It isn’t only because Russia has branded me a “terrorist and extremist” that I return this week to the subject of Ukraine and the urgent necessity that America supply substantial aid to prevent Moscow’s tyrant, Vladimir Putin, from winning his imperial war.

The inability of congressional Republicans to disentangle Ukraine, Israel, border security, and the whims of former President Donald Trump has led to weeks of abject misgovernment and presents a picture of U.S. dysfunction to the rest of the world. That said, there is more to this than is dreamt of in the accepted narrative that GOP electoral cynicism alone killed the Senate legislation.