What the hell is wrong with Paul Ryan? At a point when the whole world is demanding urgent action to end the Saudi-led bombardment and starvation of Yemen, the Speaker of the House has been scheming to prevent congressional debate on a resolution to get the United States out of a humanitarian crisis.

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It is outrageous that the House Speaker continues to block action to end US support for Saudi atrocities against Yemen.

What the hell is wrong with Paul Ryan? At a point when the whole world is demanding urgent action to end the Saudi-led bombardment and starvation of Yemen, the Speaker of the House has been scheming to prevent congressional debate on a resolution to get the United States out of a humanitarian crisis.

This is not about partisanship or ideology. As Ryan was blocking action in the House this week, 11 Senate Republicans -- including some of the chamber's most conservative members -- voted with Democrats to open the Senate debate on ending US military support for the Saudi Arabia's assault on Yemen.

The 60-39 vote to advance the bipartisan effort by Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Mike Lee (R-UT) to invoke the war-powers authority of the Congress to constrain military interventions and engagements by the Executive Branch, cleared that way for a 56-41 vote on Thursday in favor of the S.J.Res. 54: "A joint resolution to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress."

"Today we tell the despotic regime in Saudi Arabia that we will not be a part of their military adventurism," declared Sanders, who has for months made the case for congressional action on Yemen, waging a two-pronged campaign for the resolution. First, he made a moral argument, telling his colleagues they have a duty to end US support for Saudi abuses that have fostered a "humanitarian and strategic disaster" in Yemen -- a crisis so severe that United Nations officials say it could lead to the worst famine in a century. Second, the senator made a constitutional argument, explaining that "The Senate must reassert its constitutional authority and end our support of this unauthorized and unconstitutional war."

Both arguments were sound. And they gained traction with top Senate Republicans in the aftermath of the Saudi murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. They chose, at the urging of Sanders and his allies, to embrace morality and their duty to the Constitution -- even as White House aides made every effort to thwart the resolution.

Unfortunately, Ryan continues to do the bidding of the Trump administration and the Saudi regime with which the president is so closely aligned. Ryan refuses to concern himself with reports on what United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund describes as "a war on children."

"Yemen has become a hell on earth for millions of children. Today every single boy, every single girl in Yemen is facing extremely dire need," says UNICEF regional director Geert Cappelaere, who reports that, on average, a child is dying every 10 minutes in Yemen -- a country where more than 400,000 children are starving and an additional 1.5 million are acutely malnourished.

Ryan went to extraordinary ends to prevent discussion of a change in US policy, which might cause the Saudis to relent. The speaker and his allies attached a clause to a measure related to the farm bill, which effectively blocked action on a Yemen bill that Congressman Ro Khanna has advanced in tandem with the Sanders initiative in the Senate.

The measure was approved by a 206-203 vote, with five Democrats -- California's Jim Costa, Florida's Al Lawson, Minnesota's Collin Peterson, Maryland's Dutch Ruppersberger, and Georgia's David Scott -- aiding Ryan's scheme. These five Democrats cast indefensible votes, and they should be ashamed of themselves. But the greatest shame is on Ryan and his caucus, as they have engaged in a pattern of moves to prevent action on the Yemen crisis.

"For the second time in less than a month, Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican leaders in the House have opted to undermine our democracy by slipping a rule to block a vote on ending U.S. support for the war in Yemen into an entirely unrelated bill," explained Paul Kawika Martin, Peace Action's senior director for policy and political affairs. "They have once again taken the position that ending or even debating the U.S. role in the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet is not worth serious consideration, even as the United Nations warns the war-induced famine in Yemen could soon become the worst famine in 100 years. There's a grotesque irony in Republican leadership using the farm bill, legislation meant to ensure Americans are fed, to stop debate on ending U.S. support for a war that is starving millions in Yemen."

Ro Khanna was outraged. "This is why people hate Congress," declared the congressman. "Speaker Ryan is not allowing a vote on my resolution to stop the war in Yemen because many Republicans will vote with us and he will lose the vote. He is disgracing Article 1 of the Constitution, and as a result, more [Yemeni] children will die."

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Authors Bio:

John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.


Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers.


Nichols is a frequent guest on radio and television programs as a commentator on politics and media issues. He was featured in Robert Greenwald's documentary, "Outfoxed," and in the documentaries Joan Sekler's "Unprecedented," Matt Kohn's "Call It Democracy" and Robert Pappas' "Orwell Rolls in his Grave." The keynote speaker at the 2004 Congress of the International Federation of Journalists in Athens, Nichols has been a featured presenter at conventions, conferences and public forums on media issues sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Consumers International, the Future of Music Coalition, the AFL-CIO, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Newspaper Guild [CWA] and dozens of other organizations.


Nichols is the author of the upcoming book The Genius of Impeachment (The New Press), as well as a critically-acclaimed analysis of the Florida recount fight of 2000, Jews for Buchanan (The New Press) and a best-selling biography of Vice President Dick Cheney, Dick: The Man Who is President (The New Press), which has recently been published in French and Arabic. He edited Against the Beast: A Documentary History of American Opposition to Empire (Nation Books), of which historian Howard Zinn said: "At exactly the time when we need it most, John Nichols gives us a special gift--a collection of writings, speeches, poems, and songs from throughout American history--that reminds us that our revulsion to war and empire has a long and noble tradition in this country."


With Robert W. McChesney, Nichols has co-authored the books, It's the Media, Stupid! (Seven Stories), Our Media, Not Theirs (Seven Stories) and Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy (The New Press). McChesney and Nichols are the co-founders of Free Press, the nation's media-reform network, which organized the 2003 and 2005 National Conferences on Media Reform.


Of Nichols, author Gore Vidal says: "Of all the giant slayers now afoot in the great American desert, John Nichols's sword is the sharpest."