Rand Paul didn't get back to them but Tucker acknowledged that he'd likely be a Nay vote. Should be many more or all of them though. He also listed off where chunks of money would be going.
Posted on 05/12/2022 7:32:30 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) blocked the passage of the $39.8 billion House-passed Ukraine aid after Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) presented a unanimous consent on behalf of himself and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell today.
Schumer urged Paul to pass the bill and claimed that the Senator from Kentucky wanted to add certain changes directly to the bill, which have been opposed by members of both parties.
“He is not even asking for an amendment. He is simply saying my way or the highway,” Schumer said.
Paul asserted that the aid amount will almost equal the entire military budget of Russia and that the U.S. will have to borrow the money from China to send it to Ukraine.
He stated that there are domestic priorities to tackle right now with inflation reaching a 40-year high and gasoline hitting a 48 percent high since last year.
“My oath of office is to the national security of the United States of America. We cannot save Ukraine by dooming the U.S. Economy,” Paul concluded
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Rand Paul didn't get back to them but Tucker acknowledged that he'd likely be a Nay vote. Should be many more or all of them though. He also listed off where chunks of money would be going.
I’d be for helping out Ukraine for the reasons I’ve previously stated, but this is way, way overboard and out of proportion. Good for Rand Paul.
Doesn’t need to “sink in”. There is a reason a lot of us hold up Rand as a standard bearer.
As far as I know nothing is stopping you from either donating to funds that help Ukraine or directly paying Ukraine or actually going over there to fight for Ukraine. What should be unacceptable with no declaration of war by our legistators, is stealing money from citizens to pay Ukraine. I would have not issue with “leaders” setting up private funds to make it easier to citizens to donate or ways to participate.
Wouldn’t it be nice to know what percentage of their wealth each legislator has has already paid to Ukraine? Perhaps we could use that to gauge how serious they are about the their taking public resources for this.
Rand Paul is an American hero.
The United States of America, the most richest country on the face of the globe, has to BORROW money from one of our enemies to pay for military hardware to give to another country because we cannot afford to purchase those weapons ourselves because the IMPERIAL FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS RUINED THE NATION FININCIALLY!!!!!!!!!!!! The fools in Sodom on the Potomac should all be tried for treason and put in a penal colony on some damned island in the south Pacific.
I am of the opinion that the “unanimous consent” option should not be used on any bill that requires spending, establishes criminal or civil penalties or to appoint any officer to a position.
IOW, only use it for naming post offices, ships or other ceremonial functions.
“...their government seems oblivious to reality in terms of perhaps accepting a reasonable compromise and end to this crisis”
Our media seem oblivious to the fact that Putin made his 2014 move on Crimea after gas and oil possibilities were found around Crimea and in eastern Ukraine around 2012, Exploration contracts were signed with US oil majors that year, and were promptly canceled when Putin took Crimea. What sort of compromise is reasonable in a war fought to prevent theft of Ukraine resources, or to permanently and forever seize Ukraine’s resources? How would you react if Mexico moved to seize Arizona and New Mexico because important resources were suddenly identified there?
I’m not quite so libertarian as all that, but 40 billion? Did Britain get the equivalent of $40 billion in lend-lease from the US against Hitler? Sure. Some aid to Ukraine would be a good investment to help contain the Russian threat to Europe and a potential world war, and also deter China from invading Taiwan. But not that much. And announcing publicly that fracking, oil drilling and natural gas production are back on would go a lot further to stop Putin than expensive toys to Ukraine.
Zelensky has done remarkably well against his giant neighbor on a shoe-string budget. Such things as hobby-store drones flying over tanks and dropping Molotov cocktails through the open hatches were ingenious and simple. He should get more resources, because Ukraine’s got game, and because their adversary is a threat to much more than Ukraine.
But babies in America going without formula should be on the front burner, too. So should the proliferation of human trafficking and Fen-fen. And fixing the border and inflation.
The mid-terms can’t happen soon enough.
I would react differently, of course, but the situations are not quite analogous. Ukraine got Crimea as a sort of feel-good present from the Soviet Union’s politburo in the 1960s, prior to that it was a part of the Russian federation. A large portion of the population identifies as Russian. It was a military hub in the formerly unified USSR when there were no issues about the transfer. After 1992 there was an agreement that Russia could continue to use the naval bases and Ukraine agreed to relinquish their part of the nuclear arsenal.
So the history is somewhat different. Russia had a claim to Crimea and Ukraine is not a world power like the USA, perhaps it would have been wise to settle the issue when it became contentious (as it did by 2014). I don’t want to give in to bullying either, but Ukraine has to take a more realistic view of world politics and not look at everything as strictly a matter of national sovereignty. Their own self interest would be served by a compromise settlement. The USA could just boot Mexico out of the analogous territory without much effort and nobody around the world would take their side. So the two things are not quite the same.
I would love to see an outcome where Russia was fully punished and pushed out of all these territories, but I don’t think that is a very likely outcome, therefore I am looking for the second best outcome which preserves some good things for Ukraine, rather than consigning them to five years of conflict and economic ruin that has wider impacts around the world. This is certainly what a responsible NATO country leadership should be pushing for, not encouraging Ukraine to keep going with this for years and years with no good result evident.
Crimea and apparently the two east Ukraine areas became contentious after potentially important resources were found. Before the vicious invasion and murder of women and children took place a reasonable solution might have been to permit Russia to use the Crimea port facilities and have a transportation corridor to Russia, but allow Ukraine to develop their newly found fuel resources. Of course Putin would not want this as their fuel resources are practically their only source of income as Russian oligarchs seem to have little interest in solid business development but prefer splashy luxury purchases. Ukraine would probably have developed those resources and sold them to Europe in direct competition with Russia. Frankly I see no likelihood of useful direct negotiations, while Putin maintains his current mindset.
Stop giving our money away to other countries.
He’d never be elected majority leader. He doesn’t make deals or compromise. Would that they would make him leader, but he’s not crooked enough.
WOW, he's actually representing U.S. citizens and not special interests, good for him.
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