Will Paul Ryan be "Cantored" Tuesday?

Although Trump endorsed Paul Ryan, other stars of the conservative movement endorsed his Wisconsin opponent. Ann Althouse reports from Wisconsin,

As the national GOP rushes to protect Ryan from the wrath of Trump, stars from the conservative counter-establishment — former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, columnist Michelle Malkin, and author Phyllis Schlafly, among others — have continued to stoke the fury here, with the faint and fading hope that Nehlen could close the gap in the final days and score an upset similar to the one in 2014 that toppled then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

“I think Paul Ryan is soon to be ‘Cantored,’ as in Eric Cantor,” Palin predicted to CNN in May. Minutes after Trump’s endorsement of Ryan on Friday, she took to Facebook to buck up Nehlen’s base, writing, “Wisconsin, please vote for this man ‘of the people’ this Tuesday!”

Paul Ryan gets busy

Paul Ryan was a busy guy yesterday. Fox News reports that he sent a couple of letters. One was to James Clapper, Director of National Security, asking Clapper to

deny presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton access to classified information.

...“I firmly believe this is necessary to reassure the public that our nation’s secrets are secure,” he adds.

...Ryan also sent a letter to Comey requesting that he release all of the unclassified findings from the agency’s investigation into Clinton.

Read more here.

Doing-by-not-doing

Wisconsinite Ann Althouse believes the Republican Hillary Clinton is most afraid of running against is Paul Ryan. Furthermore, the

evidence that Ryan is running is that there is no evidence that Ryan is running.

She declares,

In a similar doing-by-not-doing way, many of us here in Wisconsin today are voting for Paul Ryan by voting for Ted Cruz:

Cruz and Ryan react to Obama's speech

One of the things I like about reading the Washington Post's Daily 202 column is the way in which writer James Hohmann rounds up the thoughts of people from various points of view on hot items in the news.


As you know President Obama spoke to us from the oval office last night; the first time he has done so since 2010.

Ted Cruz tweeted

Of course. Better to claim Islamic State "isn't Islamic," to admit 10k Syrian refugees, and to attack the 2d Amend!

Paul Ryan wrote, This was disappointing. No new plan, just a half-hearted attempt to defend and distract from a failing policy.

Not everyone is excited about the prospect of Paul Ryan becoming House Speaker

Ann Coulter is one who will not be pleased to hear that a "path" has been cleared for Paul Ryan to become Speaker of the House. She writes,

...Two years ago, Ryan bragged to a Catholic radio station: "I actually campaigned with Jack Kemp against a thing called Prop 187."

That "thing" was an overwhelmingly popular initiative to prevent illegal aliens from collecting government benefits. It gave Republicans their biggest victory in California in the last 30 years, was supported by a majority of blacks, a majority of whites, a majority of Asians and 31 percent of Hispanics.

Two years later, the Dole-Kemp ticket got only 21 percent of the Hispanic vote. That's worse than Romney! (These empowerment types really have their finger on the pulse of ethnic America!)

Like Kemp, Ryan acts as if he's the tribune of blacks and Hispanics, chastising Republicans for "preaching to the choir." He prefers to preach to the mariachi band -- one of which serenaded him on his visit to an immigrant rights group in Chicago, a few months after his failed vice presidential bid.

...The best thing I ever heard about Dick Cheney is that, after listening to Ryan drone on about how Republicans needed to create "a real ownership society" at a meeting with members of Congress, Cheney said, "Yeah, we're not going to do that," and then turned to a different representative.

...All of human experience has already taught us how to fight poverty, and it doesn't involve the words "opportunity," "empowerment" or "zone."

Effective: Don't pay people not to work. The 1996 welfare reform act, with its time limits and work requirements, reduced welfare caseloads by an astronomical 65 percent, as former recipients entered the workforce.

Ineffective: Self-flattering politicians jabbering about how much they care about poverty, then creating behemoth government programs that give corporations tax breaks for pretending to help the poor.

Effective: Stop dumping millions of low-wage workers on the country to drive down wages. America's booming, prosperous middle class arose in the 40-year period after immigration was virtually shut down in 1924 -- until Teddy Kennedy opened the floodgates to the Third World in 1965.

Ineffective: Demanding an endless supply of cheap immigrant labor favored by your corporate donors, subsidized by the long-suffering middle class, while strutting around like you're Martin Luther King.

Read more here.

"Path" cleared for Ryan to be Speaker of the House

Mike DeBonis and Robert Costa reported a few minutes ago in the Washington Post that

Hard-line conservatives cleared a path late Wednesday for Rep. Paul Ryan to become House speaker when a majority of some of the most disgruntled House Republicans signaled that they would support his bid for the top job.

The decision to back Ryan by the 40-member House Freedom Caucus, which has risen in power and stature since its founding this year, came after the Ways and Means chairman spent much of his day courting its support.

“A supermajority of the caucus has agreed to support Paul Ryan,” said Rep. Raúl R. Labrador (R-Idaho) after a lengthy evening meeting.

Read more here.