Perhaps the best thing about the Trump presidency is that America can finally see what the Republican Party truly is. Dispelling the myth it is a conservative political party dedicated to small government, fiscal responsibility, and lower taxes, Trump is revealing it to be a ...read more
Looking back over the wreckage of the GOP from last month's midterm election, we should see a party reassessing itself and wondering what it can do to avoid an even greater pummeling in 2020. Not for nothing, midterms are where the Republican Party tends to shine and ...read more
There is a huge hullabaloo brewing on Capitol Hill over the resignation of the House chaplain, Father Pat Conroy, who claimed he was forced to resign by Speaker Paul Ryan. Democrats are outraged by Ryan's unprecedented decision, and believe it was because the Jesuit priest ...read more
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced on Wednesday he’s leaving Congress and will not seek reelection in 2019. As a decent American, his decision is welcome news to me because it means a horrible human being will be removed from power. And reflectively, it’s important to view ...read more
Yes, folks, you read that headline correctly. In a story broken by Axios this morning, Paul Ryan, the 54th Speaker of the House of Representatives, will retire from Congress at the end of this current session, becoming the first sitting Speaker to forgo re-election in an ...read more
Rumors are swirling yet again that House Speaker Paul Ryan is set to resign and be replaced by Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.). While aides to both Ryan and Scalise have denied the rumors, there is ample reason to believe that Ryan wants out and is looking to find the right ...read more
Among the nonstop madness that is the Trump administration, it's so easy to miss the little ways the Republican Party is hard at work helping our would-be dictator by undermining American democracy. The latest attack on the integrity of our system comes via Paul Ryan and the ...read more
When Paul Ryan was pulled from his Ayn Rand Birthing Chamber by the Koch brothers, they must have looked upon their handiwork with pride. Here was a creature that could pass for human but with none of those pesky personality traits like "empathy" or "compassion". If that sounds ...read more
If you don't know who Paul Nehlen is yet, you really need to keep an eye on this one. He's running what could very well be the prototype campaign for the coming wave of white nationalist GOP candidates that are going to primary "establishment" Republicans in much the same way ...read more
Politico reports that while Trump's advisers are telling him everything is going just great as Rome burns, Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan not only smell the smoke, but they can see the flames already creeping up the side of the building: Among GOP leaders, ...read more
It's hard to put a positive spin on this given how destructive every sane economist believes the GOP's tax plan will be. Reported the New York Times on the plan that just passed in the Senate: Republicans took a critical step toward notching their first significant legislative ...read more
Before Trump "won" the 2016 election, it was obvious that even if he lost, the Republican Party had irrevocably shifted from the party of dog whistle racism to the party of open white nationalism. After the election, the question wasn't "if" they would start fielding candidates ...read more
While the left is still reeling from the abominable tax plan just passed by the Republican Party, NY Mag's Jonathan Chait points out that in the long term, this is about the best thing that could have ever happened to the Democrats. Why? Midterms, midterms, midterms. The policy ...read more
It shouldn't really come as a surprise that a free market ideologue and political hack would distort the truth and omit inconvenient facts to make their point, but House Speaker Paul Ryan's latest Obamacare lie takes Republican dishonesty to new, truly repellant levels. ...read more
If you were wondering why the GOP's response to Donald Trump publicly defending Nazis has been so muted, prepare to be less than surprised: Congressional GOP leaders are hoping to recover from their failed effort to replace the Affordable Care Act and salvage their legislative ...read more
Some of us remember Watergate. Specifically, we remember how some Republicans were raising concerns about the scandal, just like their Democratic counterparts. But today's Republican party isn't the GOP of 45 years ago and to most current Republicans, the Trump/Russia scandal ...read more
Despite controlling all three branches of the government, the Republican Party is in disarray and it's about to get infinitely worse. As hard as it may be, put aside Donny Junior's stunningly stupid admission that he met with the Russians to get information about Hillary ...read more
Let's rewind to 2009 when the Democrats were working on Obamacare. Despite having total control and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (for a few months, at least) the Democrats insisted trying to make the bill a bipartisan one. They let Republicans stuff dozens of ...read more
While pretty much every Republican currently in office is awful, there are seven that stand out from the rest of the crowd. They exemplify everything that's wrong with the modern right wing and deserve a round of applause for their extraordinary effort to destroy everything good ...read more
Regardless of whether you support Trump's platform of rampant xenophobia, climate change denial and tax cuts for the ultra wealthy, it is undeniable that he is without a doubt an atrocious boss. How do we know this? Because Trump doesn't actually have a government to manage. ...read more
The Washington Post's Paul Weldman accurately describes the health care bill passed by Republicans in the House of Representatives that guts funding for states to help those with pre-existing conditions pay for insurance: The health-care bill that the House of Representatives ...read more
At the same time Donald Trump is discussing working out a deal (because he's a terrific deal-maker, the best!) with the Democrats on a second shot at a healthcare bill, Paul Ryan is making sure everyone knows that won't be happening. Ever. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in an ...read more
The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf explains why the right wing media helped tank Trumpcare and the repeal of the ACA: Over the last eight years, lots of responsibly written critiques of Obamacare have been published in numerous publications, and folks reading the aforementioned ...read more
Despite the Left's insistence that Trump's presence was enough to destroy the Republican party once and for all, America is now in the grips of a right wing revolution the likes of which put the Bush administration's attempts to dismantle the state to shame.... To continue ...read more
The Republican healthcare plan called the American HealthCare Act suffered a monumental defeat of historic proportion on Friday March 24th, 2017. The bill was promoted by President Donald Trump and Republican leadership as repeal and replace legislation that would finally rid ...read more
Ever since Paul Ryan unveiled his monstrous healthcare bill, dubbed "Trumpcare", people have been struggling to explain just how insanely bad it is. Paul Krugman called it "a dog's breakfast" and that was pretty close to expressing the loathing any rational person would have ...read more
The more we learn about Trumpcare (aka the American Health Care Act), the less it seems like a real attempt at replacing Obamacare. It gives massive tax cuts to the rich and no one else. It lets insurance companies charge seniors more but doesn't offset the increase. It offers ...read more
This is going to sound strange coming from someone at The Daily Banter, but so far at least there may be one good thing to come out of the chaotic presidency of Donald J. Trump. In some ways he may be slowing down Republican plans to finish the destruction of America's middle ...read more
For eight years, America's women have been safely ensconced (on a federal level at least) in a cocoon created by President Obama and his tireless support for women's rights, but that is all about to end. In six very short days, anti-choice extremists will finally have what they ...read more
Following a vote in the U.S. Senate, the congressional Republicans in the House passed a budget resolution, 227-198, that officially kicks off the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on Friday. Specifically, it's not an outright repeal of the ACA -- yet. But it ...read more
On Tuesday, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) dodged questions about president-elect Donald Trump's appointment of well-known white supremacist Steve Bannon as his chief strategist. Ryan proclaimed that it is time to "look forward" and not backward at Bannon's vile history ...read more
Republicans control the House and they're going to keep control of it for at least another decade. This is a cold, hard fact. The only way to deal with the promised obstructionism is to elect a leader that understands the system so thoroughly that she can make progress in spite ...read more
For the past week or so now, as Donald Trump has circled the rhetorical drain like the oily Olestra turd that he is, just about everyone in the political realm who still has a functional moral compass has called upon Paul Ryan to get off his knees and denounce Trump's nightmarish ...read more
The shot: Paul Ryan says he hasn't heard Donald Trump's exact remarks, but he thinks they were a "joke gone bad," and that you should "never joke about something like that": The chaser: despite his belief that Donald Trump is joking about the assassination of Hillary Clinton, he ...read more
If you didn't already think Paul Ryan was weaker shit than that baggie of oregano you bought off that one dude after third period for coming right out and saying Donald Trump is racist but he just doesn't care, well, you can skip this. For everyone else, Ryan continued his ...read more
The only way to survive if you're a modern day member of the Republican establishment is to have a very short memory. That's the only possible explanation for how the kind of cognitive dissonance is avoided that would shut down the entire central nervous system of a normal, ...read more
Paul Ryan called Donald Trump "textbook racist" today, but still says he'll support him. IF that alone doesn't convince you that Paul Ryan just isn't all that bothered by racism, consider that it took Ryan more than two weeks to speak out against Trump after his Mexican Rapists ...read more
This clip needs very little setup, especially if you're familiar with Paul Ryan's exceptionally shitty positions on reproductive rights. The context is Ryan telling Morning Joe that Donald Trump isn't such a bad guy because at least he wants to end Obamacare, but like all dumb ...read more
News broke today that the speaker of the House Paul Ryan categorically won't be running for President. Responding to calls to be a potential party savior in the case of a contested convention where no candidate could receive a majority, Ryan held a press conference on Capitol ...read more
Among the plethora of inane and predictable reactions to President Obama's speech unveiling executive actions on gun regulation was a diamond-studded piece of dickery from Speaker of the House Paul Ryan in which he called stemming the tide of 30,000 annual deaths a ...read more
After a tumultuous process that included an 11th-hour dropout and a protracted begging/negotiating session, Republicans finally have their new leader. Freshly-minted Speaker of the House Paul Ryan took a victory lap of Sunday shows this weekend, and the results were telling in ...read more
So it looks like Paul Ryan may finally be ready to concede to the requests of his party's establishment and take the job nobody else wants. Brian Beutler of The New Republic was among the first to report that Ryan has agreed to endure the humiliation of stepping into the role of ...read more
Typically, politics describes "the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area." It is hard then, to classify the Republican Party as an actual political party given they steadfastly refuse to engage in the actual business of politics. Speaking with ...read more
One of the hallmarks of Barack Obama's presidency has been the constant low hum of can't-put-your-finger-on-it racism that has replaced the overt brand that's only practiced in private phone calls anymore. Over the years, President Obama has had to ignore the obvious racial ...read more
Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) hit upon a popular Republican theme when he told a crowd at a conservative think tank that unemployed Americans just don't want to work, and would rather "just sit around." Fittingly, it was in response to a question about Paul Ryan's ...read more
Nate Silver and Ezra Klein, two of the left's smartest smart guys, are saying usefully dumb shit these days. Their down-the-middle "credibility" grab is understandable, but why is the rest of the Left so afraid to call them out? Both of these Guardians of the Wonk Universe ...read more
If you want to know who has the edge right now in the unofficial race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, just take a look at who's being attacked by other presumptive candidates and party establishment types. Right now, that whipping boy is Rand Paul, who's not ...read more
Few things have been quite so insulting to our national intelligence lately than Texas Gov. Rick Perry's "comeback tour." In case you missed it, Perry has been doing the rounds on the media circuit now that there's an immigration crisis on the border with Mexico. It's a thinly ...read more
Jonathan Chait is a very smart guy, it must be said. I know it must be said because, even as he's been mopping the floor with Chait for several weeks now, Ta-Nehisi Coates can't stop saying how smart he is, and President Barack Obama, another very smart guy, lists Chait among ...read more
“Son, never disrespect what a man does for a living. I don’t care if it’s mopping floors or working as an executive in an office. Every job is there for a reason, and someone has to do it.” – Francis Eugene Poag, Jr. I’m standing in the bag room next to the carousel with Jacob. ...read more