Congressional Progressive Caucus Retracts Letter Urging Biden to Use Diplomacy in Ukraine War After Outrage From the Left
“The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting.”
House Progressives stepped on a foreign policy rake this week, just weeks before the midterm elections. Their caucus was forced to detract a letter they sent to the Biden administration urging diplomacy in the Ukraine conflict after it caused outrage from Democrats and others on the left.
Remember when the left was the ‘anti-war movement’ under Bush? Things sure have changed.
Politico reports:
House progressives retract Russia-diplomacy letter amid Dem firestorm
House progressives on Tuesday retracted a letter calling on President Joe Biden to engage in direct diplomacy with Russia, less than 24 hours after it sparked intense backlash from other Democrats.
The about-face comes as some Democratic lawmakers vent their fury that the letter backing talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin — originally drafted and signed in June — wasn’t recirculated before its public release on Monday. That release made it appear that the 30 House Democrats who signed on, all lawmakers in the roughly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, were urging the Biden administration to push for diplomacy immediately despite Russia’s engagement in war crimes and indications of a military escalation against Ukraine.
Making the timing of the letter even more politically perilous: Ukraine is not ready for negotiations at this point, especially because its months-long counteroffensive has been successful to date, and there’s no indication Putin is ready to deal either.
“The Congressional Progressive Caucus hereby withdraws its recent letter to the White House regarding Ukraine,” the caucus’ chair, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), said in a statement after POLITICO first reported that the retraction was imminent. “The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting.”
Oh, ‘the staff’ is to blame?
Tim Meads of the Daily Wire has more:
“The Congressional Progressive Caucus hereby withdraws its recent letter to the White House regarding Ukraine,” Jayapal said in a statement.
Jayapal, who bills herself as a friend of working-class Americans, promptly threw the schleps working for her on Capitol Hill under the bus…
In reaction, establishment Democrats, directly and indirectly, criticized the CPC for its actions.
Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA), for example, rebuked anybody who even suggests that Ukraine or the U.S. could engage in good-faith negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We cannot engage in magical thinking regarding the nature of the Russian threat,” Connolly said. “Russia has lied about its intentions in Ukraine and overturned international agreements fundamental to safeguarding peace on the European continent.”
How did this all fall apart so fast?
A source familiar with the situation told POLITICO that Jayapal personally approved the letter’s release on Monday. https://t.co/30FYQYNRhd https://t.co/aZzTL3Hptt
— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) October 25, 2022
We know more about this letter than we do the SCOTUS leak. https://t.co/cyQZt0NYFn
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 25, 2022
Karen Townshend of Hot Air explains what really happened here:
The backlash was swift from other progressives. Some correctly warned that the letter undermine U.S. support for Ukraine. Some progressives were concerned about the timing of the letter, as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said last week that when Republicans take back the majority in the House, he won’t approve “a free blank check” for the White House on Ukraine. Democrats, including Biden, quickly pushed back on McCarthy’s comments. Progressives said it made them look like they were siding with McCarthy and other conservatives on cutting back on aid to Ukraine.
The left cannot allow themselves to be seen agreeing with Republicans on anything.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Cowards and fakes.
A negotiated solution is wrong?
Do they want Putin to unconditionally surrender?
or
Should Ukraine unconditionally surrender?
Read what the say. No negotiation without the full support/agreement from Ukraine.
The Ds have basically ceded our policy regarding this conflict to Zelensky who we know if no friend of democracy.
We pay the bills, he dictates policy and the result he wants to return of Crimea to Ukraine which Putin will never allow.
Democrats have to protect their money laundry, and Zelensky knows he has them all by the short hairs.
A few of us have been pointing this out for a while now. The DC establishment has decided that it actually matters to the USA which authoritarian megalomaniac one Eastern European Nation is ruled by. So much so that they have sabotaged every potential offramp and potential diplomatic resolution so far. We now have SR US officials muttering about nuclear weapons exchange with Russia over this fiasco.
Because the are wedded to Russia hatred based on the 2016 Russiagate hoax and Trump as Putin’s puppet. Its complete bullshite but they are sticking to it.
The DC establishment does not want an end to this war by negotiation or any other means. It serves their interests to continue this proxy war indefinitely to have Biden seen as a war time president expanding his powers and enriching their donor’s.
It also helps them demean any regime critics as Putin supporters.
No. Their endless money pit gravy train got cut off in Afghanistan so they need a new war for the graft and corruption.
They want it to go on as long as possible.
Remember that Hunter made a lot of $$$ in Ukraine. and Joe extorted Ukraine to keep the investigation away.
isn’t it logical to assume that some of Hunter’s (and Joe’s) friends are among the corrupt Ukranian leaders making money off this war?
“The left cannot allow themselves to be seen agreeing with Republicans on anything.”
This last sentence is why we have so much evil in the country now.
The running joke is that if Trump killed someone Trump supporters would still support him. Not even. If Obama murdered someone Leftists would not only excuse the murder and blame the victim, but they will start to state how murder is a positive good for society.
The irony here is too thick to unpack.
Obama did in fact murder several someones.
And certain principled leftists did call him out on it.
But none of those leftists were in a position to do anything about it, i.e., in Congress.
In Congress, it fell to Republicans to carry all the due-process water.
No, Obama did not murder anyone. I am not talking about people dying as a matter of his policies, I am talking about him directly murdering someone with his own hands.
Did you look at the link Henry provided? This is not about people dying as a result of his policies, it’s about deaths that he directly ordered. Now I wouldn’t call those murders, and I don’t think Henry actually does either, but the “Progressives” do, so their failure to confront him about it is directly on point.
Did you read what I wrote? Why do you have to try ot malign the definition of murder to justify some nonsensical position against Obama? I don’t like that guy and think he has been the most destructive man to be president, but that doesn’t mean I will malign words to badmouth the man be abuse of policies he carried out.
Your point about progressives, as well as Henry’s, was already handled by my initial post. Progs make excuses for the evil their party supports precisely because it is them carrying out the evil. In the name of good, of course.
And fund a KickStarter for his legal fees.
I has actually sent the letter to a few friends and family on both ends of the political spectrum noting that this is the first time I have agreed with any squad member on anything.
That didn’t age well…
In the meantime, the Kiev-aligned military and paramilitary axis will continue to abort Russian-Ukrainians… uh, “Russians”. The Biden/Maidan/Slavic Spring in progress. Forward!
“The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting.”
It’s a new liberal pandemic!
Patient zero has been identified!
It was PayPal!
Will PayPal fine themselves?
They do seem to be pulling back a great many trial balloons lately. I’m having an 80’s flashback.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiwgOWo7mDc
First time the progs did something I agree with then immediately cave, walk back, and lie about it.
Typical.
Good to know Zelensky now runs our foreign policy and that all Dems must swear fealty.
Remember when South Vietnam was alleged to be so corrupt of a democracy that all Dems wanted the US to abandon it and let Russian backed communist North Vietnam take over?
Maybe Putin should announce tomorrow he’s decided to make Russia a communist ruled nation again. Maybe then it will be okay to point out how corrupt of a ‘democracy’ Zelensky’s Ukrainian ‘democracy’ is.
I’d bet there are a lot of Ukrainians getting very rich off the ‘aid’ we and the Europeans are providing. Riches socked away in places other than Ukrainian banks.
1968: “Give Peace a Chance”
2022: “Peace through Superior (Nuclear) Firepower”
I, for one, am getting sick and tired of (particularly) Conservative sites employing the left’s “definitions” and misuse of the English language: “The Congressional Progressive Caucus…”. These people are not “progressives”, they’re anarchists; they’re committed to the destruction (by any means) of the United States of America.
I think it’s long past time that we begin calling them by their proper name.
“Progressive” is the name of their movement. It harks back to the “Progressives” of 100 years ago, who were equally destructive and regressive. You might as well object that the “woke” are not really awake to anything, let alone reality, or that conservatives actually support radical change.
Rather than dying on this hill just realize that sometimes leftist parody themselves with what they try to brand themselves with.
After all, the concept of “wokeness” originated on the left as did “social justice warrior”. Now, these terms are regularly used to ridicule the folly of these insane concepts.
We all know what is going to happen here. Russia is losing and they can’t afford to be pushed back at Kherson, since that puts their land bridge to Crimea in jeopardy. Russia is going to use tactical nuclear weapons very soon, and probably in great numbers. Possibly even before our midterm election. Then we have a binary choice – escalate to nuclear war with Russia, or stand down.
It’s hard to see why but this seems to be what Democrats want? Probably because they see this as a way of keeping power AND using any nuke exchange as a way of destroying anyone who disagrees on anything with them as being Russia stooges!
Russia is winning, not losing. NATO knows this, which is why it is so eager to go nuclear.
The progressive (i.e. [unqualified] monotonic change) model: one step forward, two steps backward.
Funny, these are the same people who insist Israel can engage in good-faith negotiations with Fatah, Hamas, and Hizballah.
The left is finally returning to their default roots of supporting Russia and its’ atrocities and it has only taken eight months this time! The only pushback is that some of the party realize the political situation and are trying to keep it hidden until after the election.
Hopefully “conservatives” will also return to their principles and stand against Russia and the evil they are spreading throughout the world.
Nonsense. This is about protecting the image of the State Department. If Ukraine falls, every other protection agreement, expressed or implied, becomes suspect. They will sacrifice every single living Ukrainian if that’s what it takes — and increasingly, that appears to be the “strategy”.
We should fulfill our debts and obligations and the Budapest Memorandum implies we should be doing far more than we are. You are absolutely right that failure to follow through with our obligations will ruin our reputation even further than the Afghanistan pullout did and reduce our strategic security.
I am also pissed about the Biden administration’s apparent plan to fight to the last Ukrainian. If he doesn’t have the balls to enforce the Budapest Memorandum by putting troops on the ground (or even just providing air support) then at least arm up the Ukrainians to fight to the last Russian. Biden has, for example, been holding back long range missiles out of fear that striking inside Russia would “escalate” the situation, but Putin recently claimed the SMO is a civil war so that is not a concern and hopefully Biden will grow a spine and send the weapons Ukraine has needed this entire time.