Treasure Coast Newspapers, May 6, 2024
Nyet!
So said Republican Rep. Bill Posey and Sen. Rick Scott to valiant Ukranians sacrificing their lives for freedom against Russian aggression. Both legislators threw their support to Russian President Valdimir Putin with their votes against desperately needed military aid to Ukraine.
Fortunately, the majority of the House and Senate voted to save Ukraine and protect democracies in eastern Europe. The $95 billion package also included military aid to Israel and humanitarian aid in Gaza.
On this and many other issues, including reproductive rights, Posey and Scott are intractable idealogues. Neither can tell the difference between right and wrong. It’s time for them to go.
Posey knows all too well that you can’t engage the enemy without ammunition, and you can’t wage a war without tanks, artillery shells, missiles, air defenses and technology. Yet despite his longtime service, Posey would allow Russian forces to overrun outgunned Ukrainian fighters and commit heinous atrocities on civilians.
Posey and Scott are hypocrites. Their stated reasons for opposing aid were pure pablum. One was that the aid package did not address the crisis at the U.S.-Mexican border. Another was that it would increase the national debt.
That’s rich, given that both opposed a bipartisan border bill that would have given the president and Department of Homeland Security unprecedented power to close the border. And both favored that largest deficit-driver of all: the Trump administration’s tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations.
My hats off to Republican House Majority Leader Mike Johnson for moving this bipartisan aid legislation forward in the face of attacks by the far right. He did the right thing. Posey and Scott did not.
Richard Leonard, Vero Beach
