Nearly two weeks ago, the House responded to an appeal from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for more Russia sanctions. It passed a bill revoking permanent normal trade relations from Russia, which would raise tariffs on goods from Russia and Belarus and give President Joe Biden power to impose even stricter import taxes on their exports. The bill passed in the House with 424 votes. Just eight Republicans—Andy Biggs of Arizona, Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and Chip Roy of Texas—voted against it.
Clearly, those eight are the dregs of a Republican Party that’s already chock-full of deplorables, and they have an ally in the Senate. For the past two weeks, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has been refusing to allow the combined bills to come the floor of the Senate in an expedited process. Refusing to allow the United States to speak with a unified voice to support Ukraine and condemn Russia’s unprovoked invasion. He says he has problems with the expansive definition of human rights abuses included in the bill—the same language that was used in a sanctions executive order from the former guy.
RELATED STORY: This week in Congress: Rand Paul sticks with Putin, Ketanji Brown Jackson inches closer to SCOTUS
“This is Donald Trump’s executive order language they are complaining about,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) said Tuesday. “I don’t really understand their problem.” It’s not so much about a problem, necessarily, than it is about Paul just not wanting to let this happen quickly. He admits as much. “We’ll have a real debate, and probably I will lose at that point,” he added. “But I have leveraged a couple weeks.”
“I have leveraged a couple of weeks.” That’s what he’s aiming for. Seems like something maybe someone should be looking into—why Paul is doing this favor for Russia, weakening sanctions language and delaying the revocation of its trade status.
The delay could be several weeks, because if he continues to refuse to allow it to come to the floor quickly, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is going to have to bring it under regular order, which would take days. The remaining days of this week and next week are pretty well claimed by other bills and nominations. Even if the current optimism that there’s a deal that he’ll agree to pans out, that means what the Senate passes has to go back to the House again because it’s been changed.
Congress will be out for two weeks starting April 11 for spring recess. Not only do they have the Russia trade bill to try to resolve, there’s the Supreme Court confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson. Republicans exercised their right to delay a final vote in the Judiciary Committee, so that can’t happen before Monday, April 4. The vote will likely be deadlocked in the committee, which will require extra hoops to jump to bring it to the full floor. There will have to be a full floor vote on discharging the nomination from the committee before there can be a final confirmation vote. That eats up floor time and pushes the vote out until at least next Thursday, but possibly Friday.
Schumer also teed up a potential bill for more COVID-19 preparedness funding on Tuesday night, filing cloture with an empty shell that could have the legislation plopped into it. Schumer has been negotiating with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) to find a compromise to provide $15 billion more in funding without taking existing money away from states that have already budgeted with it. The administration says it’s out of money to provide more vaccines, testing, and treatment.
Romney need to find nine other Republicans who will agree with him that it needs to be done, because Democrats Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) refuse to allow the Senate and government to function rationally by eliminating the filibuster so every goddamned thing that needs to happen doesn’t have to get 60 votes. “We’re making progress and hopefully we’ll get there soon.” He also said that money has to be taken from already passed bills, money that has already been earmarked.
President Biden received his second booster shot Wednesday, and used the event as an opportunity to push for the funding. “Just as we reached the critical turning point in this fight, Congress has to provide the funding America needs to continue to fight COVID-19,” Biden said. “This isn’t partisan, it’s medicine.”
Unfortunately, there’s nothing that’s not partisan for Republicans. They’ve proved that in the extreme.
Clearly, those eight are the dregs of a Republican Party that’s already chock-full of deplorables, and they have an ally in the Senate. For the past two weeks, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has been refusing to allow the combined bills to come the floor of the Senate in an expedited process. Refusing to allow the United States to speak with a unified voice to support Ukraine and condemn Russia’s unprovoked invasion. He says he has problems with the expansive definition of human rights abuses included in the bill—the same language that was used in a sanctions executive order from the former guy.
RELATED STORY: This week in Congress: Rand Paul sticks with Putin, Ketanji Brown Jackson inches closer to SCOTUS
“This is Donald Trump’s executive order language they are complaining about,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) said Tuesday. “I don’t really understand their problem.” It’s not so much about a problem, necessarily, than it is about Paul just not wanting to let this happen quickly. He admits as much. “We’ll have a real debate, and probably I will lose at that point,” he added. “But I have leveraged a couple weeks.”
“I have leveraged a couple of weeks.” That’s what he’s aiming for. Seems like something maybe someone should be looking into—why Paul is doing this favor for Russia, weakening sanctions language and delaying the revocation of its trade status.
The delay could be several weeks, because if he continues to refuse to allow it to come to the floor quickly, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is going to have to bring it under regular order, which would take days. The remaining days of this week and next week are pretty well claimed by other bills and nominations. Even if the current optimism that there’s a deal that he’ll agree to pans out, that means what the Senate passes has to go back to the House again because it’s been changed.
Congress will be out for two weeks starting April 11 for spring recess. Not only do they have the Russia trade bill to try to resolve, there’s the Supreme Court confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson. Republicans exercised their right to delay a final vote in the Judiciary Committee, so that can’t happen before Monday, April 4. The vote will likely be deadlocked in the committee, which will require extra hoops to jump to bring it to the full floor. There will have to be a full floor vote on discharging the nomination from the committee before there can be a final confirmation vote. That eats up floor time and pushes the vote out until at least next Thursday, but possibly Friday.
Schumer also teed up a potential bill for more COVID-19 preparedness funding on Tuesday night, filing cloture with an empty shell that could have the legislation plopped into it. Schumer has been negotiating with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) to find a compromise to provide $15 billion more in funding without taking existing money away from states that have already budgeted with it. The administration says it’s out of money to provide more vaccines, testing, and treatment.
Romney need to find nine other Republicans who will agree with him that it needs to be done, because Democrats Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) refuse to allow the Senate and government to function rationally by eliminating the filibuster so every goddamned thing that needs to happen doesn’t have to get 60 votes. “We’re making progress and hopefully we’ll get there soon.” He also said that money has to be taken from already passed bills, money that has already been earmarked.
President Biden received his second booster shot Wednesday, and used the event as an opportunity to push for the funding. “Just as we reached the critical turning point in this fight, Congress has to provide the funding America needs to continue to fight COVID-19,” Biden said. “This isn’t partisan, it’s medicine.”
Unfortunately, there’s nothing that’s not partisan for Republicans. They’ve proved that in the extreme.