You get genocide either way; one is a guy trying to stop the genocide that’s been negotiating behind the scenes for months (and yes, also giving the Israelis arms), and the other guy wants to accelerate the genocide while also ending democracy.
It’s difficult to defend the idea that Biden has been trying to end the genocide. He’s had that power from day 1. If you give Israel a bullet, you have solid awareness that there is a good chance it will be used against a non-combatant. That’s hard reality. If Biden was not supportive of genocide he would place an embargo on the weapons being poured into the massacre. He also wouldn’t sanction the ICC when they attempted to call out the primary actors in the genocide. He has given enabling support to the campaign in multiple ways.
Biden is not a good man as he is portrayed, he is complex obviously, but the reality is that Hitler still petted his dog and was nice to his friends and family. Biden should be joining Netanyahu at the Hague, not sabotaging democracy by being virtually un-electable while at the same time working to make it even more obvious that the international order is only there to punish certain war criminals.
Didn’t we have a whole impeachment about a president preventing arms that were allocated by Congress from going to their destination?
Oh yeah that was Trump trying to get some election fuckery from Ukraine.
Granted, the election aspect was another level on it but that is functionally the same thing you’re demanding Biden do which was already determined to not be ok.
President doesn’t have that power so maybe instead of wondering why Biden isn’t fixing the thing all on his own, we can start (or continue if you were ever paying attention between presidential elections) pressuring and replacing the Congress critters that are actually approving the sale of arms to continue the genocide.
Why does everyone keep getting big man deluded when we know for a fact that the president isn’t a king with total control?
Not as such, no. When congress appropriates funds, the president is legally obligated to disburse those funds for the purpose that they were appropriated for. This is a law, and it’s not something that’s up for debate. That was part of the underlying crime that Trump was first impeached for; he attempted to withhold funds corruptly. Could he have vetoed that? Sure. It also would have vetoed funding for Ukraine though. (And, just pointing out here that Trump would have vetoed assistance for Ukraine, while helping Israel kill more Palestinians faster.)
You can–and should–condemn his rhetoric, because he has been supportive of Israel waging war in Gaza. But he’s also been working behind the scenes, trying to negotiate a peace that Hamas will accept, and that Israel will accept. Even when he’s supporting Israel in public, it’s been clear that he’s been working to negotiate a truce.
Read up on that. There would need to be a finding of fact by the relevant US embassy and departments within the gov’t before this comes into play. Without that, that act is irrelevant to Biden attempting to withhold aid.
Could Biden direct the ambassador and relevant department heads to investigate so that he could legally withhold aid? Yes, he could. Should he? Also yes. But it’s not something the president can do unilaterally. Despite SCOTUS’ attempt to make it so, the president was never intended to be the sole sovereign of the country.
Oh? Then what authority did he have to withhold the plane bombs?
This is student loans all over again. You guys are going to shout that he can’t do that right up until he does it.
The Leahy Law in text -
No assistance shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms Export Control Act to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.
All he has to do is open a fucking newspaper. You’d have us believe he is deaf, dumb, and blind.
He would need some kind of finding of fact in the US to support that, and that hasn’t happened AFAIK yet. The ICC has made that finding, but it wouldn’t be legally supportable to use that finding to withhold appropriated funding.
In fact the US is so NOT a member of the ICC that it’s currently federal law that if a US soldier was being held at the Hague, the US military would be obligated to invade The Netherlands in order to recover them
Or. Just maybe. We could actually care enough to pressure Biden.
No? Just going to shove your head in the ground and pretend politics is an immutable object?
I can’t imagine why Biden was already in so much polling trouble. It can’t possibly be the cult like atmosphere around him preventing him from contacting reality.
…And exactly, EXACTLY, how do you pressure him in a way that doesn’t actively risk making things far, far worse, not just in Israel, but here in the US as well? Because if your answer is, “don’t vote for him”, well, congrats, you’re going to make things worse.
You let them know. You don’t just sit on it. The one thing that will move a politician is knowing they can’t get elected again if they keep doing something. By throwing “But Trump!” at us, no matter how obliquely, you’re just protecting a genocide.
Yes, he’ll learn a lot by not being in office anymore. Then someone else will have the power to aid Isreal explicitly to carry out a genocide. But Biden will know. He’ll never hold office again , but hay. He’ll know. As the Supreme Court sactions the legalism of a Trump dictatorship and approve a continuation of the Japanese Internment Act. Expanded to all the other not-white people. Just as they argued during his first term, but Biden will know. Biden will have learned his lesson. While he has no political power of any kind. And when they’re shoving people in trucks and on boats without sufficient supplies to be dummped into places they aren’t from and have no resources to survive, and Biden will be sitting at home having fully learned his lesson.
It Is Not a binary choice. First of all, Biden can still change course. Second Biden can be replaced. It is not a choice between Trump and blindly supporting whatever warm body is in opposition to him.
one thing that will move a politician is knowing they can’t get elected again
If you do that with Biden, that means that Trump gets elected, and shit gets a whole helluva lot worse. Not just in Palestine, but everywhere. Of course, you’re going to say that I’m "throwing ‘But Trump!’ at you, but that’s not me - that’s the system that we live in.
You have a functionally binary choice. You can try to minimize damage, or not.
It’s your choice whether you, personally, do what you are capable of doing to minimize damage. And I hope that you have the intestinal fortitude to tell your LGBTQ+ friends to their face what you did, and why you did it, if it all goes the way I expect it will.
It Is Not a binary choice. First of all, Biden can still change course. Second Biden can be replaced. It is not a choice between Trump and blindly supporting whatever warm body is in opposition to him.
Ah yes. The insular Biden cult. I don’t know how deluded you need to be to buy this. No one, Not one person is in a cult of personality for Unkie Joe. No one. Why do you think this?
Says one of two people that have showed up to frame this as an either/or problem we can’t possibly even try to tackle. It’s either commit genocide or lose our democracy. No possible other option, especially after a disastrous debate that confirmed fears of age related mental decline.
The president isn’t actually running the entire county himself, Biden’s government isn’t fundamentally different from Obama’s, Trump also, very obviously from his first term, didn’t have much involvement at all in his government. The appointments, the policies his government focus on is a very big deal. Which 80 year old napping from 12pm to 5pm and going to bed, is not the difference that matters.
The president isn’t actually running the entire county himself, Biden’s government isn’t fundamentally different from Obama’s, Trump also, very obviously from his first term, didn’t have much involvement at all in his government. The appointments, the policies his government focus on is a very big deal. Which 80 year old napping from 12pm to 5pm and going to bed, is not the difference that matters.
So let’s just get rid of the position then? Hey all those fortune 500 companies don’t need CEOs either right? This is not the argument you seek. Although I noticed you edited your comment to make my last reply look out of context.
Edit - haha I confused the two places they replied to me. The rest is relevant though.
Mostly because Netanyahu has been souring on Biden real fast. Biden held up a delivery of bombs to Israel back in May, citing Israel’s plans to bomb Rafah. Netanyahu announced he was pushing forward anyway, and there was a big public spat about it. That sort of thing has been happening since Oct 7.
I mean one could say it’s all an act or something, but that strains credulity to me.
I’m not saying Biden is doing great here, I’d much prefer he take Bernie Sanders’ advice on this and stop weapon deliveries altogether. But it’s certainly fair to assess that Biden wants the genocide to stop, but is not doing enough to stop it.
Which is a de facto admission he knows Israel is committing war crimes with the weapons and that he has the power to stop military aid at any time.
So your take is what. If we don’t start bombing Israel ourselves we’re supporting genocide? It’s a real moving goalpost, almost as if no action by any president would be enough. Almost like this originated from the Trump camp like all the other misinformation.
Nothing disgusts me more than seeing how Americans find some excuse to HATE every Democrat LOVE every Republican, even over issues where the latter is lightyears worse than the former.
I’m sorry, how do you come to the conclusion that I want to bomb Gaza at all? Not everything is a partisan operation. War crimes are bad, full stop.
In 2020 the left was told to vote for Biden and pressure him. Now that he’s signed the most conservative immigration policy since Operation Wetback, and is supplying a genocide, suddenly it’s all, “jk we never meant for you to actually pressure him!”
You did it again. Dodging the question. Again. You KNOW there’s no clean answer to the Israel situation. You’re blaming Biden for walking a highwire nobody would have walked better. And you seem to know it because you won’t address the question head-on.
…and then you change topic.
So at this point, you concede that Biden is as pro-Palestine as is reasonably possible? Or are you just going to keep spreading the Russian propaganda?
I answered your grade school attempt to box me in with an assumed premise. And better would be to at the very least, condition military aid on the effective distribution of food aid to Gazans.
Bad take.
You get genocide either way; one is a guy trying to stop the genocide that’s been negotiating behind the scenes for months (and yes, also giving the Israelis arms), and the other guy wants to accelerate the genocide while also ending democracy.
It’s a return2ozma post. Of course it’s a bad take.
It’s difficult to defend the idea that Biden has been trying to end the genocide. He’s had that power from day 1. If you give Israel a bullet, you have solid awareness that there is a good chance it will be used against a non-combatant. That’s hard reality. If Biden was not supportive of genocide he would place an embargo on the weapons being poured into the massacre. He also wouldn’t sanction the ICC when they attempted to call out the primary actors in the genocide. He has given enabling support to the campaign in multiple ways.
Biden is not a good man as he is portrayed, he is complex obviously, but the reality is that Hitler still petted his dog and was nice to his friends and family. Biden should be joining Netanyahu at the Hague, not sabotaging democracy by being virtually un-electable while at the same time working to make it even more obvious that the international order is only there to punish certain war criminals.
Anyway, I think the take is pretty on point.
Didn’t we have a whole impeachment about a president preventing arms that were allocated by Congress from going to their destination? Oh yeah that was Trump trying to get some election fuckery from Ukraine. Granted, the election aspect was another level on it but that is functionally the same thing you’re demanding Biden do which was already determined to not be ok. President doesn’t have that power so maybe instead of wondering why Biden isn’t fixing the thing all on his own, we can start (or continue if you were ever paying attention between presidential elections) pressuring and replacing the Congress critters that are actually approving the sale of arms to continue the genocide. Why does everyone keep getting big man deluded when we know for a fact that the president isn’t a king with total control?
Not as such, no. When congress appropriates funds, the president is legally obligated to disburse those funds for the purpose that they were appropriated for. This is a law, and it’s not something that’s up for debate. That was part of the underlying crime that Trump was first impeached for; he attempted to withhold funds corruptly. Could he have vetoed that? Sure. It also would have vetoed funding for Ukraine though. (And, just pointing out here that Trump would have vetoed assistance for Ukraine, while helping Israel kill more Palestinians faster.)
You can–and should–condemn his rhetoric, because he has been supportive of Israel waging war in Gaza. But he’s also been working behind the scenes, trying to negotiate a peace that Hamas will accept, and that Israel will accept. Even when he’s supporting Israel in public, it’s been clear that he’s been working to negotiate a truce.
The Leahy Law and Foreign Assistance Act make sending that aid illegal, no matter how much Congress appropriates.
Read up on that. There would need to be a finding of fact by the relevant US embassy and departments within the gov’t before this comes into play. Without that, that act is irrelevant to Biden attempting to withhold aid.
Could Biden direct the ambassador and relevant department heads to investigate so that he could legally withhold aid? Yes, he could. Should he? Also yes. But it’s not something the president can do unilaterally. Despite SCOTUS’ attempt to make it so, the president was never intended to be the sole sovereign of the country.
Oh? Then what authority did he have to withhold the plane bombs?
This is student loans all over again. You guys are going to shout that he can’t do that right up until he does it.
The Leahy Law in text -
All he has to do is open a fucking newspaper. You’d have us believe he is deaf, dumb, and blind.
deleted by creator
He would need some kind of finding of fact in the US to support that, and that hasn’t happened AFAIK yet. The ICC has made that finding, but it wouldn’t be legally supportable to use that finding to withhold appropriated funding.
You mean like our intelligence agencies finding Israel’s claims to be “low confidence”
The literal second he tells the CIA to hand him the unedited file it’s over.
Yeah the US isn’t even a member of the ICC.
In fact the US is so NOT a member of the ICC that it’s currently federal law that if a US soldier was being held at the Hague, the US military would be obligated to invade The Netherlands in order to recover them
“What part of rules for thee but not for me don’t you get?”
It’s not a bad take. The post didn’t imply that there was a no-Genocide option
You read the word OR in there?
Did it say AND ? NO. It said OR.
The post absofuckinglutely strongly implied there was a no-genocide option.
No it didn’t. That’s just the way you read it.
Or. Just maybe. We could actually care enough to pressure Biden.
No? Just going to shove your head in the ground and pretend politics is an immutable object?
I can’t imagine why Biden was already in so much polling trouble. It can’t possibly be the cult like atmosphere around him preventing him from contacting reality.
Israel controls one of the largest political lobbies in America. No president who goes against the interests of the Israeli government will ever be elected until this changes.
AIPAC has only won one house race this year, and that was an already vulnerable incumbent. They’re nothing like titans like the NRA.
…And exactly, EXACTLY, how do you pressure him in a way that doesn’t actively risk making things far, far worse, not just in Israel, but here in the US as well? Because if your answer is, “don’t vote for him”, well, congrats, you’re going to make things worse.
You let them know. You don’t just sit on it. The one thing that will move a politician is knowing they can’t get elected again if they keep doing something. By throwing “But Trump!” at us, no matter how obliquely, you’re just protecting a genocide.
Yes, he’ll learn a lot by not being in office anymore. Then someone else will have the power to aid Isreal explicitly to carry out a genocide. But Biden will know. He’ll never hold office again , but hay. He’ll know. As the Supreme Court sactions the legalism of a Trump dictatorship and approve a continuation of the Japanese Internment Act. Expanded to all the other not-white people. Just as they argued during his first term, but Biden will know. Biden will have learned his lesson. While he has no political power of any kind. And when they’re shoving people in trucks and on boats without sufficient supplies to be dummped into places they aren’t from and have no resources to survive, and Biden will be sitting at home having fully learned his lesson.
It Is Not a binary choice. First of all, Biden can still change course. Second Biden can be replaced. It is not a choice between Trump and blindly supporting whatever warm body is in opposition to him.
Are you not reading anything you just wrote?
If you do that with Biden, that means that Trump gets elected, and shit gets a whole helluva lot worse. Not just in Palestine, but everywhere. Of course, you’re going to say that I’m "throwing ‘But Trump!’ at you, but that’s not me - that’s the system that we live in.
You have a functionally binary choice. You can try to minimize damage, or not.
It’s your choice whether you, personally, do what you are capable of doing to minimize damage. And I hope that you have the intestinal fortitude to tell your LGBTQ+ friends to their face what you did, and why you did it, if it all goes the way I expect it will.
It Is Not a binary choice. First of all, Biden can still change course. Second Biden can be replaced. It is not a choice between Trump and blindly supporting whatever warm body is in opposition to him.
Functionally binary.
Bullshit.
Ah yes. The insular Biden cult. I don’t know how deluded you need to be to buy this. No one, Not one person is in a cult of personality for Unkie Joe. No one. Why do you think this?
Says one of two people that have showed up to frame this as an either/or problem we can’t possibly even try to tackle. It’s either commit genocide or lose our democracy. No possible other option, especially after a disastrous debate that confirmed fears of age related mental decline.
The president isn’t actually running the entire county himself, Biden’s government isn’t fundamentally different from Obama’s, Trump also, very obviously from his first term, didn’t have much involvement at all in his government. The appointments, the policies his government focus on is a very big deal. Which 80 year old napping from 12pm to 5pm and going to bed, is not the difference that matters.
So let’s just get rid of the position then? Hey all those fortune 500 companies don’t need CEOs either right? This is not the argument you seek.
Although I noticed you edited your comment to make my last reply look out of context.Edit - haha I confused the two places they replied to me. The rest is relevant though.
deleted by creator
Mostly because Netanyahu has been souring on Biden real fast. Biden held up a delivery of bombs to Israel back in May, citing Israel’s plans to bomb Rafah. Netanyahu announced he was pushing forward anyway, and there was a big public spat about it. That sort of thing has been happening since Oct 7.
I mean one could say it’s all an act or something, but that strains credulity to me.
I’m not saying Biden is doing great here, I’d much prefer he take Bernie Sanders’ advice on this and stop weapon deliveries altogether. But it’s certainly fair to assess that Biden wants the genocide to stop, but is not doing enough to stop it.
Which is a de facto admission he knows Israel is committing war crimes with the weapons and that he has the power to stop military aid at any time.
This is Student Loans all over again where his cult says he can’t do it, because he doesn’t have that power. And then he does it.
Edit to add, he also released those bombs to Israel something like last week?
So your take is what. If we don’t start bombing Israel ourselves we’re supporting genocide? It’s a real moving goalpost, almost as if no action by any president would be enough. Almost like this originated from the Trump camp like all the other misinformation.
Nothing disgusts me more than seeing how Americans find some excuse to HATE every Democrat LOVE every Republican, even over issues where the latter is lightyears worse than the former.
I’m sorry, how do you come to the conclusion that I want to bomb Gaza at all? Not everything is a partisan operation. War crimes are bad, full stop.
In 2020 the left was told to vote for Biden and pressure him. Now that he’s signed the most conservative immigration policy since Operation Wetback, and is supplying a genocide, suddenly it’s all, “jk we never meant for you to actually pressure him!”
You did it again. Dodging the question. Again. You KNOW there’s no clean answer to the Israel situation. You’re blaming Biden for walking a highwire nobody would have walked better. And you seem to know it because you won’t address the question head-on.
…and then you change topic.
So at this point, you concede that Biden is as pro-Palestine as is reasonably possible? Or are you just going to keep spreading the Russian propaganda?
I answered your grade school attempt to box me in with an assumed premise. And better would be to at the very least, condition military aid on the effective distribution of food aid to Gazans.
It’s not the leaks, it’s the fact that Anthony Blinken has been holding talks in Cairo to try and negotiate a peace settlement.