#Biden White HOuse

[busterballsblog]

[eretzyisrael]

by Barak Ravid

One of the main questions raised during a meeting President Biden and Vice President Harris had with their national security team on Monday was whether there is a hostage-release and ceasefire in Gaza deal Hamas would ever agree to, U.S. officials said.

Why it matters: Biden and his top advisers were shocked after Hamas killed six hostages, among them U.S. citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and have started to rethink the way forward in the negotiations over the deal.

At the same time, Hamas' new demand to increase the number of Palestinian prisoners released as part of the deal raised even more concerns and questions among U.S. negotiators about whether an agreement is possible, U.S. officials said.

"We still think the deal is the only way to save the lives of the hostages and stop the war. But the executions not only increased our sense of urgency but also called into question Hamas' willingness to do a deal of any kind," a U.S. official said.

Behind the scenes: U.S. officials said one of the main arguments made in the meeting was that after Hamas murdered the hostages, including an American, the U.S. shouldn't push for a proposal that gives Hamas additional concessions and instead focus on applying more pressure and accountability measures against Hamas.

A concern raised in the situation room meeting was that the U.S. could press Israel to reduce Israel Defense Forces deployed along the Egypt-Gaza border or on other issues, only to discover that Hamas doesn't agree to other parts of the deal. That could mean the new offer would only become the foundation for future negotiations that would be more favorable to Hamas, a U.S. official said.

During the situation room meeting, Biden was briefed about the Department of Justice plan to publish indictments against Hamas leaders, which have been sealed since February, one U.S. official said.

On Wednesday, Hamas officials continued to stress that the U.S., Qatar and Egypt need to pressure Israel to agree to its demands.

Driving the news: White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told the families of the U.S. hostages on Sunday that Biden is considering presenting an updated and final proposal for the hostage-release and ceasefire deal this week and asking Israel and Hamas to respond.

But in recent days, the White House appears to be less enthusiastic about that option. Biden's advisers are still holding talks with Qatar and Egypt on the updated proposal but U.S. officials say they don't want to predict the timeline for presenting it.

"The text is basically done except for two paragraphs and the annexes of the prisoner exchange and two maps of IDF deployment in Gaza during the first phase of the deal," a U.S. official said.

"We all feel the urgency but what happened last weekend changed the character of the discussion. But we do want to try and get something together," the U.S. official said.

[workersolidarity]

🇮🇷⚔️🇮🇱 🚨

IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER TO GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER: PUNISHING ZIONIST REGIME A NECESSITY, GALLANT THREATENS FURTHER RETALIATION, WAR LOOMS OVER REGION

Speaking with the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, on Thursday, Iran's Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, told his German counterpart that the "legitimate defense with the aim of punishing the aggressor is a necessity," following the Israeli occupation's April 1st airstrike on the Consulate section of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, that killed 7 Iranian personnel, including two high-ranking Generals with the IRGC's elite Quds Force.

Iran has since vowed revenge on the Israeli regime, with Iranian Supreme leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei saying during an Eid al-Fitr sermon on Wednesday that the Israeli occupation "should and will be punished" for their "mistake," later adding that the Israelis would "regret the crime" and would soon be "punished at the hands of our brave men."

Meanwhile, United States President Joe Biden reaffirmed his commitment to the defense of the Zionist regime, saying during a news conference on Wednesday that "Our commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad." (Biden also used the same phrase to reaffirm U.S. military support for the Philippines on Thursday, in the event of a territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea)

Meanwhile, United States Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, spoke by phone with Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant.

During their conversation, the US Defense Secretary used identical language in reaffirming, “ironclad US support for Israel’s defense in the face of growing threats from Iran and its regional proxies.”

“Secretary Austin assured Minister Gallant that Israel could count on full US support to defend Israel against Iranian attacks, which Tehran has publicly threatened,” the readout adds.

The Israeli Defense Minister, for his part, told his American counterpart that any "direct Iranian attack will require an appropriate Israeli response against Iran.

“The State of Israel will not tolerate an Iranian attack on its territory," Gallant added.

Meanwhile, two anonymous Biden administration officials told Politico that they expect Iran was "calibrating its plans for a major retaliatory strike against Israel to send a message — but not spark a regional war that compels Washington to respond."

The two officials told Politico that the Biden administration expects Iran is preparing for a "larger-than-usual" strike on the Israeli entity "in the coming days," adding that the assault is likely to consist of combined missile and drone strikes.

However, according to Politico:

Neither official said they were fully confident Iran will succeed in striking Israel in a way that doesn’t prompt the U.S. to respond militarily, as any attack increases the risk of a greater conflagration in the Middle East. But Iran doesn’t seek to expand the regional crisis further, the Biden administration has long determined, which the officials said may be weighing on Tehran’s planning.

The decisions and behaviors of the United States over the last six months has not been without consequences it would seem, as Joe Biden's refusal to set limits on the Israeli occupation has allowed the Zionist regime to turn Gaza into smoldering blood bath killing and wounding well over 100'000 Palestinians, while in the north, the occupation is on the verge of outbreak of war with Hezbollah, which has already resulted in hundreds of thousands of Israeli colonial settlers in the north of the occupied Palestinian territories to become displaced.

At the same time extremely rash and irrational actions such as the strike on the Iranian embassy, moves meant to spark a larger conflagration, have brought us to the edge of a regional war, looming over the Zionist regime while threatening to blow up in the Biden administration's faces during an election year, dragging the United States into massive war that it cannot win in the long-run.

Even while all this occurs in West Asia, the Biden administration continues its Neocon policies throughout the world, threatening multiple crises in places as far flung as the Philippines, Ukraine, and Haiti, yet the bombast and threats will seem to continue into either the administration is removed from power, or third world war is triggered.

After, what else would we call regional wars sparked in every region of the world?

April 12th, 2024.

#source1

#source2

#source3

#source4

#source5

#source6

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

The Biden Harris White House Press Secretary

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Eugene Kontorovich

While IHRA has become the global benchmark, the narrow Nexus definition has languished in total obscurity—that is, until the White House suddenly announced its “welcome and appreciation” of the Nexus Document in May, while still “embracing” IHRA. Nexus leaped from the discussions of like-minded academics straight into a White House policy document. While the IHRA definition remains the only one officially used by the government, the White House’s National Strategy harms efforts to respond to antisemitism by referring to two different, and fundamentally contradictory, definitions.

The central claim of Nexus and other critics of the IHRA definition is that even vicious attacks on Israel should not be considered antisemitic because they are not about Jews per se, but about the Jewish state’s governmental policies. It would be lazy to dismiss this possibility out of hand. Let us examine these attacks first in the perspective of history and then in light of some of the “reasons” suggested by Nexus.

The obsessive focus on the supposed wrongs of Israel has resurfaced across an amazing array of cultures and epochs. From the Romans to the Crusades, the Reformation to the Inquisition, National to International Socialism. The justifications change but the target remains the same.

It is an illusion that antisemitism amounts to such only when it presents as pure unreasoned Jew-hatred or as stereotypes and “tropes.” Antisemitism has never been merely a hate-filled emotional state, it has always been what some academics have called a “pseudo-explanatory political theory.” The most effective antisemites have always sought to justify their bigotry by claiming they simply object to the bad things Jews do to the world: The Jews were hated for producing Jesus and for not accepting him; they were hated as representatives of global capitalism and of international communism. Even Hitler—hardly subtle about his hatred of the Jews—cited policy reasons: They have “the two million dead of the [First] World War on their conscience,” and “they undermine the economies of countries leading to poverty.”

The accusations leveled against Israel often resemble antisemitic claims made throughout history. Instead of the Jews being accused of killing gentile children, Israel is accused of deliberately killing Palestinian children; instead of Jews being accused of causing plague among gentiles, Israel is accused of causing disease among Palestinians. And the accusation of “apartheid” is a modern blood libel—an absurd “Big Lie” that cannot be rectified by mere refutation. Just as the classic blood libel resonated with the theological preoccupations of earlier ages, today’s claims resonate with the ethnic justice concerns of our times. That today several members of Congress can level such libels against the Jewish state without facing sanctions from their party demonstrates how dangerous “polite” antisemitism is.

[tomorrowusa]

The Force is with the Democrats while The Farce leads the Republicans.

Mark Hamil paid a visit to the White House.

The surprise appearance by the man who played Luke Skywalker thrilled Star Wars geeks among the White House press corps while leaving non-fans somewhat bemused or baffled. “How many of you had ‘Mark Hamill will lead the press briefing’ on your bingo card – hands?” the actor, wearing dark suit, blue tie and sunglasses, asked reporters at the start of a media briefing. “Yeah, me neither. I just got to meet the president and he gave me these aviator glasses.” [ ... ] Hamill, who has more than 5 million followers on X, where he is a trenchant critic of Biden’s election rival Donald Trump, said he was “honoured” to be invited to meet “the most legislatively successful president in my lifetime”, and reeled off a list of Biden’s accomplishments.

Here's a vid of his appearance in the press room.

This is the latest time he has shown his support for the good guys.

The voice of Luke Skywalker is featured on an app in Ukraine which warns people of Russian drone and missile attacks.

By implication. Putin is Palpatine and Trump is an orange Darth Vader.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Biden reacts to the GOP's proposal to gut social security

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 21, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 22, 2024

In the past few weeks, Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo has deepened our understanding of the right-wing attempt to impose Christian nationalism on the United States through support for Trump and the MAGA movement. On March 9, Kovensky explored the secret, men-only, right-wing society called the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), whose well-positioned, wealthy, white leaders call for instituting white male domination and their version of Christianity in the U.S. after a “regime” change. 

On March 19, Kovensky explained how that power was reaching into lawmaking when he reported on a September 2023 speech by Russ Vought, a key architect of the plans for Trump’s second term, including Project 2025. In the speech, which took place in the  Dirksen Senate Office Building, Vought explained the right wing’s extreme border policies by explicitly marrying Christian nationalism and an aversion to the pluralism that is a hallmark of American democracy. Vought argued that the U.S. should model immigration on the Bible’s Old Testament, welcoming migrants only “so long as they accepted Israel’s God, laws, and understanding of history.”

These religious appeals against the equality of women and minorities seem an odd juxtaposition to a statement by United Auto Workers (UAW) union president Shawn Fain in response to the claim of the Trump campaign that Trump’s “bloodbath” statement of last Saturday was about the auto industry. Fain is also a self-described Christian, but he rejects the right-wing movement.   

“Donald Trump can’t run from the facts,” Fain said in a statement to CBS News. “He can do all the name-calling he wants, but the truth is he is a con man who has been directly part of the problem we have seen over the past 40 years—where working class people have gone backward and billionaires like Donald Trump reap all the benefits…. 

“Trump has been a player in the class war against the working class for decades, whether screwing workers and small businesses in his dealings, exploiting workers at his Mar a Lago estate and properties, blaming workers for the Great Recession, or giving tax breaks to the rich. The bottom line is Trump only represents the billionaire class and he doesn’t give a damn about the plight of working class people, union or not.” 

In the 1850s the United States saw a similar juxtaposition, with elite southern enslavers heightening their insistence that enslavement was sanctioned by God and their warnings that the freedom of Black Americans posed an existential threat to the United States just as white workers were beginning to turn against the system that had concentrated great wealth among a very few men. While white southern leaders were upset by the extraordinary popularity of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the 1852 novel that urged middle-class women to stand up against slavery, it was Hinton Rowan Helper’s 1857 The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It that made them apoplectic. 

Hinton Helper was a white southerner himself and showed no abolitionist sympathies in his deeply racist book. What that book did was to show, using the statistics that had recently been made available from the 1850 census, that the American South was falling rapidly behind the North economically. Helper blamed the system of slavery for that economic backwardness, and he urged ordinary white men to overthrow the system of enslavement that served only a few wealthy white men. The cotton boom of the 1850s had created enormous fortunes for a few lucky planters, as well as a market for Helper’s book among poorer white men who had been forced off their land. 

White southern elites considered Helper’s book so incendiary that state legislatures made it illegal to possess a copy, people were imprisoned and three allegedly hanged for being found with the book, and a fight over it consumed Congress for two months from December 1859 through January 1860. The determination of southern elites to preserve their power made them redouble their efforts to appeal to voters through religion and racism. 

In today’s America, the right wing seems to be echoing its antebellum predecessors. It is attacking women’s rights; diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; immigration; LGBTQ+ rights and so on. At the same time, it continues to push an economic system that has moved as much as $50 trillion from the bottom 90% to the top 10% since 1981 while exploding the annual budget deficit and the national debt.

Yesterday the far-right Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes about two thirds of all House Republicans, released a 2025 budget plan to stand against Biden’s 2025 budget wish list. The RSC plan calls for dramatic cuts to business regulation, Social Security, Medicaid, and so on, and dismisses Biden’s plan for higher taxes on the wealthy, calling instead for more than $5 trillion in tax cuts. It calls the provision of the Inflation Reduction Act that permits the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over prices “socialist price controls.” 

Biden responded to the RSC budget, saying: “My budget represents a different future. One where the days of trickle-down economics are over and the wealthy and biggest corporations no longer get all the breaks. A future where we restore the right to choose and protect other freedoms, not take them away. A future where the middle class finally has a fair shot, and we protect Social Security so the working people who built this country can retire with dignity. I see a future for all Americans and I will never stop fighting for that future.”

Biden’s version of America has built a strong economy in the last two years, with extremely low unemployment, extraordinary growth, and real wage increases for all but the top 20%. Inequality has decreased. Today the White House announced the cancellation of nearly $6 billion in federal student loan debt for thousands of teachers, firefighters, and nurses. Simply by enforcing laws already on the books that allow debt forgiveness for borrowers who go into public service, the administration has erased nearly $144 billion of debt for about 4 million borrowers. 

At the same time, the administration has reined in corporations. Today the Department of Justice, along with 15 states and the District of Columbia, sued Apple, Inc., for violating the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act. They charge that the company, which in 2023 had net revenues of $383 billion and a net income of $97 billion, has illegally established a monopoly over the smartphone market to extract as much revenue as possible from consumers. The company’s behavior also hurts developers, the Department of Justice says, because they cannot compete under the rules that Apple has set. 

At the end of February, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued to block the merger of Kroger and Albertsons, a $24.6 billion takeover affecting 5,000 supermarkets and 700,000 workers across 48 states. The merger would raise grocery prices, narrow consumer choice, and hurt workers’ bargaining power, the FTC said. The attorneys general of Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming joined the FTC’s lawsuit.  

The benefits of the administration’s reworking of the government for ordinary Americans have not gotten traction in the past few years, as right-wing media have continued to insist that Biden’s policies will destroy the economy. But as Shawn Fain’s position suggests, ordinary white men, who fueled the Reagan Revolution in 1980 when they turned against the Democrats and who have made up a key part of the Republican base, might be paying attention. 

In June 2023 the AFL-CIO, a union with more than 12.5 million members, endorsed Biden for president in 2024 in its earliest endorsement ever. In January the UAW also endorsed Biden. Yesterday the United Steelworkers Union, which represents 850,000 workers in metals, mining, rubber, and other industries, added their endorsement.

Just as it was in the 1850s, the right-wing emphasis on religion and opposition to a modern multicultural America today is deeply entwined with preserving an economic power structure that has benefited a small minority. That emphasis is growing stronger in the face of the administration’s effort to restore a level economic playing field. In the 1850s, those who opposed the domination of elite enslavers could only promise voters a better future. But in 2024, the success of Biden’s policies may be changing the game.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[digiphile]

Why the Open Government Partnership is failing to have a positive impact in the United States

On Monday morning, I read Daniel Schuman’s excellent newsletter focused on the First Branch of the United States government, which included a section that collected several notable developments in the open government space. These updates include:  The launch of the General Services Administration (GSA) Open Government Secretariat’s new website. This website replaces the now defunct page at…

[busterballsblog]

JD Vance HUMILIATES Kristen Welker when she tries insulting him on live tv

[eretzyisrael]

by Adam Kredo

Kassem's past writings strike a similar note. In an April 1998 article, the White House adviser claimed there is "sufficient evidence" implicating Israel in a "systematic genocide" against the Palestinians. The Jewish state's behavior, Kassem wrote in the Columbia Spectator, is "a clear-cut case of ethnic cleansing." In another April 1998 article, titled "Zionism Impedes Middle Eastern Peace," Kassem claimed European Jews came to the Middle East "with the intention of conquering the land." A two-state solution between the parties "is not viable, nor is it desirable," he insisted.

Kassem also maintained that peace will only be achieved if Israel affords Palestinians the "right of return," a long dormant policy proposal that would erase Israel's Jewish majority.

"It doesn't make sense that Jewish Americans living in Brooklyn have more rights to the land than Palestinians who live in Lebanon and can't return to their historical land," Kassem was quoted as saying in a November 2000 Spectator interview.

In a separate piece authored in October 2000, Kassem claimed that Israel has no business defending Jews from terror attacks in Nablus, a Palestinian city where militants frequently clash with Israeli security forces.

"The fact that Israel has no internationally recognized right to be there in the first place is conveniently omitted, and never mind that the citizens in question happen to be illegal settlers armed to the teeth by the Israeli military and heavily subsidized by their government," Kassem wrote in that Spectator article, which includes several other bylines.

[vyorei]

[reasonsforhope]

This is now a Kamala Harris for President blog btw

Obviously I'll keep posting good news as usual! And I'm going to pull up as much good news and reasons for hope about Kamala Harris's campaign as I can.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

While in recent months, CAIR has condemned some acts of white supremacist antisemitism, it has ignored any acts of such hate speech by leftists or Muslims.

Clearly, CAIR’s recent efforts to whitewash itself as a group fighting antisemitism ring hollow. Though the organization condemns some antisemitic acts, it continues its own tradition of Israel-bashing.

Steve Flatow, the president-elect of the Religious Zionists of America, noted, for example, that on the day the NSCA was released, CAIR issued a press release condemning “apartheid Israel.” In fact, according to Flatow, “CAIR issued no less than nine anti-Israel press releases in the first 30 days since it was embraced by the Biden administration.”

In short, naming CAIR in the NSCA and relying on the organization to counter Jew hatred thoroughly discredits Biden’s strategy. In fact, the plan seems at pains to avoid holding CAIR—or any Muslims or left-wing Jew- or Israel-haters—responsible for their blatant antisemitism.

Please make the point when speaking with family, friends, colleagues—or in letters to the editor—that CAIR is not an organization that fights antisemitism, but rather one that fuels Jew-hatred. Its inclusion in the Biden plan is a schande—a scandalous shame.

[everlastingrandom]

what they don’t tell you about working in news is that the years start coming and they don’t stop coming. But the years are actually every five minutes

[mishacollins]

Last night at a White House event to honor recipients of the Praemium Imperiale Laureates award, I ran into Hillary Clinton, who was there way back when I was an intern! It was fun to catch up...

[bonesashesglass]

https://x.com/middleeasteye/status/1746288735287652588?s=46&t=9u7dtsvl8XZD8A7j2V6ckA

This is happening right now. Tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of protestors showed up in Washington DC today to march for a free Palestine and an end to US support of Israel.

This will not stop. We will not stop protesting and advocating and marching until Palestine is free. 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸