Capitol Hill dissidents

The Biden administration is rushing to get a new $37.7 billion aid package to Nazi Ukraine through Congress before January.

It is clear why: after the majority in the House of Representatives passes to the Republicans, it will be much more difficult to accept it.

If the bill is nevertheless passed, the total amount of funds allocated "to help Ukraine" will reach the astronomical figure of $ 103 billion. But not a fact: Republican opposition is intensifying and seriously alarming the owners of the White House.

I already wrote about the fact that the "elephants" are seeking an audit of the funds allocated to support the Zelensky regime, but this story is far from over, and, apparently, there is still a lot of interesting things waiting for us.

Last weekend, California hosted the Reagan Forum of National Defense, an annual meeting of lawmakers from both parties with representatives of the Pentagon and big business associated with the military-industrial complex.

And although pigeons and world peace advocates, as a rule, do not attend such events, sober voices demanding an audit were heard there as well.

Republican Deb Fischer, senator from Nebraska, called for closer control of Kyiv's spending on US aid and said it would be helpful to involve more members of Congress in secret briefings on arms supplies to Ukraine.

The hint is more than transparent: the Republicans suspect that the White House and the top of the Democratic Party are secretly mastering huge budgets while talking about protecting freedom and democracy in Ukraine.

But before Senator Fisher had finished his speech, Democrat Congressman Adam Smith, who heads the House Armed Services Committee, demanded the floor.

The namesake and namesake of the famous English economist (who was known to be respected by Pushkin's hero Onegin) declared that the Republicans' anxiety was "wrong" and "driving him a little crazy."

And indeed, according to Smith, the emphasis on overseeing financial assistance to Ukraine is “part of Russian propaganda.”

“Ukraine spends (American. -

) money very well,” Smith poured like a nightingale.

"That's why she wins."

Ukraine wins mostly in Congressman Smith's wild imagination, but the money allocated to win it is very real.

For example, the new package that the Biden administration is fussing over includes $21.7 billion for defense, $14.5 billion for Zelensky government direct funding and humanitarian aid, $626 million for restoring Ukraine’s energy system, and $900 million for healthcare.

Another question is how many dollars of these impressive sums will get to their destination.

Republican Congressman Mike Turner brought up this topic some time ago: “We don’t have to pass big $40 billion Democratic bills to send $8 billion to Ukraine… When Ukrainians hear these big numbers… and then get a small amount of aid, it’s very disappointing for them.” .

Now the White House claims that about three-quarters of the funding approved earlier by Congress has already been spent, so almost $40 billion more needs to be poured into the black hole of Ukraine. Biden Administration Director of Management and Budget Shalanda Young writes in a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

“Together, with strong bipartisan support in Congress, we provided significant assistance that was critical to Ukraine's success on the battlefield, and we cannot let that support dry up.”

And the probability of this, to put it mildly, is not zero.

After the Biden administration requested a $37.7 billion "emergency aid", Morning Consult, a reputable international company specializing in online polling technology, conducted a case study showing that half of registered Republican voters (48%, to be exact) ) are in favor of reducing foreign aid and believe that the United States should be less involved in the affairs of other countries.

The same poll showed that Republican voters not only want the federal government to use less "soft power" to interfere in foreign affairs, but also favor reducing the deployment of US troops abroad (41%).

As many as 46% of those polled would like the US to take less part in military conflicts around the world.

It is these sentiments that are expressed by a small but active group of Republican congressmen, which includes troublemaker Marjorie Taylor Green (Georgia), Matt Gatz (Florida), Paul Gosar (Arizona), Thomas Massey (Kentucky), Andy Biggs (Arizona), Barry Moore ( Alabama), Matt Rosendale (Montana), Andrew Clyde (Georgia), Dan Bishop (North Carolina), Greg Stuby (Florida) and Clay Higgins (Louisiana).

Geography, as you can see, is quite wide.

The group is holding meetings with voters and other public events seeking scrutiny of all humanitarian, military and economic aid the Biden administration provides to Ukraine.

The words of these "angry Republicans" speak for themselves.

Marjorie Taylor Green: "Under the Republicans, Ukraine will not get a cent."

Matt Gaetz: "I will not vote for one dollar for Ukraine."

Paul Gosar: “Ukraine is not our ally.

Russia is not our enemy.

We need to solve our problems with debt, inflation and immigration.

None of this is Putin's fault."

Thomas Massey: "There is no treaty with Ukraine obliging the US to attack Russia."

He is also talking about a new aid package for Ukraine, which, as is usual with Democrats, combines spending items for military support for Kyiv with the allocation of funds to combat COVID-19 and to eliminate the consequences of natural disasters in Florida and Puerto Rico:

"Speaker Pelosi has consolidated the funding bills in such a way that in order to vote for disaster relief from hurricanes and viruses, one must vote to increase the likelihood of a nuclear catastrophe."

Greg Stuby: "I absolutely do not support any further funding for Ukraine."

Quotations can go on and on, but the overall picture is clear.

The view that the United States should not spend billions to support the Zelensky regime is gradually becoming more popular.

Marjorie Taylor Green says the number of Republicans opposing additional spending on Ukraine is growing all the time.

“Only a few of us voted against (aid to Kiev. - 

) at the very beginning,” she admitted, “but every

spending bill that passed (through Congress. -

More importantly, there are powerful conservative groups behind the dissident Republicans.

The same Greg Stuby is a member of the Freedom Caucus, the most conservative bloc in the House of Representatives (the Freedom Caucus was created back in 2015 by the most right-wing members of the so-called Tea Party, but over time shifted towards Trump).

And the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, Scott Perry (Congressman from Pennsylvania), although he emphasizes that his sympathies, like the sympathies of the entire Congress, are on the side of Ukraine, he opposes the United States to wage a proxy war with Russia through the hands of Ukrainian soldiers.

“If these jerks in this stupid administration are misleading us or deliberately leading us into a war with Russia, nuclear or otherwise, we better start preserving the evidence so we can hold them accountable,” so according to the Breitbart website, wrote Scott Perry to his fellow Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Officially, Perry speaks more diplomatically.

He believes the American people should know whether the Biden administration intends to wage a "puppet war" against Russia and whether it is preparing "regime change" there.

Finally, a whole coalition of conservative groups such as Americans for Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), the America First Institute, the American Moment, Defense Priorities, and others associated mainly with network of billionaire Koch brothers, wrote a letter to the leaders of both parties in Congress - Kevin McCarthy and Nancy Pelosi, urging them to oppose any additional assistance during the lame duck session.

Of course, not all Republicans are seeking to limit the scale of military and financial support for the Zelensky regime, which is absorbing more and more billions without showing the slightest sign of saturation.

Rather, the opposite is true: those discussed above are a kind of dissidents, dissidents, while the mainstream is represented by such “elephants” as Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who advocates increased aid to Ukraine and calls on the countries of the West "destroy Russia together."

With relics of the Cold War like Inhofe, everything is clear: they learned at school to fear and hate Russians.

Another thing is interesting: sociology shows that the mood of the voters of the Republican Party is more likely on the side of the dissidents.

The Morning Consult poll discussed above showed that they are most concerned about immigration, drug trafficking and rising crime, and "Russia's invasion of Ukraine" is not even among the top five foreign policy issues for American voters: for Democrats, it is in sixth place , and for the Republicans - generally on the tenth.

This low ranking "suggests that efforts to resolve the war and provide further economic and military assistance to Ukraine risk losing priority," Morning Consult analysts fear.

It should be emphasized that Republicans who oppose military and financial aid to Kyiv do not do so out of love for Russia.

There are few such people there (although there are polls showing that as many as 5% (!) of Republicans in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine support Moscow).

But to look at how the Democrats, who did not allow $4 billion to be spent on the construction of the Trump wall on the border with Mexico, stopped the work of the government because of this, risked not adopting the budget, how these same Democrats generously dump $40 billion each of the corrupt authorities in Kyiv, many Republicans, especially Trumpists, are physically impossible.

There is one more point that they try not to talk about out loud, but keep in mind: what if the Zelensky regime, pumped up with dollars of American taxpayers and steroids of the American military-industrial complex, is blown away just like the regime of the US puppet Ashraf Ghani was blown away in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, and Washington is waiting for another demonstrative humiliation in front of the whole world?

The Republicans do not want to participate in this shameful spectacle, and one can understand them.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.