If you missed it, AOC has spoken. She says Joe Biden has to be our nominee. Well thanks for the input now go away. You don't hold national office, you don't even hold state wide office. You're just one of 435 US House Reps with voting rights in Congress. In other words, you really don't matter to me. At THE WASHINGTON POST, Matt Viser notes:
What he didn’t see is what was happening at that very moment Sunday afternoon, on a call among senior congressional Democrats who were worried about the state of Biden’s campaign: Several expressed dismay and said he should end his reelection bid, adding to a louder chorus of party officials wanting to change course.
Over a span of 72 hours, as Biden campaigned in two key swing states and returned to Washington, what became increasingly clear is just how differently things look to the Democratic standard-bearer than to many in his party.
Where they see polls predicting political calamity, he sees a dead heat. Where they see a rapidly aging man who should sit for cognitive tests, he sees no problem that can’t be fixed with a display of energy and force. Where they see a 90-minute debate that showcased the state of his mental acuity, he sees it simply as a “bad night” as he fended off a jet-lag-induced cold.
It’s not the first time Biden has said he would “restore” Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that enshrined the right to abortion. It was overturned in June 2022 and ever since has been a common claim on the campaign trail to fix it, one that Biden also touted during the 2024 State of the Union address and more recently released a campaign ad that targets Trump on abortion.
But many are quick to criticize Biden over these future promises, given that he’s president now — so why can he do anything about this today? Salon asked legal experts if Biden’s promise to restore Roe is misleading, and what his options would be in a potential next presidency to take such an action.
mobilizing voters. “Majority of the American people are in support of some sort of abortion rights, and he’s lost a lot of chances to talk about any specifics, and he's not really giving specifics about what he would do differently today than what it would be in like six months.”
Mohapatra said from her legal perspective, the best path forward to restore Roe would be to expand the Supreme Court.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper took aim at Joe Biden and his team on Monday amid ongoing concern over the president's age.
He said Democratic Party officials fear Biden and his family are in "complete denial" about his health and the state of his 2024 presidential election campaign.
Concern over the age and cognitive abilities of the 81-year-old Biden surged following his first presidential debate with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, which took place on June 27 in Atlanta. At several points during the debate, Biden appeared to lose his train of thought, causing the bookies odds on him being the Democrats' 2024 presidential candidate to decline sharply. In response, a number of Democrats, including sitting members of Congress, urged Biden to step aside from the contest.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
You mean the trash that pimped for Barack Obama in 2008 because her mistress/controller Jodie Evans was a bundler for Barack? So even though was publicly ridiculing Tom Hayden -- who took it like the pathetic loser he was -- for wanting US troops out of Iraq and even though he started wavering on his 'promise' regarding all US troops out of Iraq (something Tom and 'Medea' didn't realize until July of 2008 -- four months the beans had already been spilled on that), she never 'bird dogged' Barack the way she did Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. A nun may give herself to Christ, but Jodie forked herself over for currency. As a result, she had the money so Susan Benjamin did what she was told.
it was a glass, an inverted bowl.
It is a small thing
to rage in your own bowl.
It’s been reported now that Obama and other party leaders, their initial displays of support aside, have been harboring doubts about Biden’s viability as a candidate; the Democratic omertà has only been broken within the last few days. The critical question is why there wasn’t movement to encourage Biden to drop out sooner. Leaks have been flooding out about the Biden team’s extraordinary insularity and insecurity, but what’s happened with Biden doesn’t outwardly seem terribly different from the way Hillary Clinton coasted to the nomination with only Bernie Sanders in opposition in 2016 or the inertia that kept Dianne Feinstein and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in their posts even as their age became a liability.
Can I just say one thing to the point that you just made? I've heard over and over again from Hillary supporters that basically the media didn't treat her very well. I think the argument could be made for Senator Obama, as well. He definitely took his hits in the media also. But having said that, you know, nobody's more conflicted about this than I am. At the beginning, I was very much a Hillary Clinton supporter, at the very beginning. But the time has come for us to basically--
No, Barack didn't take any real hits. That's a lie. But it's not the lie we're speaking of. Read her statement above closely. She was "very much a Hillary Clinton supporter, at the very beginning"?
Patricia Wilson-Smith is a questionable character in our eyes and we say that because she is not a young woman and so her mother is also not a young woman. That would be the mother she states, on air, just had surgery. A political convention or your mother who just had surgery? Wilson-Smith didn't appear troubled in deciding to leave Georgia for Denver. But she wasn't troubled by the fact that she lied on air.
Patricia Wilson-Smith was lying to the audience. She was supposed to present herself as a Hillary supporter who came to Barack and, as such, her lie is supposed to encourage other women to do the same. She certainly claimed she supported Hillary early in the broadcast. But when she couldn't succeed in convincing Hillary supporter Sacha Millstone with her propaganda, Wilson-Smith grew frustrated and went off script declaring, "And secondly, of course, because I've been working so tirelessly over the last year and a half for Senator Obama, I wanted to make the trip and complete the cycle."
Did you catch it because Amy Goodman let it slide by. She's "been working so tirelessly over the last year and a half for Senator Obama." Earlier she asserted, "At the beginning, I was very much a Hillary Clinton supporter, at the very beginning." Now people have claimed it was a long primary process (it wasn't) but it did not last a year and a half. Before the primaries even began (in January of this year), Wilson-Smith had already logged a year working on Barack's behalf.
A year and a half, she states, she worked "tirelessly" to get Barack the nomination. Yet she wants people to believe she's a former Hillary supporter? And not only does Barack supporter Amy Goodman (who has turned her show over to the cause of electing Barack since 2007) avoid confronting Wilson-Smith on that statement, Goodman does damage control by ignoring it and immediately declaring:
I wanted to go back to this issue--although, Sacha Millstone, you say, "I'm not thinking about this at all"--I think this is shocking like to someone like Jose Serrano, the Congress member, who is a long time supported Hillary Clinton, now supporting Barack Obama, the issue of, how could you come out of the convention and then conceivably, possibly, sort of leave it open to vote for John McCain? If you could just say whether or not yet you've decided at this point, which clearly you haven't, what appeals to you about him?
What?
First off, listen to the show, read the transcript, Sacha Millstone has never used the words "I'm not thinking about this at all" so Goody's wrong right there.
But Goody's attempting to suggest that Sacha is supporting John McCain. Sacha had already made clear she was at the convention to vote for Hillary and that's as far as she's decided.
But listen to Liar Goody as she rushes in to cover up for Wilson-Smith exposing herself by pulling out of thin air the claim that Sacha has stated or implied she'll vote for John McCain. (Sacha has mentioned neither the GOP nor McCain up to that point.) Sacha attempts to reply and gets cut off at "I never said" at which point Amy jumps in (covering for herself and Wilson-Smith). Amy Goodman cuts her off and snaps, "So, how could you vote for him?" "Him" being McCain. Sacha manages to get a response before being cut off by Goodman again ("I never said I would. I never said that I was considering voting for John McCain. The question is, am I going to vote for Barack Obama?").
That’s a real question, not a sarcastic one. Given all that he’s said lately and something Jonathan Last said at the Bulwark this evening, I’m beginning to think Joe is experiencing some guilt mixed with fear of humiliation.
Last is one of the few political types who acknowledges that Hillary had more primary votes in 2008 but that the party wanted Obama. It was a combo of superdelegates, donors etc who made the party bend the rules for him, steal some of Hilary’s elected delegates for him and reduce by half the strength of some of her elected delegates in two states. It made it look like she couldn’t catch up when in reality, she had beaten him in the states that should have made a difference at the convention.
Then, to top it all off, the party didn’t give her a complete floor vote because it wanted to hide the closeness of the race from the public. I thought it looked like a gang rape with Hillary on the convention floor surrounded by a large group of mostly men as they made it impossible for her to challenge what they were doing until she surrendered. It was sickening. I am not exaggerating.
Is that what Joe is afraid of? Because he should know by now that the best way to avoid having the party pick the nominee in spite of the fact that you’ve won more delegates is to not fight it. Concede now. You know what they’re capable of. Right at this moment, they’re lining up the floor vote and have already picked their preferred candidate.
You don’t stand a chance, Joe. You can go on your own terms or you can be cannibalized by your own party who will drag you out on the floor and make you smile while they strip you of any dignity you have left.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets struck a school last night in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, which it claimed was being used by militants as cover.
It said the attack was "based on intelligence" and used "precise munition".
"The Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organisations systematically violate international law, exploiting civilian structures and population as human shields for terror attacks against the state of Israel," it said.
Disputing the repeated claims of Israeli officials and their vehement supporters in the Biden administration, who have scoffed at concerns that the Israel Defense Forces are targeting civilians in Gaza, in-depth reporting on Monday based on the testimony of six former IDF soldiers described how they were encouraged to fire their weapons to relieve "boredom" and felt "authorized to open fire on Palestinians virtually at will, including civilians."
In their latest investigative report on the IDF's rules of engagement in Gaza, Israeli publications +972 Magazine and Local Call interviewed six soldiers who had been released from active duty.
Medical providers and eyewitnesses have described the shooting of Palestinian women and children by Israeli snipers, and footage has shown unarmed Palestinians being executed while walking along a road, but the soldiers confirmed that the IDF has been operating with "total freedom of action," as one said, since October.
"If there is [even] a feeling of threat, there is no need to explain—you just shoot," said a soldier identified as B.
If troops see a person approaching and don't know whether they are armed or pose a threat, "it is permissible to shoot at their center of mass [their body], not into the air... It's permissible to shoot everyone, a young girl, an old woman," said B.
So another lie of the right-wing Israeli government exposed. Like their lie that they had proof of UNRWA being involved in terrorism, remember? No proof. But they managed to scare many countries away from UNRWA and they continue to bomb UNRWA. ALJAZEERA notes:
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ayman Safadi has held a joint press conference with Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, in Amman.
Here are some of Safadi’s comments:
- The ability of UNRWA to carry out its role in Gaza has diminished due to the obstacles imposed by the [Israeli] occupation on the agency.
- UNRWA is a humanitarian agency that cannot be replaced, as no other organisation can do what it is doing now in Gaza.
- UNRWA plays a heroic role in Gaza to help people who are subjected to brutal aggression.
- UNRWA’s survival is essential amid the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.
- Israel’s attempt to assassinate UNRWA politically is part of its attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause.
- Jordan stands with all its capabilities to provide the necessary support to UNRWA.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 277 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." ALJAZEERA notes, "The ministry has given its daily update on casualties in the Gaza Strip since Israel began its war on October 7, 2023, with at least 38,243 killed and 88,033 people wounded. Its statement also says that at least 50 people have been killed in the last 24 hours and 130 wounded, as Israel continues its bombing and ground operations across the Strip." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:
