US Senate advances $95 bln Ukraine, Israel aid bill after failed border deal

[Brian4Liberty]

US Senate advances $95 bln Ukraine, Israel aid bill after failed border deal

WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - A $95.34 billion bill that includes aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan advanced in the U.S. Senate on Thursday after Republicans blocked compromise legislation that included a long-sought overhaul of immigration policy.

Senators backed a procedural motion by 67-32, exceeding the 60-vote threshold to advance the bill. Seventeen Republicans voted in favor, in a surprising shift after they blocked the broader bill on Wednesday.

"This is a good first step. This bill is essential for our national security, for the security of our friends in Ukraine, in Israel, for humanitarian aid for innocent civilians in Gaza, and for Taiwan," Schumer said in the Senate after the vote.

There was no immediate word on when the 100-member chamber would consider final passage, as some senators said they expected to remain in session during the weekend if necessary.

"We are going to keep working on this bill until the job is done," Schumer said.

The Democratic-led Senate took up the security aid bill after Republicans on Wednesday blocked a broader measure that also included reforms of border security and immigration policy that a bipartisan group of senators had negotiated for months.

The security aid bill includes $61 billion for Ukraine as it battles a Russian invasion, $14 billion for Israel in its war against Hamas and $4.83 billion to support partners in the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan, and deter aggression by China.

It also would provide $9.15 billion in humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, Ukraine and other populations in conflict zones around the globe.
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More: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us...aid-bill-after-failed-border-deal-2024-02-08/

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Via Senator Mike Lee:

I and other Republicans in the Senate and House aren’t enthusiastic about sending more money to Ukraine.

Neither are the American people.

Enough of us felt this way last fall that it didn’t appear a Ukraine aid package could pass.

Hoping to secure more Republican support, Senate GOP leadership offered a deal—to halt any Ukraine aid bill unless or until we could get language into that bill that would actually force an end to the border crisis.”

We could use what The Firm wants (Ukraine aid) as leverage to force what the American people overwhelmingly want (to end the border crisis), and in theory could achieve that through language conditioning the release of aid to Ukraine on the Biden administration restoring true operational control at the border.

The Firm spent months negotiating a bill (while hiding it from us until Sunday night) that—when we finally got to see it—did NOT contain language that would have forced an end to the border crisis.

We still could have told Democrats that we’d hold 41 votes against Ukraine funding until we could cobble together a bill that would actually achieve our stated objective.

Many of us proposed that—and have continued to do so in the last 18 hours.

But for that to work, we’d have needed 41 Republicans to agree not to support an Ukraine bill unless or until our bill could be passed along with it.

Sadly, we had so many Republicans in the Senate who were unwilling to make such a commitment—apparently because they were so eager to pass Ukraine funding that they were willing to jettison the objective of forcing border security on the Biden administration (by, among other things, conditioning the release of Ukraine funding based on objectively verifiable border-security benchmarks).

It could have worked.

It would have worked.

All they had to do was be ready to say “no” on Ukraine aid until action-forcing border-security language was agreed to by Democrats.

That they were unwilling to do.

I wish they wanted border security in America as much as they seem to want it in Ukraine.
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https://twitter.com/BasedMikeLee/status/1755695082957582680

 

[WarriorLiberty]

Via Senator Mike Lee:

Its clear the current admin whoever is behind Biden believes that Ukraine is far more important to deliver a "Military Defeat to Russia" without realizing the consequences of how Russia could respond back.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

https://twitter.com/SenRandPaul/status/1755679404246605867

 

[vita3]

Go get ‘em Rand!

 

[Anti Globalist]

Fuck every single politician that voted for this bill.

 

[WarriorLiberty]

deter aggression by China

US gets new Philippine bases with South China Sea, Taiwan in mind

313 U.S. military base sites in East Asia alone.

Four new military bases to be used by United States forces deployed to the Philippines will be in scattered locations around the country, including in a province facing the flashpoint South China Sea, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has said.