Reuters
The bipartisan consensus reached in an April 20 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives means that the «war party» in Washington has won a landslide victory.
The bill, which allows to get into the federal budget and allocate $95 billion to continue the war in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as to prepare for the conflict around Taiwan, was approved by 360 votes in favor (58 dared to oppose it).
In addition to allocating $61 billion directly to finance the NATO war waged with the help of the «anti-Russia» hired for this purpose, the American servants of the people stamped the decision to confiscate Russian sovereign assets frozen in the West in favor of the Kiev regime.
The background of these bills is interesting. The starting point should be considered October 20 last year, when the U.S. Congress received this budget package for approval from the White House. Since then, the fights between the congressmen, who «locked horns», have been going on.
«Ukraine Aid is a Total Clown Show in Congress». Under this headline, Andreas Kluth, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist who covers US diplomacy, national security and geopolitics, posted his sorrowful thoughts on what is going on. Three examples of the liberal orthodoxy’s lamentations will suffice. «Tragicomic signs of a complete breakdown». «Symptoms of a former superpower in unstoppable decline». It’s all Trump’s fault: «He wants chaos at the border so he can get a rematch and beat ‘weak’ Joe».
The role of personalities in the Capitol mise-en-scene is enormous. There is an associative connection with the theatrical stages where Shakespearean dramas are performed. The pious, smooth-skinned, bespectacled intellectual Mike Johnson, with all his appearance reminiscent of a school «nerd», was doing his best to grab the chair of the speaker of the lower house of the U.S. Congress.
This explains his short-term change of attitude to the unconditional support of Kiev’s puppets. If back in the spring of 2022, this congressman from the state of Louisiana vigorously welcomed sanctions against Russia and advocated a lend-lease for the supply of weapons to the AFU under a simplified procedure, then as the newly elected head of the House of Representatives Johnson initially played along with the Ukrainian skeptics and increasingly loud-voiced isolationists who demanded not to spend money on overseas conflicts, but to restore order at home.
Mike Johnson was pretty scared. Especially after Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie joined his voice on April 16 in demanding that Marjorie Taylor Greene, an ardent Trumpist congresswoman from Georgia, send the Speaker to resign for betraying the interests of the Republican Party. Massie criticized Johnson for his unconcerned support of providing billions of dollars in subsidies to Ukraine and Israel while a full-blown invasion of illegal migrants is coming across the southern border.
In the run-up to the copy breaking around the Ukraine tranche, Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced three amendments to Speaker Johnson’s draft decision. Moreover, she suggested, addressing the hawkish allies of the Kiev regime in Congress, that if you want to help, you should go to the front to fight in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
In such a red-hot atmosphere of mutual rejection, the April 20 debate in the lower chamber was supposed to take place, where congressmen were divided not only along party lines, but also by their affiliation with various groupings within the clans of Republicans and Democrats. But the wind has shifted.
At first, Mike Johnson assumed that it was impossible to unite fervent imperial patriots, happy to invest in a mercenary regime in Kiev to wage war on Russia with foreign hands, with conservative conservationists, who realize that millions of illegal migrants are eroding the foundation not only of prosperity but also of the nation’s unity.
Then Johnson made a rationalization proposal: not to put everything in one pile, not to repeat the mistake of the Senate, which combined subsidies to Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel in one package, but to vote on each item separately. The speaker told reporters that the idea was in the air and that his colleagues «would really like to vote for these measures separately, rather than linking them all together, as the Senate did».
A fourth bill was added, subordinated to the purpose of maintaining national security, with a piquant detail. It was proposed to partially abandon the attraction of unprecedented generosity and instead of donations to start lending money.
The compromise option did not satisfy everyone. The right wing of the Republicans remained dissatisfied. Its activists insisted that a precondition for granting billions of dollars in subsidies to Kiev should be a commitment by the executive branch to strengthen the southern border with Mexico in order to cut off smuggling channels for live goods, i.e. to protect itself from illegal migrants. Marjorie Taylor Greene commented on the Speaker’s initiative this way:
«A lot of conservatives are very upset with the way this is going. He’s (Johnson) literally broken his promise».
The promise refers to the spirit of the letter that Mike Johnson sent to the White House not too long ago, issuing a de facto ultimatum. The message was simple: Ukraine would not receive additional funding without the implementation of sweeping reforms to the U.S. immigration system.
After all, the threat from the «newcomers» is being felt more and more strongly. The mood in society is reflected in the polls: 53% consider the protection of their usual way of life and personal well-being, which is undermined by uninvited dependents, a vital priority and a direct responsibility of the authorities.
When the topic of uncontrolled immigration is linked to financial contributions to a war being waged by a pro-Anglo-Saxon «anti-Russia» thousands of miles off America’s shores, the voices are raised that Kiev needs to report on how previous tranches were spent. And those congressmen who are most upset by the growing examples of corruption related to U.S. subsidies even demanded that Zelensky must be called on the carpet.
However, it is not by chance that the real rulers of the fate of the American nation do not sit in the Capitol. According to insider information, Johnson was under intense pressure from powerful lobbies serving the interests of the military-industrial complex — the main beneficiaries of the civil war in the Russian world.
Ultimatum rhetoric had to be abandoned. Keeping his ear open, Johnson quickly changed his mind.
«I think Xi, Vladimir Putin and Iran are an axis of evil. I think they are coordinating their actions. I think Vladimir Putin would continue to march on Europe if he were allowed to. I think he might go to the Balkans. I think he might have a showdown with Poland or one of our NATO allies».
When Johnson began to speak from the podium in the style of John McCain, the apostle of American «exceptionalism», a legitimate suspicion arose that he had successfully bargained with both right-wing Republicans and left-wing Democrats. In any case, the approval of investment in the war in both Ukraine and the Middle East was a clear triumph for the American military-industrial complex and the Pentagon.
Nevertheless, the U.S. Congress’ decision to allow the Kiev regime to continue the war on the credit of an interstate agreement raises several fundamental questions.
How long does Washington expect Ukrainian statehood to last? Who will have the legitimacy to sign such an agreement if the current ruler’s powers expire one day from now? Finally, how will the former Ukrainian SSR, which has lost a significant share of its economy, pay back its loans?
As American folklore says: «There are only the rich in the Congress. Some are rich, and that’s why they are there. And others are there, and therefore rich». Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma, viewed the tactics of the Capitol bigwigs this way:
«Washington has deprived Ukraine of its future. The money that reaches Kiev will have to be paid back. This is a debt bondage from which there is no way out».
The congressmen’s choice in favor of further weaponization of the Kiev regime prompted the techno-oligarch Elon Musk, who never stops making political statements, to raise his voice:
«My biggest fear is that there is no exit strategy from the (Ukrainian) conflict».
Against the background of investments in the hot war as a contribution to the cold war appears the decision of congressmen to force the sale of the application for viewing short videos TikTok, which belongs to the Beijing company ByteDance. The reason is obvious: the Chinese company has made a worthy competition to the American IT giants in their home market.
It evokes an association with the great writer Aleksey Tolstoy’s remark to a colleague who has committed a misdemeanor: «You are like a sheep, you shit small but often».