US Zombies on Ukraine also awaken

The $61 billion aid package for Ukraine was approved by the House on 4/20/24, and it did contain the authorization to seek Russian funds held in US banks, the "repo" act. The money would have gone to Ukraine's reconstruction, but this vote in the House, certain to be passed in the Senate, enables the reconstruction use as part of the plan. The vote in Congress on the aid was so overwhelming that the message to Putin is: "Do not miscalculate. The  US zombies have awakened. " Now Europe has a chance at stability, and China has been put on notice, too. "Hands off of Taiwan".  

Why did Speaker Mike Jonson reverse his position to alow a vote on Ukraine aid?   Both speculation and his words contain a clue. Johnson is third in line to the presidency and privy to national security briefings. It must have contained some sobering information.  Having a fighting-age son entering the Naval Academy, as Johnson does, is also a sobering thought.  If Russia directly engaged NATO troops, thinking that Western resolve to help Ukraine was so weak, they could also grab the Baltics and or Poland; our sons, daughters, and grandchildren would have their lives on the line.  

The vote was strongly bi-partisan  3 to 1 ratio.https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-vote-foreign-aid-bills-ukraine-israel/story?id=109429499. Bi-partisan is a most unusual occurrence in the House. A coalition of the rational and moderates from both parties came together. The majority of GOP legislators still voted against Ukraine aid.   https://ca.news.yahoo.com/112-house-republicans-voted-against-175745760.html

 Part of the deal, it appears, is that the Democrats would also cross over to keep Johnson as speaker if his right-wing nuts tried to oust him. That is what skilled legislators do, and it helps to have a skilled legislator like Biden in the White House. He knows the art of the legislative deal. It and most of the other elements of the Senate bill also passed. 

Now third in line to the presidency and privy to national security briefings. It must have contained some sobering information.  Having a fighting-age son entering the Naval Academy, as Johnson does, is also a sobering thought.  If Russia directly engaged NATO troops, thinking that Western resolve to help Ukraine was so weak, they could also grab the Baltics and or Poland; our sons, daughters, and grandchildren would have their lives on the line.  

Still, there are those who think isolationism is the way to peace or who just oppose anything Biden is for and Trump is against.  They are fools and tools of those who are our adversaries.  Period.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/house-vote-billions-dollarsrussian-government-money-sitting-us-banks-rcna148671

From an earlier blog post: https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/02/message-to-magas-in-house-you-should.html: Plan B: Should Speaker Johnson beat down a movement to force him to bring Ukraine aid to the floor because he knows he would lose if that fails, there may be a plan B to support Ukraine. While this concept was applied to post-Ukraine, assuming it survives this conflict, I wonder if it could be applied to funding military aid. Use of Russian treasure held in Western banks could be tapped. Post-conflict reconstruction was discussed recently by Fareed Zakaria on CNN. Western Nations holding Russian funds should freeze them and set up a reconstruction fund for Ukraine, not only funding Ukrainians from Russian money but also providing a reconstruction fund kept out of the hands of Russia. I am unsure of the legality of this but after I wrote this, I heard the former ambassador to Russia on MSNBC suggest this. He carries enormous weight. We will know the week of Feb. 25 when the House returns to work. and the discharge petition forces Mike Johnson to bring to a vote. Update Feb 25.: on MSNBC review I heard an interview I missed .. Rep Jim Hines believes that will be the ultimate solution. The only question is whether to take the interest of the 300 billion Western banks have in Russia or the principle. If the bulk of it is in Swiss banks, that will be a difficult job, but for the first time in history, the Swiss have been supporting one of the combatants, Ukraine and NATO, instead of being neutral.

https://www.eda.admin.ch/deza/en/home/countries/ukraine.html#:~:text=Switzerland%20supports%20Ukraine%20on%20its,democracy%20and%20strengthen%20local%20governance.

Is it 1939 all over again, a bookend of my life?

 A story my father told me:  On September 1, 1939, my father with 18-month-old me were sitting in our olive green Studebaker parked outside our tourist cottage in Grand Lake, Colorado.  My grandparents and mother were "under the weather "inside.  Dad turned on the car radio, and out of the speaker came the news that Hitler had invaded Poland.  Now, nearly 85 years later, I read the report that a predator nation was threatening a neighbor, Ukraine, with a takeover. inevitable if the West continued quibbling about whether to send more aid to that country bravely fighting a war against Russia.  The isolationists in the USA are blind to the danger as the GOP House leadership puts a stranglehold on US aid to Ukraine.  Those who have been victims in the line of fire in 1939 and the Cold War and now in 2024 know this is not the bloviating of the US libs. Poland would not be caught flat-footed again, so they have begun building bomb shelters. They are taking the dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin, at his word and his goal to reassemble the territory Russia once controlled in the Cold War.  Poland sees itself as the next in line, and they and their immediate small neighbors of the Baltics are to be attacked if Ukraine fails to stop Russia from a takeover.  It seems more than ironic, in fact frightening, that my life could be bookended to two world wars because of the fumbling, bumbling, and gridlock of those who should have been smarter to have learned the lesson of the late 1930s.  

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polands-capital-warsaw-earmarks-30-mln-bomb-shelters-other-security-2024-03-13/#:~:text=WARSAW%2C%20March%2013%20(Reuters),city's%20mayor%20said%20on%20Wednesday.

Years of appeasement and isolationism convinced Germany to set its sights on America and declare war against the US  four days after Pearl Harbor in 1941. They saw our isolationism and the Nazi sympathizers that had become a large political force in the US as making it ripe for the pickings. Pearl Harbor had just verified the US weakness, failure of intelligence services,  vulnerability, and the complications of fighting a two-front war worth declaring war on the US in the epic miscalculation that the US was an easy target that would be unwilling to put up much of a fight. This was before there was a NATO, and even if Trump's goal for the US to pull out of that mutual defense treaty, we would be back at September 1, 1939.

That the MAGA wing demands Europe pay their fair share need to update their information bank. Europe is.  The MAGA wing needs to stop lying about this and keeping their followers ignorant.

Europe awoke as the zombies are sleepwalking in the MAGA House. https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2024/02/stop-whining-isolaitonsists-europe.html

A footnote: That green Studebaker lasted until after WWII because all manufacturing was geared to the war effort. Ration cards, shortages of certain food, toys made of cardboard, paper dolls, and war surplus canteens, dim lights as we practiced air raid blackouts, a father constantly worried as his brother fought in Italy, and two of my mother's brothers were bomber gunners or staff in the Pacific theater. Dad, rarely home,  was not in the military because he was essential services as the director of the "telephone exchanges" for an army camp, a POW camp, and a city of 40K throughout WWII. I wonder what it would be like with the aggressor and defenders now having nuclear weapons.

Rand Paul 's vote on aid to Ukraine divorced from reality.

  On this issue of military support to Ukraine, Rand Paul's vote against aid 5/15 caused delays in shipping when the timing was crucial, Paul is a fool and a danger to our national security interests because his position is divorced from reality. It is ideologically motivated and ignores a fact that bad actors in this world wish us ill. He may be consistent, but his myopic vision fails to recognize the impact of isolationism as a danger to US national security. This gets him mentioned in the press, and delays needed aid to Ukraine for nearly a week. This also ticks the heck out of the vast majority of Americans on both sides of the aisle who get it that if Russia is not stopped now with its, ambitions to take over their former eastern European satellites, Putin will simply move on to his next target. Failure to support Ukraine will also be a signal to China to move on Taiwan using the same imperial rationale as Putin did and to make the same major miscalculation. Take a page from World War II. Japan's and Hitler's belief isolationists would keep us out of war gave them a green light to proceed. They miscalculated. When the chips are down, and national security interests are threatened, in the US, ideology loses to defense and self-interest. We are more interconnected with trade and communications and nuclear-armed now than we were in 1939. This is a far more dangerous world than we were then. Russia's and China's nuclear arsenal and military power are formidable. Their reach spans oceans. Fortress America no longer exists. There is an old saying: A stitch in time saves nine. Support for Ukraine now saves our security interests from unraveling later. that lead us to more deadly conflicts

Senator Rand Paul single-handedly holds up $40bn US aid for Ukraine | US Senate | The Guardian

Zelensky welcomes U.S. Senate delegation led by McConnell to Kyiv in surprise visit (yahoo.com)