As the U.S. prepares to permanently wind down use of its embarrassingly inept military pier effort in Gaza, the Pentagon has announced that it has once again failed to connect the pier this week as promised because of weather-related issues, potentially bringing a fitting end to the pier effort that was nothing short of disastrous for the two months since it was connected. U.S.
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In his much-anticipated press conference on Thursday, President Joe Biden claimed that he isn’t providing Israel with the 2,000-pound bombs that Israeli forces are using to kill Palestinians in Gaza — a statement that is patently untrue. Just since October, Biden has sent over 10,000 of these highly destructive bombs to be used in Israel’s assault — raising questions about whether this was…
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All eyes were on President Joe Biden Thursday evening as the Democratic presidential nominee delivered remarks at a press conference, determined to show that he is capable of running a successful campaign for president against his GOP rival, former President Donald Trump. Biden’s performance at the presser, which took place on the final day of the NATO summit in Washington D.C.
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New polling data out this week suggests that President Joe Biden’s increasingly tenuous candidacy risks shredding down-ballot Democrats’ hopes of retaining the Senate and winning control of the U.S. House of Representatives this autumn. The Cook Political Report reported on Tuesday that momentum is building for the GOP and away from the Democratic Party in six states…
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There is something to be said about ignoring actors. They assume roles, quite literally, camouflage themselves in scripts where personalities are created, and behave accordingly. Given that they are paid liars, their political promptings should be treated with caution. It is no accident that much the same thing can be said about the members of Congress.
Given that the US President is now not so much functioning in twilight as in rapidly descending darkness, the recent intervention by Hollywood grandee and Democrat benefactor George Clooney has prompted ever more tittering about the electoral prospects of Joe Biden.
Choosing the New York Times to make his point, Clooney spoke of his love for Biden mixed with anguish about political realities. “We are not going to win in November with this president.” He wished the Democratic party operators “to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw”, referring to Biden’s calamitous showing in the first debate against Donald Trump. “We’re so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign.”
Personal reflections about Biden’s recent behaviour flowed. At a co-hosted Hollywood fundraiser held over three weeks ago at the Peacock Theatre, Clooney found “not the Joe ‘big F-king deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020.”
Reflections about the Democratic establishment are also plentiful. Having spoken to Democratic lawmakers – Clooney does not say how many – the broad consensus was clear: Biden’s candidacy was a liability across all political races. “We won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate.”
The grim assessment is inevitable: “Most of our members of Congress are opting to wait and see if the dam breaks. But the dam has broken. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth.”
Others in the movie business are also offering their “love you but exit” suggestions. This is director Robert Reiner’s unimpressive gobbet on social media: “We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside.”
Predictably, given their profession, there were also suggestions from the thespian community about how Biden could do better from a purely superficial perspective, satisfying the spectators and viewers transfixed by the blood sport of a US presidential race. Michael Douglas, for instance, had his own morsel on The View about how the debate with Trump should have gone. “First of all they should have just told the president to stand up, put a little makeup on for the debate and then where to look.” Biden should – and here, the jaw drops – have not dealt with his own facts – “just deal with [Trump’s] lies.” Now that’s acting.
With all that out of the way, Douglas still had to concede feeling “deeply, deeply concerned” while gazing at the “big bench” of “heavy hitters, a lot of talent” on the Democratic side. (Names, please.) Clooney, in making his case for a replacement, had made “a valid point.”
Not that we should assume all such figures feel the same way. Perennial cause seeking activist Jane Fonda, in views expressed last month, thought that age could actually play to Biden’s advantage. In remarks made to Wolf Blitzer on CNN, Fonda noted how she was “older than he is. And I’m all for age. I can tell you that you do get wise and you do learn things you learn from your mistakes. And I have seen him close and personal and he’s fine.” The incumbent was accordingly “perfectly suited to be president of the United States I don’t know of or in spite of the age he’s just fine.”
With such supremely skewed analysis, we know that anybody can be president, whatever their mental infirmities. Appropriately, Whoopi Goldberg was full of candour in declaring that she would still vote for the president even “if he’s pooped his pants. I don’t care if he can’t put a sentence together. Show me he can’t do the job and then I’ll say, okay, maybe it’s time to go.” Presidential politics really has struck a low bar.
Clooney’s scribble has laid bare the knotty state the Democrats have created for themselves. The issue of Biden’s condition was already well inked last year, but the machine men and women would not have a bar of considering his replacement. This late in the day, the Democrats have been shown, by virtue of such mildly condescending notes from Clooney (the “love you Joe” sort), to have abused their elderly relative by initially supporting them, only to publicly withdraw their blessing as the show is wearing thin. You were good for the laughs; time to go home.
Through this, Biden has become a victim of wide scale elder abuse, be it in the form of prolonging his agony as a candidate – disingenuously or otherwise – or calling for his prompt exit. Whether he soils his pants or not, he certainly is proving on the international stage that his cerebral functions are blunted beyond repair.
His latest addition to the cabinet of gaffes and mental enfeeblement: confusing, at the NATO summit in Washington, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. In another slip, he also referred to Vice-President Kamala Harris as “Vice-President Trump”.
Those in the dream factory of Hollywood can take some comfort in these displays. A CNN report, citing an unnamed White House source, makes the delicious point that the president’s “entire display is a kind of an act”. Unfortunately, even for those in thespian land, it’s not even a good one.
The post “We Love you Joe, but…”: Hollywood’s Advice to President Biden first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
A new poll finds that most Americans — including a majority of voters who describe themselves as supporters of President Joe Biden — believe the Democratic candidate should drop out of the presidential race, two weeks after a disastrous debate performance that left many questioning whether Biden has the mental acuity to continue his campaign. The ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll published on…
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Democratic leaders in Congress are expressing concerns about President Joe Biden’s ability to triumph over Donald Trump, reports find, as the campaign is rapidly losing funds from donors, big and small, further solidifying critics’ case for Biden to step aside. Axios reports, citing three sources familiar with the matter, that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has been fielding…
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President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president in 2024, argued earlier this week that calls for him to step down from the ticket and allow someone else to run as the Democratic candidate are improper, vaguely citing “democracy.” Calls for Biden’s departure from the top of the ticket intensified after his poor debate performance against GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump in late June.
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Shortly after the US presidential debate finished, the chief executive of Oura, makers of the eponymous health and fitness tracking ring, commented on LinkedIn that the event had literally made peoples’ hearts beat faster. Apparently, you weren’t alone in holding your breath in suspense as Joe Biden appeared to lose his train of thought in…
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Shortly after the US presidential debate finished, the chief executive of Oura, makers of the eponymous health and fitness tracking ring, commented on LinkedIn that the event had literally made peoples’ hearts beat faster. Apparently, you weren’t alone in holding your breath in suspense as Joe Biden appeared to lose his train of thought in…
The post It’s the customer’s data, stupid appeared first on InnovationAus.com.
This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.
As some progressives and Democrats rally behind Vice President Kamala Harris to replace President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris spoke in an interview about horrific conditions created by Israeli forces in Gaza amid Biden’s staunch support of Israel that progressives have long warned have hurt his chances of winning in the fall. Speaking with Joan Walsh for The Nation…
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The White House has released a statement reiterating its support for gender-affirming care for transgender youth after an official was met with backlash last week for suggesting that the Biden administration supported some restrictions on such care. A Biden spokesperson, in email communications with The 19th, said last week that the administration supports gender-affirming care for trans youth in…
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President Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party in the 2024 election, spent much of Monday reiterating that he will remain in the presidential race despite widespread calls from Democratic-leaning voters for him to drop out due to concerns regarding his mental acuity. Since Biden’s disastrous debate performance last week, party insiders and Democratic voters have called into…
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Deeply ingrained inequalities—many of which are reflective of the country’s patchwork healthcare system—belie rosy projections that Biden is delivering inclusive growth.
This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.
President Joe Biden on Friday delivered a defiant response to those within the Democratic Party urging him to drop out of the 2024 race, characterizing his abysmal debate performance against Donald Trump as a “bad episode” rather than validation of longstanding concerns about his age and cognitive health. At a rally in Wisconsin and in a later sit-down interview with ABC News anchor George…
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Calls for President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race are growing as the campaign fails to combat concerns of his mental fitness and polls are indicating that Democrats will lose the race badly to Donald Trump if they don’t allow a new candidate to step in. So far, three House Democrats have issued statements calling on Biden to step aside: Representatives Lloyd Doggett (Texas)…
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Wherever he travels globally, President Biden has sought to project the United States as the rejuvenated leader of a broad coalition of democratic nations seeking to defend the “rules-based international order” against encroachments by hostile autocratic powers, especially China, Russia, and North Korea. “We established NATO, the greatest military alliance in the history of the world…
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When the clock strikes 10:00 pm, I’ll be sitting in the darkness gazing out a grimy, metal barred window. Miles away, the starlit sky will explode with cheerful colors. Two seconds after each rocket reaches its apex point, the blast will resonate through the walls. The city of Talladega, Alabama, will be celebrating, and in 10 minutes it will be all over. The illuminating colors will turn into an…
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When the clock strikes 10:00 pm, I’ll be sitting in the darkness gazing out a grimy, metal barred window. Miles away, the starlit sky will explode with cheerful colors. Two seconds after each rocket reaches its apex point, the blast will resonate through the walls. The city of Talladega, Alabama, will be celebrating, and in 10 minutes it will be all over. The illuminating colors will turn into an…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
— Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking-Glass, December 1871
Once you understand that profound poem, you are ready to fathom the great debate between our dumb and dumber candidates for the Highchair in the Oval Office.</
In light of Julian Assange’s release from an English prison and President Biden’s dementia-riddled debate performance against dumb-mouthed Donald Trump – Tweedledum and Tweedledee, whom Alice, when through the looking-glass, said looked exactly like a couple of schoolboys – I have been thinking about a famous proverb – “acta, non verba” (action, not words). Like most platitudes and effective propaganda, it contains both truths and contradictions and can therefore be spun in multiple ways depending on one’s intent.
Killing people is an action that needs no words to accompany it. It can be done silently. Even when it is the killing of millions of people, it can be carried out without fanfare or direct responsibility. Without a whisper, with plausible deniability, as if it were not happening. As if you were not responsible. The playwright Harold Pinter, in his Nobel Prize Address, wrote truthfully about U. S. war crimes:
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.
I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self-love. It’s a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, ‘the American people’, as in the sentence, ‘I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.’
Trust, of course, is a sick joke when it comes from the mouths of U.S. presidents, just as the two bloodthirsty debaters want the American people to trust them and agree with their support for the US/Israel genocide of Palestinians, as does Robert Kennedy, Jr., another aspirant for the position of Killer-in-Chief.
“I know what you’re thinking about,” said Tweedledum, “but it isn’t so nohow.”
“Contrariwise,” said Tweedledee. “if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.”
And the boys continue to battle over Tweedledum’s “nice new rattle” that he accused Tweedledee of spoiling.
The spectacle of presidential politics and people’s addiction to it is a depressing commentary on people’s gullibility. To think that the candidates are not puppets manipulated by the same hidden powerful elite forces is a form of illiteracy that fails to grasp the nature of the fairy tale told through the looking-glass. The real rattle is not a toy, but the sound of the rattling of the marionettes’ chains. In the 2020 presidential election, more than 155 million Americans voted for Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the highest voter turnout by percentage since 1900. More so than the population at large, these voters are dumb and getting dumber by the day. They think they live in a democracy where to get into the Highchair candidates will spend 10 billion dollars or so.
“Ditto,” said Tweedledum.
“Ditto, ditto!” cried Tweedledee.
Like the voters in 2020, those this year will echo the boys in illusionary expectations of political change – “Ditto, ditto, ditto – as they look in the mirror of their cell phones and hope to take selfies with the candidates to mirror the narcissistic mendacious marionettes of their illusions.
Julian Assange killed no one, but he suffered greatly at the hands of the U.S. military-industrial-security state and its evil accomplices because he used words and images to reveal their atrocities. In other words, his words were his courageous actions to counteract the murderous actions of the U.S. government. He gave voice to the previously unspeakable, a void in confronting systematic evil that seems beyond imagining or words to convey. Assange’s words were his deeds and therefore reversed the proverb or turned it on its head or upside down. He showed that the words of denial from the U.S. government were lies, language used to obscure thought about its war crimes. That is why they tortured him for so many years.
Despite such treatment, he never bowed to their violence, remaining steadfastly true to his conscience. A true individual. He was betrayed by the corporate mainstream media such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and others who published what Julian published, then trashed him and ignored him, and finally hypocritically supported him to save their own asses after he suffered for fourteen years. It is a very typical tale of elite betrayal.
Those who serve and wish to serve as American presidents are so lacking in Assange’s moral conscience that one should never expect truth from them, neither in words nor actions. Assange stands head and shoulders above these craven creeps. Here, as recounted by Marjorie Cohn, are some of their atrocities that journalist Assange, a free man, published for all the world to read and see.
The relationship between words and actions is very complex. Even Shakespeare compounds the complexity by having a character say that words are not deeds. But they are.
Neither Biden nor Trump ever personally killed a Syrian or Palestinian, but they gave orders to do so. They made sure as young men that they would never serve in the military and kill with their own hands, having received between them nearly ten deferments. What’s the term for such Commanders-in-Chief? Pusillanimous armchair warriors? Jackals with polished faces who know ten thousand ways to order others to kill and torture while keeping their hands clean but their souls sordid?
Obama had his Tuesday kill list that included American citizens whom he chose for death; Trump gave the orders to “terminate” Iranian General Qasem Soleimani; we can only imagine what orders Biden (or his handlers) has given, while Ukraine, Russia, and Gaza have suffered terribly from them. Now Tweedledum, desperate to retain his rattle, pushes the world closed to nuclear war.
But notice the expensive suits these boys wear, the crisp white shirts and pocket handkerchiefs, the elegant watches and shiny shoes. But they are killers whose orders to kill are whispered, action words, passed down the line. With a smile, a grin, a shrug, or completely indifferently, as if they were ordering a bagel with cream cheese to go.
Yet true it is, as the forgotten but great American poet Keneth Rexroth wrote in his 1955 poem Thou Shall Not Kill: “You killed him! You killed him./ In your God damned Brooks Brothers suit,/ You son of a bitch.”
Like many writers, I am politically powerless. My words are my only weapon. Are they actions? I believe they are. They are deeds. I move my pen across the paper and try to write something meaningful. Sometimes I succeed in this action; at others, I fail. Who can say? I surely can’t. As my father used to always remind me, “Quien sabe?” (Who knows?)
There are those who claim that wordsmiths are all full of shit. Why don’t they just shut up and do something, is what they say. They fail to grasp the paradoxical relationship between action and words. For writers who write to defend humanity from the predations of the ruthless ruling classes, their words are not orders to kill. Just the opposite.
Our words are reminders that killing is wrong, that waging wars are wrong, that genocide is wrong, that assassinating people is wrong – simple truths that almost everyone knows but forgets when they get caught up in the antics of the Tweedledums and Tweedledees who come and go with the breezes as the system that creates them rolls merrily along.
So if words, contrary to the famous proverb – action, not words – are a form of action, we are caught in a paradox of our own making. This is not uncommon. For there are silent and wordy acts as well as words as actions, some noisy, others sotto voce. There are violent deeds and violent words; and there are peaceful words meant to encourage peaceful deeds.
Tweedledum Biden and Tweedledee Trump are prime examples of how far my country (I write that with a lump in my throat), the United States of America, has descended into illiteracy, evil, and delusion.
The philosopher Frederick Nietzsche once wrote that the “Greeks were superficial out of profundity.” Too many Americans have become superficial out of stupidity by believing the words and deeds of con men battling over a rattle.
The post Biden and Trump Battle over a Rattle first appeared on Dissident Voice.No Way! We landed on the moon!
– Jim Carrey, playing Lloyd in Dumb and Dumber, 1994
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With momentum seemingly building against President Joe Biden in the past week following his disastrous debate performance last Thursday, the Donald Trump campaign is reportedly hoping that Biden stays in the race, believing he is a uniquely weak candidate who they could easily beat in the general election. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the Trump campaign thinks it would be extremely…
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After a televised debate performance last week that left Democrats horrified, President Joe Biden wants voters to know that his administration is taking the climate crisis seriously as summer 2024 brings record-breaking heat waves and extreme weather. Speaking at an emergency operations center near the Capitol on Tuesday, Biden touted investments in clean energy and resilient infrastructure made…
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As Democrats appear to be distancing themselves from the campaign to reelect Joe Biden and opening the door to other possibilities, the president has reportedly told a close ally that he is reconsidering whether he should stay in the race — the strongest indicator yet that he may drop out after his disastrous debate performance last week. The New York Times reported Wednesday that Biden told the…
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The US Supreme Court has much to answer for. In the genius of republican government, it operates as overseer and balancer to the executive and legislature. Of late, the judges have seemingly confused that role.
In contrast to its other Anglophone counterparts, the highest tribunal in the US professes an open brand of politics, with its occupants blatantly expressing views that openly conform to one side of the political aisle or the other. Not that the idea of a conservative or liberal judge necessarily translates into opposite rulings. Agreement and common ground can be reached, however difficult the exercise might be. Justice should, at the very least, be seen to be done.
The current crop, however, shows little in the way of identifying, let alone reaching common ground. Firm lines, even yawning chasms, have grown. The latest decision on presidential immunity from criminal prosecution is one such case. On July 1, the majority of the court held by six to three that a US president, including former occupants of the office, “may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, to a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.”
Throughout the sequence of decisions, which began before the trial judge, Tanya Chutkan, Donald Trump has argued that he should be immune from prosecution, notably regarding federal charges of subverting the results of the 2020 election. Those actions, he claims, formed part of his official duties. Furthermore, as he suffered no conviction or either impeachment, he could not be tried in a criminal court.
The decision offers a grocery basket of elastic terms that will delight future litigants. The total immunity, the decision states, covers “core constitutional powers”. The president, former or sitting, further had “presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution” regarding all discharged official acts as a function of the separation of powers. Falling for giddying circularity, the majority opinion goes on to remark that the immunity “extends to the outer perimeter of the President’s official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are not manifestly or palpably beyond his authority.” It does not, however, extend to “unofficial acts” or “unofficial conduct”.
The majority was also of the view that no court should inquire into the President’s motives when distinguishing official from official conduct. “Such an enquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to judicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose, thereby intruding on the Article II interests that immunity seeks to protect.” This shielding does have a remarkable effect, granting the president uncomfortably wide powers regarding decisions that can involve breaching the very laws the office is intended to protect.
The decision magnifies the scope of presidential power. One might say it invests that power with imperial, distinctly anti-republican attributes. For decades, it had been assumed that presidents would be spared civil suits to, in the words of the majority, “undertake his constitutionally designated functions effectively, free from undue pressures or distortions.” To take the immunity to cover breaches of laws the executive is bound to be faithful in executing is a quite different creature. To suggest that would be to echo, as indeed US District Court Judge Chutkan opined in December 2023, of a “divine right of kings to evade criminal responsibility.”
The three liberal justices violently disagreed with the majority in a judgment authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. “Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.” The dissent excoriates, not merely the reasoning of the court but the man whose actions it will benefit. “Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent.”
According to the lashing words of Sotomayor, the majority had invented “an atextual, ahistorical, and unjustifiable immunity that puts the President above the law.” From the outset, it was unnecessary to make any finding on absolute immunity on the exercise of “core constitutional powers” given the facts outlined in the indictment. This was further “eclipsed” by the decision “to create expansive immunity for all ‘official act[s]’.” Whatever the terminology used – presumptive or absolute – “under the majority’s rule, a President’s use of any official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune from prosecution.”
With withering ire, Sotomayor also thought it “nonsensical” that “evidence concerning acts for which the President is immune can play no role in any criminal prosecution against him”. It would make it impossible for the government to use the President’s official acts to prove knowledge or show intent in prosecuting private offences.
Despite the broad sweep of the judgment regarding immunity, there are pressing questions on whether Trump’s own conduct regarding claims of election subversion would fall within the ambit of the ruling. The multiple lawsuits filed challenging the 2020 election result were peppered with admissions on his part that he was doing so in the personal capacity of a candidate rather than that of an office holder performing official functions. Since then, he has had a change of heart, taking the rather primitive view articulated by that other advocate of an imperial executive, President Richard Nixon, who claimed that, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
The Supreme Court has remanded the questions on whether absolute immunity applies to such acts as pressuring state election officials and conduct around the events of January 6 to the lower courts. But the consequences of the decision have been immediate in the context of the hush money case, for which Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. His lawyers have already asked that the July 11 sentencing be delayed while also applying to set aside the conviction. Thus, do shadowy motives, personal conduct and the official blur.
Much ink, resources and litigation, is bound to be expended over the next few years over what falls within official, as opposed to unofficial acts, that attach to the office of the US president. Along the way, a few laws may well be broken. With a delicious sense of irony, the Supreme Court ruling will also shield President Joe Biden from vengeful prosecutions planned by Trump and his courtiers. The law can, every so often, be fantastically double-edged.
The post The US Supreme Court Outs the Imperial Presidency first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Joe Biden and other Democrat politicians portray the 2024 Presidential election as a choice between fascism and democracy. Many avowed “socialists” echo that assertion. Are they correct; or, are they misguided (given that the Party, which they back, is dominated by politicians who primarily serve capital and monstrous empire)?
Palestine. Biden and most Congress people of both parties evade the facts of Israeli persecution of Palestinians. For them: Israeli lives (seen as worthy) matter, Palestinian lives (seen as other) don’t. In fact, the Zionist colonial-settler state (which Biden and nearly all of Congress supports) entitles Jewish Israelis to liberal civil rights such that they generally cannot be imprisoned without a fair hearing in a court of law. Meanwhile, although Biden et al will not acknowledge it, any Palestinian in the West Bank or Gaza can be imprisoned and routinely tortured by Israel: for any, or no, reason with no court hearing whatsoever; or, if they do receive a hearing, it is in a kangaroo-style military court where the conviction rate is over 99%. In fact, Palestinians imprisoned by Israel numbered nearly 10,000 at last report. Israelis elect their government; Palestinians are not permitted to do likewise. Moreover, the Palestinian Presidential governing regime in the occupied West Bank (which actually governs only a fifth of that territory, the remainder being under mainly or exclusively Israeli military rule) has not stood for election since 2005 and has become largely a subservient client regime (agent) of the Zionist state. Gaza has been under an increasingly suffocating Israeli economic siege ever since Hamas (defining itself as a Palestinian resistance organization) became its governing authority after fairly winning the last-permitted Palestinian legislative election in 2006. Israel has periodically subjected Gaza to murderous bombardments (sometimes with huge death tolls: 1,400 in 2008 and 2,300 in 2012) in response to rocket attacks which were provoked by preceding ceasefire-breaking Israeli violence (including assassinations of Palestinian resistance leaders). Zionist Israelis can and do rob Palestinians of their homes and properties and/or murder them with impunity. Previously, the Zionist state had used terrorist violence (in 1947—49) to expel 60% of the Palestinian population, bar their return, and confiscate their property.
The US and allied governments have consistently evaded the foregoing reality; and the US has consistently vetoed UN Security Council resolutions seeking to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against Palestinian humanity. It is only the massive public outrage over the current genocidal Israeli mass murder of the overwhelmingly unarmed population of Gaza (only about 2% [40,000] being armed resistance fighters) which has compelled Biden and other liberal Israel-apologists to respond. That response: lip-service concern for the suffering Gazans and token action to provide grossly inadequate humanitarian relief for Gazans dying from lack of food, clean water, proper sanitation, medical supplies, and other essentials for life. While Israel deliberately deprives Gazans of those necessities, the US (President and Congress) and its imperial allies abet the mass killing by providing billions in military aid to Israel. As a staunch defender of the Jewish-supremacist state, Biden (along with most Congress people of both Parties) obviously believes that democracy and rule of law are good for some people and that fascist-like apartheid and genocidal mass murder (until abetting it becomes an electoral liability) are acceptable for others. Biden and most Congressional Democrats, like most Congressional Republicans, operate with an unadmitted racist mindset. (For relevant background facts regarding Zionism, Hamas, and the current war in Gaza, see here!)
Immigration. Whereas Trump panders to xenophobic racism, Biden pretends to oppose it.
Evidently, Biden’s humanitarian sympathies are no more than minimally, if at all, better than Trump’s when it comes to Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians, and desperate immigrant people of color.
Biden’s antiracism? Let us not forget:
Voting rights. Red-state Republicans impose restrictions to discourage voter participation by Democrat-favoring segments of the electorate, to marginal effect. Far more consequential, both Democrats and Republicans act to rig elections for partisan advantage: gerrymanders to obtain disproportionate representation in legislative elections, and ballot access rules to exclude third parties and independent candidates from the ballot. Most politicians in both establishment parties rely heavily upon big-money campaign funding, the result (which neither Trump nor Biden will change) being policy largely dictated by capital.
Human rights. Trump panders to bigoted reaction. In red states, Republicans respond by abrogating some human rights: abortion access, LGBTQ+ equality, secular government, diversity-equity-inclusion policies, et cetera. Blue states have responded by enacting laws to protect those rights (which capital often supports as so doing curries favor with much of its workforce and customer base and does not adversely impact its profits). Biden and Congressional Democrats, when they had both houses of Congress, could have precluded most of those bigoted reactionary red-state measures. However, they lacked the will to take decisive action on crucial rights legislation: police accountability, gun regulation, abortion rights, voting rights, removal of rogue Supreme Court Justices, et cetera.
Labor rights.
Environment. Biden pretends to be pro-environment; but he prioritizes those projects (renewable energy projects, electric vehicles) from which capitalists can profit, and he avoids actions to which powerful capitalists object. Moreover, Biden defied the environmental community by acquiesced to pressure from the fossil fuel industry with his approvals of:
Biden also demands massive military spending plus weapons deliveries to fuel ongoing US-backed wars, both of which add considerably to global warming as well as being extremely wasteful and destructive. Trump’s record and rhetoric are obstructive of calls for transition to climate-friendly energy; but he is opposed: to continued fueling of the Ukraine War, and to US financing of foreign development projects. One must question whether Biden is actually much, if at all, better for the climate than Trump.
Abuse of power. Trump, odious demagogue that he is, nevertheless surprised the Democrats by fairly winning the 2016 Presidential election. Disappointed Democrat leaders then acted to discredit Trump’s victory with grossly overblown claims of Russian meddling.
Moreover, in a scheme to discredit his Presidency, Congressional Democrats followed with a purely partisan (and failed) impeachment. They alleged that Trump’s temporary holdup of military aid to Ukraine in order to obtain Ukraine’s investigation of possible corruption involving Hunter Biden (son of the then-VP during the Obama Presidency) was a violation of national security. In fact, temporary holds on Congressionally budgeted military aid had occurred in that prior (Democrat) administration, without anyone calling it criminal. Moreover, Hunter Biden had no special qualification for being on the Board of the Ukrainian Burisma Gas Company, and his appointment thereto was obviously intended to shield said company from being investigated for its corrupt acts. Even though Trump evidently acted from partisan motivations, and even though no evidence of criminality by either Biden was ever discovered; Trump’s request for said investigation was entirely legitimate, and only partisan Democrats would say otherwise.
That abuse by Congressional Democrats provoked Trump (already habituated to violating inconvenient laws as long as he thinks his elite status will grant impunity) to respond in kind. He did so by attempting to subvert the 2020 Presidential election with a scheme to falsify the electoral count, ultimately backed by a seditious riot. [For that act, Trump incurred a second and justified impeachment plus a number of criminal indictments.] Nevertheless, the Democrats, having forgotten the adage “as you sow, so shall you reap”, set the example with their own abuse of power.
Repression. Trump has advocated repression of peaceful Black-lives-matter and other leftist protest. But now liberal power-holders have joined those on the right in using police repression to suppress pro-Palestine campus protests. Politicians of both parties support legislation to criminalize boycott of the Zionist state. They enact laws defining advocacy, of replacing that racist genocidal apartheid state, as “antisemitic” and cause for punitive action. Biden et al, while purporting to defend the right to free speech and peaceful protest, vilify speech and peaceful protest in defense of Palestinian humanity as “disruptive” and “threatening” and therefore criminal. Biden, like Trump, is hardly a real defender of civil liberties when used for causes with which he disagrees.
Dictatorship? Trump evidently wishes that he could be an autocrat; but, narcissist and opportunist demagogue that he is, Trump is no Hitlerian fanatic. In pursuit of votes, he panders to Zionist Jews and also to Judeophobe racists. He makes campaign appeals to Black or Hispanic audiences one day and to white supremacists the next. He panders to bigotry for political gain, not to create a thousand-year Reich. Trump wants another 4 years in the Presidency so that he can: personally profit from it, boost his ego, and escape accountability for his past and future business and political crimes. It is not his proclivity for abuse of office, but the shameless blatancy with which he does so, which sets him apart.
Despite Trump’s extreme campaign talk, there is no basis for concluding that he would be able to abrogate elections or disband the Congress or abolish the courts, in order to rule by decree. He and his doctrinaire reactionary allies (Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation with its Project 2025 wish list) are seeking control of the 3 branches of the federal government in order, in the name of “freedom”, to “legally” effectuate:
They seek to reinterpret the Constitution in accordance with a corruptly inconsistent and reactionary so-called “originalism”, not to abrogate it.
Fascism? Centrist Democrats are asserting that a 2nd Trump Presidency would result in a fascist autocracy with: extraordinary nullification of Americans’ civil and human rights, and/or all-out repression of the progressive left. In support of this prediction: they erroneously equate MAGA populist reaction to a Hitlerite fascist movement, and they assert that Trump will have learned from the fiasco of his failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election of Joe Biden and be able to seize absolute power. However, for reasons as follows, the factual evidence does not support said prediction.
Centrist Democrats and their liberal “socialist” apologists are promoting a grossly exaggerated fear (fantasizing fascist autocracy and extraordinary repression) as a scare tactic to seduce progressive voters into voting for Biden (or his substitute).
Imperialism.
[For a comprehensive analysis of contemporary imperialism, see: Charles Pierce: Conflicting “left” views of capitalist imperialism.]
Credit where due.
Centrist Biden and demagogue Trump may tell themselves, as well as their prospective voters, that their beneficial actions and proposals are out of concern for the public welfare. We should not be deceived. In fact, such actions and promises (increasingly as election nears) are to win votes, without unduly offending capitalist campaign funders.
America first leftism. The regress which Americans would experience under another 4 years of Trump in the Oval Office is nowhere near the total deprivation of civil and human rights which Israel and the US (continuing under Biden) have imposed upon the Palestinians. And there are hundreds of millions of other victims whose lives have been taken or ruined by the Biden-backed imperial US foreign policy. Meanwhile, Trump has opposed continued US funding for the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine. Although Trump and his isolationist America-first MAGA Republicans are certainly not consistently anti-imperialist; they, unlike Biden and his centrist Democrats, take some positions which are objectively antiwar and anti-imperialist. Sadly, with avowed “socialists” shelving anti-imperialism to back Biden for the sake of purely domestic political concerns; said “socialists” thereby embrace an “America-first” policy of their own, one which is objectively racist and imperialist. Moreover, the abusive rule of capital cannot be ended in a major power as long as it rules a belligerent empire, oppressing vulnerable other states and their peoples, and striving to subjugate insubordinate states.
Bigoted reaction. After decades of center-left parties (Labour in Britain, Socialist in France, Social-democrat in Germany, Democrat in US, et cetera) embracing antisocial neoliberal policy; economic conditions for most working people have stagnated or worsened (housing unaffordability and increased homelessness, employment precarity and persistence of poverty, inflation exceeding wage increases, et cetera). Said parties have effectively abandoned their previous popular constituencies. Consequently, antisocial reactionary parties, led by demagogues pandering to latent bigoted prejudices and scapegoating immigrants and othered minorities, have increasingly seduced much of the now discontented populace. Meanwhile, instead of demanding return to popular Keynesian policies which actually served working people to some extent (at some tolerable cost to capital), centrist politicians cry “fascist” and assert that they will save “democracy” from an alleged threat of impending autocracy. As that anti-fascist appeal increasingly loses traction, they defensively embrace some of the inhumane policy demands of the reaction, especially against politically powerless victim groups such as immigrants.
Lesser-evil-ism. Liberal “socialists” are habituated to giving electoral allegiance to the thoroughly imperialist center-left party in hopes of saving domestic reforms, previously extracted (by popular pressure) from capital. They embrace a policy of electoral lesser-evil-ism. As a means for stopping the rise of bigoted reaction, this policy has been an absolute failure. It results in the center-left becoming ever weaker while antisocial bigoted reaction grows ever more potent, and progressive reforms previously conceded by capital are increasingly nullified. As the adage goes: repeating the same failed action, and expecting a different outcome, is an insanity. With avowed “socialists” and avowed “anti-imperialists” having backed capital-serving imperialist center-left parties for decades, their “left” has sunk ever deeper into the sinkhole of lesser-evil-ism. And in every succeeding election, it becomes yet more painful, and more urgent, for the progressive left to climb out of that sinkhole.
What to do. Whether Trump again or another 4 years of Biden, neither is an acceptable choice. Reliance upon centrist Democrat politicians is a recipe for failure. It enables said Democrats to mislead and cynically use social-justice voters while persisting with their policies of militarism, imperialism, supremacy of capital, and political perfidy, and yet remain largely ineffective against MAGA-Republican abuses and obstructions.
The popular front against fascism (then the most vicious oppressor and most dangerous threat against the left) was appropriate in the 1930s. Replicating it in the very different current conditions would be allying with the world’s current principal enemy of social justice, namely US-led Western imperialism. Our real need is not for a “broad popular front against MAGA fascism” (which would mean campaigning for “Genocide Joe” and US imperialism). Our real need is to build our indivisible social-justice activist movement for: economic justice, environmental justice, human rights, civil rights, and international justice. Said movement must be one which is truly independent of both major US Parties:
Biden, at least as much as Trump, is a racist promoter of mass murder. Neither is capable of actually earning the votes of people seeking comprehensive social justice. Unless we (like Biden and most Congressional Democrats) devalue the humanity and lives of Palestinians, Haitians, Venezuelans, et cetera; how can we accept liberal “left” assertions, that Biden (or his substitute) is any savior of humanity and democracy and must therefore be reelected?
The post “Genocide Joe” and “fascist” Trump: what to do! first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
A House Democrat has called on President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, becoming the first congressional Democrat to do so as politicians and insiders are criticizing the Biden campaign for sweeping aside concerns over the president’s mental acuity. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) released a statement harshly criticizing the Democratic campaign for continuing to run Biden even as…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Fresh off the weekend following his disastrous presidential debate performance against GOP nominee former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden’s family is encouraging him to remain in the contest despite increasingly loud calls for him to drop out. According to a report from The New York Times, which cited individuals familiar with the conversations, Biden’s family — led by his son…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The two old men worried to their very cores about Trump came to opposite decisions: Mitt Romney quit, and Joe Biden is running again. Both may have chosen wrong.
This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!— Emma Lazarus’s inscription on the Statue of Liberty
The contestants squared off in the first of the US presidential debates of 2024. Both wore identical white shirts and navy suits with American flag lapel pins. One wore a red tie; the other a blue one. There were other differences, but none quite so substantive.
The immigration issue dominated the debate. The challenger claimed that the country was being menaced by immigrants – marauding hordes of rapists, murders, and mentally ill. They were the ruination of the nation. Social Security and Medicare were jeopardized by the alien element. Immigrants endangered the jobs of blacks and Hispanics. There was nothing good and a lot bad about the threat of the foreign-born, who should be deported in large numbers according to Mr. Trump.
According to the US Census Bureau, the percent foreign-born in the US increased 15.6% from 2010 to 2022, comprising 13.9% of the total population. A significant one in seven people in the US were not born here.
Some of our past presidents celebrated that we are a “nation of immigrants”:
+ Ronald Reagan said, “If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.”
+ George H.W. Bush said, “Immigration is not just a link to America’s past; it’s also a bridge to America’s future.”
+ George W. Bush said, “People around the world…come to America. Their talent and hard work and love of freedom have helped make America the leader of the world.”
And incumbent President Biden said…well, nothing to counter Trump’s chauvinistic slander. Not a peep could be heard in defense of immigrants. There was no contesting of the calumny heaped upon immigrants nor was there any recognition of their humanity from Mr. Biden. Rather, his silence – his failure to confront Trump’s pandering to nimby nativism – was complicity by default.
Trump-Biden immigration policy and practice compared
On the issue of immigration, there was no substantive debate on June 27. Drilling deeper, the political practice of the former president and the current president bear more similarities than differences.
Earlier in June, Biden made what the press characterized as a “drastic crackdown” on immigration “closing” the southern border by issuing an executive order to partially ban asylum proceedings. Under Biden, NPR observed, the southern border has been further reinforced, with more military operations and “expedited removals,” than ever before. NPR concluded, “Biden’s asylum restrictions mirror those implemented by Trump.”
While president, Trump had used the excuse of the Covid pandemic to invoke the controversial Title 42 public health measure to allow the expulsion of some 400,000 from the border and deny asylum appeals. Despite his campaign promise for a more humane immigration policy, Biden continued Title 42 until May 2023, when the Covid emergency was officially ended. Two million people were ejected under Biden’s watch.
Thus Biden expelled five times as many migrants as Trump, although that partially reflects more migrants on the border. Overall, Biden has been slightly less draconian than Trump, allowing greater use of humanitarian parole and ending holding families in ICE detention. Biden also reinstated an older version of the citizenship exam after Trump had made the test more difficult.
In the debate, Biden defended his immigration policies, claiming that the Republicans had his hands tied. But as researcher Laura Carlson observed from Mexico, Biden has adopted the Republican framework of immigration as a threat to national security. Neither candidate offered anywhere near a humane solution for the “huddled masses” on the border. Neither did they address why so many risk so much and endure such hardship to mass on the border. (Spoiler alert: it’s not because they crave “our democracy.”)
Alternative views on immigration excluded
Presumptive Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein presented a different perspective on immigration. Barred from the CNN debate, she appeared in a Zoom meeting following the main event. Stein certainly qualified to be included in the nationally-televised debate, because she would be on the ballot in enough states to theoretically win the presidency. But her stances on global warming, peace in Ukraine, no war on China, and against genocide in Palestine would have been against the grain of the two major parties and the corporate media.
Stein was not only excluded from the debate, but the Democrats are trying to keep her from contending in the election. Per a recent Green Party post: “The dirty trick Dems slapped us with legal action to try to keep Jill off the ballot. They’re making good on their threats to sue us off the ballot everywhere and keep our time and resources tied up in frivolous litigation.”
Had Stein been in the debate, she would have implicated US foreign policy as a significant driver of migration to the US. Washington’s promotion and in some cases imposition of a neoliberal economic model, which fails to meet people’s material needs, pushes immigration. Export of the “war on drugs” and sanctioning some one third of humanity are related push factors fueling immigration.
Among the Latin American source countries, immigration has spiked from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua precisely because these states, striving for socialism, have been targeted for regime change by Washington. US-imposed unilateral coercive measures punish citizens with the misfortune to have leaders not to Washington’s liking.
These measures, euphemistically called sanctions, are designed to make life miserable. According to Switzerland-based international human rights lawyer Alfred de Zayas, sanctions are used by the US “to blackmail, bully and intimidate states that do not readily accept US hegemony.” He adds, “the US has no legal or moral right to sanction or ‘punish’ other states.”
From Nicaragua, journalist John Perry observes, “blaming migration on ‘repressive dictatorships’ allows Washington to pretend that its policies are helping Nicaraguans, when in fact they are impoverishing them.”
Ending the illegal US sanctions would not stop all migration from the impacted countries, but it would be a step in reducing the pressure on the US border. Although Trump and Biden bickered over addressing the symptoms, they remained seemingly clueless about what causes immigration.
Future of US immigration policy
For partisan US politics, the immigration issue is a political football. For a different perspective, a recent Chinese report on human rights in the US is instructive: “Political strife has become a defining feature of US immigration policy. Politicians have forsaken the rights and welfare of immigrants, engaging in divisive attacks on each other over immigration issues…The immigration issue has thus fallen into a vicious circle without a solution.”
Jill Stein’s presence at the debate would surely have elevated it. Toward the end of the two-man slime fest, Biden mumbled – but with great conviction – something about his “handicap.” One would have thought that the incumbent would not have broached the question of his competence. But it turned out to be a golf thing. Trump immediately claimed greater prowess on the links. On the positive side, the debate did not get into pickleball. Nor did they get into immigration causes or solutions, demonstrating the vacuousness of the debate and the impoverished choices offered by the two-party system come November.
The post Trump/Biden Debate Immigration: US Foreign Policy as a Driver Is Ignored first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!— Emma Lazarus’s inscription on the Statue of Liberty
The contestants squared off in the first of the US presidential debates of 2024. Both wore identical white shirts and navy suits with American flag lapel pins. One wore a red tie; the other a blue one. There were other differences, but none quite so substantive.
The immigration issue dominated the debate. The challenger claimed that the country was being menaced by immigrants – marauding hordes of rapists, murders, and mentally ill. They were the ruination of the nation. Social Security and Medicare were jeopardized by the alien element. Immigrants endangered the jobs of blacks and Hispanics. There was nothing good and a lot bad about the threat of the foreign-born, who should be deported in large numbers according to Mr. Trump.
According to the US Census Bureau, the percent foreign-born in the US increased 15.6% from 2010 to 2022, comprising 13.9% of the total population. A significant one in seven people in the US were not born here.
Some of our past presidents celebrated that we are a “nation of immigrants”:
+ Ronald Reagan said, “If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.”
+ George H.W. Bush said, “Immigration is not just a link to America’s past; it’s also a bridge to America’s future.”
+ George W. Bush said, “People around the world…come to America. Their talent and hard work and love of freedom have helped make America the leader of the world.”
And incumbent President Biden said…well, nothing to counter Trump’s chauvinistic slander. Not a peep could be heard in defense of immigrants. There was no contesting of the calumny heaped upon immigrants nor was there any recognition of their humanity from Mr. Biden. Rather, his silence – his failure to confront Trump’s pandering to nimby nativism – was complicity by default.
Trump-Biden immigration policy and practice compared
On the issue of immigration, there was no substantive debate on June 27. Drilling deeper, the political practice of the former president and the current president bear more similarities than differences.
Earlier in June, Biden made what the press characterized as a “drastic crackdown” on immigration “closing” the southern border by issuing an executive order to partially ban asylum proceedings. Under Biden, NPR observed, the southern border has been further reinforced, with more military operations and “expedited removals,” than ever before. NPR concluded, “Biden’s asylum restrictions mirror those implemented by Trump.”
While president, Trump had used the excuse of the Covid pandemic to invoke the controversial Title 42 public health measure to allow the expulsion of some 400,000 from the border and deny asylum appeals. Despite his campaign promise for a more humane immigration policy, Biden continued Title 42 until May 2023, when the Covid emergency was officially ended. Two million people were ejected under Biden’s watch.
Thus Biden expelled five times as many migrants as Trump, although that partially reflects more migrants on the border. Overall, Biden has been slightly less draconian than Trump, allowing greater use of humanitarian parole and ending holding families in ICE detention. Biden also reinstated an older version of the citizenship exam after Trump had made the test more difficult.
In the debate, Biden defended his immigration policies, claiming that the Republicans had his hands tied. But as researcher Laura Carlson observed from Mexico, Biden has adopted the Republican framework of immigration as a threat to national security. Neither candidate offered anywhere near a humane solution for the “huddled masses” on the border. Neither did they address why so many risk so much and endure such hardship to mass on the border. (Spoiler alert: it’s not because they crave “our democracy.”)
Alternative views on immigration excluded
Presumptive Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein presented a different perspective on immigration. Barred from the CNN debate, she appeared in a Zoom meeting following the main event. Stein certainly qualified to be included in the nationally-televised debate, because she would be on the ballot in enough states to theoretically win the presidency. But her stances on global warming, peace in Ukraine, no war on China, and against genocide in Palestine would have been against the grain of the two major parties and the corporate media.
Stein was not only excluded from the debate, but the Democrats are trying to keep her from contending in the election. Per a recent Green Party post: “The dirty trick Dems slapped us with legal action to try to keep Jill off the ballot. They’re making good on their threats to sue us off the ballot everywhere and keep our time and resources tied up in frivolous litigation.”
Had Stein been in the debate, she would have implicated US foreign policy as a significant driver of migration to the US. Washington’s promotion and in some cases imposition of a neoliberal economic model, which fails to meet people’s material needs, pushes immigration. Export of the “war on drugs” and sanctioning some one third of humanity are related push factors fueling immigration.
Among the Latin American source countries, immigration has spiked from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua precisely because these states, striving for socialism, have been targeted for regime change by Washington. US-imposed unilateral coercive measures punish citizens with the misfortune to have leaders not to Washington’s liking.
These measures, euphemistically called sanctions, are designed to make life miserable. According to Switzerland-based international human rights lawyer Alfred de Zayas, sanctions are used by the US “to blackmail, bully and intimidate states that do not readily accept US hegemony.” He adds, “the US has no legal or moral right to sanction or ‘punish’ other states.”
From Nicaragua, journalist John Perry observes, “blaming migration on ‘repressive dictatorships’ allows Washington to pretend that its policies are helping Nicaraguans, when in fact they are impoverishing them.”
Ending the illegal US sanctions would not stop all migration from the impacted countries, but it would be a step in reducing the pressure on the US border. Although Trump and Biden bickered over addressing the symptoms, they remained seemingly clueless about what causes immigration.
Future of US immigration policy
For partisan US politics, the immigration issue is a political football. For a different perspective, a recent Chinese report on human rights in the US is instructive: “Political strife has become a defining feature of US immigration policy. Politicians have forsaken the rights and welfare of immigrants, engaging in divisive attacks on each other over immigration issues…The immigration issue has thus fallen into a vicious circle without a solution.”
Jill Stein’s presence at the debate would surely have elevated it. Toward the end of the two-man slime fest, Biden mumbled – but with great conviction – something about his “handicap.” One would have thought that the incumbent would not have broached the question of his competence. But it turned out to be a golf thing. Trump immediately claimed greater prowess on the links. On the positive side, the debate did not get into pickleball. Nor did they get into immigration causes or solutions, demonstrating the vacuousness of the debate and the impoverished choices offered by the two-party system come November.
The post Trump/Biden Debate Immigration: US Foreign Policy as a Driver Is Ignored first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
