(Feb. 21, Advocate/T-P newspapers) This was published way back on Feb. 21, and STILL nothing has been done to live up to America’s needs. The lack of action is unconscionable. If Ukraine falls, it will be Mike Johnson’s fault. So will be all the horrid geopolitical repercussions which could ensue.
The fate of a Western-friendly, sovereign Ukraine, along with U.S. interests throughout the world, essentially is in the hands of Louisiana’s U.S. Reps. Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise. So far, they are failing the test.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Speaker Johnson and Majority Leader Scalise inexplicably sent the House on a two-week recess just as a military aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan finally had passed the Senate, and just as Russia began making its first significant battlefield gains in many, many months. Those gains, most notably the Russian recapture of the strategic city of Avdiivka in Eastern Ukraine, have come not because Ukraine lacks the will to fight or the overall strategic and tactical capacity to do so, but largely because its supplies are literally running out.
Time is of the essence to get ammunition, not to mention heavy military equipment and other aid, to Ukraine. Instead, Johnson and Scalise, who together control the House schedule, continue the inexcusable, eight-months-long stalling tactics that are starving Ukraine’s supply lines.
This is an appalling abdication of moral leadership, all for the sake of domestic political gamesmanship.
With last week’s death-by-gulag of opposition leader Alexei Navalny reminding the world of just how evil the Russian regime of Vladimir Putin is — and with Ukraine showing its resourcefulness by successfully hobbling the Russia Black Sea fleet — the time is perfect to stop kowtowing to the rump caucus of pro-Putinists in the House Republican Conference. After all, every single indicator is that a clear majority of the House supports aid for Ukraine. Johnson and Scalise should let a majority work its will, rather than using the power of their leadership positions to hold up the aid package indefinitely…. [The full column is at this link.]
