There are other things we can do too. We can weaken Vladimir Putin by opening up energy reserves in our own country, exporting them to our European allies so that they don’t rely on Russia to heat their homes and fuel their economy, and have a hostage situation by a hostile regime like the Russians are. We can get Russia off the UN Security Council—they’re chairing the meeting that is taking up the consideration of condemning the actions of Russia invading a sovereign country at the exact moment that they’re invading. That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Then we can absolutely work with the Ukrainians to arm them and train them, and give them every bit of knowledge we’ve learned fighting insurgencies over the last 20 years to tell them what it takes to fight an insurgency against an outsize military like the Russians are. We can also give them our prayers and our support in resolutions like this that take that up as well.
The Ukrainian government isn’t perfect and Ukraine doesn’t have a perfect history of human rights of their own, but the best way to fix that is for Ukraine to be a sovereign country and deal with those issues themselves instead of being invaded by a hostile enemy neighbor. So I hope today that this is a small measure of support for the Ukrainian people and I am really encouraged to see this, and I hope there is more we can do as the days and weeks progress.
By unanimous consent the Senate returned to the order of
Third Reading of Bills
Senator Lauwers moved that the Senate proceed to consideration of the following bill:
House Bill No. 4833
The motion prevailed.
The following bill was read a third time:
House Bill No. 4833, entitled
A bill to levy and collect a specific tax upon the rental of certain heavy equipment rental personal property; to provide for the disposition of that specific tax; to provide for the powers and duties of certain state and local governmental officers and entities; and to provide penalties.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: