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Presidents Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky outside Mariyinski Palace in Kyiv, Ukraine on February 20, 2023
That whisper of wind you heard through the budding leaves on trees this afternoon was a sigh of relief from soldiers on the front lines in Luhansk and Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia as the House of Representatives overcame its Putin wing and passed the $95 billion aid package which included $61 billion in aid to Ukraine.
There hasn’t been a Ukrainian aid bill passed by the House since December of 2022, a little less than a year after Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine began. The Biden administration began asking for this aid package for Ukraine last August, but because Donald Trump told them to, House Republicans have been sitting on their hands and refusing to pass it.
Ukraine’s situation on the ground has reached crisis proportions, with some units along the 600-mile front lines in the east and south of the country completely out of howitzer ammunition with which to counter constant Russian bombardments. Ukraine has also begun to run out of missiles and ammunition for its air defenses, leaving some armored units defenseless against a resurgence in Russian air power and attacks by unmanned suicide drones.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an interview with PBS News Hour this week, said that the lack of artillery ammunition has left his country outgunned by Russian forces ten to one. “Can we hold our ground? No. In any case, with these statistics, they will be pushing us back every day.”
Ukraine recently suffered the loss of the industrial town of Avdiivka, just west of Donetsk, and is being hammered all along the front lines. Russian artillery and rocket strikes flattened the town in the same way they did in Bakhmut earlier in the war.
NATO allies have kept up their support for Ukraine in the absence of U.S. aid, with Denmark donating its entire stock of 155 mm artillery rounds to Ukraine. But European aid alone has not been enough to stop recent changes in Russian strategy brought on by the lack of aid from the United States. Russia has taken advantage of Ukraine’s weakened air defenses and has begun hammering population centers with heavy “glide bombs” dropped from Russian jets that only months ago Russia was reluctant to use in Ukrainian airspace because of its air defenses.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) told reporters on Wednesday, “I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten.” This is possibly the first time that a Republican politician has stood up and said he believes the American intelligence community since then- President Trump told a news conference in Helsinki, Finland, that he believed Russian intelligence over his own FBI and CIA. That Johnson had to be dragged kicking and screaming into this admission says all anyone needs to know about who Joe Biden is dealing with as he tries to provide leadership for America’s foreign policy around the world. Republicans, led by Trump, have disparaged and lied about U.S. intelligence abilities for nearly a decade now.
Why bother having a CIA, DIA or NSA if you’re not going to pay attention to the intelligence they provide? Much of it these days is so-called “signals intelligence” gathered by satellite surveillance and electronic eavesdropping on enemy communications. Because of civilian satellite companies like Maxar Technologies, at least some of U.S. intelligence is backed up publicly and we can see it for ourselves. Much of it hardly needs expert analysis. We were able to follow the fall of Bakhmut in real time in some of the satellite photos provided by Maxar.
But Vladimir Putin has enough supporters among House Republicans, including such leading lights as Marjorie Taylor Greene, that Donald Trump has been able to stymie aid to Ukraine for almost a year. Now that military assistance from the U.S. will begin flowing again, Ukraine has a chance to counter the Russian summer offensive that is expected to begin as early as June.
Even though a temporary victory has been won against the Putin wing of the Republican Party, I’m afraid we’re in yet another “can you even imagine” moment with the political party that used to call itself “the party of Lincoln.” With six months to go before elections in the fall, there is no doubt in my mind that we’ll be unable to imagine the garbage that will emerge from the mouth of Donald Trump and his Russia-friendly acolytes.
Watch this space.
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.
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Gov. Jim Pillen
Every state is different. Nebraska is quite different. It is one of only two states that doesn't use the winner-take-all system in presidential elections. Along with Maine, it allocates its Electoral College votes to reflect the results in each of its congressional districts.
In 2020, Donald Trump lost the Omaha-based congressional district while winning Nebraska's other two. That cost him one electoral vote. In a very close election, that one vote could matter. Hence, Trump and his people have been pressuring Nebraska to adopt "winner-take-all," whereby whatever candidate received the most votes statewide would get all five of Nebraska's electoral votes.
This move is especially bold because in 2016, Trump did win Omaha's district. One supposes he could win it again the old-fashioned way, by getting more people to vote for him than for Joe Biden. As he's proved in terrifying ways, Trump is not a stickler for honoring the will of the people.
Don Bacon, the Republican representing the Omaha district, supports the Trump camp's efforts to change the state's method for assigning electoral votes. "I think it undermines the influence of Nebraska," he told CNN.
The opposite is more likely. Were Nebraska to embrace "winner-take-all," neither candidate would have great incentive to campaign there at all. As for the politics of it, one strains to understand how pushing to deprive his constituents the right to allocate their electoral vote is going to win Bacon love in his purple district.
So far these efforts have failed, even in the GOP-dominated state legislature. Good for them.
But pressure remains. Nebraska's current Republican governor, Jim Pillen, has offered to support a special legislative session to move the state to winner-take-all. "I will sign (winner-take-all) into law the moment the legislature gets it to my desk," he vowed.
However, Nebraska's unique political culture is deservedly a point of pride. There could be blowback on those who help outsiders try to change it.
For example, Nebraska is the only state with a one-chamber legislature. This dates back to 1934, when Nebraskans voted to replace a governing body with both a House and a Senate with a unicameral one. Party affiliations are not listed on the ballot.
This reform was pushed through by George W. Norris, a devout Republican. Norris argued that there was no logic in having a two-house legislature. On the contrary, it cost the taxpayers more money and made politicians less accountable to the people.
"The greatest evil of two-house legislature is its institution of the conference committee," Norris wrote in his autobiography. That's where power brokers could fiddle with passed bills.
"There the 'bosses' and the special interests and the monopolies get in their secret work behind the scenes," Norris wrote. "There the elimination of a sentence or paragraph, or even a word, may change the meaning of the entire law."
Meanwhile, were "reliably Democratic" Maine to adopt a winner-take-all system, that would cancel any Republican advantage in a Nebraska that did likewise. Maine's rural 2nd congressional district favored Trump both in 2016 and 2020.
Adding intrigue, Maine's House recently narrowly voted to have the state join an interstate compact that would assign its Electoral College votes to whatever presidential candidate won the national popular vote. So far 16 states have joined the compact, which would go into effect only if the members have enough electoral votes to determine the outcome.
In 2020, Biden won over seven million more popular votes than Trump did. And in 2016, Hillary Clinton comfortably beat Trump in the popular vote by three million.
It would not seem in Republicans' interests to encourage states to change how they count electoral votes. After all, as Nebraska goes, so could Maine.
Reprinted with permission from Creators.
