President Biden is considering asking Congress for a massive $100 billion spending package for the Ukraine war, The Telegraph reported on Saturday.
The idea of the huge spending package would be to fund the proxy war through the 2024 election without having to worry about the growing opposition to the policy in Congress, as the majority of the House and the Senate currently still support arming Ukraine.
“The ‘big package’ idea is firmly supported by many throughout the administration,” a source familiar with discussions on the matter told The Telegraph. “Supporters of Ukraine want this to be a one-and-done big bill, and then not have to deal with it until after the next election.”
Defense News recently reported that multiple senators have also proposed passing a massive Ukraine aid package to get through a whole year. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) put the price tag at $70 billion.
An unnamed Biden administration official told The Telegraph that the White House is “not making any decisions about whether to do one big package or about how much it would be” until after a new House speaker is elected to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), which is expected to happen on Wednesday.
While the majority of Congress supports more spending on the Ukraine war, it could be difficult to bring a massive aid package to the floor of the House for a vote due to the sway GOP opponents of the policy have over the speaker. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) launched the effort to oust McCarthy after accusing him of cutting a secret deal with the Democrats on Ukraine aid.
If a $100 billion aid package is authorized by Congress, it would bring total US spending on the proxy war to about $213 billion.
If the next $100 Billion “investment” is as successful as the last one . . . Maybe the Dems should think carefully before they do this at the beginning of a presidential election cycle. 😏
Uncle Joe and the CIA are not done yet: https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/06/maidan-color-revolution-georgia/
Sheesh. When they encouraged trouble in Georgia in 2008, the year of the NATO promise of membership to Ukraine and Georgia*, Georgia was thumped in short order.
The idea that a tiny nation of four million people is going to be a “second front” on Russia’s west is . . . ridiculous.
* “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”
The countries that spend most on military in 2023 are:
United States, with an estimated budget of $876.9 billion
China, with an estimated budget of $292 billion
Russia, with an estimated budget of $100 billion
India, with an estimated budget of $73.8 billion
Wow,these statistics show a clear picture of a countries propensities
“Report: Biden Considering Huge $100 Billion Ukraine Spending Package – The idea is to be able to fund the proxy war through the 2024 elections”
Why not just send Zelensky a printing press, plates, paper, and ink so he can print his own US $100 bills?
Oh wait, Zelensky just came out in support of Hamas and Hezbola attacking Israel. Perhaps his time in office is over.
This would plant Ukraine into the election as Biden’s War, absolutely central. Every Republican would consider Biden’s War a litmus test.
Doing that is up to Biden. Bad choices are typical of him, so he might well do it.
This may be an opportune moment for the anti-war movement. This $100 billion is serious overreach at a moment when people are struggling to put ends together. As a talking point this amount is nearly 10X what the government spends on Head Start. It is likely 10X a lot of domestic programs. It doesn’t matter whether you are in favor of these programs, or a tax cut. The point is where should the government be directing resources in a time of growing economic stress.
Pin these war pigs down, and do so as publicly as you can as to why they are spending so much more on a corrupt and failing effort rather than keeping those resources at home. Now that they have asked for an amount all at once that illuminates the amount of resources going to this monstrous effort we should respond by taking advantage of their overplayed hand. Peace Now!
The fiscal year 2024 budget request for the Food and Drug Administration: $7.2 billion
The Health and Human Services Department’s Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund has an annual budget of less than $3 billion.
The Department of Education 2023 budget authority for Education for Homeless Children and Youth is $129 million. Its budget authority for FY 2023 for Rural Education is $215 million.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency 2023 budget for Operations and support is about $1.4 billion.
Those figures clearly show what the priorities of our leaders are.
Revolution then. Take them down because they are giving us a slow and painful economic death.
It will be very difficult to acomplish in the US considering the political and economic conditions and the apathy of the masses.
I truly wish. But, “…anti-war movement?” Are you talking to us? …No? …I don’t see any “anti-war movement?” All I see is “pro-war movement” always and everywhere! …Wait!? …Maybe I need new glasses from “the hope and wishful thinking store?” That’s probably my only “hope!” (Sarcasm)
Record turnout in 2024 writes in friends.
Constituent assembly forms online.
Biden and his cronies think that it is monopolym money being spent. They are wrong. It is this countries future and financial sanity being flushed away down the sewer of wars in the battle for world domination.
$100 billion is so much that I wonder if this isn’t just a publicity stunt, particularly after he couldn’t even get $12 billion last week.
Regardless, Ukraine is about to run out of soldiers. No amount of cash can cure that problem.
Sounds like a Biden Dented Dream…!
Voter support for US military aid to Ukraine, especially among Republicans, is sharply declining and is likely to continue to decline leading up to the 2024 election. This is bad news for Ukraine and may lead to the defeat of the Ukrainian military. Cutting off military aid will be a setback for the Ukrainian resistance. But the resistance will switch to guerrilla tactics. The Russians have already lost the war and even if the Russians overcome the Ukrainian military there is no possibility of Russian breaking the Ukrainians’ will to resist.
Hamas’ success in the Al Aqsa Flood operation today demonstrates that the trajectory of an asymmetric war of national resistance is determined by hearts and minds, not force of arms. Hamas’ offensive demonstrate the futility of Putin’s invasion. The best outcome the Russians can hope for is to become an unpopular army of occupation awash in a sea of hostile Ukrainians with millions of Ukrainians living in Russia. So the likely cut off of US aid will lengthen the Ukraine war. But ultimately there will be a political crisis in Russia that will force the Russians to withdraw from every part of Ukraine except possibly Crimea.
Nostradamus you’re not.
You keep talking as if the entirety of Ukraine is the same.
You keep talking as if Ukrainians who speak Russian support the invasion.
No. I don’t.
The overwhelming of Ukrainians oppose the invasion. If they did not the resistance would have been defeated long ago. In asymmetric war the calendar is the barometer of where the hearts and minds line up.
But not the entirety of Ukraine. You just won’t accept that. In those places the resistance will be against Kiev if Ukraine regains all their territory. Unless you expect a completely different government. One that isn’t trying to eliminate anything “Russian”. Or are those large groups of ethnic Russians supposed to be second class citizens after Ukraine is whole?
Except for Crimea ethnic Russians are a small minority everywhere in Ukraine except two oblasts comprising Donbas where where Russians are a large minority. The rights of the Russians should be protected by an international authority. But Russia, as the former imperial power has as much credibility as Britain did trying to pose as a peacekeeper in Ulster.
The settlement of Russians in Crimea and Donbas is a lot like the settlement of Protestants in Ulster during the Plantation. The Ulster Plantation never took and the Russian plantation led to similar tensions that are internal Ukrainian problems. I supported Putin’s diplomatic efforts to prefvent Ukraine from aligning with NATO. But the invasion was the worst thing Russia could have done. There will never be peaceful detente between Russia, Ukraine and the West in our lifetimes now. Maybe the chance for detente was slim. But now the chance of detente is zero and Russia is trapped in a war it can’t win.
Russia may eventually defeat the Ukrainian army (I am surprised they did not do so already).But Russia can never defeat the Ukrainian resistance any more than the British could defeat the Irish or the French could defeat the Algerians.
Any peace agreement should provide guarantees for the rights of ethnic minorities, including Russians and Tatars who were ethnically cleansed from Crimea in 1944. There should be an international authority in the Donbas and Crimea for a cooling off period during reconstruction. There should also be plebisites in Donbas and Crimea after a ten to fifteen year cooling off period for reconstruction of civil society and to give refugees the opportunity to return. But first the Russians have to leave or there won’t be peace.
Ukrainians need to work out their ethnic differences. It will be complicated as it was in Ulster, Algeria and Lebanon. But the Russians, the US, NATO and the EU have no role to play in that. The war that Putin unleashed is magnitudes worse than the injustices he claims to be addressing. The truth is that Putin invaded Ukraine for geopolitical reasons as much as US/NATO is supporting Kyiv for its own geopolitical goals. Neither side cares about the Ukrainians of any ethnicity. Former colonial powers never resolve ethnic conflict in their former colonies. The Russians need to leave.
I was commenting on your claim that the resistance is, or will be, country wide and you come back with another speech. If you want to discuss something without falling back to the same old bullshit, then feel free to reply to my comments. Otherwise, please don’t.
My point is that the ethnic conflict in Ukraine which you call resistance is an internal Ukrainian matter. Ukraine, like many countries, has mixed ethnicities that have to work out their conflicts without outside interference. Czarist Russia seeded the present day conflict by a plantation policy similar to the Ulster plantation by the British. The ethnic Russians in Ukraine are descendants of settlers planted by the Czars and the commissars. Working out the differences between the Russian minority, the displaced Tatars and the indigenous Ukrainians is going to be complicated. But military intervention by Russia, the former imperial power will be as counterproductive as interventions by UK and France in theoir former colonies.
No, you insist that the resistance (eventually guerilla tactics) will be country wide, and I disagreed with that. Apparently, you are trying to read something into what I said as something other than what I said. And yet another speech. Just stop.
The Ukrainians are resisting even in Crimea. Russia has a sordid history in Ukraine and needs to leave.
I’m speaking of the reality that Russia isn’t leaving if they don’t get what they originally invaded for, security guarantees. I want Russia to leave too. But I also want NATO to move away from Russia’s borders to where the West assured they would stay in 1991. Is that going to happen? So, I don’t think a “resistance” is going to change that and the resistance that takes place in Russian occupied territories will be contained. At least in certain areas. Crimea certainly being one. Otherwise, we have a much larger war.
The same dynamics that doomed Zionism in the occupied territories doom Russian imperialism in the territories it occupies. A foreign invader can’t contain a popular resistance. The attempt to do so only strengthens the resistance in the long run. Russia is seen as a foreign invader in all the occupied territories except possibly Crimea and that is likely to change the longer the war continues. You are also not taking into account the role of the Tatars who are the indigenous inhabitants of Crimea.
You’re just repeating yourself. You did a 180 after invasion even though you agreed that Russia had been provoked for 30 plus years. But instead of this being a mistake in judgement on Russia’s part, it became something totally different to you, even though the provocations were continuing with no end in sight. Now, why would it be so hard to think that Russia was/is reacting to those 30 years of provocations? Was it just wild coincidence that the invasion happened after diplomacy was sought, and rejected, to address Russia’s security concerns?
Why can’t you get it. Provocations don’t justify war. Putin had a choice. And the war was not a mistake in judgement. It was a result of Putin’s revanchist ambitions which didn’t end with Crimea and won’t end with Ukraine.
I supported Putin’s annexation of Crimea. I was wrong. Like Chamberlain, I didn’t realize that allowing Putin to get away with seizing Crimea by force would only encourage him to continue to use force to end disputed. Putin’s revanchism must be stopped or it could lead to world war.
Why don’t you get it? I didn’t say the provocations justified the war. I said the invasion was the result of the provocations. You, on the other hand, agreed that there were provocations but when the invasion happened, you disregarded that being the reason Russia invaded. And this was even after the provocations continued. War games were scheduled on Russia’s borders for 2022 but Russia took the bait before they happened. And Russia being baited is another thing you agreed with but, again, after the invasion you changed your tune.
No, I supported Putin’s diplomatic efforts to address NATO expansion and his legitimate concern for the rights of ethnic Russians. I recognized that the West was deliberately provoking him.
But you seem to believe that Putin had no choice. He had a choice. He did not have to start a war that predictably achieved the exact reverse of what his stated goals were..
You also don’t recognize that Putin is an imperialist whose ambition to restore a Russian sphere of influence over Eastern Europe. Putin is a classic Russian chauvinist whose hubris led him to choose a war that he could have avoided.
I believe Russia had choices. But Russia didn’t. But without the provocations ending I thought it was inevitable that an invasion would happen. That is why I believe Russia went to war. How the war turned out doesn’t change that. It’s not hard to predict how any war turns out. That doesn’t mean the reasoning for going to war changes.
You can be an imperialist at the same time you can legitimately be concerned about your security. You ignored the latter as if it never existed as soon as the invasion started. So, to make what you say about Russia’s invasion make sense to your thinking, you just ignore the very thing you agreed needed addressing.
I have always said that Russia had legitimate security interests although it later became apparent to me that Putin was driven primarily by grandiose revanchist ambition. Human beings, including dictators, have free will and can make choices. I also recognize that Putin’s decision to invade Ulkraine was much more than a bad choice, it was a disaster for for Ukraine, russia and the world.. It was also stupid because it made Russia’s bad strategic situation much worse and drove Ukraine closer to NATO and made the slim possibility of detente with Russia impossible for the foreseeable future. Also, I recognize that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians will never stop resisting until Russia leaves. And, unfortunately, the Ukrainians may not stop fightoing until Russi leave Crimea, although I hope that could be negotiated. You seem to believe that a Russian military victory is inevitable when the exact reverse is true. Even if Russia pulverizes the Ukrainian military, the Russians cannot pacify any part of the Ukraine except possibly Crimmea. The resistance will continue to fight until the Russian leave. The sooner the better.
I have always said that Russia had legitimate security interests although it later became apparent to me that Putin was driven primarily by grandiose revanchist ambition
And that was immediately after the invasion. How in the world did you come to that conclusion so suddenly? Especially, and I can’t say this often enough apparently, since the invasion almost immediately followed the failed attempt at diplomacy that was about Russia’s security concerns. Why would the invasion NOT have been for those very reasons? I’ll ask again, was it just an unbelievable coincidence? And somehow, the outcome of the war makes you think your reasoning is proven correct when it’s absolutely irrelevant as to why Russia invaded.
The rest of your comment is just you repeating yourself yet once again. Maybe you’re trying to convince yourself.
I always understood the Putin was a revanchist who supports, ferments and encourages about half a dozen Russian seessionoist movements in Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbajian, Georgia and Kazakastan. But I also believed that despite his imperial ambitions, Putin was strategically committed to a multi polar world order that as its fundamental principle eschewed the use of war to settle disagreement between nations.
Russia had legitimate security concerns about Ukraine joining NATO and Russia had a right to use nonviolent means to achieve those goals. Until late February 2022 I believed that Putin did not intend to invade Ukraine because his strategic commitment to a multipolar world was stronger than his imperialist ambition. When Putin invaded it revealed that he was primarily motivated by revanchism, not multipolarism. I also realized that Putin is a Russian chauvinist who underestimated the resistance the invasion would engender because he does not believe Ukraine is an independent nation.
When Putin invaded it revealed that he was primarily motivated by revanchism, not multipolarism
Why? Nothing changed. There were no prospects for diplomacy. It was dismissed “out of hand”. The war games (bait) were to continue. You just can’t accept that it was a poor decision and he believed the inevitability left him no choice. At least in his mind.
You are right. Putin didn’t change. I misjudged Putin. I thought he had too much intelligence, common sense and decency to invade Ukraine. I believed that Putin was strategically committed to the principles the emergent multi polar world order that are a continuation of the aspirations of the non-aligned movement going back to the 1950’s. I wrongly believed that Putin did not intend to invade Ukraine and that Biden’s warnings of an imminent invasion were lies designed to stoke anti-Russian hysteria and justify a bigger military budget. The invasion made me realize that I had misjudged Putin. He is committed to revanchism through wars of conquest. The invasion of Ukraine revealed Putin’s true nature. Before the invasion, I believed his words. The invasion provided a context to judge whether his verbal commitment to a multi polar world order was genuine.
I watched the provocations of the years since the cold war ended. Russia’s security concerns were legitimate. Putin didn’t have to tell me that. I thought Putin was a thug pre-invasion and I still think he is a thug. But that doesn’t change the previous 30 years of history. Now, that doesn’t mean the invasion was justified but his reasoning was legitimate.
Putin’s reasoning was not legitimate.
He believed that he could win a war with Ukraine and thereby prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and thereby stop NATO expansion.
The truth is that Russia never had a chance of winning a war against Ukraine.
Putin is a Russian chauvinist who does not understand how 800 years of Russian imperialism engendered a fierce spirit of resistance in Ukraine. The Ukrainians will never stop fighting the Russians like the Irish or the Palestinians or the Algerians would never stop fighting their colonial overlords. But colonial overlords and former overlords always underestimate the resistance they will encounter. If Putin was thinking rationally, like Lenin, he would have understood that Rjussia could not force Ukraine to do the bidding of its former colonial overlord.
Likewise, if Putoin’s reasoning was legitimate he would have realized that a war would backfire and drive Ukraine closer to the West, end support for detente among Ukrainians and Europeans, drive NATO to increase its spending on defense and cause NATO to expand, and trap Russia in a forever war that won’t end until Russia leaves Ukreaine defeated.
So no, Putin’s reasoning was flawed from the beginning.
I assumed Putin understood all of this which is why I never believed Putin would invade Ukraine.
By the standard of what the US or any other street gang would have done (Knapp’s apt definition), of course it was legitimate thinking. An anti-US military alliance on our immediate borders simulating nuclear strikes on the US would have elicited something very similar to what Russia did. The way the war turned out doesn’t change that. I don’t understand why you keep repeating that. If Ukraine would have immediately surrendered it wouldn’t have made his decision any less flawed. The decision to go to war is always flawed. And your misguided judgement of Putin doesn’t change anything either. Russia security concerns were a legitimate issue. Going to war for that reason wasn’t the right thing to do but it doesn’t change the reason.
The way the war turned out was predictable. Putin was wrong and stupid to start a war that predictably worsened his country’s strategic position. There was really never any doubt that Russia could never overcome the Ukrainian resistance. Putin goofed.
Like committing suicide because he was afraid of death.
Putin was also morally wrong to invade another country. Ukraine has the right to decide its own foreign policy. Putin has the right to try to persuade the Ukrainians to get closer to Russia. But his war made that impossible for the foreseeable future.
It is not unrealistic to expect the leader of a street gang to act intelligently. It is called enlightened self-interest.
The Ukrainians are the victims in this war of aggression. It is up to them to decide whether to surrender, fight or compromise. I know enough about Ukraine to know that the vast majority of Ukrainians will continue to support the resistance to an invasion by Russia.
The ONLY point I’ve been trying to make is that the invasion was on the heels of diplomacy about Russia’s legitimate security concerns being ignored. Therefore, it’s not hard to think that the reason for the invasion was based on that and it would be legit based on the actions of other “street gangs” if they were in similar situations. Particularly the US. I didn’t say I agreed that it was the right decision to invade. Nothing changed overnight from the day before the invasion that would convince me the reason was for anything but those security concerns. Whether Putin wants to take over Europe or not doesn’t change that. The security concerns were real, and they were ignored. The invasion wasn’t something that made me rethink Russia’s security concerns as it did you. They didn’t go away, and the war games planned for 2022 proved that.
You are making excuses for Putin. The invasion was morally wrong and strategically suicidal. Same as other colonial wars. But the important point is that Russia has no chance of winning Putin’s war. They have to leave Ukraine.
No. I’d be making excuses for Putin if I agreed the invasion was legitimate. Saying the invasion was a result of those legitimate security concerns is entirely different. I’m against war. And if the war had been a “success” for Russia and Ukraine had surrendered immediately, I would be saying the same thing. Unless I say the war was for imperialistic motives, I must be making excuses for Putin? I find that insulting.
But the war was for imperialistic motives. Putin had a legitimate disagreement with his neighbor and then invaded because they could not agree. That is big power chauvinism, ie., imperialism. It was a choice Putin made that contradicted his claim to be a multi-lateralist. Revanchism is a dangerous form imperialism when a declining power like Russia resorts to force to reverse its decline.
Wow, simplifying 30+ years of provocations into a simple spat with a neighbor that couldn’t be resolved to prove your narrative. And ignoring the proximity of the invasion to the failed attempt to engage in diplomacy with the West/NATO that preceded it fits nicely too. Anything BUT what the stated reason for invading was and that was from NATO’s Stoltenberg who admitted Putin invaded for those very reasons.
The point is a legitimate diplomatic concern does not justify aggression. And the history of Russia’s bullying and domination of Ukraine goes back almost 800 years in the minds of the Ukrainians. If Putin believed what he claims to have believed, he would not have used force in a hopeless post-colonial war that Russia can’t win.
“The idea is to be able to fund the proxy war through the 2024 elections.” They’re not even hiding the idea that he’s doing this because and for the elections! Is that not a reflection on how stupid they think we are for not noticing? They might as well come out and say, “you’re fu@king stupid!” out loud. (Sarcasm)
The rich men north of Richmond are wisely preparing themselves in the event their efforts to rig the 2024 election don’t pan out
So this was the McCarthy and Biden “deal”. Thank you Matt Gaaetz.
The sooner the U.S. goes completely broke the better for peace in the world.
We’re already broke, trillions in debt and running deficits every year. America is a failed state and can’t even have a decent immigration policy. How many enemy operatives are crossing the border now that Wash. is so involved with Tel Aviv? Yikes!
Pretty much. The day America stops funding forever wars is the day $100 billion buys you an economy pack of toilet paper.
Ukraine? What’s Ukraine? We need more money for Israel now. –Brandon
His goal is to do the most damage he can to the country (and the world, as well) before he leaves office. What does he care ? And, ignoring what most people in the country want sure doesn’t look like “Protecting Our Democracy” to me.