One “no” vote on aid that isn’t about hating Ukraine and loving Putin
We watch the House and all the confusion and infighting within their party with the MAGA cult running amuck and generally causing trouble at every opportunity. I don’t know about others, but I was always led to believe that the Senate was the party that was more mature, more calm, more willing to discuss issues and proceed in reasonable ways. However, today, the news if filled with evidence that the theory has a lot of holes in it.
It seems that republicans, even though in the Senate are a bit of gadflies that want everything their way. None of them care about the American people, witnesses by the enthusiasm with which in 2017 or 2018, they passed a so called tax-reform that cut “permanently” the taxes the rich oligarchs have to pay. Meanwhile, they convinced the middle class that we would get a relatively small, certainly smaller than what they gave the billionaires, a bit of one, but it would be temporary so that in 2025, people like myself, living on social security and a rather small amount from my retirement fund, would end up having our taxes go up.
The cut in corporate taxes, obviously, gutted the revenue stream, which gave the Republicans the excuse they wanted to start threatening our social security and medicare to “make the shortfall up”.
But now, Putin, who is an enemy to democracy and freedom everywhere is threatening Ukraine, and the Republicans show their lack of true concern with people living free by refusing to approve more money to keep helping the Ukraine. It is tied to a bill that will also give aid to Israel and Taiwan. The Democrats told them they could add an amendment about their border obsession, but instead they flew out of congress refusing to even discuss it.
The picture at the top is of Bernie Sanders. In this case, his relevance is that he also voted against this bill. However, he objected not to the Ukraine, but that the bill gave Israel unconditional funds in their fight against Hamas, where many Palestinians are paying the price with their lives. Bernie, a man of Jewish ethnicity didn’t want Israel to get unconditional access to funds. I checked because I was so shocked that Bernie would have problems with helping Ukraine. I was wanting to know why.
I wonder how his vote could be won for this package? Personally I think all aid should have at least a minimum amount of condition to it. I once promised to buy lunch for a friend but before we got to the restaurant they threw a fit, acted rudely, and I returned them to their home. All things are conditionally….
