Biden team and lawmakers get creative to keep Ukraine aid flowing
By: ALEXANDER WARD and MATT BERG (POLITICO)
Oh, look. There is growing recognition that Ukraine has become Democrats' quagmire. Joe Biden just assumed that Republicans would fall all over themselves to throw money at nation building. After all, Republicans since Reagan haven't been shy about wasting money on the military and nation building. The macho, chest-thumping, groin scratching, beer drinking, gun culture of the GOP has been a reliable fixture of American politics. Duck Dynasty ain't about liberals.
Somehow everyone has missed that today's Republicans see a Democrat led government as a bigger threat than the combined threats of Russia, China, Iran, or any other shithole that can be nation built. And that Republican point of view ain't wrong.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
With the future of further military aid to Ukraine tied up due to congressional infighting, the Biden administration and lawmakers have been seeking creative ways to keep the weapons flowing.
Two scoops by our colleagues provide Exhibits A and B.
The first is that Team Biden is looking into using foreign military financing, a program run by the State Department that gives grants or loans to help partner countries purchase weapons and defense equipment. Those funds could go straight to Kyiv or other countries affected by Russia's full-scale invasion, LARA SELIGMAN, PAUL McLEARY and CONNOR O'BRIEN report.
President JOE BIDEN hinted Wednesday that he was weighing alternative methods of backing Ukraine, saying "there is another means by which we may be able to find funding for that."
The second workaround could come from Sen. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-Md.), as our sister newsletter Morning Defense (for Pros!) reports.
He's mulling a three-way swap in which Poland, a NATO ally, gets America's Iron Dome systems and sends some of its own air defenses to Ukraine. That comes after Israel rejected requests from Washington and Kyiv to send the Iron Dome — the highly effective short-range anti-rocket, anti-mortar and anti-artillery system Jerusalem depends on to defend against rockets fired from the Gaza Strip — directly to Ukraine. (Israel, a co-producer of the system, has veto authority over transfers.)
Van Hollen discussed the plan in a closed-door Pentagon briefing for Senate appropriators Wednesday. After that, he told our own JOE GOULD that he sees Poland, which acquired Patriot missile defenses from the U.S. last year, as a promising partner.
"Poland may be able to deploy its Patriot systems to Ukraine, where we've already deployed Patriot systems — that kind of swap, because so long as our two Iron Dome batteries remain within the custody of the United States, that's fine," Van Hollen said.
It makes sense for the administration and Ukraine supporters in Congress to plan nontraditional ways to keep weapons flowing. But these schemes point to an underlying pessimism that lawmakers won't be able to go the standard round: bring a Ukraine-aid bill to the floor, pass it and send it to Biden's desk, all during a scramble to pick a new speaker and solve a government-funding fight.
"It's going to be even harder now with McCarthy gone," Rep. MICHAEL McCAUL (R-Texas), House Foreign Affairs chair, said this week. "We're running out of time."
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Biden's out-of-touch political assumptions have consequences. Biden doesn't understand that the politics of Reagan and Clinton can't hold the center any longer. The neoliberal, nation building stalwarts in Republican ranks aren't driving Republican politics any longer.
Democrats are scrambling to revive the Cold War while Republicans are focusing attention on domestic issues. The stereotypes of Reagan/Clinton politics are being flipped and Democrats appear to be clueless. Biden is holding back Democrats while Republicans are turning the page.
Who wrote this garbage? The second paragraph (the whole 'article') is sheer ignorance and hatred and deplorable but the second paragraph into the intro of this garbage is sheer projection and ignorance and so typical of the 'right'
ALEXANDER WARD and MATT BERG (POLITICO)
Good catch, BTW. I missed that the authors hadn't been properly credited. Thanx!
Got your Russian hotline to your bud Putin open again, eh?
Democrats should have thought of that before joining forces with the Freedom Caucus to remove Kevin McCarthy. Who knew Matt Gaetz was a hero of Democrats?
No, Democrats are under no zero zip nada obligations to support any of your MAGA nutters for Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. "Looky what the mean old Democrats made us do to our own damb selves"! The gop's second McCarthy Era failed worse than the first!
Exactly, 202 Dems made a strategic decision to put Party over country.
No, Democrats aren't under any obligation at all to act as responsible adults. Sadly we can't force people to act like grown-ups.
Of course, they have no room to complain about things which they had control over, either.
We should fund the Ukranians against the murdering little putin and those scum who are killing innocents for no reason whatsoever.
Should we continue to financially help Israel in their fight against unprovoked Islamic attacks and ongoing terrorism?
What to do? What to do?
Which is the most effective use of US taxpayer money?
Help US citizens to recover and prevent future disasters or kill Russians?
Why isn't Biden's priority helping US citizens?