Speaker Ryan, Yemen war enabler, leaving Congress on a low note

House Speaker Paul Ryan apparently never learned one of life's most important lessons: leaving on a high note. This week Ryan, in his last month as House Speaker and member, used a cynical parliamentary procedure to prevent even a House debate on our four year long involvement in Saudi Arabia's murderous, criminal war in Yemen. He inserted a provision in the sure to pass Farm Bill preventing such debate till the new House convenes next month when Ryan will be conveniently absent. On the same day he quashed debate on America's complicity in creating the largest humanitarian crisis on Earth, the Senate, which previously voted to allow debate, voted to invoke the War Powers Act of 1973 to end US involvement in Yemen. In a show of moral clarity, seven Republicans broke with the Trump administration calling for continued war; voting along with all 49 Democrats to end it. Ryan replicated the cynical maneuver he took last month, inserting a provision to avoid Yemen war debate in a bill passed to allow hunting of gray wolves. Maybe Ryan figures if it's OK to hunt gray wolves, it's OK to hunt Yemeni civilians, over a hundred thousand of whom have died under US bombs dropped by Saudi pilots or starved to death from the famine we've enabled. Though he's leaving Congress, Ryan likely has his eye on a future presidential run. Voting to even allow debate on ending one of America's criminal wars does not fit the image he needs to curry favor and money from the military, the defense contractors and the political class that simply loves perpetual war. Forget Paul Ryan's handsome, presidential bearing. Behind those ramrod good looks, lies the soul of a monster.