House Freedom Caucus says it supports Ryan for speaker

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

The hard-line House Freedom Caucus said Wednesday it is supporting Rep. Paul Ryan for speaker of the House, all but guaranteeing he’ll get the job, and potentially heralding a new start for a deeply divided House GOP.

The group of about three dozen rebellious conservatives, who have caused fits for the GOP leadership, emphasized that their support for Ryan was not an official endorsement because they couldn’t muster the 80 percent agreement such an announcement would require. Yet members of the rebellious group made clear that their intent was to unite behind Ryan and give him the consensus he has said he needs to seek the speakership.

“A supermajority of the House Freedom Caucus has voted to support Paul Ryan’s bid to become the next speaker of the House,” the group said in a statement. “Paul is a policy entrepreneur who has developed conservative reforms dealing with a wide variety of subjects, and he has promised to be an ideas-focused speaker who will advance limited government principles and devolve power to the membership.”

Has the Sun-Times ever referred to the Democratic parties' Progressive Caucus or Congressional Black Caucus as "hard-line" ?