The Witness Chronicles, April 17, 2024
Ukraine and the House Speaker
Will Mike Johnson Do the Right Thing?
The Republican House Speaker says yes, sort of
The need for military aid to Ukraine is critical and the support is bipartisan, unless you are a Freedom Caucus member and believe that Putin and Russia will leave if Trump gets elected. That’s actually what one of the obstructionist Members said today, offering no proof or evidence.
Speaker Johnson seems to have announced a Ukraine vote will take place Saturday night. I say ‘seems to’ because he has spent months waffling on this action while Ukrainians die, Russia is empowered, and Ukraine’s infrastructure is methodically destroyed by a madman.
With the vote announcement it looks like Johnson has finally decided to stand up to the far right, his buddies, and try to lead instead of vaguely suggesting he might do this or that.
It may be because those Freedom Caucus colleagues are openly embracing the Russian dictator and creating a mythology that says he will act differently in the future. Putin will never change because he is a true believer in a Russian empire and always has been.
Now the entire Republican House will finally have to face reality and do what many of them claim to want to do: support democracy and the sovereignty of our allies by funding Ukraine, even if it means working with Democrats.
As is typical with this House, the way this happens is as ass backwards as it can get, with bills supporting Israel, the Asian Pacific democracies (Taiwan), and Ukraine being split up into separate bills, and the Ukraine funding being tied to some kind of loan. If that is not enough to take in there are also bills to fund it by seizing Russian assets held in western banks, and a tired right wing border bill that resurrects the failed Trump wall project.
There are some challenged intellects in the Republican House and this may confuse them, which might be a part of Johnson’s strategy to avoid getting booted from the job by two Trumpies, who can call for his ouster. But they seem to be holding off, partly because Trump seems to have blessed Johnson during a meeting last week.
Are you still with me? I barely am.
Johnson may have to commit the cardinal sin of working with the Democrats to get this done, and it seems like he is ready for the fallout, likely betting that the House will do anything to avoid completely disintegrating if he is fired. It’s not a good look during an election that may be moving away from Trump.
You’ll note again the use of words like ‘seems’ and ‘may’, passive writing, which is not my typical way of putting things. I prefer the active voice, which avoids wishy washy phrasing and leaves an opinion writer a way out. But this kind of slack language is the language of this Congress, where members say and believe one thing privately and say something else entirely in public.
Johnson has been a master of this ‘sorta say something’ approach. But choosing an actual date and time for a vote looks like he may have finally decided to man up and do the right thing.
As much as I want them to get to it and fund Ukraine, I’ll only believe it when a bill is sent to Biden and signed. And when Ukraine gets the shells and missiles they desperately need now.
As I write this, it is a Wednesday, which for the next several weeks will be our day off from the Trump trial in New York because the judge has a conflict on Wednesdays. So, without Trump’s squirming, snoozing, and muttering filling the news cycle, today was the right day forJohnson to make his stand.
As usual with this election year, there are few pauses in the continual barrage of strange news and unhinged Republican contradictions, lies, and obstruction that have marked the entire election cycle. You’d think with a pause in the Trump court case, today might have been a chance for a break.
One of the reasons I write about this stuff is the willingness of many American voters to gloss over things like people dying in Ukraine, war criminals like Putin, and the spectacle of a former President being tried for criminal actions. I guess it’s just easier to watch TikTok videos, speculate about sports stuff and generally fail to do our duty and be informed voters.
My guess is that those voters will find themselves near Election Day and realize they have to make a choice they have been avoiding. But until then, it will be a lot easier to just avoid all this stuff.
This is why leaders across the world look at us and shake their heads. What Trump has done, and what the right in the House has blocked based on his orders, looks pretty bad from over there. The world is in turmoil, and we can track that turmoil to Putin’s invasion of a sovereign nation last year.
When that happened, Congress united in outrage and immediately began sending military and humanitarian aid. Now, one short year later, a group of them are now parroting Putin’s words in a shameful display of political opportunism and toadying to Donald Trump.
But now it appears Johnson is calling their bluff and trying to thread the needle of pleasing Trump and keeping his job as Speaker while advancing a funding bill. I have little respect for him but this is the right thing to do and should have been done months ago.
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