The Ship That Sailed The Time Stream Author: G. C. Edmondson.
Publisher: Arrow Books.
Date: 1971.
Artist:
2014 Jim Clark Memorial Rally Damian Cole/Elliott Edmondson
In Unusual Vote, Democrats Rescue Measure to Allow Vote on Ukraine BillA resolution to pave the way for the foreign aid package was on track to die in committee amid Republican opposition when Democrats stepped in to save it. In Unusual Vote, Democrats Rescue Measure to Allow Vote on Ukraine Bill
A resolution to pave the way for the foreign aid package was on track to die in committee amid Republican opposition when Democrats stepped in to save it.
Image
House Speaker Mike Johnson standing amid a group of people holding electronic devices.
Far-right anger has erupted over House Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to push through the legislation over the opposition of ultraconservative Republicans.Credit...Anna Rose Layden for The New York Times
Catie Edmondson
By Catie Edmondson
Reporting from Washington
Published April 18, 2024
Updated April 19, 2024, 12:35 a.m. ET
House Republicans took a critical step late Thursday night toward bringing up the long-stalled foreign aid bill for Ukraine and Israel, after being forced to rely on Democratic votes to move a plan to consider it out of a key committee and onto the floor.
The 9-to-3 vote in the critical Rules Committee was an early step in the convoluted process the House is expected to go through over the next couple of days to approve the $95 billion aid package. It reflected the extent of far-right anger over Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to push through the legislation over the opposition of ultraconservative Republicans, and underscored how heavily the speaker will have to rely on Democrats to push it across the finish line.
In a spasm of anger, three far-right Republicans on the panel, which controls what legislation comes to the House floor, refused to back the rule needed to bring up the foreign aid bill, putting it on track to die in committee. But Democrats on the panel stepped in to save it in an extraordinary breach of custom.
All Democrats voted to advance the plan out of committee.
The Rules Committee has traditionally been an organ of the speaker, and legislation is typically advanced to the floor in a straight party-line vote.
Democrats will all but certainly have to provide the votes on the House floor to approve the rule and allow the aid package to be brought up, lending their support in an yet another unorthodox vote in the face of Republican opposition.
The rule is critical to Mr. Johnson’s plan for pushing the foreign aid package through the House, because it would allow separate votes on aid to Israel and aid to Ukraine, which are supported by different coalitions, but then would fold them together without requiring lawmakers ever to cast an up-or-down vote on the entire bill.
The group of far-right lawmakers who sought to block the measure in committee won their seats on the Rules panel as part of a concession made last year by the speaker at the time, Kevin McCarthy, who had to haggle with ultraconservatives who opposed electing him to the top post and agreed to back him only after he granted them critical leverage. They refused to support the measure to bring up the foreign aid package because it would not allow a vote on severe border security provisions they have said should be prioritized over aiding Ukraine.
That amounted to a remarkable act of rebellion, and left Democrats to bail out the speaker and push the measure through the panel.
Mr. Johnson earlier said he expected a House vote to pass the aid package on Saturday.
“I’d rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys,” he said in an interview on Newsmax on Thursday night. “We don’t want to have boots on the ground, and we can prevent that by allowing them to hold Putin at bay.”
Catie Edmondson covers Congress for The Times
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Vowing the U.S. Will ‘Do Our Job,’ Johnson Searches for a Path on Ukraine
The Republican speaker, with his job on the line, has privately told people he would make sure the House moves to assist Ukraine, a step that many members of his party oppose.
Image
Speaker Mike Johnson walks through the Capital followed by a group of people.
While Speaker Mike Johnson has remained noncommittal about any one option, he has repeatedly expressed a personal desire to send aid to Ukraine.Credit...Kent Nishimura for The New York Times
Catie Edmondson
By Catie Edmondson
Reporting from Capitol Hill
Published March 25, 2024
Updated March 27, 2024
When Speaker Mike Johnson opened the floor for questions at a closed-door luncheon fund-raiser in New Jersey last month, Jacquie Colgan asked how, in the face of vehement opposition within his own ranks, he planned to handle aid for Ukraine.
What followed was an impassioned monologue by Mr. Johnson in which he explained why continued American aid to Kyiv was, in his view, vital — a message starkly at odds with the hard-right views that have overtaken his party. He invoked his political roots as a Reagan Republican, denounced President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as a “madman” and conceded the issue had forced him to walk a “delicate political tightrope.”
Reminded by Ms. Colgan, a member of the American Coalition for Ukraine, a nonprofit advocacy group, of the adage that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil was for good people to do nothing, Mr. Johnson replied that he kept a copy of the quotation framed in his office.
“That’s not going to be us,” he assured her. “We’re going to do our job.”
The exchange reflects what Mr. Johnson has privately told donors, foreign leaders and fellow members of Congress in recent weeks, according to extensive notes Ms. Colgan took during the New Jersey event and interviews with several other people who have spoken with him.
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While the speaker has remained noncommittal about any one option, he has repeatedly expressed a personal desire to send aid to Ukraine — something he has voted against repeatedly in the past — and now appears to be in search of the least politically damaging way to do it.
The challenge for Mr. Johnson is that any combination of aid measures he puts to a vote will likely infuriate the growing isolationist wing of his party, which considers the issue toxic. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, who has repeatedly said she would call a snap vote to unseat the speaker if he allowed a vote for Ukraine aid before imposing restrictive immigration measures, filed a resolution on Friday calling for his removal, saying she wanted to send him “a warning.”
Image
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on the stairs of the Capitol surrounded by a group of people.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a resolution calling for Mr. Johnson’s removal on Friday.Credit...Kent Nishimura for The New York Times
Even if Ms. Greene follows through on the threat, Mr. Johnson could still hold onto his job. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, has said he believed “a reasonable number” of Democrats would vote to save the speaker were he to face a Republican mutiny for acting on the Senate-passed aid package, though on Friday Mr. Jeffries said that had been “an observation, not a declaration.”
In a lengthy statement on Friday after Ms. Greene had filed her resolution and the House departed Washington for its Easter recess, Mr. Johnson said that when lawmakers returned in two weeks, they would “take the necessary steps to address the supplemental funding request.”
“We have done important work discussing options with members,” he said, “and are preparing to complete our plan for action.”
Privately, Mr. Johnson has expressed an interest in linking Ukraine aid to a measure aimed at forcing the Biden administration to reverse its moratorium on liquefied natural gas exports, according to three people familiar with his deliberations who were not authorized to discuss them. Mr. Johnson pressed the issue at a White House meeting last month with President Biden and congressional leaders, arguing that by prohibiting new exports of domestic energy, the administration was increasing reliance on Russian gas, effectively enriching Ukraine’s enemy.
In that meeting, according to a person familiar with the comments, Mr. Johnson raised the case of Calcasieu Pass 2, a proposed export terminal that would be situated along a shipping channel that connects the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Charles, La., and would dwarf the country’s existing export terminals. The Biden administration in January had paused a decision on whether to approve it.
He has puzzled over whether to put the aid to a vote on the House floor packaged with assistance for other U.S. allies, including Israel and Taiwan, or allow lawmakers to vote on them separately to register their support for each individual nation.
With many Republicans bent on blocking aid to Ukraine, any legislation carrying it would need to be considered using a special procedure that bypasses House rules and requires a two-thirds majority for passage, relying heavily on votes from Democrats. But a combined aid package for both Ukraine and Israel like the one that passed the Senate last month could be doomed by a coalition of right-wing Republicans opposing the money for Kyiv and left-wing Democrats opposing aid for Israel.
Mr. Johnson has pondered imposing new sanctions against Russia. And he has debated how the money should be structured — straight assistance versus a loan — and whether it should be exclusively for lethal aid, a type of assistance that is more widely supported by his conference, or also include nonmilitary assistance.
“There is a big distinction in the minds of a lot of people between lethal aid for Ukraine, and the humanitarian component,” Mr. Johnson said at a news conference at the Capitol last week.
Both he and Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, have publicly floated the idea of paying for some of the aid by selling off Russian sovereign assets that have been frozen using legislation called the REPO Act.
Image
Men in heavy rescue clothing walk amid the rubble of a destroyed building in an urban area.
Rescue workers sifting through the rubble of a gymnasium hit by a Russian missile in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
Mr. Johnson has faced mounting international pressure to allow a vote on aid to Ukraine, fielding almost weekly visits and calls from NATO allies and pro-Ukraine activists both at his offices in Washington and Louisiana. When Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland visited Washington earlier this month, he had a sharp public message for the speaker.
“This is not some political skirmish that only matters here in America,” Mr. Tusk told reporters. “The absence of this positive decision of Mr. Johnson will really cost thousands of lives there — children, women. He must be aware of his personal responsibility.”
Meeting privately with Mr. Johnson in his office in the Capitol, President Andrzej Duda of Poland appealed to the Louisiana Republican’s respect for President Ronald Reagan, whose portrait hung beside the speaker during the meeting. Mr. Duda quoted Mr. Reagan extensively and praised his willingness to call out good versus evil during the Cold War, according to a person familiar with the comments who requested anonymity to describe them.
Some skeptical Ukraine backers, both on and off Capitol Hill, have fretted that Mr. Johnson’s agreeable comments have simply reflected his penchant for telling people what they want to hear. Early in Mr. Johnson’s tenure as speaker, lawmakers noticed that he had a habit of leaving listeners from warring factions with the impression he agreed with each of them.
Yet at the fund-raiser in New Jersey last month, he was fairly candid about his calculations.
Mr. Johnson told the audience that he was “working to figure out the best route forward,” Ms. Colgan recalled, adding that he said that half of House Republicans wanted to move it together as a package with Israel and Taiwan, and the other half wanted to do it on its own.
Image
President Andrej Duda and Speaker Mike Johnson shaking hands with U.S. flags in the background.
President Andrzej Duda of Poland sought to appeal to Mr. Johnson’s respect for President Ronald Reagan during meetings over aid to Ukraine.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
At a separate fund-raiser in Binghamton for a congressman in New York’s Hudson Valley last month, Christina Zawerucha, the executive director of the Together for Ukraine Foundation, and Anatoliy Pradun, the group’s president, who was born and raised in Ukraine, approached the speaker to press him on holding a vote.
Mr. Pradun had hoped to appeal to Mr. Johnson’s faith by telling him of the strong evangelical Christian community in Ukraine. But realizing they had little time to make their case, Ms. Zawerucha and Mr. Pradun instead gave the speaker a pin with the Ukrainian and American flags, showed him their poster advertising an upcoming interfaith vigil for Ukraine and implored him to schedule a vote on aid to Kyiv.
“He didn’t turn us away,” Ms. Zawerucha said. “He pointed at our poster and said, ‘I will take care of this. I will take care of this.’”
When Ms. Zawerucha relayed the interaction to fellow activists after the luncheon, they asked what she thought he meant.
“And at this point, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s been over a month since Speaker Johnson said he would take care of this. And a vote for Ukraine still has not been allowed on the floor.”
Julian Barnes contributed reporting.
Catie Edmondson covers Congress for The Times. More about Catie Edmondson
Vowing the U.S. Will ‘Do Our Job,’ Johnson Searches for a Path on Ukraine
The Republican speaker, with his job on the line, has privately told people he would make sure the House moves to assist Ukraine, a step that many members of his party oppose.
Image
Speaker Mike Johnson walks through the Capital followed by a group of people.
While Speaker Mike Johnson has remained noncommittal about any one option, he has repeatedly expressed a personal desire to send aid to Ukraine.Credit...Kent Nishimura for The New York Times
Catie Edmondson
By Catie Edmondson
Reporting from Capitol Hill
Published March 25, 2024
Updated March 27, 2024
When Speaker Mike Johnson opened the floor for questions at a closed-door luncheon fund-raiser in New Jersey last month, Jacquie Colgan asked how, in the face of vehement opposition within his own ranks, he planned to handle aid for Ukraine.
What followed was an impassioned monologue by Mr. Johnson in which he explained why continued American aid to Kyiv was, in his view, vital — a message starkly at odds with the hard-right views that have overtaken his party. He invoked his political roots as a Reagan Republican, denounced President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as a “madman” and conceded the issue had forced him to walk a “delicate political tightrope.”
Reminded by Ms. Colgan, a member of the American Coalition for Ukraine, a nonprofit advocacy group, of the adage that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil was for good people to do nothing, Mr. Johnson replied that he kept a copy of the quotation framed in his office.
“That’s not going to be us,” he assured her. “We’re going to do our job.”
The exchange reflects what Mr. Johnson has privately told donors, foreign leaders and fellow members of Congress in recent weeks, according to extensive notes Ms. Colgan took during the New Jersey event and interviews with several other people who have spoken with him.
ADVERTISEMENT
While the speaker has remained noncommittal about any one option, he has repeatedly expressed a personal desire to send aid to Ukraine — something he has voted against repeatedly in the past — and now appears to be in search of the least politically damaging way to do it.
The challenge for Mr. Johnson is that any combination of aid measures he puts to a vote will likely infuriate the growing isolationist wing of his party, which considers the issue toxic. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, who has repeatedly said she would call a snap vote to unseat the speaker if he allowed a vote for Ukraine aid before imposing restrictive immigration measures, filed a resolution on Friday calling for his removal, saying she wanted to send him “a warning.”
Image
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on the stairs of the Capitol surrounded by a group of people.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a resolution calling for Mr. Johnson’s removal on Friday.Credit...Kent Nishimura for The New York Times
Even if Ms. Greene follows through on the threat, Mr. Johnson could still hold onto his job. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, has said he believed “a reasonable number” of Democrats would vote to save the speaker were he to face a Republican mutiny for acting on the Senate-passed aid package, though on Friday Mr. Jeffries said that had been “an observation, not a declaration.”
In a lengthy statement on Friday after Ms. Greene had filed her resolution and the House departed Washington for its Easter recess, Mr. Johnson said that when lawmakers returned in two weeks, they would “take the necessary steps to address the supplemental funding request.”
“We have done important work discussing options with members,” he said, “and are preparing to complete our plan for action.”
Privately, Mr. Johnson has expressed an interest in linking Ukraine aid to a measure aimed at forcing the Biden administration to reverse its moratorium on liquefied natural gas exports, according to three people familiar with his deliberations who were not authorized to discuss them. Mr. Johnson pressed the issue at a White House meeting last month with President Biden and congressional leaders, arguing that by prohibiting new exports of domestic energy, the administration was increasing reliance on Russian gas, effectively enriching Ukraine’s enemy.
In that meeting, according to a person familiar with the comments, Mr. Johnson raised the case of Calcasieu Pass 2, a proposed export terminal that would be situated along a shipping channel that connects the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Charles, La., and would dwarf the country’s existing export terminals. The Biden administration in January had paused a decision on whether to approve it.
He has puzzled over whether to put the aid to a vote on the House floor packaged with assistance for other U.S. allies, including Israel and Taiwan, or allow lawmakers to vote on them separately to register their support for each individual nation.
With many Republicans bent on blocking aid to Ukraine, any legislation carrying it would need to be considered using a special procedure that bypasses House rules and requires a two-thirds majority for passage, relying heavily on votes from Democrats. But a combined aid package for both Ukraine and Israel like the one that passed the Senate last month could be doomed by a coalition of right-wing Republicans opposing the money for Kyiv and left-wing Democrats opposing aid for Israel.
Mr. Johnson has pondered imposing new sanctions against Russia. And he has debated how the money should be structured — straight assistance versus a loan — and whether it should be exclusively for lethal aid, a type of assistance that is more widely supported by his conference, or also include nonmilitary assistance.
“There is a big distinction in the minds of a lot of people between lethal aid for Ukraine, and the humanitarian component,” Mr. Johnson said at a news conference at the Capitol last week.
Both he and Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, have publicly floated the idea of paying for some of the aid by selling off Russian sovereign assets that have been frozen using legislation called the REPO Act.
Image
Men in heavy rescue clothing walk amid the rubble of a destroyed building in an urban area.
Rescue workers sifting through the rubble of a gymnasium hit by a Russian missile in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
Mr. Johnson has faced mounting international pressure to allow a vote on aid to Ukraine, fielding almost weekly visits and calls from NATO allies and pro-Ukraine activists both at his offices in Washington and Louisiana. When Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland visited Washington earlier this month, he had a sharp public message for the speaker.
“This is not some political skirmish that only matters here in America,” Mr. Tusk told reporters. “The absence of this positive decision of Mr. Johnson will really cost thousands of lives there — children, women. He must be aware of his personal responsibility.”
Meeting privately with Mr. Johnson in his office in the Capitol, President Andrzej Duda of Poland appealed to the Louisiana Republican’s respect for President Ronald Reagan, whose portrait hung beside the speaker during the meeting. Mr. Duda quoted Mr. Reagan extensively and praised his willingness to call out good versus evil during the Cold War, according to a person familiar with the comments who requested anonymity to describe them.
Some skeptical Ukraine backers, both on and off Capitol Hill, have fretted that Mr. Johnson’s agreeable comments have simply reflected his penchant for telling people what they want to hear. Early in Mr. Johnson’s tenure as speaker, lawmakers noticed that he had a habit of leaving listeners from warring factions with the impression he agreed with each of them.
Yet at the fund-raiser in New Jersey last month, he was fairly candid about his calculations.
Mr. Johnson told the audience that he was “working to figure out the best route forward,” Ms. Colgan recalled, adding that he said that half of House Republicans wanted to move it together as a package with Israel and Taiwan, and the other half wanted to do it on its own.
Image
President Andrej Duda and Speaker Mike Johnson shaking hands with U.S. flags in the background.
President Andrzej Duda of Poland sought to appeal to Mr. Johnson’s respect for President Ronald Reagan during meetings over aid to Ukraine.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
At a separate fund-raiser in Binghamton for a congressman in New York’s Hudson Valley last month, Christina Zawerucha, the executive director of the Together for Ukraine Foundation, and Anatoliy Pradun, the group’s president, who was born and raised in Ukraine, approached the speaker to press him on holding a vote.
Mr. Pradun had hoped to appeal to Mr. Johnson’s faith by telling him of the strong evangelical Christian community in Ukraine. But realizing they had little time to make their case, Ms. Zawerucha and Mr. Pradun instead gave the speaker a pin with the Ukrainian and American flags, showed him their poster advertising an upcoming interfaith vigil for Ukraine and implored him to schedule a vote on aid to Kyiv.
“He didn’t turn us away,” Ms. Zawerucha said. “He pointed at our poster and said, ‘I will take care of this. I will take care of this.’”
When Ms. Zawerucha relayed the interaction to fellow activists after the luncheon, they asked what she thought he meant.
“And at this point, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s been over a month since Speaker Johnson said he would take care of this. And a vote for Ukraine still has not been allowed on the floor.”
Julian Barnes contributed reporting.
Catie Edmondson covers Congress for The Times. More about Catie Edmondson
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Reading Across America Edmondson Elementary Mar 2024-18 Mayor Margarita L. Rios participated in Reading Across America at Edmondson Elementary on March 11, 2024
Reading Across America Edmondson Elementary Mar 2024-17 Mayor Margarita L. Rios participated in Reading Across America at Edmondson Elementary on March 11, 2024
Reading Across America Edmondson Elementary Mar 2024-19 Mayor Margarita L. Rios participated in Reading Across America at Edmondson Elementary on March 11, 2024