So I guess it's worth a "McLeavin'" taunt.

By the way, my screwed-up idea of when McCarthy was leaving had him leaving during the crucial post-election, pre-inauguration phase, which is why I kept saying we don't know why we might need a crucial one-member advantage. I really should have consulted a calendar to double check the year we were in. Hey, I was sick and my brain wasn't working so good.*

There will be no additional funding for Ukraine without first making extensive reforms to the U.S. immigration system, House Speaker Mike Johnson told President Biden.

Johnson issued the ultimatum in a Tuesday letter to the White House. Biden and Democrats had pushed for months to provide additional funding for Ukraine's war effort amid dwindling Republican support for the issue. With immigration being an even more divisive issue for Congress, Johnson's declaration is a major blow to the prospect of further aid to Kyiv.

Johnson's letter says Ukraine aid is "dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation's border security laws."

The message came in response to a Monday letter from the White House. Penned by Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, it warned that the U.S. would run out of Ukraine aid funding by the end of 2023.

...

The U.S. has already contributed well over $100 billion to Ukraine's war effort since Russia invaded the country in February 2022. Republicans have increasingly questioned why that money isn't being spent at home, however.

Johnson first announced plans to pair Ukraine funding and immigration funding into the same bill in early November.

"The American people feel very strongly about this, and I do as well. We have things that we can and should do around the world, but we have to take care of our own house first," Johnson said at the time. "As long as the border is wide open, we're opening ourselves up for great threats. And again, it's just a matter of principle that if we're going to take care of a border in Ukraine, we need to take care of America's as well. And I think there's bipartisan support for that idea."

If Ukraine is this critical to our security, then surely it's worth Biden actually protecting the southern border and deporting illegal aliens, isn't it?
If it's not as important as that, then I don't want to spend another nickel on it, and Russia is welcome to take the whole fucking corrupt Biden-bribing country.

"Tempers flared" during the meeting.

Tempers boiled over during a classified Senate briefing on Ukraine on Tuesday afternoon, when Republican senators insisted on talking about security along the U.S.-Mexico border while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and military officials tried to keep the discussion focused on the war.

Schumer accused Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) of attempting to hijack the meeting on Ukraine's defense needs to have an unrelated conversation on border security.

...

The discussion got so heated that, at one point, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) were shouting questions at the senior Biden administration officials in the room, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Charles Q. Brown Jr.

"I took them on with the microphone in my hand," Cramer later told reporters after the heated discussion.

"I asked Gen. Brown his best military advice. Is supporting Ukraine and Israel important enough that Democrats could at least consider reluctantly supporting some southern border security? He wanted to talk about Ukraine," he said.
Ukrainian, European officials descend on Capitol Hill to press for funding

Cramer said Schumer went "nuts" when he insisted that the general convince Democrats that the war in Ukraine is a vital enough national security interest to justify them making concessions on immigration and asylum reform.

Schumer accused his colleagues of acting disrespectfully toward senior military officials.

"One of them started -- was disrespectful -- and started screaming at one of the generals and challenging him why he didn't go to the border," Schumer said.

And he slammed McConnell for turning the briefing into a partisan food fight over immigration policy instead of a factual analysis of Ukraine's ability to hold off a Russian invasion without additional U.S. military aid.

"It was immediately hijacked by Leader McConnell. The first question -- instead of asking our panelists -- he called on Lankford to give a five-minute talk about the negotiations on the border, and that wasn't the purpose of the meeting at all," Schumer fumed. "And then when I brought up the idea that they could do an amendment and have the ability to get something done on [the] border, [Republican colleagues] got stuck."

Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) said GOP senators were frustrated that the briefing was not more focused on the national security threat posed by the surge of migrants across the southern border.

"Of course we all want more information on border security, and that wasn't a focus of the briefing. So that was a source of frustration for many who regard border security as a national security issue," he said.

We don't want information. We have the information. We want legislative changes.

Tucker Carlson
@TuckerCarlson

The Biden administration is openly threatening Americans over Ukraine. In a classified briefing in the House yesterday, defense secretary Lloyd Austin informed members that if they don't appropriate more money for Zelensky, "we'll send your uncles, cousins and sons to fight Russia." Pay the oligarchs or we'll kill your kids.

A new Rasmussen poll finds 81% Americans agree that illegal immigration is a "serious" problem. I don't think that 81% would agree that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a "serious" problem for the US.

Even Fetterman's Monster agrees that illegal immigration is a major problem. In addition to condemning calls for intifada and declaring that the "pathway to peace" in the Middle East requires a total defeat of Hamas, Fetterman's Monster is demanding action on the border.

From TheMessenger:

Fetterman Calls on Democrats To Engage in Border Talks Amid Stalled Immigration Negotiations
'I hope Democrats can understand that it isn't xenophobic to be concerned about the border,' said the Pennsylvania Democrat

...Fetterman urged his fellow party members to acknowledge the large number of migrants coming across the border, citing an estimated 270,000 border encounters reported in September by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

"Honestly, it's astonishing. And this isn't a Fox News kind of statistic. This is the government's," Fetterman underscored.

The Monster means, you can't dismiss this as invented made-up Fake Fox statistic, which is what liberals literally always do with facts they don't like. He emphasizes these are government numbers. (And I would add: the government is greatly lowballing the figures.)

"You essentially have [the population of] Pittsburgh showing up there at the border."

• I took vitamin D and vitamin K plus zinc and a multivitamin with D, C, various B's, and elderberry, which I think is supposed to help deliver the other vitamins into the cells instead of being urinated out as waste. A commenter here recommended that. The cold was gone in 24 hours so I think this is a winning combination.