The Biden Administration (No Lago)

[Kaelik]

Things the Biden admin is doing to help Israel (new, not like, giving them more bombs against the will of congress for the 12th time):

1) Going back to war with Yemen because the Yemeni government is shutting down Israel's trade through the Red Sea.

2) Literally providing them with targetting support for their bombs, but not like, differently then Israel does, not like "here's how to not blow up a refugee camp" but more like "here's the refugee camp."

[Kaelik]

Democrats voter overwhelmingly that they love when Israel does war crimes, 72-11 vote against even investigating their war crimes.

The 11 who shouldn't be drummed out of their job (well still drum Paul out of his job, but not for this vote):

Butler (D-CA)
Heinrich (D-NM)
Hirono (D-HI)
Lujan (D-NM)
Markey (D-MA)
Merkley (D-OR)
Paul (R-KY)
Sanders (I-VT)
Van Hollen (D-MD)
Warren (D-MA)
Welch (D-VT)

[PseudoStupidity]

MA, VT and NM are the only states with 2 halfway decent senators, incredible.

We also labeled the Houthi's as a terrorist group because they have promised to keep disrupting trade until Israel stops doing its genocide. Maybe South Africa's case will get this to stop, because our illustrious rules-based world order or whatever the fuck our politicians call it sure doesn't seem to give a shit about the ongoing genocide and will actively fight people who are trying to stop it.

Oh, and we're in the second largest COVID wave ever with a new variant that basically ignores any of the previous vaccines. Will the Biden administration do literally anything at all to protect its citizens from this deadly disease it has already declared victory over? Probably not!

[Kaelik]

By a 14-2 vote the ICJ has decided that the official position is that the US is arming and funding a genocide.

Anyway, Greg Abbott declared himself president and 24 governors sent a letter agreeing that he's the president.

If Joe Biden doesn't have Abbott in a jail cell in D.C. in under 48 hours I will be accepting handwritten apology letters from everyone who ever told me to vote for Biden to save democracy.

[Koumei]

He's too busy cutting funding from the UNRWA (to further punish Palestinians) for him to worry about Civil War 2.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I'd say its all hog theatrics... but if you don't actually put your foot down on this... eventually it IS just basically succession.

Still more important to spend every second stappling your reelection campaign to unconditional support for genocide and escalating war in the middle east.

Get that 10th dimensional state department chess move right and Texas won't matter! One way or the other...

[Kaelik]

The Biden admin had a "plan in place" for the ICJ ruling. Their plan was to say "that's what we were asking Israel to do all along, but uh, we of course couldn't force them to do anything."

Bad sign when you have to have a plan in place for when the ICJ implicates you in a genocide, and also, you could stop giving them weapons to do a genocide.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I had been wondering about the ICJ plan for a while because it was obviously torn between two outcomes both of which were intolerable for the USA and one of which was not even survivable for the ICJ itself.

It seems they went with its not a Genocide, its just a Genocide risk. Then when the world predictable says close enough its formally a Genocide now and asks about that ceasefire order to stop it... its just a month long try to be better in vague ways but you can still keep killing at least SOME Palestinians as long as you can write us an essay at the end of that time period that sounds like you tried harder not to.

To which the USA and Israel having clearly negotiated behind the scenes for this in advance threw a toddler tantrum and said "Fuck No!" like it wasn't hand tailored to try and let them off the hook with only minimal cosmetic cooperation...

...so much for plans.

[Kaelik]

Phase 2 of the plan is that Israel said "UN Relief Agency is Hamas, please destroy them so no one can interfere with our complete domination of Gaza in the future" and then Joe Biden said "I agree that UNRWA is Hamas, and I will stop US funding to them for being Hamas."

So Joe Biden discovered he can stop funding people when they do something he disagrees with. It's just that he disagrees with keeping Palestinians alive, and agrees with genociding them.

[Kaelik]

Nancy Pelosi has requested the FBI investigate the evil pro palestine protests for being a Russian Op. Because life is a circle and the FBI spying on human rights movements is apparently the mainline democratic position now.

Also there's video of her yelling out her window at Code Pink that they are Chinese spies for protesting about Gaza, so in fact her initial move was just instinctual white racism, and she had to clean it up in post before sending the request to the FBI.

[Kaelik]

Also the thing were biden is defunding Palestinian relief is because he watched a video where after a un relief worker was tortured for 60 hours in an Israeli prison they confessed to being Hamas.

Anyway, looking forward to Israeli agents kidnapping icj judges and torturing them for 60 hours until they confess to be hamas so that biden can keep giving them weapons to do genocide in violation of international law and us law. (Just kidding he doesn't need an excuse to do that.)

According to Israeli torturers directly:

"Ben Hanan said Shin Bet interrogations usually have two goals: extracting confessions about the past and gaining intelligence that could be useful in the future. But he said that after the Oct. 7 attack, the agency was given a third goal: produce videos that Israel could use in the global information war.

“It was a very important goal in this specific interrogation. We are not doing it at any other interrogation,” he said. “It’s for the West.”"

In an NBC article which also has this line:

"NBC News is not identifying any of the suspects seen in the videos because they have not been convicted, and it is unclear whether they were speaking under duress. One man appears to have blood on his T-shirt, while others have bruises on their faces and marks on their wrists.

Asked whether any of the Hamas suspects had been tortured, Ben Hanan paused, then said: “They were captured in combat. It wasn’t a polite capture.” "

(NBC saw them after their 6 week interrogation so bruises from capture probably would be healed.)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna125748

[MGuy]

I think it is very clear that Biden is personally invested in the continuation of these war crimes and it's not 'just' people around him pushing this for him. Over the months there have been several notable resignations over this. Word has leaked to the press about people in high places being 'frustrated' with all of this. if there's any behind the scenes deal making going on the IDF have very publicly dismissed making any concessions. When the WH was asked pointblank if they had considered doing anything other than 'having conversations' as a method of getting Israel to do anything else they assured the press that they would have more conversations.

Now the conflict is expanding as everyone feared it would. So the cost of this conflict has exploded upward. On of that there's seemingly nothing to be done about it given that we are pretty much locked in course for another Trump v Biden election so the major strategy is still just to coast into victory because the only other option we're realistically allowed is as bad or worse on everything.

[deaddmwalking]

so the major strategy is still just to coast into victory because the only other option we're realistically allowed is as bad or worse on everything.

I think that's my line.

[MGuy]

so the major strategy is still just to coast into victory because the only other option we're realistically allowed is as bad or worse on everything.

I think that's my line.

Doubtful. The coast to victory bit shows a bit too much doubt in Biden for a deaddm post. Not enough bootlicking.

[Kaelik]

I think it's very funny that complete moron genocide supporters like Biden and deaddm haven't caught up to the fact that the fascists they support are not their friends.

While trump is uniquely trying to arrange to lose 8 consecutive court battles in August before the election you can be 100% sure that Netanyahu will announce his final solution to the Palestinian problem during a joint press conference after Joe Biden pledges 20k more artillery shells on October 27th.

Biden is hoping he can speed up the genocide to get all the Palestinians killed in time for people to forget at election time, but Netanyahu wants specifically for Biden to lose the election and to use the genocide to distract from his corruption so he will keep making sure this drags on for as long as he can.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

OK, the Israel bullshit has tipping pointed me. I'm ready to commit my predictive street cred. I'm calling it. Barring deaths of candidates Trump 2nd term is locked in.

The prophecies are upon me...

Ironically this will also lead to the destruction of Israel, despite, in fact BECAUSE OF Trump being if anything more insane on it, despite at various points claiming to be more of a dove than Biden, and that helping him in the election.

I'm ready to predict Israel in its current form not existing in 20 years as a separate inevitability now. But The sort of "support" Biden is giving it brings that to a 10 year time frame and Trump brings it to a 5.

Trump winning the election preserves the UN and related agencies. Biden coming back in after doing what he did this week gives us League of Nations 2 within 10 years.

Wait... there is more...

Despite years of evil plans the USA will now never go to war with China despite still really really openly wanting to. The war with Iran will prevent that.

The EU will collapse within 20 years largely as a direct consequence of US/NATO actions attacking its economy and dragging it into war. Actions fully supported and co-operated with by the EU as an entity and the most powerful key nations like Germany. It will be all couched as anti-Russia anti-Islamist necessity and that sale pitch will see Germany and the rest of the EU sign on to their own death warrant as a functional economic and diplomatic union.

Destroying the EU will be the last US success before the nation itself crumbles and they wont even be able to gloat about it because the (very current) US double proxy war on the EU is the one they somehow manage to still know they aren't allowed to say stuff out loud about.

China's moon base plans will be delayed, but in a well managed planned way that won't end the project. Elon Musk's rockets will blow up enough to set NASA's crazy reckless space plans back an extra 20 years.

The Australian labor party will lose the next federal election, in part also over Israel. The incoming liberal nationals will Liz Truss the Australian economy with their first budget and promptly collapse under their own internal contradictions.

Despite trying hard AUKUS will never actually base a sub in Australia. We will however still pay more than full cost and not get our money back. And Trump WILL gloat about how that was a great deal, for him not us. Yes I know its not his deal.

[Kaelik]

Sometimes you do the weirdest optimism in your predictions.

My prediction, Re:Isreal, is that the US will continue giving them bombs and protecting them from any international law consequences until they finish ethnically cleansing Gaza, Then the US will pressure Egypt into accepting all the refugees still alive permanently right before the election or some shit, and then continue giving them bombs and protecting them from any international law consequences as they step up their genocide in the West Bank and probably in 30 years there will be another big mass murder and ethnic cleansing of anyone left eventually resulting in Greater Israel in which some future president who was also elected under a deeply undemocratic system that deprives people of any meaningful control over their government will be a key ally in that genocide even though the american people hate it, and also every president democrat or republican from now until global warming kills off basically all humans will be stringing razor wire across the border and promising that they will violate international and US law super hard by not giving a hearing to any asylum seekers, either with or without congressional approval depending on which party they are from.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I'm not sure what it feels like in the USA. But from outside there have been rather noticeable growing winds of change since easily 2008.

Broad international opinion polls have most of the worlds public expressing the opinion that the USA is a falling, or even already fallen empire.

The impossible to resolve contradictions and corners the USA and its minion states keep backing themselves into domestically and internationally are unsustainable, things WILL change, if for no other reason than the impossibility of eternally sustaining the failures and internal contradictions of neoliberal and neocon policy (especially in combination).

If I'm predicting based on anything more than feels and LOLs then it's tougher going trying to be genuinely accurate and rational as to what will happen with the inevitable change.

But the idea that the USA just gets to maintain the status quo and get its toddler tantrum way 100% on international affairs in even the relatively short to mid term is untenable to most of the worlds population and most of the worlds nations. And they think the USA is weak, laughable and already incapable of just about anything much. Which I think is mostly right. I think in fact that the USA is going to fuck up international affairs so bad that it will be its own actions in this arena that forever destroys its international diplomatic power and its economy via its loss of the status of world reserve currency holder. And I think it's military power is wildly over rated and I think the USA knows it cannot get into a real war with ANYONE without proving that. And I think they are about to prove that soon, possibly, right now, this is the start of the conflict that will do it soon.

I know, especially for people in the USA, it seems very hard to believe that the USA cannot just exercise absolute power through military threat forever. But as impossible as it might feel the USA has been defeated repeatedly diplomatically, economically, and militarily over the last, well really long while, but its been getting way worse lately and the world has taken notice.

China and most of the world outside of the EU and the five eyes states have noticed just how weak the liberal governance of "the west" has left those nations on just about every front. They are planning right now for our managed decline. Belt and road and all the rest isn't a plan to over throw us (or the US) its a plan to replace us as long as we don't explode so badly on our way out that we don't leave anything behind for anyone.

But optimism aside... the Gazans are screwed. Israel will destroy itself over this it will not have its economy or diplomacy back, it will be a pariah fail state or it will reform. But what it becomes might not be the good outcome, and even if it IS the good outcome, even if it is the good outcome in just 5 years, there is a pretty good chance that the genocide will be pretty much 100% executed before then.

Hell if the only thing you want to lay bets on is the maybe 2ish year time frame of the ICJ coming to a final ruling on really for sure calling it a genocide by the time they do its pretty much a done deal regardless of what they call it. Hell the infrastructure destruction for a full ethnic cleansing is basically complete right now.

Predicting that this is going to destroy Israel as a nation as it currently exists and plans to continue isn't optimism. It's acknowledging that they have put themselves into a place internationally that is impossible to sustain.

Optimism would be saying that the ICJ will be so dissatisfied with the try not to genocide so much homework Israel submits in a month that they actually somehow put a stop to it all on the spot and a single non-apartheid state of Israel emerges with less than a massively economically and diplomatically expensive multigenerational international project. Hell. Just imagining that such a project would emerge is the optimistic prediction, its rather more likely that it will basically just turn into Jewish Syria/Afghanistan/North Korea/Mississippi/the UK outside of London .

[Thaluikhain]

Dunno about long term predictions, but:

OK, the Israel bullshit has tipping pointed me. I'm ready to commit my predictive street cred. I'm calling it. Barring deaths of candidates Trump 2nd term is locked in.

This looks quite possible. The strategy to just to coast into victory because the only other option we're realistically allowed is as bad or worse on everything is one that works, it's been proven again and again. But it's sorta vitally important to portray yourself as significantly less bad or people don't bother supporting you.

The Australian labor party will lose the next federal election, in part also over Israel. The incoming liberal nationals will Liz Truss the Australian economy with their first budget and promptly collapse under their own internal contradictions.

Also quite possible.

[PseudoStupidity]

It does seem like Trump will win unless the Democrats change up their strategy or peoples' economic conditions improve significantly in battleground states. Biden has earned the moniker of Genocide Joe and I think for lots of voters that'll never really go away, he is old as shit and not particularly good at public speaking even when not acting like a glitched Bethesda NPC, and most people's lives have gotten worse while he's been president. All Trump needs to do is shut the fuck up about his more insane and evil plans, which he won't do, and he'd cruise to an easy victory. I am glad Trump is such a belligerent asshole that he might lose to Biden a second time, but Biden has never been weaker.

And I do not think that a second Biden administration would be good, they're already trying to fuck over asylum seekers harder than usual and I don't think anyone would call his first administration a success by any metric. I suppose if you're a cold stock market psychopath then you can say he was good for "the economy" in a very narrow sense of the term, and that has been the Biden stump speech (oh my god BIDENOMICS FOLKS), but that doesn't seem to be polling well at all.

[deaddmwalking]

There are a lot of things that can happen between now and the election, and I think that a lot of people will have to think very seriously about what their priorities are.

People may be tired of hearing that Democracy itself is at stake, but I absolutely believe that it is. Donald Trump says he will be a dictator 'for one day', but I know that nobody voluntarily surrenders power after having claimed it and he would be a particularly bad individual to trust. There absolutely are historical parallels - I'm reminded of Napoleon III's referendum where French voters approved of his coup establishing him as the Emperor instead of the president of France - and while I had hoped that their would be bilateral will to shore up democratic institutions I'm confident that only one party is interested in maintaining Democratic rule (as flawed as it is!) in any sense.

The 'consensus opinion' is that there are 6 states that are swing states in the current election: PA (19), GA (16), MI (15), AZ (11), WI (10), NV (6). Based on the presumed state victories, Biden needs 44 additional electoral votes. PA, MI, and WI would be enough to secure the victory, barely. Those are all states that Biden won in 2020, so certainly POSSIBLE to sweep them all. Obviously a small softening in support could make a big difference. Biden won Michigan by 150,000 votes in 2020.

I think 2016-2020 were some of the hardest years of my life. By that measure, 2021-today is better in many respects even though I'm negatively impacted by things like high interest rates, reduced earnings, higher costs of living (etc). Compared to 2022, 2023 wasn't great. But despite these things I'm also better of in 2024 than I was in 2020 in many ways.

There are a number of events on the world stage that I find greatly troubling. I wish the current administration had done more. I wish that elected officials on both sides of the aisle would focus on solving problems rather than scoring points. There are a lot of things that I think could have been done BETTER for sure, but I know that four more years of 'not doing ENOUGH' is better than four more years of 'doing everything wrong'. Throw in a real threat to any functioning Democracy, my vote was cast long ago.

But the fact that Trump is the age Reagan was when he left office (77) and Biden was the oldest person elevated to the office of the president (77 when elected, 78 was inaugurated) and he's 81 now, there is a real chance that one or both are not able to complete the campaign. Based on actuarial data, the odds of a 77 year old male dying within 12 months is 0.05% (1 in 20) and the odds of an 81 year old male dying within 12 months are 0.072% (about 1 in 14). The statistical probability is 0.8% that one of them dies, meaning there is a 99.2% chance that they both live one more year. I know that this is going to be talked about and there are probably a lot of people who think that this is the scenario that we're most likely to see, but I don't really think so.

Actuarial Data Source

In any case, there are almost certainly going to be things that people don't expect. It is telling that Republicans are hoping for bad things to happen to the American people so they can increase their chance of winning. I am hoping for good things - an increased in shared prosperity as well as peace and stability abroad - and I hope people remember how trying Trump's first term was and stay motivated to vote blue no matter who.

[PseudoStupidity]

What do you mean when you say "People may be tired of hearing that Democracy itself is at stake, but I absolutely believe that it is."? This question is intended to understand if you consider the USA to be a democracy or not. It's worth mentioning that if the USA were a democracy (as in, rule by the people, not "you get to vote") it would have universal health care, actual fucking gun control laws, and not be supporting Israel's genocide of Palestinians.

I suspect anyone saying "democracy is at stake" is using a definition of democracy that is quite different from "control of an organization or group by the majority of its members."

[Kaelik]

Yeah. Very weird to hear people say "people may be TIRED of hearing that Joe Biden has cured Cancer and Ended Poverty." It's not really that people are tired of hearing it so much as it was pretty dumb the first time!

There does not appear to be a party willing to "maintain democratic rule" you can tell because Joe biden has specifically answered the question of "who should make the laws? Elected legislatures and the president? Or 9 divine priests and then also whatever dumbass wants to declare himself the real president?" With "the second one!"

Greg Abbott is the president of the United States according to Joe biden, so how the fuck is voting for 4 more years of the Greg Abbott presidency going to reinforce democratic rule?


Edit: also despite that deaddm's stock portfolio has gone up and up, the majority of Americans have less money now then they did a few years ago, and biden is going to take the blame for that since it happened during his presidency. I personally still remember when people were saying that Joe bidens decades in the senate making life miserable for poor people were a reason to vote for him over Sanders, because he would be able to "get things passed" so now that he's not using a bunch of executive power to help people that Sanders would have, I'm not inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the people who objectively made the world a worse place with their votes in 2020 when they explain that the evil senators are responsible for why people have less money now and biden couldn't do anything about it.

[deaddmwalking]

I believe that there are a number of anti-majoritarian elements in the United States. Many of these are designed to obstruct the clear will of the majority, and that's often bad (like gun control). BUT a society that has laws that includes strong protections for MINORITIES needs to have anti-majoritarian limits. In Holy Grail when Denis explains how their anarcho-syndicalist commune works, there are some decisions that require a 2/3 majority.

So are we a democracy? Yes, absolutely. Here's a good NPR article talking about it in the context of whether we're a REPUBLIC or a DEMOCRACY (explaining that it is both). And here's a link to the Democracy Index listing the United States as a 'flawed democracy'. Other sources confirm that we're a Democracy at the same level as Italy and Portugal, but not as Democratic as Canada or Sweden. Clearly it's a scale and there's a lot of room to be 'more authoritarian' and 'less democratic' than we currently are.

I don't think it's great that Wyoming's 580k people each having approximately 5x more 'voting power' for President compared to California's 39.24M people, but I understand why we have they system we do.

What I firmly believe is that a revolution that throws out the entire system without an organized plan to TRANSITION to a new system using our existing laws is almost certainly going to be a disaster. How votes are apportioned to the states CAN be changed and over the 200+ years of our Democracy we have generally become MORE Democratic. I know that neither party has much incentive to change 'first past the post' elections and compared to parliamentary systems we don't have a spectrum of representation that matches our electorate - but that doesn't mean we don't have a Democracy.

So, I know that Trump wants to build an authoritarian state (like Russia). They also have elections, but they're NOT a Democracy. Only one party is interested in strengthening democratic institutions at all, and the consequences of destroying any remaining element of our democratic system is frightening to consider. The election of a candidate that promises 'revenge' and 'dictatorship' is literally terrifying. Because I absolutely believe people that say they intend to do terrible things actually do intend to do them. There are too many people that are saying things like 'surely that's not what he REALLY means' and that actually does scare me, too. Apparently, there are almost a majority of people (at least VOTERS) who WANT to remove any semblance of Democracy as long as someone that will punish the people they don't like gets to be the boss. That is incredibly short-sighted and ultimately will burn them far worse than they realize... but hopefully we, as a country, can avoid that because people of conscious regardless of political ideology can agree that taking the rigged game seriously is better than refusing to play and giving by forfeit what they couldn't take in an election.

Edit - I also believe that Biden should have used more of his executive power. I think packing the court would have been a good thing. When FDR THREATENED it, suddenly the New Deal was 'constitutional'. Regarding Sanders, I never said that people shouldn't vote for him in the primary, only that he was not going to win. And voting for him in the general election (ie, throwing your vote away) was irresponsible and dangerous. I stand by that. Making an observation or a prediction of a thing does not automatically make you opposed to that thing. Like when I say neither party is going to change first past the post that's not an endorsement of that system - it's a PROBLEM - but if it's a problem that can't be solved by wishing than just accepting that it is a reality is justified.

[Kaelik]

"Trump wants to build an authoritarian state (like Russia)"

But Russia is a democracy! Sure the elections are rigged. But so our ours. Sure the elections don't matter, but neither do ours. Sure even if the elections did matter and weren't rigged the system itself makes sure that different people have more or less power in those elections, but you just finished explaining how that's a democracy! What's the problem with this authoritarian state of Russia when it's just a democracy just like the US?

I do think a lot of your politics is explained by breathlessly warning that Trump says he will do terrible things and you believe him.

Joe biden promises good things and doesn't do them and then does terrible things, but as long as he keeps lying you will vote for as many genocides as you can.

EDIT: I can see how you would feel guilty when talking about "who objectively made the world a worse place with their votes in 2020" since you did that. But I wasn't specifically refering to you when I was talking about people who advocate that because Joe Biden had been in the Senate successfully mass murdering poor people he would be a good President. It was a common argument for him in the primary, but your argument was the equally dumb and false, but different, claim that Joe Biden would have the greatest coattails of all time and sweep in 78 senators and allow democrats to pass whatever they wanted. That was also wrong, but differnt. But it is false for you to claim that you didn't advocate for people to vote for Joe Biden in the primary and you only predicted it, you were extremely explicit in your advocacy for a Joe Biden primary victory when you were making up the coattails theory.