Biden Finally Gets To Sign Ukraine Aid Bill. Buncha Republican Senators Still Too Busy Licking Putin's Boots To Vote 'Yea'

It got done.

Apr 24, 2024

Biden with Zelenskyy in the White House a few months ago.

At long last, months too late, President Joe Biden got to sign a Ukraine aid bill today. After House Speaker Mike Johnson made his deal to fuck over the devil (Marjorie Taylor Greene) and pass aid for Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and Taiwan, the final package went back to the Senate, where the original versions passed months ago. The Senate broke the filibuster yesterday afternoon and voted 79-18 to pass it, and bing bong! Bill becomes law. (Do not congratulate Mike Johnson.)

This package comes to a total of $95 billion, including $61 billion for Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel and Gaza (over $9 billion is for humanitarian aid), and $8 billion for Taiwan. It also includes a section that requires TikTok to separate from ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns it, because 85-year-old lawmakers are pretty sure threatening the children’s TikTok is a good idea.

This time around in the Senate, it actually had more support than the Senate’s original attempt, which was a 70-29 vote. That was virtually the same package, except for how the new one includes provisions to make around $10 billion of the Ukraine aid a (forgivable) loan. Punchbowl thinks it might be because Donald Trump was comparatively less bitchy-moany about it this time, which gave a few more Republican senators room to breathe. (Perhaps because he’s busy being all alone in that freezing New York courtroom with his printouts. Plus, Trump has taken Mike Johnson’s side, because even he appears to recognize that the single person most likely to lose the GOP its congressional majority in November is Marjorie Taylor Greene.)

The bill was about Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and TikTok, but the reason this took so long, the reason for the Republican opposition to the aid package, was Ukraine. These are the Republican senators who chose to stick with being Vladimir Putin’s bootlickers instead of voting “yea” last night:

John Barrasso (WY)
Marsha Blackburn (TN)
Mike Braun (IN)
Ted Budd (NC)
Ted Cruz (TX)
Bill Hagerty (TN)
Josh Hawley (MO)
Ron Johnson (WI)
Mike Lee (UT)
Cynthia Lummis (WY)
Roger Marshall (KS)
Marco Rubio (FL)
Eric Schmitt (MO)
Rick Scott (FL)
JD Vance (OH).

Isn’t that just a Most Wanted list of people you wouldn’t leave America in a dark closet with? If Tommy Tuberville, Rand Paul, and Tim Scott seem like they’re missing from the list, it’s because they didn’t vote. (Tuberville still had time to spout Russian propaganda in the New York Times, should you be interested. Speaking of, here’s your list of Republicans in the House who voted with Putin. It is also the usual suspects.)

The other three “no” votes came from Democrats Jeff Merkley (OR) and Peter Welch (VT), plus independent Bernie Sanders. Their “no” votes were for Israel reasons.

But anyway. The bill is passed. The White House is celebrating, and Biden says he looks forward to getting arms shipments to Ukraine going “this week.”

Punchbowl says this happened, ultimately, because Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell “locked arms” early on (Schumer’s words) and made certain it would be so. Schumer credits the fact that they agreed to never split Ukraine aid apart from Israel aid:

“We made a pact that we were never going to split them,” Schumer told us. “And that pact never broke in all the times the House and some of the righties in his own caucus were saying just do Israel.”
In the ensuing months, Schumer and McConnell spoke multiple times per week to strategize over how to get a comprehensive aid package through the Senate. The two grew closer over their shared desire to get it over the finish line. In the meantime, they were able to get government funding and FISA reauthorization done, too.
“I never wanted to give up on this, even in the lowest moments — and there were many,” Schumer added.

In other words, Schumer and McConnell were always going to be together on this, and they were always going to keep Ukraine and Israel funding tied together. (Meanwhile in the House, Mike Johnson had to distract his morons with laser pointers by splitting up the bill into four pieces, then sending them to the Senate tied back together in the same gift basket.)

Now, Schumer is also celebrating:

“Our allies around the world have been watching Congress for the last six months and wondering the same thing: When it matters most, will America summon the strength to come together, overcome the centrifugal pull of partisanship and meet the magnitude of the moment?” [Schumer] said on Tuesday. “Tonight, under the watchful eye of history, the Senate answers this question with a thunderous and resounding ‘yes.’”

Also should have added a resounding “Sorry about how it took six months, but the Republican Party is now a mere insurgent faction that lives up Vladimir Putin’s ass, what can we say?” But we won’t tell Schumer how to do his job.

Meanwhile yesterday, after the Senate voted to break the filibuster, clearing the way for the package’s passage, Mitch McConnell took a second to make fun of Tucker Carlson as he declared victory:

Mitch McConnell, a staunch backer of Ukraine aid, says the anti-Ukraine movement began with Tucker Carlson, “who, in my opinion, ended up where he should have been all along, which is interviewing Vladimir Putin.”

He’s not fucking wrong.

Would be nice to give President Biden a fully Democratic Congress in his second term so this horseshit can be avoided in the future. We are just saying.

Here’s Biden’s victory lap: