Imperialism
Israel
Palestine
Fig. 1. The ruins of a terminal at the Gaza airport. Image by Said Khatib (Agence France-Presse) on September 9, 2018, via the Times of Israel,[1] fair use.
Joe Biden issued an executive order requiring recipients of some—air defense systems are exempt—military aid to comply with international human rights law. We’re obviously supposed to infer that this is directed at Israel, but this is not in the text.[2] There is also the question of how these words are interpreted and whether they will indeed be meaningfully applied to Israel.
Don’t hold your breath.
Yasmeen Abutaleb, “Biden says Israel’s military conduct in Gaza has been ‘over the top,’” Washington Post, February 8, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/08/biden-israel-gaza-speech-netanyahu/
Lazar Berman, “Israel cannot use Oct. 7 as ‘license to dehumanize others,’ Blinken warns in Tel Aviv,” Times of Israel, February 8, 2024, https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-cannot-use-oct-7-as-a-license-to-dehumanize-others-fumes-blinken-in-tel-aviv/
Ron Kampeas, “Calling Israel’s response in Gaza ‘over the top,’ Biden conditions defense aid on allowing humanitarian assistance,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 9, 2024, https://www.jta.org/2024/02/09/politics/calling-israels-response-in-gaza-over-the-top-biden-conditions-defense-aid-on-humanitarian-assistance
Ishaan Tharoor, “Netanyahu’s delusional, deadly quest for ‘total victory,’” Washington Post, February 9, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2024/02/09/netanyahu-israel-total-victory-hamas-palestine/
Neoliberalism
Democratic (neoliberal) Party
Joe Biden
Fig. 1. Joe Biden and Pope Francis, unknown photographer, April 29, 2016, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
I have been contemplating the whole fiasco over the special counsel’s report on Joe Biden accusing him of some rather serious memory lapses.[3] Biden responded angrily and his explanation for the lapses might even have merit.[4]
In a newsletter for the American Prospect, Robert Kuttner points out that Special Counsel Robert Hur is a Republican. Therefore, Kuttner presumes, based on his reading of Hur’s report, that Hur was being unduly partisan.[5] I’m not saying Kuttner is wrong. On the contrary, he might well be right.
The problem is that neither of those are really the problem here. The problem is that people have already been worried about Biden’s age[6] and the special counsel’s report authoritatively confirmed their fears. Combine that with Biden’s enabling of genocide in Gaza and there’s just no two ways about it: Biden is in deep, deep trouble.
At this moment, I don’t even see how Biden wins re-election. Also at this moment, I don’t see how Donald Trump wins re-election. And finally at this moment, I don’t see how anybody dislodges either of them from their positions as runaway favorites to win their respective party nominations. This is why I’m still calling the race a toss-up.
Betsy Woodruff Swan, “Special counsel passes on charging Biden but paints damning portrait of him,” Politico, February 8, 2024, https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/08/biden-classified-documents-charges-special-counsel-00140509
Matt Viser and Tyler Pager, “Biden responds angrily to special counsel report questioning his memory,” Washington Post, February 8, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/08/biden-hur-response/
Robert Kuttner, “A Partisan Hit Job on President Biden,” American Prospect, February 9, 2024, https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-02-09-partisan-hit-job-president-biden/
- [1]Agence France-Presse and Times of Israel, “20 years after its opening, destroyed Gaza airport embodies grounded peace hopes,” Times of Israel, September 12, 2018, https://www.timesofisrael.com/20-years-after-its-opening-destroyed-gaza-airport-embodies-grounded-peace-hopes/↩
- [2]Yasmeen Abutaleb, “Biden says Israel’s military conduct in Gaza has been ‘over the top,’” Washington Post, February 8, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/08/biden-israel-gaza-speech-netanyahu/; Ron Kampeas, “Calling Israel’s response in Gaza ‘over the top,’ Biden conditions defense aid on allowing humanitarian assistance,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 9, 2024, https://www.jta.org/2024/02/09/politics/calling-israels-response-in-gaza-over-the-top-biden-conditions-defense-aid-on-humanitarian-assistance↩
- [3]Betsy Woodruff Swan, “Special counsel passes on charging Biden but paints damning portrait of him,” Politico, February 8, 2024, https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/08/biden-classified-documents-charges-special-counsel-00140509↩
- [4]Matt Viser and Tyler Pager, “Biden responds angrily to special counsel report questioning his memory,” Washington Post, February 8, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/08/biden-hur-response/↩
- [5]Robert Kuttner, “A Partisan Hit Job on President Biden,” American Prospect, February 9, 2024, https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-02-09-partisan-hit-job-president-biden/↩
- [6]Richard M. Nixon [Justin Sherrin], “The Politics of Old Age,” Patreon, June 4, 2023, https://www.patreon.com/posts/politics-of-old-84054418↩