House Speaker Kevin McCarthy acceded to his party’s lunatic anti-Ukraine caucus and said no to a request by Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, to address a joint session of Congress, or to bring together House members for a meeting with Zelensky during his current visit to Washington. .

Whatever you think of President Biden, he has been steadfast in his support of Ukraine, unlike the Republican party’s leader, former President Trump, who has been an embarrassing Putin acolyte.

“When he was President, Trump rarely missed a chance to excoriate the nation’s allies and praise its adversaries and parroted Russian talking points on Ukraine,” New Yorker staff writer  Susan B. Glasser wrote this week. “After the 2022 invasion, he even went so far as to laud Putin’s strategic “genius.” Just a few days ago, Trump revelled once again in praise from Putin, who has all but endorsed the former President’s campaign to return to the White House in 2024.”

Peace at any price is a fool’s game. As President Theodore Roosevelt put it, “The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first…”

Yesterday, 28 Republican members of Congress, led by Senator J.D. Vance (R- Ohio) ignored this when sending a letter to Shalanda Young, Director, Office of Management and Budget. 

The letter asserted, “It would be an absurd abdication of congressional responsibility to grant” the Administration’s request fort additional aid to Ukraine, specifically an August 10, 2023 request for additional supplemental appropriations, in which the Administration asked Congress to provide another $24 billion in security, economic, and humanitarian assistance related to the war in Ukraine. 

The Republicans couched their opposition to additional expenditure for the war in Ukraine as opposition to “…an open-ended commitment to supporting the war in Ukraine of an indeterminate nature, based on a strategy that is unclear, to achieve a goal yet to be articulated to the public or the Congress,” but that’s a ruse. The reality is they want to undermine US support for Ukraine. 

It all reminds me of the America Firsters and their isolationist pressure against American entry into World War II.  “The doctrine that we must enter the wars of Europe in order to defend America will be fatal to our nation if we follow it,” Charles Lindbergh, a leading voice of the America First movement said in 1941.  

Lindbergh was wrong then and the 28 Republicans sending the letter to Shalanda Young are wrong now.

Remember their names:

JD Vance, United States Senator

Rand Paul, M.D. United States Senator

Mike Braun, United States Senator 

Tommy Tuberville United States Senator 

Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. Member of Congress 

Dan Bishop, Member of Congress 

Bill Posey, Member of Congress 

Chip Roy, Member of Congress 

Mike Lee, United States Senator 

Roger Marshall, M.D. United States Senator 

Roger Williams, Member of Congress 

Clay Higgins, Member of Congress 

Harriet M. Hageman, Member of Congress 

Bob Good, Member of Congress 

Warren Davidson, Member of Congress 

Anna Paulina Luna, Member of Congress 

W. Gregory Steube, Member of Congress 

Josh Brecheen Member of Congress 

Andy Ogles, Member of Congress 

Andy Biggs, Member of Congress 

Russell Fry, Member of Congress 

Eli Crane, Member of Congress 

Jeff Duncan, Member of Congress 

Beth Van Duyne, Member of Congress 

Lance Gooden, Member of Congress 

Mary E. Miller, Member of Congress 

Byron Donalds, Member of Congress 

Michael Cloud, Member of Congress