Buchanan: Who Promoted Private Ryan? ‘Losers Don’t Make Demands, They Make Pleas’

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by BREITBART NEWS9 May 20162,991

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Patrick J. Buchanan writes at WND Commentary:

Forty-eight hours after Donald Trump wrapped up the Republican nomination with a smashing victory in the Indiana primary, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that he could not yet support Trump.

In millennial teen-talk, Ryan told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “I’m just not ready to do that at this point. I’m not there right now.”

“[T]he bulk of the burden of unifying the party” falls on Trump, added Ryan. Trump must unify “all wings of the Republican Party, and the conservative movement.” Trump must run a campaign that we can “be proud to support and proud to be a part of.”

Then, maybe, our Hamlet of the House can be persuaded to support the elected nominee of his own party.

Excuse me, but upon what meat has this our Caesar fed?

Ryan is a congressman from Wisconsin. He has never won a statewide election. As No. 2 on Mitt Romney’s ticket, he got waxed by Joe Biden. He was compromise choice as speaker, only after John Boehner went into in his Brer Rabbit “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah” routine.

Who made Ryan the conscience of conservatism?

Who made Ryan keeper of the keys of true Republicanism?

Read the rest of the story here.

 

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Federal deficit to soar in 2016 after Ryan-Obama tax deal

www.washingtontimes.com

President Barack Obama stands with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. in Emancipation Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, during an event to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the 13th amendment that abolished slavery. (Associated Press) ...more >

The tax-cut deal inked by President Obama and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan last month has put a major dent in the federal budget, helping send the deficit soaring by 24 percent, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.

The $544 billion deficit projected for 2016 marks the first year since 2009 that the red ink has grown, and it powers the deficit back up over the half-trillion mark, where it had been for most of Mr. Obama’s tenure.

And the rest of the decade will only get worse, the CBO said, with Social Security beginning to draw down its trust funds in 2018, and overall deficits surging back above the $1 trillion mark by 2022.

SEE ALSO: UnitedHealth loses $720 million offering plans under Obamacare, may withdraw next year

Struck by the grim news, budget watchdogs said politicians needed to heed the wake-up call.

“Turning a blind eye to the problem, as so many congressional and presidential candidates have done, merely means they are passing the buck to the next generation as concerns about political damage outweigh policy advantages,” said Steve Bell, senior director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

CBO projections contained some good news, with the economy showing signs of solid growth in 2016 and 2017, finally overcoming some of the “slack” that built up during the 2008 Wall Street collapse and the Great Recession. Analysts said more people will be enticed back into the labor force, but inflation and interest rates will also rise as the economy ticks along.

SEE ALSO: Flint residents still charged up to $200 a month for poisoned water

But spending and taxes remain the biggest problem for the budget, with the twin deals at the end of last year to break the sequester budget caps that had held spending in check, and to extend a series of special interest tax breaks.

Combined, they meant the government needed more money than ever — but had less flowing in.

Overall, spending will spike by 6 percent in fiscal year 2016, to reach $3.9 trillion. That amounts to 21.2 percent of the country’s output as measured by gross domestic product.

By contrast the government will collect just $3.4 trillion in taxes, or 18.3 percent of GDP.

Those trends will continue for the next decade, the CBO report. Taxes will hold steady at about 18 percent of GDP, while spending will rise from 21 percent to 23 percent — producing ever-worse budget news for the next president to handle.

Deficits peaked at $1.4 trillion in 2009, as the government under first President George W. Bush and then Mr. Obama spent freely to try to prop up banks and to stimulate the economy after the 2008 downturn. The numbers dropped steadily through 2012, when the hole was $1.1 trillion, then dropped more quickly in 2013, falling to $680 billion, and to $439 billion by last year.

At the White House, press secretary Josh Earnest said the economic numbers are proof that the president’s policies have finally righted the economy and produced 70 consecutive months of job gains.

“That’s an indication of a strong bounce back from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” he said.

But Mr. Earnest refused to say whether the president’s 2017 budget, due to Congress in a few weeks, will make progress in cutting the deficit.

“Stay tuned,” the spokesman said.

Mr. Obama has never presented a balanced budget to Congress, and fought the spending cuts that helped reduce the deficits during his time in office. Instead, he’s pushed for tax increases, with the new money being used to finance his plans for broader government spending.

Those budgets have routinely been rejected by Congress, and with Republicans in control of both chambers, Mr. Obama’s latest plan is unlikely to do any better.

Just five months ago the CBO had projected the deficit would drop in 2016. Instead, it will rise some $105 billion.

“That increase is largely attributable to legislation enacted since August — in particular, the retroactive extension of a number of provisions that reduce corporate and individual income taxes,” the CBO said.

As deficits grow again, the debt will also pile up. Debt held by the public, which excludes borrowing from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, already accounts for 73.6 percent of GDP. TheCBO last year had projected debt might dip as the deficit dropped, but now says it will continue its steady rise, topping 85 percent by 2026.

The president and Congress did find bipartisan agreement on the tax package and spending hikes last year, undoing several years of progress in holding the line on spending. Indeed, government spending actually dropped in 2012 and 2013, then ticked up in 2014 and 2015.

This year, that trickle will become a flood.

Most of the increased spending will come from the government’s health programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, which will surge $104 billion, or 11 percent, compared to 2015.

COMMENTS

Media Chatter: House Speaker Paul Ryan Is The Establishment’s Next Challenger to Face Trump

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by NEIL MUNRO11 Jan 2016205

House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) may become the GOP establishment’s 2016 candidate who can snatch the nomination or the leadership of the GOP away from pro-American populist Donald Trump, according to D.C. media chatter.

But the move — if it happens — may be too late.

Any fight between the increasingly popularTrump and the decreasingly popular Ryan would mark a last-ditch effort by the GOP’s establishment-business-wing to deny any political power to its conservative voters, likely splitting the party just before the elections that will decide which party gets to control the White House and the U.S. Senate. It might also damage Ryan’s long-term career plans, which are already being undermined by his unpopular policies and his complete failure in the 2016 budget negotiations, despite his support in theestablishment media.

The media suggestions for Ryan suddenly appeared Sunday, Jan 10.

In a Daily Beast article about the media’s desire for a political fight at the GOP convention, veteran reporter Jeff Greenfield casually suggested the GOP’s establishment might sabotage Trump at the last moment by using the convention to give the nomination to Ryan, who was defeated in 2012 when he ran as the vice-president candidate with Gov. Mitt Romney.

“If party elders were to meet behind closed doors and deliver the nomination to, say, House Speaker Paul Ryan, that would qualify as a ‘brokered’ outcome,” Greenfield wrote Jan. 10.

Tai Kopan, a writer for CNN, floated Ryan as the media-backed silver bullet against Trump during a Jan. 10 article about a weekend event that showcased Ryan’s much-touted efforts to win more votes from lower-income Americans.

In rare joint appearances, six Republican presidential candidates gathered here on Saturday to talk about ways to address poverty in America, speaking to voters in the crucial early primary state and beyond about why the GOP has the best answers.

House Speaker Paul Ryan and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) were moderators, and they questioned former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in small groups about how to address systemic problems at the Kemp Forum on Expanding Opportunity….

‘We’re the only nation founded on an idea: The condition of your birth does not determine the outcome of your life,’ Ryan said at the outset… The candidates heaped him with plenty of praise along the way.

“The country’s better off that you’re the speaker,” Bush said to Ryan as his panel began…

It wasn’t just the candidates that took notice. After the day wrapped, Gerry Gudgel, a school administrator from Columbia who says he’s looking for a “compassionate conservative” and likes the governors in the race along with Marco Rubio said he wouldn’t question Ryan in the field.

“If the Republican Convention went into gridlock, I think Paul Ryan, somehow, put him on the ballot right away,” Gudgel said.

On CBS’s “Face The Nation,” panelist Susan Page, the bureau chief for USA Today, also suggested Jan. 10 that Ryan could save the day for the establishment by becoming the fall-back GOP leader, operating out of Congress.

I wonder if what you might see happening is the establishment Republican say, yes, Trump’s our nominee, let’s talk about Paul Ryan. Let’s make him the face of the GOP. Let’s talk about what Congress is going to do.

You remember what happened in 1996 when establishment Republicans decided that Bob Dole was going to lose and Newt Gingrich started making deals with a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, and it was harmful for Dole, but they had decided he was going to lose that election. They tried to find — go in a different direction to save the party and I just wonder if we might see that happen this time.

A Ryan challenge against Trump would be very risky for Ryan and his establishment backers.

Trump is already winning enthusiastic support from many of the blue-collar, mid-western voters that are key to any GOP win in 2016. Moreover, he’s winning those crucial votes by opposing large-scale migration.

But Ryan has strongly backed open-borders and amnesty since his first entry into politics in the 1990s.  In 2014, Ryan even tried to pass an amnesty bill, but was blocked by Republican base voters. In 2015, Ryan sneaked a plan into the must-pass 2016 budget that allows U.S. employers to quickly hire at least 100,000 low-wage foreign-workers in 2016 instead of Americans, likely helping to crash his brief popularity among the GOP’s base, despitemedia support.

Still, a Ryan challenge is possible, wrote Mickey Kaus, an anti-amnesty progressive and an influential blogger. “Ryan Scenario Not Insane (Unfortunately),” he wrote Jan. 10, saying:

1) Ryan’s running a self-promotional Speakership not unlike a national campaign; 2) Given his perceived betrayals of the Party’s base, he might not be looking at such long tenure as Speaker anyway; 3) Politicsmoves fast these days; 4) Ryan has plenty of seemingly infatuated cheerleaders in the press; 5) What if none of the establishment non-Trumps catches on… 6) Maybe there are no more party elders around to manipulate Republicans in back rooms in order to achieve their preferred outcome. But that sure seemed to be how Ryan became Speaker two months ago. … 7) It might be the only way for the GOP/K Street Establishment to get its precious immigration amnesty.

Ryan’s self-promotion was showcased by an friendly Jan. 10 interview with CBS’s John Dickerson, who nudged Ryan to contrast himself to Trump and his populist, pro-American, low-immigration policy.

Ryan took the bait, and tried to distance himself from Trump with a series of buzz-words, including “inclusive” and “inspirational.”

“Inclusive” is typically used by GOP establishment candidates to call for pro-amnesty policies that are supposed to attract votes from the low-income Hispanic-Americans who would be hit hardest by another wave of low-wage job competitors. The term “inspirational,” is often used by establishment GOP leaders — especially Jeb Bush — to call for a campaign that doesn’t challenge any core priorities for Democrats, such as greater immigration. Also, noticeably, Ryan did not say he would remain as House Speaker throughout 2016.

DICKERSON: Last night, I was at a Donald Trump rally in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and there were about 6,000 or 7,000 people. And the crowd reaction was very loud on the following things: Donald Trump’s opposition to the Asian trade deal, which you support, his opposition to last year’s budget at the end of the year, budget which you support, his opposition to undocumented workers having any kind of pathway to anything, legal status or citizenship, and also to any tinkering with entitlements.

The crowd didn’t just clap politely. They went crazy. How does a Republican Party get together when you have a set of ideas that are totally antithetical to all of those people who were cheering so loudly?

RYAN: We’re a big tent party. I think what we do as leaders is, we say who we are, what we believe, and where we want to lead, and let the people decide.

Look, that’s just the way I see this thing. I really think the country is on a bad path, a dangerous path. I think we could lose what is so unique about our country, this American idea, the condition of your birth doesn’t determine the outcome of your life. We believe in growth and prosperity and security.

All those things are in real deep jeopardy. And so, yes, do I agree or disagree with various candidates on various issues? Of course I do. We’re individuals. But can we offer the country a really clear and compelling choice that’s not divisive, but inclusive, that’s inspirational, that’s pro-growth? That’s what I’m trying to do. And that’s what I think we can do. And so…

DICKERSON: Does the campaign make it harder to do that, though?

RYAN: I don’t think the campaign makes it harder, because this is a primary season.

What’s happening right now are, these candidates are trying to distinguish themselves from among the same party, from — over the same voters. I think primaries inevitably have this kind of friction. But once you get through the primary, I think we unify as a conservative movement. We unify as a cause. And we go out and we try and win converts to conservatism. We go out and we try to give the country a really clear choice.

But that clear choice seems to have been made — and its name is Donald Trump.

Frontrunner Trump and runner-up challengers Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Dr. ben Carson — are getting 65 percent of the votes in the GOP’s primaries. There’s no sign that Ryan can swoop in late, presumably after the defeat of establishment champions — including Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio, Gov Chris Christie and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — to snatch the nomination from Trump for the establishment.

But, as Kaus noted, Ryan did snatch the House Speakership from nascent conservative challengers after the run byRep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) failed.

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REPORT: Republican Lawmakers Laugh In Paul Ryan’s Face For Trusting Harry Reid

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty

by MICHELLE FIELDS23 Dec 20155,185

Republican lawmakers reportedly laughed at House Speaker 

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

56%

 after he told them he had been given a promise from Senate Democratic Leader 

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

2%

.

Lawmakers were amused at Ryan’s naiveté for thinking that Reid is someone their party can trust.  “I know, I know,” Ryan replied with a smile, according to The Hill.

Reid and Ryan just finished working together to help pass a $1 trillion dollar spending bill, which many argue contained far more liberal policies than conservative ones. Reid has promised Ryan that he will return to regular order in the New Year. According to the Hill, Republicans on Capitol Hill aren’t buying it.

They feel they’ve been burned one too many times by Reid, who repeatedly filibustered House-passed appropriations bills this year and has a reputation for launching broadsides against the GOP from the Senate floor. And they’re not so sure the Nevada Democrat will allow bills to move through the Senate Appropriations Committee to the floor, where after they are approved they could be merged with House-passed legislation.

“I personally don’t trust Harry Reid as far as I could throw him,” quipped 

Rep. John Carter (R-TX)

49%

 (R-Texas), chairman of the Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

“I’m extraordinarily skeptical,” added Ryan’s Wisconsin colleague, GOP 

Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI)

64%

.

“I don’t want to be pessimistic, but Harry’s a tough character to deal with and he’ll find some way to stop virtually anything that he doesn’t completely support, which is most of what we care about,” said House Small Business Committee Chairman Steve Chabot (R-Ohio). Still, he added, “I wouldn’t discourage Paul from trying.”

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EXCLUSIVE – Media Grinches Claim Israel Stole Bethlehem Christmas; Distort Facts, Ignore Muslim Persecution

Flickr / Sarah_Ackerman

by AARON KLEIN22 Dec 2015169

JERUSALEM – Major news media outlets are presenting a misleading picture of the current situation in Bethlehem, blaming an obscure, leaderless “wave of violence” – purportedly instigated by both Israel and the Palestinians – for a downturn in the number of tourists visiting the historic city this Christmas season.

The outlets in question completely ignore the rampant Palestinian incitement that is driving the current violence and fail to report that the pseudo-intifada is instigated almost entirely by the Palestinians.

Also missing from the reportage is the larger story of Bethlehem’s dwindling Christian population. Over the last two decades, Christians have been fleeing persecution at the hands of Muslims.

A case in point is an AFP article republishedin numerous newspapers and websites titled, “Unrest puts heavy damper on Bethlehem Christmas festivities.”

The piece reports that “a wave of violence and protests has deterred many tourists from making the annual pilgrimage to the ancient city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, though much of the unrest has occurred away from Bethlehem, usually considered a safe destination.”

The article does not distinguish between Israeli victims of terrorism and Palestinian terrorists killed by Israelis in self-defense. As the AFP states:

The violence has killed 120 on the Palestinian side, several of them in and around Bethlehem, as well as 17 Israelis, an American, and an Eritrean.

Similarly, the Catholic News Servicepublished an article titled, “Few pilgrims, no sales: Mideast situation dampens Bethlehem Christmas.”

The first paragraph draws a moral equivalence between Palestinian terrorists and their victims as if both sides are equally to blame.

‘Though the Christmas tree was lit in Nativity Square in the traditional ceremony, and some  pre-Christmas parades have taken place, the Christmas spirit this year in Bethlehem has been dampened by the political situation which, since October, has taken the lives of almost 100 Palestinians and 22 Israelis.’

The article also distorts the cause of the violence, implying that “extremist Jews” provoked the Palestinians.

‘The most recent violence that has limited the tourists followed attempts by extremist Jews to visit and pray at the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif compound, which is holy to both Jews and Muslim. Riots have broken out in the West Bank, and Palestinians have stabbed Israeli civilians as well as Israeli police and soldiers, both within the Green Line and in the West Bank.’

The “extremist Jews” in question were guilty of simply wanting to pray at Judaism’s holiest site.

The Catholic News Service failed to report that the Palestinian media fabricated a Jewish “threat” to the Al Aqsa Mosque in order to incite Palestinians to violence.

On the Temple Mount, the outlawed radical Islamic Movement has been mobilizingArab youth in an attempt to smuggle fire bombs, pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, and stones into the site in order to attack Jews.

While Palestinian media outlets have been broadcasting misinformation about Israeli police storming the Al Aqsa mosque unprovoked, Islamic Movement-tied youth have been using the mosque as a staging area to attack Jews. The goal seems to be to draw Israeli security forces into the sensitive mosque compound and thus fuel the cycle of rumors regarding Israeli incursions.

The Catholic News Service also neglected to mention that, while claiming there is an Israeli plot against the Al Aqsa mosque, hundreds of Palestinians in October set fire to the Joseph’s Tomb complex, causing severe damage to the revered burial place, considered Judaism’s third holiest site.

The news service went on to complain.

Bethlehem depends on the tourism industry, which has been hard hit for the past two months. Hotels are reporting dismal occupancy rates and no new reservations for the coming months, noted Manhal Assaf, director of the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism Information Office in Bethlehem.

Meanwhile, the Guardian blamed “recent violent incidents” for putting a damper on “this year’s Christmas celebrations in the holy city.”

“Fewer streets were decorated, some festivities were cancelled, and there was no fireworks display, which traditionally marks the lighting of the Christmas tree,” the Guardian reported.  The newspaper did not specify which “violent incidents” it was referring to.

The Guardian noted that progress in Bethlehem is difficult because “82% of Bethlehem falls inside Area C, which is territory under direct Israeli military and administrative control.”

The newspaper, like other media outlets, glossed over a far more important statistic. At Israel’s founding, Bethlehem was 80% Christian. But after the city was handed over to the Palestinians as part of the 1993 Oslo Accords, the city’s Christian population plummeted to 23%. And that statistic includes the satellite towns of Beit Sahour and Beit Jala. Christians now make up only about 12% of the population in the city limits.

What accounts for the Christian exodus?

As reported at WND:

‘As soon as he took over Bethlehem, Arafat unilaterally fired the city’s Christian politicians and replaced them with Muslim cronies. He appointed a Muslim governor, Muhammed Rashad A-Jabar, and deposed of Bethlehem’s city council, which had nine Christians and two Muslims, reducing the number of Christians councilors to a 50-50 split.

‘Arafat then converted a Greek Orthodox monastery next to the Church of Nativity, the believed birthplace of Jesus, into his official Bethlehem residence.

‘Suddenly, after the Palestinians gained the territory, reports of Christian intimidation by Muslims began to surface.

‘Christian leaders and residents told this reporter they face an atmosphere of regular hostility. They said Palestinian armed groups stir tension by holding militant demonstrations and marches in the streets. They spoke of instances in which Christian shopkeepers’ stores were ransacked and Christian homes attacked.

‘They said in the past, Palestinian gunmen fired at Israelis from Christian hilltop communities, drawing Israeli anti-terror raids to their towns.’

Human rights lawyer Justus Weiner toldCBN News:

‘The threat of persecution, including beatings and forced marriages between Christian women and Muslim men, are some of the reasons Christians have left.’

Christians in Bethlehem also speak of their land being unilaterally confiscated by Muslim gangs.

“There are many cases in which Christians have their land stolen by the [Muslim] mafia,” said Samir Qumsiyeh, a Bethlehem Christian leader and owner of the Beit Sahour-based private Al-Mahd (Nativity) TV station.

“It is a regular phenomenon in Bethlehem. They go to a poor Christian person with a forged power of attorney document, and then they say we have papers proving you’re living on our land. If you confront them, many times the Christian is beaten. You can’t do anything about it. The Christian loses, and he runs away,” Qumsiyeh said.

Last year, a Christian woman from Bethlehem revealed to Fox News that her uncle was murdered because he refused to pay the jizyah, or “protection tax” to Muslims there.

In October, Breitbart News reported on threats to the First Baptist Church of Bethlehem, which has been bombed 14 times.

Apparently, the news media is mysteriously uninterested in highlighting the true plight of Bethlehem’s Christians or the real reasons for this year’s downturn in tourist visits to the city.

Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.”  Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

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Paul Ryan: ‘I Hate Omnibus Bill’ But I Did It Anyway

AP/J. Scott Applewhite

by MICHELLE FIELDS22 Dec 20153,074

House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) told radio host Bill Bennett that he hates Omnibus bills, but he passed a $1 trillion omnibus last week anyway.

“I hate omnibus bills and I don’t like doing these last-second bills,” Ryan said. He added that he blames Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) who filibustered, “all but one appropriations bill” and also his caucus who, “seized up in the middle of the summer, unable to pass any appropriations bills because of some poison pill amendments.”

Ryan was asked why $1.6 billion was allocated to the refugee program, especially considering there was support from dozens of Republican members of Congress for a proposal introduced by Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) that would temporarily halt the refugee program. Despite the broad support, Ryan decided to fund President Obama’s refugee program, which includes Syrian refugees. He argued that:

$1.6 billion is not simply for Syrian refugees. It’s for the entire refugee program. You remember the unaccompanied children that got dumped onto the border from Honduras and El Salvador? We had to go do emergency legislation…and put new resources on the border in anticipation of that. Well, there’s a fear that could happen again, so that’s what this money is for, to prevent and prepare for any chance that we might have a whole new raft of unaccompanied children getting put on the border.

Ryan also discussed what he hopes to accomplish in 2016, saying that Americans are, ” going to see us put a bill on the president’s desk going after ObamaCare and Planned Parenthood.”

He added that Americans will “see a return to regular order, where men and women in Congress can bring their bills to the floor, make their amendments in order, and we will run Congress the way the Founders intended it to be run.”

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