Will the Congressional Putin Caucus Give Ally Ukraine to a Bloodthirsty Dictator?
If we fail to aid Ukraine and Russia succeeds in overwhelming that country, expect Putin to head to Moldova and Poland or the Baltic states next: his generals and his #2, Dmitry Medvedev have said so…
Today, the House of Representatives is back from a 2-week vacation and news reports suggest that Speaker “Moscow Mike” Johnson may put legislation on the floor to provide aid to Ukraine.
Other news reports, however, say that his entire “I’ll consider Ukraine aid” is just BS: that he’s going to poison pill the legislation by attaching riders and amendments demanding things that Democrats won’t go along with.
Sunday, Johnson told Fox “News”:
“We’ve been talking to all the members, especially now over the district work period. When we return after this work period, we’ll be moving a product, but it’s going to, I think, have some important innovations.”
Innovations? You mean scams? Like calling the aid to Ukraine a “loan” or funding it with seized Russian assets, a process that could introduce more months of delay.
The Congressional Putin Caucus is outraged at even the possibility that we may help a fellow democracy fend off violent attacks and child kidnappings (over 100,000 so far) from the Russian dictator. As Marjorie Taylor Greene said in the context of her threat to push her discharge petition to remove Johnson from his Speaker’s seat:
“I’m going to tell you right now: funding Ukraine is probably one of the most egregious things that he can do.”
Putin, being a former intelligence officer, understands well the importance of propaganda as a weapon to destroy an enemy. And he’s been using that knowledge — and billions of rubles running social media troll operations — to influence both American public opinion and the opinions of Republicans in Congress.
His efforts have become so blatant that the chairmen of both the House Intelligence Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee are warning the public and their colleagues about Republicans who are openly taking Putin’s side in the conflict.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) was blunt, saying that Russian propaganda “has infected a good chunk of my party’s base.” He elaborated to Puck News:
“There are some more nighttime entertainment shows that seem to spin, like, I see the Russian propaganda in some of it — and it’s almost identical [to what they’re saying on Russian state television] — on our airwaves.”
McCaul added, “[T]hese people that read various conspiracy-theory outlets that are just not accurate, and they actually model Russian propaganda.”
Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio) was equally specific when asked if he agreed with McCaul’s statement:
“Oh, it is absolutely true. We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine, and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor.”
Republicans are promoting pro-Putin propaganda because they know, with the leader of their party in thrall to the Russian dictator, that there will be no pushback or consequence; Trump actually rewards such behavior with special recognition, private phone calls, and visits to Mar-a-Lago. Just ask Marjorie Taylor Greene.
But it’s not just members of Congress. Elon Musk has promoted Russian propagandists on X and cut off access to Starlink when Ukraine was preparing an attack on the Russian navy at Crimea. And just this past weekend RFK Jr. also echoed Putin himself, saying:
“Putin said, ‘Look I don't want to go into Crimea. Let’s negotiate a peace.’ Alright, and the three things he wanted — he wanted to keep NATO out of Ukraine. That was number one. He wanted to de-Nazify the Ukrainian government…”
It’s almost verbatim from Putin’s 2022 speech, when he said that he’s not invading a sovereign country but, instead, he just:
“[S]eek[s] to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.”
Unlike RFK Jr., even Putin is no longer trying to claim that Ukraine represented a NATO provocation. Putin is emphatic that Ukraine is not a real country, but an illegitimate breakaway region of Russia.
And that de-Nazify trope is an old one; the fact that Ukraine’s president is Jewish pretty much puts the lie to it. So now, hooking on that “Did you know Zelenskyy is Jewish?” meme, rightwing American friends of Putin have changed tact.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Putin’s number one fangirl in the House, laid it out on Steve Bannon’s podcast while discussing Putin’s bloody 2-year-long attack on Ukraine:
“Let’s talk about what this really is, Steve: This is a war against Christianity. The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians; the Ukrainian government is executing priests. Russia is not doing that; they're not attacking Christianity. As a matter of fact, they seem to be protecting it.”
For the record, over 80 priests have been killed in Ukraine, every single one of them murdered by Russian bombs or soldiers. But, hey, have you noticed that Zelenskyy is Jewish and bloodthirsty dictator Putin loves to claim he’s a Christian?
Even the new co-chairman of the Republican National Committee has gotten into the “let’s suck up to Putin and trash America and our allies” shtick. Michael Whatley told Maria Bartiromo on Fox “News” Sunday that Ukraine, like China and Iran, is an enemy of the United States:
“Joe Biden's feckless leadership has shown China, has shown Ukraine, has shown Iran, that they can feel free to be much more aggressive on the world front to the point where even they will try and meddle with our elections here.” (emphasis mine)
The simple reality is that Ukraine is an independent nation with a democratic form of government that aspires to join the European Union and NATO. Putin views it (and several other countries in the region) as part of “greater Russia” and has made the mission of the last years of his life to reunite that empire, much like Catherine the Great (whom he often invokes).
If we fail to aid Ukraine and Russia succeeds in overwhelming that country, expect Putin to head to Moldova and Poland or the Baltic states next: both his generals and his #2, Dmitry Medvedev have said so in public.
That could lead to a land war in Europe if one of those countries invokes NATO’s Article Five mutual defense obligation; it could also draw in America. And such a conflict in Europe would be a signal to President Xi that it’s time for China to invade Taiwan in the same way Putin did Ukraine. Then we’re in or close to World War III.
Which, it appears, is just fine with Donald Trump and the Putin Caucus among congressional Republicans.
They’re perfectly happy to ignore the agreement that Russia, Great Britain, and the United States signed with Ukraine on December 5, 1994, when they agreed to surrender the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal to Russia in exchange for a firm, signed agreement from all three countries that they’d all respect Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty.
Putin is ignoring that agreement, and Republicans want to follow his lead.
As Liz Cheney said recently:
“I think that we have to take Donald Trump very seriously. We have to take seriously the extent to which you have now got a Putin wing of the Republican Party.”
“Traitor” and “treason” are not words to be thrown around lightly. But I can’t see how any other words could describe American legislators who want to surrender an allied democracy to a bloodthirsty dictator in exchange for props from Donald Trump and political help on social media from Russian trolls.
This week we’ll find out how far this attack on American values has reached, and whether Speaker Johnson is going to hold to his pro-Putin position. Keep an eye on it and let your member of the House know your thoughts (202-224-3121).
None dare call it treason? I think not.
1. Cut Putin off at the pass. Democrats control the Senate. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/
Phone: (202) 224-1700
Fax: (202) 224-1772
McFaul, Turner, Romney (R-UT), Tillis (R-NC), and Cornyn (R-TX) and a top aide to Senator Todd Young (R-IN), as well as former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and even Trump’s vice president Mike Pence, have warned about the party’s ties to Russia. Should be called to testify ASAP.
2. George Polisher wrote Orange is the New Orange, documenting that Trump left a trail of tweets, witness testimony, and documentation relating to the Mueller Report. https://www.amazon.com/Orange-New-Our-Book-Impeachment/dp/169761907X
3. Trump's social media company Trump Media managed to go public last week only after it had been kept afloat in 2022 by emergency loans provided in part by a Russian-American businessman under scrutiny in a federal insider-trading and money-laundering investigation. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/03/trump-media-es-family-trust-2022-loans#:~:text=Donald%20Trump's%20social%20media%20company,trading%20and%20money%2Dlaundering%20investigation.
4. Follow the money. Trump is a candidate, all members of the House are running for office, plus several in the Senate. Federal law prohibits contributions, donations, expenditures(including independent expenditures) and disbursements solicited, directed, received or made directly or indirectly by or from foreign nationals in connection with any federal, state or local election. https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/foreign-nationals/#:~:text=Federal%20law%20prohibits%20contributions%2C%20donations,federal%2C%20state%20or%20local%20election. Call Parnas to the stand.
5. Manafort was pardoned and therefore has no 5th Amendment rights. Same with Bannon and Flynn. Need to visit a grand jury ASAP.
I take no comfort in the knowledge that tfg and his cultists will mostly die along with me when they bring on the devastation of nuclear war. And they will. Putin won’t care. He’s old and will go out with a bang, taking the world with him. Or living in some bunker, if you can call it that, with others of the morbidly rich. After all, there won’t be many attractive shopping options or vacation spots when nuclear winter descends. I want to scream at the cupidity, the stupidity, the venality, the immorality of these people. Yet I am utterly powerless to do anything to stop them.
My only recourse is my religious faith. I came late to Greek Orthodoxy, after over a half century as a hard core atheist. It gives me solace, hope, joy even. More than that, even if it is delusional, it reinforces the value of living life as I do, seeking to emulate the real Christian’s of the New Testament, not the demented grotesque so many “evangelical” tfg cultists claim as their own. An aside re Ukraine—its national Orthodox Church is part of a group included with mine in the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Russian Orthodox Church, headed by a kleptocrat who made his fortune smuggling cigarettes into the old Soviet Union, was expelled after he expressed staunch support for Putin and the war against Ukraine, promising heaven to every Russian soldier who died in that horrific criminal enterprise. All of which makes a sick joke of the MTG’s in MAGA who absurdly claim Ukraine is killing Christians. No Russian fighting voluntarily to subjugate Ukraine is Christian, if the New Testament means anything at all.
Ukraine isn’t perfect. No country is. But it is a titanic beacon of democracy compared to Russia. If we abandon it, we abandon our founding ideals, and the values that led us to aid Europe to defeat Nazi Germany in WWII. I do not want to have to end my years in a country that allows itself to betray all who have fought for her and what she is and can be, who include my father and his two brothers, all of whom spent WWII in the Pacific.
We must pressure Congress to free up the aid Ukraine desperately needs. And do everything in our power, great or small, to swarm the ballot boxes with blue votes for every office in November. If not, we are finished, and so, very likely, is any kind of world we would want.