https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-invites-ukrainian-president-zelenskyy-white-house-ontuesday-rcna128946
The White House is intensifying its efforts to strike a deal on aid for Ukraine and Israel.
Still crazy that the "moderates" think since we're defending Ukraine from a genocide. That means we need to fund Israel's genocide against Palestine...
But that's what happens when people think the right answer is always "half of each position"
Still crazy to me that somehow this will decide our next president. Listening to people explain ( and they are unfortunately 100% correct ,) how this will make people vote a certain way is so batshit crazy to me. Blame before the solution simply means more people are going to die for no reason.
There's a lot of lobby money tied into that but there's another policy pill that's hard to swallow, as well. The US has stated numerous times that after the assault on Hamas is over, Palestinians should and need to be the ones to govern themselves either through a new government or the Palestinian Authority which has been kept out of power since Hamas assumed rule in the West Bank. Israel hasn't committed to that solution and without the US, there is no one to make them commit. So if the US pulls out, now, Israel still won't stop and the resolution will be Palestinians living under Israeli rule. There isn't a right answer or path forward so they're opting for the least bad, long-term.
Earth could either be spherical or flat. Therefore we should act on the basis that it's a half sphere to encapsulate both positions into our world view.
The craziest thing is that a single person can decide what the representatives can vote on, and thus keep the entire country hostage. In many civilised democracies, any faction (usually there are more than two) in parliament can introduce bills to be voted on. Which would make this whole thing impossible, because there clearly is a broad majority for a huge Ukraine aid package. But they don't get to vote on it, because a minority can demand that unrelated stuff get tacked onto the same bill. What does Israel (armed to the teeth anyway, and not currently putting their might to good use, losing what sympathy they might have had after the October 7 atrocities) and US border security have to do with Ukraine? You want to vote on those issues, too? Fine, introduce a bill and vote on them. Separately.
(usually there are more than two)
You've hit on the biggest failing of the US version of democracy.
Omnibus bills get made because it acts as the compromise document. Instead of promises to vote on separate bills, all the compromises are lumped into one bill to vote on.
It is also important for a Congressional system like the US, with two houses with their own democratic mandate and an executive who can veto. Most countries have a Parliamentary system, or at least a different kind of system without the stark division of powers that the USA has.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Biden intends to “underscore the United States’ unshakeable commitment to supporting the people of Ukraine” in its war against Russia, Jean-Pierre said.
Top Biden aides have been in contact with lawmakers directly involved in the negotiations, including Schumer as well as Sens.
He previously said he’d oppose unconditional aid to Israel unless Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government changes “its current offensive military approach.”
Senators last week resumed talks about border provisions, which Republicans have insisted be included in the foreign aid bill, after the measure failed.
Murphy stressed that “we are not going to put Donald Trump’s immigration policies into statute” as he spoke about the battle over the border provisions of the aid bill.
Asked by host Kristen Welker if an additional $60 billion in Ukraine aid could change the outcome of its war with Russia, Murphy said he believes it would.
The original article contains 539 words, the summary contains 144 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I wish Biden would intensify efforts to raise the minimum wage, or intensify efforts to slow or stop housing scarcity, or intensify efforts to ban AR-15's (which he could accomplish himself if he wanted), but no, he's intensifying efforts to dump more of our money into another country's war.
The neglect of our own people never fucking ends.
He (and more importantly, the republicans that keep blocking these) can do both
And they also do neither.
Incidentally the same people blocking the aid are generally the people blocking increases to minimum wage or gun bans. I don't know if they're the same people who mess with the housing market though.
A Democratic Senator introduced a bill that would stop hedge funds from buying and owning single family homes. But Republicans won't pass it.
I'm past giving Democrats credit for writing bills.
They have the presidency and two years of a Congressional majority. We got conservative rule anyway, and they deserve credit for it.
"God I wish the Senate would just PASS BILLS with its 0-vote majority and two conservative members when a 60-vote majority is needed to call a vote" - least uninformed "BOTHSIDES" fan
You know, you can fix your own internal problems as a country while also helping other countries. They're not mutually exclusive.
With Republicans, without a Democrat majority in both houses, we apparently can do neither.
We had a Democratic majority for two years.
All we got for it was more war spending and lots and lots of excuses, plus another presidential offspring that is a national embarrassment.
A reasonable person, at some point, has to look at the repeated performative failure of Democrats when we give them power and just kind of figure it's purposeful. After all, both parties are funded by the same rich assholes.
This past week there have been a lot of "WHY DOESN'T AMERICA FOCUS ON ITS OWN ISSUES, UKRAINE BAD" commenters, presumably the Russian winter offensive has their bootlicking blood up.
They've been out for 40 years.
It's why the minimum wage has been 7 bucks for 15 years and our housing supply is being bought up by venture capitalists to generate an artificial scarcity, and the big priority isn't our people, it's finding excuses to dump more public money into another country's war.
Others have pointed out that we/Biden don't have to choose only one, but there's a reason to juggle multiple priorities too. In car sales, they use (or used to, it's thankfully becoming less common) a technique called four-square. Breaking the negotiation into trade-in price, total price, down payment and monthly payment. They work on one, trying to reach an agreement (that benefits them) but if it stalls in one box, move to the next. As you reach agreement in more boxes, it's easier to get the other person to settle for less/more in the other boxes.
In politics, if Biden decided to tackle only one issue, Republicans will mount an all out defense, think Affordable Care Act and how many people still hate it (or think they do) and ultimately what passed was a small fraction of what we wanted. Still better than nothing, but the right wing noise machine is getting better at creating frothing rage.
So instead put Ukraine, Tuition forgiveness, Gun Control, Border Control, and Minimum Wage on the table at the same time. When one stalls, and right wing media has people too whipped up about it, move to the next. Saner minds will multitask better than the permanently angry and hopefully when it all shakes out (we need a budget soon) we get more of what we wanted than if he only focused on one.
LOL
So your argument is that Biden is playing 4D chess... got it.
Call me when he does something about housing scarcity, or the minimum wage, or AR-15's, instead of just pretending to be powerless and doing nothing.