Paul Ryan and the Speakership

After an affecting little speech aimed at his recalcitrant brethren in the House, Paul Ryan will sit back for the rest of the week and see if he has tamed the "Freedom Caucus" enough to make his reluctant bid for the Speakership a reality.   Why anyone would want this pseudowonk whose aspirations are more for the other House in D.C. than for wrangling the near hopeless Republican majority is beyond me.   The pundits praise his grasp of the federal budgetary process, but as Paul Krugman points out ad nauseum, Ryan's budgets have always been shot through with magic asterisks which presume all manner of budget cuts and revenue increases without spelling them out or putting in place the actual mechanisms to accomplish his miracles.  That's why they have been DOA throughout his career.  May the Flying Spaghetti Monster help us if he is Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee if a Republican President is ever again elected.  Nicknamed the "Granny Starver" because of his advocacy for cutting the very same programs which raised him from the lower middle class to his present eminence, he stands in stark contrast to the newly elected Premier of Canada.  Justin Trudeau was raised in a privileged political family, but seemingly has far more empathy than Ryan.   I almost hope the 40 crazies on the far right of the Republican caucus vote Ryan down.  Let the Republicans elect one of the new breed of  confrontational idiots and we'll finally see the monster the GOP  has been breeding for 40 years.