Paul Ryan pushes for the wall with a bizarre ad showing him riding horses and helicopters
Donald Trump and his allies in Congress, Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have failed to deliver on their campaign promise of repealing Obamacare, so now Republicans are back to promoting the useless border wall. Ryan signaled the return to the issue, which motivated base Republican voters during the 2016 primary to […]

Donald Trump and his allies in Congress, Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have failed to deliver on their campaign promise of repealing Obamacare, so now Republicans are back to promoting the useless border wall.
Ryan signaled the return to the issue, which motivated base Republican voters during the 2016 primary to choose Trump over more qualified and slightly more level-headed nominees, with a tweet-based battle cry, “It is time for The Wall.”
RT if you agree→ It is time for The Wall. pic.twitter.com/s5MO8SG7SL
— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) August 1, 2017
Accompanying the tweet is a produced video of Ryan acting out several action hero fantasies, including riding a horse and flying in a helicopter, alongside U.S. border patrol agents, who look far more comfortable in the field than he does.
Trump has no significant legislative accomplishments after six months in the White House, and the Obamacare repeal he pushed for was one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation in U.S. history. Ryan ignored the warning signs and rammed the legislation through the House, which now puts his members on the hook for massive Medicaid cuts and health insurance cruelty, without backup from the Senate.
So, it’s back to the wall.
A wall doesn’t make any sense, as many experts have stated, including former Bush Border Protection Policy Director Seth Stodder. In testimony to Congress, Stodder said “Building a wall would be a massive waste of billions of taxpayer dollars,” and added that “it’ll actually make us less safe.”
Instead, Republicans would rather recapture the glory days of Trump’s campaign announcement, where he blamed rape and other crimes on Mexicans crossing the border into the United States.
Despite Trump’s countless promises that he would somehow force Mexico to pay for his wall, Republicans in the House added $1.6 billion to a recently passed appropriations bill for the project.
Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi slammed the decision, noting, “Republicans are trying to put American taxpayers on the hook for the multi-billion dollar boondoggle President Trump swore Mexico would pay for. President Trump is breaking his promise and sticking the American people with the bill.”
It is unclear if Ryan and the Republicans are specifying that the wall follow the standards recently laid out by Trump — that it be “transparent” so border patrol agents can see when drug cartels “throw the large sacks of drugs over.”
Either way, pushing a nonsensical and unworkable wall is a much easier story for Republicans to tell their base, rather than admitting that they are legislatively impotent.
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