“KEEP FIGHTING, GUYS, BUT WE’RE GOING ON VACATION”

…Mike Johnson to Ukraine, as he surrenders to Trump and Putin

GOP goes from Russia hawks to Putin’s patsies

“…If today you are an American interested in honoring Alexei Navalny’s legacy and pushing back against Putin, you would support immediate passage of the $60 billion standalone aid package to Ukraine that is currently stuck in Congress. This is something Republican hypocrites like Tim Scott, Lindsey Graham, and Tom Cotton have refused to do. This is the single most potent source of leverage we have both to preserve a democratic Ukraine and to weaken a tyrannical Russia. The Ukrainian army was forced over the past few days to evacuate Avdiivka, a key prize in the battles over the Donbas, simply because they were running out of ammunition…” – Francis Fukuyama, American political scientist and the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Just got off the phone with a staffer in my (Republican) Congressman’s office, asking for his position on getting aid to Ukraine. The young lady replied “He’s voted for Ukraine packages in the past.”

I responded, “in the past – I’m asking what he’s doing to get Mike Johnson to put it up for a vote now.”

She promised to get a response for me and took my email address.

I followed that message up with an email to the Congressman demanding that action, and telling him, “…and by the way, don’t respond with your ‘but the border’ excuse. Dems gave Republicans almost everything they’ve been asking for twenty years, yet you said ‘sorry, just kidding about that as a link to Ukraine aid.’ So don’t feed me that BS.”

We in districts represented (I use that word loosely) by Republicans all need to be dialing their offices and demanding action now. It’s real easy. This link (https://www.house.gov/representatives#name-j ) will take you to a place where you can easily look up the phone number and email contact for your rep. It literally takes a couple of minutes to compose your thoughts and dial the phone.

We are in a surreal and scary place in this country. The Republican party has become a pro-Putin, pro-authoritarian, protofascist party. They will be in that mode until they throw off the yoke Donald Trump tied around their necks.

I should say, “the yoke they let Trump tie around their necks”…quite willingly.

They know what the right thing to do is, but they fear doing it as it will enrage their MAGA-moron base, and maybe cost them their seat in Congress.

Is selling out brave but outmanned and outgunned Ukrainians who are fighting a war for democratic values – the “western values” these people claim to revere – worth it just to keep your seat in the Chaos Caucus?

You would think that Trump’s recent invitation to Putin to “do whatever the hell he wants” to NATO allies might wake them up…Or certainly, that Putin’s blatant murder of Alexei Navalny might awaken their conscience, might shake them into action.

Nope. Mike Johnson sent them home on vacation for two weeks. And his boss – the guy the GOP will nominate to run for president – finally commented on Navalny’s death (note- he did not call it Navalny’s murder or link Putin to Navalny’s death) – by comparing himself and his woes to the treatment Navalny was victim to.

Here’s Trump’s (latest) SAD and weak victimhood charade:

As his last primary opponent, Nikki Haley, pointed out:

“Putin murdered his political opponent and Trump hasn’t said a word after he said he would encourage Putin to invade our allies. He has, however, posted 20+ times on social media about his legal drama and fake polls.”

What some others are saying:

• Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable opponent, vowed on Monday to carry on her husband’s crusade against the Russian regime, striving to build “a free, peaceful, happy Russia, a beautiful Russia of the future, which my husband dreamed of so much.”

  Navalnaya, 47, made her announcement in a video statement on YouTube, in which she accused Russian authorities of fatally poisoning Navalny in the Arctic prison where he died suddenly on Friday at age 47.

• “…Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine…one type of weapon has loomed large over every other. Artillery has accounted for about 80% of casualties on both sides. Yet political deadlock in the U.S. Congress over military assistance to Ukraine, combined with a lack of production capacity in Europe, is leading to a critical shortage in artillery ammunition that could spell disaster for Ukraine’s war effort…” TIME

• “Ohio Senator JD Vance received a bevy of criticism over the weekend for skipping out on a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference, where he argued against further U.S. military aid to Ukraine.” - Mediaite

• (Former British PM and current Foreign Secretary) David Cameron: Pass Ukraine funding for the sake of global security. “…we face a choice. A simple test. On the one side is Putin, hoping to enlarge his empire simply by outlasting the West. He believes we are weak. He believes he can get away with the most shocking act of national aggression we have seen in our lifetimes. On the other side are all of us. We have the resources, the economic might, the expertise. Our economic strength outweighs Russia’s by a factor of around 25 to one. They are having to turn to Pyongyang for help. All we need to do is make our strength pay. The question is: Do we have the will?  As Congress debates and votes on this funding package for Ukraine, I am going to drop all diplomatic niceties. I urge Congress to pass it. I want us all — U.S., U.K., European and other allies — to support Ukraine in fighting against completely unjustified aggression. It is hard to think of a clearer case of one country being invaded by another without the slightest justification. I believe our joint history shows the folly of giving in to tyrants in Europe who believe in redrawing boundaries by force.” – The Hill