Freedom Puppets

The Biden administration just announced an additional $325 million to aid Ukraine in its war against Russia. This is added to the $75 billion we’ve already provided to Ukraine since Vladimir Putin illegally invaded that sovereign nation 19 months ago.

Republican resistance to providing financial assistance to Ukraine is climbing. A Fox News poll from last December found that 38 percent of Republicans said aid to Ukraine should be decreased. Today, that percentage is 56 percent. But members of the House Goon Caucus, what they call the “Freedom” Caucus, aren’t just for decreasing aid to Ukraine, but eliminating it altogether.

When President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Washington nine months ago, he addressed Congress and received a two-minute standing ovation (except from goons like Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert, who remained seated). When he visited last week, spineless Speaker Kevin McCarthy fell to pressure from the goons and refused to allow him to address Congress. While McCarthy says he supports aiding Ukraine, he said we shouldn’t just give them a “blank check” and his spokesperson said that helping Ukraine “isn’t a priority” for him.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is not a member of the Goon Caucus anymore after calling Lauren Boebert a “little bitch,” said that “not a single penny” of U.S. taxpayer dollars should go to a “proxy war” in Ukraine. These goons are forgetting that we didn’t start this war. Putin did. MTG accused President Biden and Democrats of caring more about Ukraine’s border than our own, as if refugees coming to our border is equivalent to Russian tanks crashing Ukraine’s.

Goon Caucus member and Floridian Anna Paulina Luna told Fox News Digitial, “Enough of the insanity already. Seems like Biden fell asleep on the train and got off at Ukraine instead of America. I don’t even know if he recognizes which country he’s leading, he’s so hellbent on sending every possible dollar to a country that we have no stake in while our own implodes.”

Byron Donalds, another Goon Caucus member from Florida said, “It’s not a good time for (Zelensky) to be here, quite frankly,” and “There’s no money in the House right now for Ukraine.”

Seven Republican Senators and 23 House members sent a letter last week opposing President Biden’s request for more aid to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia.

Last July, the House voted down a bill introduced by Matt Gaetz, another Goon Caucus member from Florida, that would have prohibited all security assistance for Ukraine yet 70 Republicans voted for it. Again, 70 Republicans in the House voted to stop aiding Ukraine, thus helping Russia.

And last week, the goons killed a procedural vote on a Pentagon appropriations bill over the inclusion of $300 million in funding for Ukraine.

These goons are failing to conceal that they’re not just resisting aid to Ukraine out of fiscal concerns. Republicans are not fiscal. They say they are but they’re the champions of increasing debt. The truth is that these goons are supporting Russia. They support Putin. They would choose Putin over Biden.

This puts Republicans in a weird spot because they never vote against increasing the defense budget, which goes up every year. Even during the Obama administration, when Trump and other Republicans accused him of “gutting” the military, the defense budget rose yearly. Republicans also like to cry that spending money on Ukrainian defense leaves less for us. Sure, that’s true, but how little are we leaving for our defense? Why, just over $700 billion from this year’s budget.

We have given Ukraine $77 billion from the Pentagon’s over $800 billion. We’re probably going to be OK. If we’re so concerned about spending too much, maybe we can close some bases in Tommy Tuberville’s Alabama.

This is not a proxy war. Ukraine is not fighting for us directly. They’re fighting for their existence. If they fall, then more borders of democratic nations will be invaded. The Goon Caucus under Trump’s leadership doesn’t support democracy. They would rather see Ukraine, and eventually NATO, fall. The Goons want the United States to stop being a democracy and become a fascist state in the mold of Putin’s Russia.

The Goons, along with Trump, are Putin’s puppets.

Creative note: I wasn’t excited to use the puppet trope again but I really wanted to draw Putin standing on skulls.

Music note: I watched some football while drawing.

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