The world is in peril, Senate leaders say, before leaving on three-week vacation
Timothy P. Carney
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“I think this is the most dangerous time since the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on Tuesday as the Senate struggled with legislation to address aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Such a bill was also supposed to change the laws that are causing a massive humanitarian crisis at our own southern border.
McConnell may be overstating things, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine really is the worst invasion of any U.S. ally in decades. Hamas’s terrorist attack and invasion of Israel in October was (per capita) the worst terrorist attack in decades. China’s saber-rattling toward Taiwan is scary. And President Joe Biden’s border crisis really is at historically bad levels.
“No question this package is extremely important,” McConnell said just before leaving town, along with the rest of the Senate, for a nearly three-week holiday break.
Rather than work on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before Christmas, and rather than getting to work on this absolutely essential business between Christmas and the New Year, both parties agreed to recess until January.
And oh, they’re not going to work on the first week of January, either. Tuesday, Jan. 9, is when they are slated to return. There is no reason to suspect anything will get worse at the border, in Ukraine, in Israel, or in the Taiwan Strait between now and then, I hope.
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I’m not suggesting the senators will be doing nothing during the next three weeks. Many will take overseas junkets. Others will be busy raising funds for reelection or campaigning in Iowa or New Hampshire for their preferred presidential candidates. Others will do strings of cable news shows.
No, they won’t be doing nothing, but they also won’t be legislating.