Some Republicans who backed the aid encountered little resistance from voters, who were far more willing to embrace it — and less interested in ousting the speaker over it — than their right-wing colleagues.
A week after he broke with the majority of House Republicans and voted to send $60.8 billion in aid to Ukraine, Representative Max Miller took the stage at a performing arts center in his Ohio district bracing for backlash.
Instead, Mr. Miller, a first-term congressman who spent four years in the White House as a top aide to former President Donald J. Trump, was greeted at a town hall-style meeting on Saturday in the city of Solon with a sustained round of applause. Several attendees stood to publicly thank him for his vote, and a line of locals queued up afterward to shake his hand.
“Anything we can do to support the Ukrainian victory over the Russian invasion would be a positive thing for the world,” said Randy Manley, a retiree from Strongsville, Ohio, who said he planned to vote for Mr. Trump in November.
He basically said that anything they could do stop Russia would be good..but then is going to vote for the guy who has basically said he would end the war fast by caving to Russia's demands.
Turns out members of Congress are incredibly cheap to bribe. A few hundred thousand here and there and you own a congressman. Doesn't even have to be "never have to work again" money.
And how many brave Ukrainians are dead now, and died with no shells for their cannons, no missiles in the batteries we gave them, waiting for us to hold a damn vote?
I hope Johnson thinks about that when he kneels down to pray at night. I hope it haunts him for the rest of his life.
A man who runs away from a fight, when people he claims are his friends need help, is a coward, nothing more. If WW3 is the cost, then so be it. Though Putin would have to be pretty damn dumb to fight half the world with just Russia, since neither China nor India have alliance treaties with him.
What avenues of escalation are left to Putin? 80% of his army is tied up in Ukraine, the rest is needed for border patrol. All russian men that would join the army voluntarily have already joined, so a big mobilization would see the support for the war plummet. And after that, all that is left is the big N word. And there are plenty of reasons why Putin doesn't want to use those.
On the other hand, letting Ukraine lose will lead to much more instability in the future.
Edit: above comment accused 'lefties' of wanting WW3.
Miller's deal is "the government and establishment political parties have failed you" which has extensive resonance with rural communities. He and many Republicans like him have zero competition electorally, so they can bounce around issues however they (or their donors) please.
Keep in mind the sanctions on Russia over Ukraine has opened up a massive oil export industry for the United States. The oligarchs do have an incentive to stave off resolution.
Right, and Ukraine isn't in Ohio either. But when the oil industry needs congressional votes for, say: keeping or expanding Russian sanctions, Millers the type of guy they'll donate to through a PAC.
Russian agitprop is a little bit less common given that neither the FSB nor Putin's captive oligarchs have nearly the discretionary financial clout they used to.