1y ago

In Huge Reversal, GOP Poised To Kill The Border-Ukraine Package It Demanded

www.huffpost.com In Huge Reversal, GOP Poised To Kill The Border-Ukraine Package It Demanded

Republican Sen. James Lankford, who spent months negotiating the border provisions the GOP demanded, said he may vote against his own bill this week.

Republican Sen. James Lankford, who spent months negotiating the border provisions the GOP demanded, said he may vote against his own bill this week.

Senate Republicans on Monday signaled their plan to filibuster bipartisan legislation that paired tougher border policy with more U.S. aid to Ukraine, a stunning reversal less than 24 hours after the legislation had been unveiled.

With ex-president Donald Trump urging them to kill it, and many on the right up in arms about the proposal, top Senate Republicans emerged from a heated closed-door meeting and said they needed more time to review the agreement, suggesting that a scheduled Wednesday vote to advance the bill is all but doomed to fail.

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1y ago

In Huge Reversal, GOP Poised To Kill The Border-Ukraine Package It Demanded

www.huffpost.com /entry/border-deal-republicans-ukraine_n_65c18950e4b093b2e780ac30

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70 comments

It's not a reversal in any way, but a continuation of a policy of obstructing aid to Ukraine to help Russia, because Republican have chosen to follow Trump, and be traitors against USA and democracy.
Anyone who thought otherwise and actually believed them is an idiot. And it's time Republicans realize that Trump and Putin are losers.
If Trump wins the election, USA will lose the core values it was founded on.
- I feel its less about Ukrain, Russia and all about do what Trump commands. Had Trump kept silent, the bill would've probably passed with minor resistance
  
  Trump's interests aligned with Putin so win win for them
  
  Trump commands with Putin commands him to do
  
  I think that misses the common denominator. I don't think Trump is the only thing that corralls the party.
  
  The GOP was being resistant before even trump said anything. They said themselves, it's about not giving the democrats a win. Complete traitors to the USA.
  
  Trump is in no way a leader for the people who actually run things in the GoP. He's just a convenient scapegoat and distraction. A tool to be used to further their own agendas without getting their hands as dirty.
- Trump already won one election without winning the vote, what's a little more tyranny?
- Any core values america had are eroded away. It scrupulous to say those values were even just to begin with.
- They're not following Trump for shit. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. They were bought and sold long before he "won" the 2016 election.

Once again, GOP proving that they never operate in good faith.
- Putin wasn't paying up, so they floated a bill. Putin paid so now they need to sink it.
- But theres always room to give them the benefit of the doubt. Dems need to stop compromising with them, they're not going to help you anyway, why water down your bills?
  
  I think they benefit a lot from people assuming that they water their bills down for the GOP's benefit when the reality is that the right wing of the Dem party is larger and further right than most people believe. It's a party of Bidens and Clintons, not AOCs and Bernies.
  
  Because they know how the media narrative will go now. Dems offer a compromise bill that the GOP says they'll go with. The GOP then doesn't go with it. The GOP now takes all the blame in the media.
  This is doubly important because the border issue is the only one where they have any actual policy that less informed moderate voters might agree with. If it looks like the Dems were arguing in good faith and the GOP was not, then they'll vote accordingly. Not all of them, but it doesn't have to be all of them.
  The election this year is teetering between a GOP technical victory (losing popular vote for the White House while winning the electoral college) and complete GOP electoral collapse up and down the whole ballot. Things like this make the second option more likely.
  
  The real answer:
  Democrats have largely the same policy positions as Republicans, and have for decades. They are all philosophically neo-liberal, with very small exception in the squad/ progressive left (maybe 3%?), and a growing maybe 30% of the Republican wing as full blown fascist. So things are changing but for most of recent history, they are politically indiscernible when it comes to applied policy, what they prioritize, and where they compromise. Obama is like the quintessential modern example of this. He ran as a leftist, but governed to the right of Bill Clinton.

How are they going to keep blaming Biden for doing nothing about the border if they allow him to do something about the border?
You guys just don't get it.
- The average voter never heard about this bill in the first place.
  
  Nope, all they heard was BIDEN IS DOING NOTHING ABOUT THE MEXICANS!
- Because the fridge temp IQ followers of the GQP/MAGAzis don't care about facts and reality, only about how they feel reality should be. Same reason they see the philandering, lying, cheating asshole is somehow the god appointed Messiah for their christo-fascist movement.

It was never about the border. It was never about Ukraine aid. It's about hurting Americans in hopes that they'll blame Biden.
- It always is. It works on people like my parents who say that they always do better when a Republican is in office. That's only because there isn't some trying to sabotage the country from the inside when they are totally in control.
  
  I mean, they're still sabotaging the country when in control. Just in different and interesting ways. Like creating enormous defecits with tax cuts for corporations and the rich.
- They don't have any actual ideas, so what else are they gonna do?

If I had a nickel for every time congressional GOPsters killed their own bill on purpose because Trump threw a hissy fit, I'd have two nickels.
That isn't much, but it's still bizarre that they let it happen twice.
- How about times congressional GOP killed their own bill because it actually stood a chance of passing?
- Its an effective campaign strategy. Lay out what you want. Force Dems to compromise down their own position. Kill the bill. Win the next election cycle. Then pass all the things you said you wanted while haranguing Dems (now in the minority) into taking an even worse compromise.
  Dems will compromise because they ALWAYS compromise. Republicans will never actually be happy with the results, because there's always more money and power to be had throwing money towards their patrons doing Border Security Theater. And the public will get another earful about how "MIGRANT CARAVAN HEADED TO TEXAS!!!" means the last ten billion we threw at the problem wasn't enough.
  This is just the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, and the War on Crime all over again. Dems spinelessly collapse in the face of Republican fearmongering. Voters only get to choose between the Republican Heavy and the Republican Lite. Any attempt to mobilize a popular opposition gets curb-stomped by party insiders while national media figures complain about how these insurgent political activists are undermining national security.
  And then we get another year of rivers full of dead babies, while one side cheers and the other side blames Ralph Nader for not voting hard enough.
- In the next congressional cycle, I'll bet my right kidney that it'll be more than just 2 nickels
- You'd have way more than 2 nickels. Especially if you remove Trump as a qualifier.
  Republicans having been tanking their own bills since Obama, and probably before that.
  
  The only thing they hate more than getting what they want is literally anybody else getting what they want.

Who the fuck could actually be surprised by this?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also recommended to his members in the meeting that they should vote to block the package from moving forward, according to Punchbowl News.
The recommendation is particularly stunning given that McConnell had cheered the negotiations over border policy for months. Just hours earlier on the Senate floor, McConnell touted the legislation, saying its billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan are needed to counter aggression from dictators and terrorists around the globe.
It's not your usual election year fake "immigrant caravan;" It's the Mitch McConnell Immigrant Caravan that he and the GOP are inviting into the country by killing this legislation. Ole Open Borders Mitch, as they call him. Too bad they didn't give President Biden the tools he needed to stop the big, bad fake caravan.

It really is time to force them to actually stand there and talk, rather than just threaten to fillabuster.
- Unfortunately, that wouldn't put the bill on the floor, the Republican Speaker has to do that. And he won't because the bill will pass once a vote is allowed.
  
  I find it amazing how many times Republican Leadership squashes a bill (or a Supreme Court nomination, for that matter) specifically because it has enough support to pass. So they can't hold a vote at all, and have to bury it. Seems like the opposite of what they should be doing as legislators.
  
  This article is about the Senate, where Dems lead proceedings. Mitch McConnell also supports this bill.
  There may be a filibuster if it doesn't have 10 or so Republicans supporting it, but those votes are probably there. The Senate GOP is generally pro-Ukraine and a fair bit less overrun by moronic populism than the House GOP, which is a certifiable clown show at this point.
  
  The Senate Republicans aren't ready to vote on Wednesday, so they rattle around a filibuster. They'll end up voting no on the procedural vote. Schumer will take it to the floor and they'll get their 60. It's the House that's the problem.

Because the only goal of the GOP is to DoS the system to keep loopholes open for the oligarchy to continue privateering (legal piracy).
The South is still run by the slave traitor trash from 150 years ago, except we are the exploited now. Democrats are right wing, Republicans are jihadists, and there is no Left in the USA.

It's not about the policy, it's not about just making Biden look bad. It's about burning down the country to grab control of the ash heap
- Sounds like a job for the guillotine. They are miss using our tax dollars and hurting the American people for personal gain. Anyone doing so should be tried for being an enemy of the state

I am so sick of Republicans bowing down to Donald Trump. He is such a a vile man and yet they have done nothing but put him before the country.
- But their constituents!
  It's half Putin half fear of losing to a Maga for not immediately viewing to trump. I'm tired of spineless politicians.
- Bowing to trump know kneels down to putin.

I just don't get it. Growing up in the 80s and 90s if you had anything even mentioning against Russia it would pass with flying colors. Now it seems that just doesn't exist anymore.
- Because they used to be Communist (bad, bad), but now they're a crony capitalist oligarchy that hates gay people and punishes dissenting speech. They are the Republican wet dream. It just took them awhile to get over their own "evil empire" propaganda.
- if you had anything even mentioning against Russia it would pass with flying colors
  That's because 80s/90s Russia was Woke Sinister Communists Who Hate Us while neighboring insurgents were Based Chad Freedom Fighters.
  The 2020s Russia is Based Chad White Nationalists while the Ukrainians are Woke Gay Antifa Terrorists.
  The conservative media narrative has entirely inverted.
  
  Oh man, I wonder why ₽epublicans would do such a thing?

Their bluff was called.
I wonder if anyone will tell the fauxbrained that the cons have no intent on proper governance. I bet if they could have kept SCOTUS from taking away human rights, they would have done that, too. They became the dog that caught the car on that, and they obviously don't want the same to happen with the border.
- Ahh but whose bluff?
  Republicans? Democrats?
  Democrats are the ones that compromised for what represented the worst border policy possible. What did they gain for this?
  Likewise with Republicans.
  Clearly, yes, bluffs were called. But both parties come out worse imo.
  
  What did they gain for this?
  The gain is not losing anything. It doesn't matter what the Dems conceded; if the bill doesn't pass then their concessions are irrelevant.
  But it's worse for the GOP. They got lots of what they demanded, but aren't going to get those things because they won't support the bill. So not only do they not get what they want, but talking point of "The GOP denounced a bill for border security hours after supporting it, and after months of complaining about the border. Do they really want to fix it?" is so stupidly simple to understand.

Guess who is real happy about this?
One hint: his name rhymes with tootin'.
- Rootin' tootin' Tony Pizza? The fastest nicknamer in the west?

Personal theory, this absolute clusterfuck of a situation the Republicans got themselves in wouldn't have happened without the ouster of McCarthy.
McCarthy is a political operator and probably would have gotten a much smaller bill done on just Ukraine/Israel back in October. Or, just rip the bandaid off and say no more Ukraine funding ever, everyone forgets by the election, and if something goes wrong in Ukraine everyone blames Biden.
Instead, Johnson pretends he'd be for Ukraine funding if only there was border funding which he thinks kills it except the Senate Republicans actually want Ukraine funding, Israel funding, and border funding. So they call his bluff (and/or take him at his word) and actually start negotiating.
And then it takes 4 months so it's election season now, and Republicans have to either give Biden another bipartisan win and lose a main attack against him, or go back on their word and reject the deal they asked for which makes them look incompetent, and gives them the blame if anything bad happens at the border or in Ukraine (or in Israel).
It's just such a bad spot to be in and it's in an election year. And an experienced Speaker wouldn't have landed here.
- With all the stress he's under, I just feel bad for his kid.
  Having to review all that porn must be unbearable.

May the GOP drown in their own shit.

Good. The "border crisis" provisions were ridiculous. This bill was mostly smoke anyway. What we need is a separate funding bill for Ukraine and a separate, comprehensive reform bill for immigration to make it easier to immigrate legally, to add funding for visa/asylum processing, and to fund better care for those in US custody awaiting processing. The border "security" shit they're trying to push is a dog and pony show giveaway to Republicans and further militarizes one of the most corrupt, ineffective, and unaccountable organizations in the entire US government (ICE & border patrol)

The GOP had a dog catch the car moment when they overturned Roe v Wade. Can't let that happen with immigration as well.

what they have successfully done is transfer the boat anchor that immigration and the order is from biden to themselves, and they are running on the border being broken and unsafe.
bold strategy. let's see how it plays out.
- No surprise. They've been running on "only we can solve the problems that we caused" for decades.

Fuck sake :/

Actually good. That border law was barbaric.

Putin pays better than their immigrant hating voter base.

Yeet em into the sun.
- Moon would be easier. Hell Neptune would be easier. It's hard to send stuff to the sun
  
  True, but wouldnt want to dirty any of our planet's with them, maybe just into deep space.
  Also how about the downvotes, all the poor little bigots and racists getting mad

70 comments