Beltway elite have scrambled mightily to find a suitably pliable replacement. After postponing the election, so they could stall around until they win, they still haven’t been able to find a candidate who can credibly claim to appeal to conservatives, so they’ve apparently settled upon another strategy – forcing House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan down the throats of reluctant conservatives. And it just might work unless members hear from...

It really is stunning how open the republican leadership in both the House and Senate are with their disdain for the base of their own party. Reports now surfacing that the GOPe has entered negotiations with Nancy Pelosi to support Paul Ryan. According to Roll Call the Democrats are willing to elect Ryan if the GOPe promise to give them comprehensive immigration reform and amnesty legislation. Representative Steve King warns of the political bloodbath which would follow such a deal. As Rep. Paul Ryan’s history of working for open borders has come under increasing scrutiny, conservative lawmakers have begun to...

Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, sounded off on the possibility of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Romney’s 2012 running mate, as the next Speaker of the House. Romney told show host Jake Tapper Ryan as Speaker of the House would lessen the possibility he could make a future run for president. “We need Paul in two spots at once,” Romney said. “You know, there haven’t been a lot of people that have gone on from speaker to the White House, so I’d hate to lose him as a potential...

Imagine for a moment that come November of 2016 just as the presidential election was about to take place Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race as the Democratic nominee and President Barack Obama postponed the election indefinitely. ThereÂ’d be insurrection in the streets. Yet that is exactly what Speaker Boehner and the cabal that currently runs the House Republican Conference did when Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy dropped out of the Speaker race last week. And this effort to fix the election for Speaker is being actively abetted by the establishment media, who act like they donÂ’t care or see...

A spokesman for House Ways and Means Committee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) confirms yet again that despite all the donor class and political establishment wooing, Ryan is not running to replace outgoing Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) as Speaker of the House.

Politico’s Mike Allen thinks President Barack Obama likes the idea of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) for Speaker. “The White House would like that idea,” Allen said during an interview with Laura Ingraham on her radio show today. “Because they would like one more win … what they’ve always told me is that they admire Paul Ryan for being a substantive, smart guy.” Speaking to business leaders in Washington D.C. last month, Obama acknowledged that his administration was working with Ryan to negotiate some level of tax reform, even though Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) disagreed. “To his credit,...

Our friend Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies posed the question, “Would a Speaker Ryan Push Through Amnesty?” in a column in yesterday’s National Review. Paul RyanAfter a lengthy examination of Paul Ryan’s pro-amnesty record Krikorian concluded that “A vote for Paul Ryan is a vote for Gang of Eight style amnesty that includes massive increases in legal immigration and replacing American workers with foreign-born workers.” That Ryan has been a proponent of amnesty should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the amnesty debate, and the role of Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio in advancing...

House Ways and Means Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) hasn’t yet agreed to take the speaker’s gavel, and some conservative activists want to keep it that way.

The New York Times reports on the role of conservative media representing the grassroots–and how these “far-right” sites and talk radio hosts have prevented a simple coronation for Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI),the establishment choice for Speaker of the House.

Via Breitbart, this is the kind of claim that big-media types would sneer at as right-wing propaganda designed to build grassroots opposition to Ryan becoming Speaker … if it wasn’t a big-media type who was reporting it. Outside groups spent $23 million last year trying to beat tea-party candidates in Republican primaries, with the Chamber of Commerce accounting for nearly a third of that amount. Ryan is an ideal choice for that wing of the party — anti-tax and pro-amnesty, serious about cutting spending but not above voting for TARP amid a financial crisis. He was Mitt Farking Romney’s running...

American Conservative Union (ACU) Ratings of potential candidates for Speaker of House: Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) at 97% Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN 92% Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) 88% Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) 82% Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) 79% Rep. C McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) 77%

As donor class Republicans and beltway pundits intensify their “Draft Ryan” campaign, anti-amnesty advocates are pleading with House Republicans to quash the candidacy of the man they call the most open-borders member of Congress. While these advocates have largely refrained in the past from getting involved in the House leadership scuffle, they now have an urgent warning for House members. They contend that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)58% is an immigration extremist – and point to historical records placing him at the center of a 1990-era corporate-led sabotage of immigration curbs then sought by both parties. In an exclusive interview with...

The approximately 40-member House Freedom Caucus is at the center of turmoil within the Republican Party over who will be the party's effective leader in the House ahead of the 2016 presidential election. A group of hard-line conservative Republicans would "look favorably" on Paul Ryan if he ran to be speaker of the House of Representatives, the group's leader said on Sunday.

Under mounting pressure, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan emerged as the reluctant would-be savior of the fractious Republican House caucus yesterday, even being urged by 2012 GOP ticket-mate Mitt Romney to run for speaker. “I wouldn’t presume to tell Paul what to do, but I do know that he is a man of ideas who is driven to see them applied for the public good,” Romney said in a statement yesterday. “Every politician tries to convince people that they are that kind of leader; almost none are — Paul is.” Romney’s glowing endorsement of his former running mate came after the...

Over at the GOP establishment's press release reprint service known as The Wall Street Journal, the panic over Kevin McCarthy's sudden withdrawal from the race for the Speaker's gavel is palpable. Decrying a "toxic crack-up inside the Republican conference", the Journal says the real issues in Washington are the fault of the "Refuseniks" (the party's conservative base and its representatives, albeit a better epithet than "hobbits"). According to the WSJ rocket scientists, conservatives blame the GOPe "for all the country’s problems, not President Obama." That kind of sheer unvarnished idiocy is not unexpected from the GOP, which now seeks to...

Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) 18% is endorsing Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) 58% for Speaker of the House of Representatives. Gutierrez, perhaps the most extreme open-borders advocate in Congress, was interviewed on MSNBC. As CNN is now reporting, “Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez on MSNBC called Ryan one of the smartest men in the GOP. ‘He would be good for the country,’ Gutierrez said. Paul Ryan is the kind of individual that would work with people on the other side of the aisle and that’s what we need.'” , the Gang of Eight bill would have been sent to President Obama’s...

Paul Ryan? Are you kidding me? Paul Ryan ... more like Paul Ryan-o, as in RINO. Republican in Name Only. All these fools were running around Capitol Hill yesterday like Chicken Littles, elbowing one another out of the way to get to their Fox liveshots. The sky is falling, the sky is falling! U.S. Rep. Peter King, RINO-NY, actually said yesterday, “People are crying.” Get a grip, pal. There are worse things than having nobody at the top. Having Barack Obama at the top comes immediately to mind. Last week, John Boehner decided to spend more time with his bartender....

Friday on MSNBC, Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL) said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) doesn’t want to be House Speaker because he would have to work with the “extreme” Republicans who want to take away the rights of gays, woman and minorities.

How Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan went from budget-balancing conservative wunderkind, to GOP vice presidential nominee, to channeling Nancy Pelosi when he snarled, “It’s declassified and made public once it’s agreed to,” as he tried to sell Obama’s Trade Promotion Authority and Trans-Pacific Partnership treaties to skeptical conservatives during Rules Committee testimony on Wednesday is one of Washington’s saddest tales of how DC’s inside elite capture talent and bend it to their will. -- Snip -- Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy and Paul Ryan were visualized as a new generation of Republican leader who would challenge the older establishment-types. In the foreword...