The Senate is working to pass a $95.3 billion foreign aid bill with assistance for Ukraine and Israel, but it may be days until a final vote as GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is using arcane and complex chamber rules to slow down the process into the weekend.

The chamber cleared a critical 60-vote threshold to advance the bill on Thursday, and took another procedural vote Friday night. But without an agreement from all 100 senators to speed up the process and swiftly pass the legislation, the Senate is expected to work through the weekend with a final vote next week.

“I think we should stay here as long as it takes,” Paul told CNN’s Manu Raju on Thursday. “If it takes a week or a month, I’ll force them to stay here to discuss why they think the border of Ukraine is more important than the US border.”

  • PugJesus
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    1305 months ago

    Rand Paul, as in, went to Moscow to hand-deliver a letter from Trump to Putin Rand Paul.

    • @zigmus64@lemmy.world
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      205 months ago

      Got a source for that? Not that I doubt it but I hadn’t heard about that one. If true, that’s absolutely fucked.

      • @Ashyr@sh.itjust.works
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        885 months ago

        Rand Paul is the source:

        “I was honoured to deliver a letter from President Trump to President Vladimir Putin’s administration. The letter emphasized the importance of further engagement in various areas including countering terrorism, enhancing legislative dialogue and resuming cultural exchanges,” Paul wrote in a Twitter post.

        https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1KT1Q8/

        • @zigmus64@lemmy.world
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          325 months ago

          God damn… thanks for that kind stranger. Much appreciated.

          I love how every source familiar with the letter gave a different account of what was in it.

          • @theachievers@lemmy.world
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            25 months ago

            And he did it on the Fourth of July.

            Along with the rest of the republiQan putin-suckers.

            On Tuesday afternoon, the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee issued some important findings, concluding that the U.S. intelligence community was correct in its assessment: Russia attacked the U.S. elections in 2016 and did so in the hopes of putting Donald Trump in the White House.

            It was right around this time that seven Republican members of Congress – six senators and one House member – were in Moscow. Making matters much worse, however, is what the GOP lawmakers had to say while they were there. The Washington Post reported:

    • Maeve
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      -625 months ago

      People can agree with one thing without agreeing with/defending everything.

        • Maeve
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          -635 months ago

          Why are you assuming I do?

          Fwiw, i don’t think we should be finding the genocide of Palestinians or whitewashing how many Nazis are actually in Ukraine and I’m not interested in arguing whether authoritarian Nazis or authoritarian Communists are “better” to rule a country not my own.

          I will say taxpayer dollars for universal, holistic health, clean air, water, food, world class education, housing the homeless, addressing other conditions of despair rather than funding despair abroad.

          • Flying Squid
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            425 months ago

            Ah yes, the authoritarian Nazi… Jew who is president of Ukraine.

            Are you here from Hexbear or something?

            • PugJesus
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              195 months ago

              LGBT Nazi Jews aggressively defending their own country from genocide.

            • @Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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              5 months ago

              EDIT: Oooh this triggered some people. Fight my words, don’t blithely downvote bc I’m outside the orthodoxy. Naziesque/ultranationist Telegram channels below, and yes they are all actively fighting in AFU

              Meat Squad, seemingly dead channel, but members openly displayed swastika tattoos

              War Hatred, was heavily involved in defense of Bahkmut, now forming an ultranationalist paramilitary militia outside AFU oversight. Black sun openly on display.

              ————-

              Ukraine absolutely has an undercurrent of far-right, ultra nationalism in its populace, and yes there are definitely Nazis in the AFU who get excused with a wink because they tend to also be part of very effective units. I can link you to multiple Telegram channels where borderline Nazi/white supremacist iconography is displayed openly, and the commenters encourage it

              I’m tired of seeing Black Suns^ and Totenkopfs^ drawn and placed on gear we provide them, let alone the gear and weapons the Ukrainians provide to the Russian separatists- who are openly white supremacist

              Azov battalion cleaned their most problematic leadership in like 2022 before they were folded into the AFU, but their founding leader was invited back from exile in Turkey last fall

              Ukraine has a budding far-right problem, and will continue to do so as long as they look the other way. Slava Ukraini, but fuck dude there is a problem there that needs addressing outside of shutting down low effort Russian trolls

              ^ Yes I know it’s not 100% a Nazi icon. It’s a huuuge dog whistle though

              • @Daft_ish@lemmy.world
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                55 months ago

                If America drafted the US population today sure as shit they would sweep up an inordinate number of nazis. Does that make America fasict?

                • @Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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                  -25 months ago

                  Never said that Ukraine, the Kyiv leadership, AFU or any organization was fascist. There’s an undercurrent of far-right nationalism that they have been reluctant to fully address, and there’s open evidence these actors are recruiting

              • Maeve
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                -55 months ago

                Yrs it is and you may as well have saved the typing. They’re not gang-jumping your comment yet, so I’m impressed.

            • Maeve
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              -235 months ago

              No I just have an attention span longer than five minutes. You accuse me of trolling with a troll. Nazi, fascist, all the same; unless you argue Israel couldn’t possibly be genociding Palestinians and bibi isn’t a fascist because such a statement is antisemitic. In which case tell Noam, he probably cares more than I do about your false accusations.

              • Flying Squid
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                75 months ago

                Sure, the Nazi fascist that The Advocate supports.

                One of those pro-LGBT+ Jewish Nazis.

                • Maeve
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                  -45 months ago

                  Why do you keep using social virtue signals to prove you’re right? People can be right about one thing and wrong about another. You and certain other users gang-dragged me before and I stuck by my position, agree with you on others and I’m not worried you disagree, using only insults and social virtue signaling to do. I said what I said. I dummy agree with taxpayer dollars supporting fascism, at home or abroad.

              • PugJesus
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                65 months ago

                In which case tell Noam, he probably cares more than I do about your false accusations.

                Noam? Noam Chomsky, noted genocide denier?

          • partial_accumen
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            165 months ago

            Ukraine needs our help right now.

            I will say taxpayer dollars for universal, holistic health, clean air, water, food, world class education, housing the homeless, addressing other conditions of despair rather than funding despair abroad.

            Do you know WHY you even have the ability to make the thoughtless statement you did here? Its because nations like France help the USA during the Revolutionary war. We in the USA would not be a sovereign nation without their help. source.

            Right now you’d be swearing fealty to King Charles in England if France followed your advice.

            You managed to find the nation sized version of “screw you, I got mine” with your logic.

            • Maeve
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              5 months ago

              Bold* of you to assume and lecture. I’m aware my opinion diverges from what the billionaires sold most people as their opinion. I differ and it’s nothing to do with privilege. Perhaps you might study the mirror principle.

              *edited

              • partial_accumen
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                155 months ago

                I differ and it’s nothing to do with privilege.

                You are privileged to live in freedom because another country sacrificed for yours when you needed it, but you’re not willing to do the same for another country when they need it.

                I invite you to lecture me on how that is not the epitome of “screw you, I got mine”.

  • @CarbonIceDragon
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    305 months ago

    “they think the border of Ukraine is more important than the US border”? Does he have memory worse than a goldfish, that he’s already forgotten the whole deal that his party just recently decided to kill?

    • PugJesus
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      185 months ago

      His neighbor should have taught him a more thorough lesson.

      • Vanon
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        25 months ago

        To be fair, it seemed like an adequately painful lesson, but Rand Paul’s brain works in mysterious ways (probably due the worms).

  • @Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The Senate was in in session until 8pm last night and just knocked off for the day. Not too many colleagues impressed with Rand’s performance. Fetterman called him a peckerhead in a tweet.

  • Kalkaline
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    45 months ago

    How interesting, there’s lots of people out there looking to drag Rand Paul.