(#5505) The republicans still playing games with Ukraine aid

     A bit of news yesterday after the meeting summoned by President Biden of the four leaders in Congress. The obstructionist Speaker of the House has said that the aid to Ukraine will be voted on in time. Parsing this comment of his allows for the idea that he does plan for a vote to take place but he is hedging that with the phrase, in time. What does that mean and is it a near time or a far off time. We don't know yet but we must assume that him even mentioning this about the aid is more akin to near than far off. With the another bill that need to be fashioned like the funds to keep the government operating coming due it would be fair to think that the aid may be part of that legislative process.
     I know that republicans hope to use the Ukraine aid as a wedge to force democrats to concede other points that are not associated with the Ukraine aid and as long as they feel they can force democrats to concede policies they will not let the Ukraine aid up for a vote. The republican party is keeping aid from Ukraine as blackmail if one was to call it out appropriately in order to satisfy their own extreme agenda. The idea that Joe Biden will give the fascist putin helping republicans rewards for their behavior is a long stretch so we wait to see what other pressures may be applied. Joe Biden has to force the republicans to honor the promises made to Ukraine of which now the unkept promises are devastating to Ukraine.
     For me the foreign aid legislation must be part of any deal democrats make with republicans on keeping the government operating. The government funding bill needs to be passed before March 1, to keep the first stage of the government shutdown from occurring. The onus is on the House republicans as they control America's purse strings so highlighting that fact is the first step toward making the republicans do their job of offering legislation that democrats are willing to accept. No one wants the blame for failure at this juncture so making sure that those who are initially responsible to make the deals necessary for agreement need to do just that!