Archives for 2024

A quick note/reminder: You DO NOT need to go and watch the videos or look at the still imagery of traumatized Ukrainians or Ukrainian military wounded in action or civilians wounded in Russian strikes. That is not going to help Ukraine or Ukrainians and is only going to mess you up. I watch and look at this stuff and try to make the best judgements as to what should be included here to keep you informed and what is, essentially, akin to torture porn. I’ve seen the video of the shell shocked and terrorized family trying to make it out of Avdiivka in their car with their dogs. I saw it when it was first posted several days ago. I chose not to include it. You DO NOT need to subject yourselves to it.

Last night in comments Dan B asked:

If congress comes back on the 28th I believe they have to pass a continuing resolution or something similar on the 1st of March.  If they make extraordinary demands like zero Ukraine funding, total closure of the “border” (ever heard of airports dofusses?), defend the IRS, federal abortion ban, etc.  There’s no time for the White House and Senate to maneuver.  Suddenly we’re looking at the potential for the end of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency plus a potential worldwide recession, piled on top of all the current recessions.  Blame gets piled onto Democrats with help from right wing and corporate media who, foolishly believe the GOP would never really do this but were ‘forced’ by the Democrats failure to work with the other side.  This seems like the kind of brinksmanship and hostage taking that a religious zealot over his depth and in serious trouble of being deposed would eagerly grab ahold of.

Any thoughts / corrections?

Quite simply they’re out of time. The stepped CR stupidity that Johnson went with to avoid being yelled at by members of his caucus expires on 1 March and 8 March. The 1 March date covers four federal agencies, while the 8 March date covers the rest of the federal government including the DOD. The House will have exactly one working day – 29 February – to either do the appropriations bills for those four agencies and all the others or a new stepped CR before those two shut down on 1 March. The most recent reporting indicates the House GOP is not going to take up funding the US government until March.

Mike Johnson and House Republican leadership are going to be in Miami Florida this weekend at a leadership retreat.
Michael McCaul said his understanding is Johnson doesn’t plan to have Congress work on possible supplemental until after govt funding bill in March.

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) February 16, 2024

I don’t know exactly how it works, but think the Dems should move now on a discharge petition because sense I got from McCaul is House GOP will at earliest have something by April, and it is very much a maybe.

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) February 16, 2024

wasn’t clear to me from McCaul if April is the “drop dead” date for some more moderate House GOP who want to support Ukraine, after which, if Johnson has not moved anything, they’d be willing to get on board a Dem led bill. seems awfully late

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) February 16, 2024

I’m expecting they’ll miss the 1 March deadline, but will claim it’s no big deal because it’s only four federal agencies – Agriculture-Rural Development, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, Energy & Water, and Transportation-HUD – run hard up against the 8 March deadline and then who the hell knows. I’ve got a PhD in political science, I’ve taught the federal budgeting process at USAWC, and I’ve worked with senior GOs to explain the Defense budgeting and appropriation cycle to non-subject matter experts and I honestly have no idea if the extremists in Johnson’s caucus have forced all of us not just to the budgetary and appropriations cliff’s edge, but over it. I’m not sure that Johnson can get another continuing resolution through the House to keep the government open until he can get the actual appropriations bills through. The Senate has had all of their appropriations bills done for a long time now, the problem is the Republican majority in the House. What I do expect is March will be eaten up by dealing with the expiring CRs, the inability of Johnson and his GOP majority to actually produce the individual appropriations bills, using both expiring/the stepped CRs as hostages and then bundling them with military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, and humanitarian aid for Gaza as additional hostages. The last couple of times the House Democrats tried a discharge petition, they failed to get even the four or five Republicans necessary for it to pass. So I don’t expect that will work any better now.

Also, please remember, that President Biden and his team agreed to a sequester in the legislation that raised the debt ceiling, supposedly as the same form of inducement to the GOP to avoid having their priorities defunded too, similar to what drove Obama to agree to one. If the individual appropriations bills or an omnibus appropriations bill does not pass by April, the entire Federal government gets an arbitrary across the board 1% haircut in May 2o24. This is not just another hostage for the House GOP majority to take, but WAS JUST AS FUCKING STUPID AN IDEA FOR BIDEN TO AGREE TO AS IT WAS WHEN OBAMA DID IT!!!!

As I’ve repeatedly stated, because Biden’s legislative strategy to get additional funding for Ukraine was bad, because it was predicated on the Democrats retaining control of the House or the reasonableness and good faith of a GOP House majority after January 2023, neither of which were logical assumptions, no matter how decent a person Biden is, the Ukrainians are now on their own. All they’re going to get out of the US is thoughts and prayers.

This is the price of the House GOP majority’s extremism combined with the Biden administration’s strategic naiveté.

WH: “This morning, Ukraine’s military was forced to withdraw from Avdiivka after Ukrainian soldiers had to ration ammunition due to dwindling supplies as a result of congressional inaction, resulting in Russia’s first notable gains in months.”

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) February 17, 2024

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address to the Munich Security Conference earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump. Please keep in mind that Putin declared war on the US, NATO, the EU, and the post-WWII rules based order at the 2007 Munich Security Conference. Here’s the transcript of Putin’s 2007 speech and here’s the video.

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War for Ukraine Day 724: Did I Mention that the House of Representatives Went on a Two Week Vacation?Post + Comments (61)