Wasn't planning on posting this weekend and then saw Matteo's video which made me laugh and I thought was worth sharing.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Friday:
The event was interrupted at least four times by protesters, with at least three calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
“That’s alright. Let them go. There’s a lot of people who are very, very — there are too many innocent victims, Israeli and Palestinian. We’ve got to get more food and medicine, supplies into the Palestinians,” Biden said, according to journalists in the room, following one interruption. “But we can’t forget, Israel is in a position where its very existence is at stake. You have to have all those people. They weren’t killed. They were massacred. They were massacred.”
Ahead of the fundraiser, hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Midtown Manhattan to protest Biden’s support for Israel amid its war in Gaza and call for a ceasefire. Biden has called for a temporary ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas.
How embarrassing. That's like a Hillary Clinton visits a college campus appearance.
Jeff Mason (TIMES OF ISRAEL) adds:
“Shame on you, Joe Biden!” one yelled.
Obama and Clinton offered a presidential perspective of the Gaza crisis that stressed the political realities of being in the White House.
A president needs to be able to support Israel at the same time as fighting for Palestinians to have more access to food, medical supplies and a future state, they said.
“It’s a lonely seat,” Obama said. “One of the realities of the presidency is that the world has a lot of joy and beauty, but it also has a lot of tragedy and cruelty.”
Boo! Boo! Let's all boo that from Barack! Poor, little president, such a rough job. What could be worse?
Uh, try living in Palestine right now for starters.
This was a fundraiser. They're getting heckled at a fundraiser. That's how deeply unpopular the US government's embrace of the assault on Gaza is.
The whole thing was a nightmare. And that includes the visuals. Who decided, for example, that the three men -- at a pricey fundraiser -- should all go tieless? Did they think that made them look like regular people?
It didn't work for any of them but especially not for Bill. He needed that tie to avoid people wondering if he'd stolen one of Hillary Clinton's pant suits for the night.
There are other campaigns taking place. Marianne Williamson, for example, relaunched her campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination not to secure the nomination -- Joe Biden has it -- but to raise important and needed issues.
Marianne Williamson: Ten years ago, if I was, after I'd seen a patient and I told the patient what medicine or what treatment I wanted, ten years ago the question would have been, "What are the side effects?" Today, the question is often -- more often, "How much will it cost me?" You have 18 million Americans who cannot afford to pay for the prescriptions that their doctors give them. And I don't believe that incremental changes are going to fix this. We are already in crisis mode. And if Washington doesn't see it, the average American does see it. People are living with-with the silent emergencies of poverty. The silent emergencies of hunger. You know we talk about COVID being an emergency. COVID was what's called a screaming emergency. Once the president declared that it was no longer an emergency and millions of people were thrown off Medicaid and SNAP benefits. People were basically just told "Go back to life as you were living it" which was already an emergency -- a constant emergency. The emergency of poverty. The emergency of hunger. The emergency of having to work two or three jobs just to put food on the table. And I'll tell you something, at this point, what we should see as the emergency of hopelessness. We should not talk about this mental health crisis as anything other than an emergency of hopelessness. and despair.
A super PAC supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential bid said it raised over $2 million following the candidate’s official announcement of his running mate.
American Values 2024, the main outside group supporting Kennedy’s White House bid, raked in $2.1 million at a fundraiser on Tuesday, right after the official announcement of tech attorney and entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan joining his 2024 ticket, PAC head Tony Lyons shared first with The Hill.
Around 60 donors attended the outside group’s cocktail party, Lyons said.
Then they hung out
But you came home around three, yes you did
If six of y'all went out, ah
Then four of you were really cheap, yeah
Cause only two of you had dinner
I found your credit card receipt
The new Kennedy voters scattering through the cavernous venue have traveled a long way from Camelot. Talking to them, it’s clear their misgivings about powerful institutions — what they see as a panoply of venal politicians, an untrustworthy media, Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Tech — has led many of them to embrace fringe theories. A shared aversion to vaccines hardened during the Covid-19 pandemic. They worry about chemicals and monoculture crops eroding public health. They’re weary of grinding foreign wars. They admire Kennedy’s history of challenging powerful corporations.
But above all else, they believe the American political system is fundamentally broken and that both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will perpetuate its disrepair. They’re ex-Democrats, former Republicans and newly active independents — and they all talk about feeling both a profound disillusionment in the state of the nation and a deep optimism that Kennedy would lead them to something better.
“The other two candidates promote the division that is plaguing our country,” says Sarah Morris, a former “party-voting Democrat” who felt “ostracized by the left” for not wanting to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Some people “weaponize the idea of being a conspiracy theorist,” she says, so she decided to “wear it as a badge of honor.”
Literally: She showed up sporting a gray baseball cap with the words “Tin Foil” written on it.
Jill Stein.
As feminists, we wondered six weeks ago, what do we do?
Roseanne had already imploded. (Cindy Sheehan has a story to tell and then some.) She couldn't and wouldn't campaign, she apparently wouldn't pay workers she hired for her campaign, she was an embarrassment.
And so was Jill Stein.
As feminists, do we call it as it is?
We debated that for three days. Jill wasn't going to win the presidency. In fact, it was obvious she was running off the limited votes she did have a shot at.
But did we tell the truth on that? Did we call her out?
We crossed the line on gender with the decision -- a feminist one (not "the" feminist one) -- that she was running for public office and therefore had to be treated the same as anyone else would even if, in the closing weeks, we were going to tear her apart.
But . . .
Having dealt with the feminist issue, we still had the issue of third parties.
Was it really fair to beat up on a third party candidate?
Adding to the problems, one of us (Ava) is involved with a lifelong Green (Jess), has a child by him, has made a home with him.
And Jess was very clear that Jill Stein was "a f**king idiot but the Greens need to be on ballots." And they were. Texas, for example. We heard from Billie who early voted for Jill Stein. She was so excited because Jill Stein was on the ballot. She didn't have to write her in. Right there on the Texas ballot was the Green Party.
What do we do?
In the end, we decided, "We don't promote her. We don't mention her. That's true here, that's true at Third."
So we bit our tongues.
As she ran a stupid campaign. As she made a fool of herself and the Green Party. (Granted, it's a party that loves to make a fool of itself.)
She -- and others -- did a debate with Larry King. A debate that did not include all. A new hurdle was invented.
Green Party members, you know what a hurdle is, right? It's what keeps your candidate out of the so-called presidential debates every four years. Why the hell would you take part in a debate that did not invite everyone who made it onto a state's ballot as a presidential candidate?
Because hypocrisy is a charge you live to embrace?
Maybe so.
Supposedly the Green Party is opposed to war.
So when Tim Arango reported the White House was negotiating with Nouri to send more troops back into Iraq, Jill Stein should have led on that.
But she's a politician which is just a whore without the desire to please a customer.
So Jill ignored it.
She ignored a lot.
Six weeks ago, in fact, after Barack cratered in the first debate, she and her campaign began going after Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.
Huh?
You're a Green. You're on the left. The high profile left vote getter just imploded on national TV. It's the perfect time for you to pick up some of his voters.
But you refuse to try. You rush to go after Romney and Ryan instead.
Why is that?
Because you are not a real party.
Because you will forever be the little sister of the Democratic Party.
Because every four years, you start off with promise and end up revealing just how craven and disgusting you are.
If we are offering commentary four years from now, please note, being a Green will not save you. Being third party will not save you.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: A State Department official working on human rights issues in the Middle East resigned Wednesday in protest against U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. Annelle Sheline worked as a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor for a year, before publicly resigning.
In an op-ed published in CNN, she wrote, quote, “For the past year, I worked for the office devoted to promoting human rights in the Middle East. I believe strongly in the mission and in the important work of that office. However, as a representative of a government that is directly enabling what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be a genocide in Gaza, such work has become almost impossible. Unable to serve an administration that enables such atrocities, I have decided to resign from my position at the Department of State,” she wrote.
AMY GOODMAN: Annelle Sheline is the most significant protest resignation over U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza since the resignation in October of Josh Paul, the senior State Department official involved in arms transfers to foreign governments.
Annelle Sheline joins us now from Washington, D.C.
Annelle, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you tell us further about the decision you made?
ANNELLE SHELINE: Thanks so much for having me and for your coverage of this issue.
I hadn’t initially planned to resign publicly. I hadn’t been at State for very long, and I didn’t think it would necessarily matter. But I decided to go public because when I started to tell colleagues that I was planning to resign over Gaza, so many people’s response was, “Please speak out. Please speak for us.” Many people are not in a position where they feel they could resign, or they are trying to do what they can on the inside. There’s still a lot of important, crucial work the State Department does. And so I decided I would go ahead and go public.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, you told — Annelle, you told The Washington Post that you tried to raise concerns internally with dissent cables and at staff forums. So, what was the result of that? And how are other people within State, as you said, trying to speak out within the State Department to change policy?
ANNELLE SHELINE: Yes, many people are extremely horrified by the U.S. government’s position on this horrific conflict and the actions of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments. There is the dissent channel inside the State Department. I was in — I co-wrote a cable and signed other cables. There have been forums for State Department employees to speak out. I spoke with supervisors. I was able to speak with a senior official about my resignation. I think, at the end of the day, many people inside State know that this is a horrific policy and can’t believe that the United States government is engaged in such actions that contravene American values so directly. But the leadership is not listening.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to the State Department spokesperson Matt Miller being questioned by a reporter about the internal dissent channel within the State Department and employees raising concerns over the policies.
HUMEYRA PAMUK: What is the point of the whole channel? And, like, I mean, the secretary listens, and we’ve all reported about various listening sessions between mid-level or, like, more senior officials with the secretary, more junior officials. If it’s not — if it’s being heard, but if it’s not taken into account in the policy at all —
MATTHEW MILLER: So —
HUMEYRA PAMUK: — then don’t you think it’s a little bit pointless?
MATTHEW MILLER: So, I would disagree with that completely. It is taken into account in the policy-making process. The secretary has heard things in those meetings that he takes on board and that he — that influence his thinking and that he brings to bear in making policy decisions. Now, if what you mean is, are we going to execute a complete reversal of the policy that —
HUMEYRA PAMUK: No, that’s not what I mean. That’s not what I mean.
MATTHEW MILLER: — hold on — we implemented, or are you going to — are we going to implement exactly some of the policies that the people in these meetings have called for —
HUMEYRA PAMUK: No, not at all.
MATTHEW MILLER: — that’s not how —
HUMEYRA PAMUK: That’s —
MATTHEW MILLER: Hold on. That’s not how this process works. That’s not how government works. And that’s —
HUMEYRA PAMUK: No, I don’t think that’s anyone’s expectation.
MATTHEW MILLER: And that’s — let me just say, that’s not how any organization works. I daresay any of the media organizations in this room, if reporters go to their bosses and offer feedback, and the bosses say, “Well, that’s a good point. We’re going to take that to bear. But on the larger policy, this is the decision that we have made,” that’s how — that’s how leadership —
HUMEYRA PAMUK: You’re doing a long rant about something that I didn’t suggest.
MATTHEW MILLER: That is how leadership works.
HUMEYRA PAMUK: But do you have any examples on, you know, any changes —
MATTHEW MILLER: Yeah. I will — I will say —
HUMEYRA PAMUK: Like, I’m genuinely curious.
MATTHEW MILLER: I will say, with respect to any number of issues, with respect to the delivery of humanitarian assistance, we have heard good ideas from people inside the building who have come and offered constructive feedback, and we have implemented those.
HUMEYRA PAMUK: So —
MATTHEW MILLER: Now — now, there are people that when you say if — like, if the idea is that — to the United States to cut off support for Israel, that’s just a fundamental policy disagreement. So, when you see people who offer interviews that say, “We want the United States to stop supporting Israel’s right to defend itself,” that’s not something the secretary agrees with, it’s not something the president agrees with, and ultimately they are the ones who have the responsibility of making those decisions.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Annelle Sheline, if you can respond to the State Department spokesperson Matt Miller?
ANNELLE SHELINE: You know, I think American law is quite clear here, in terms of the Leahy laws, for example, that when a foreign military is credibly accused of gross human rights violations, the law is that the U.S. will no longer provide weapons to those units, or 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, that a government that is blocking American humanitarian aid is no longer eligible for U.S. military assistance. These laws are not being applied.
So, I think this is not only having a horrific effect on the people of Gaza, but in terms of America’s standing in the rest of the world, this administration came in pledging to reestablish American moral leadership, reengagement with the international community, uphold the law and the so-called rules-based liberal international order, and I think it’s just become clear that this administration is not, in fact, conducting — carrying out any of those pledges. And, you know, my work was on human rights, which is very important work that the State Department does. But I think, on this issue in particular, the political calculus has been that U.S. support for Israel is a better political move. But I think what the administration may be starting to see is they may have made the wrong decision on that politically.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Annelle, can you explain whether there’s any distinction made — there’s a blanket statement about U.S. support for Israel. But is there no distinction within discussions at the State Department between different forms of U.S. support for Israel? So, for instance, obviously, in this instance, the most important question is that of military aid to Israel at this moment.
ANNELLE SHELINE: There, I should be clear that, you know, my area of focus, I was not — Israel and Palestine were not part of my portfolio. I was focusing primarily on North Africa, so I can’t speak directly to some of those conversations. I do think, you know, at the end of the day, the U.S.-Israel relationship is considered of such political importance that decisions regarding it are made at the very top. And so, while there are other processes and certainly discussions going on inside State, inside other parts of the government about some of those nuances you were discussing, I don’t think we’re likely to see any public shift on any of that until those decisions come from the top that they’re ready to reimagine the U.S.-Israel relationship.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to another clip of the State Department spokesperson Matt Miller, saying the Biden administration has not found Israel’s actions in Gaza to be a violation of international law. This is some of what he said.
MATTHEW MILLER: We have not found them to be in violation of international humanitarian law, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance.
AMY GOODMAN: That was this week, Annelle Sheline, either violation of international law or when it comes to providing humanitarian assistance. And yet President Biden says he is building a port because the Palestinians cannot get enough aid.
ANNELLE SHELINE: Exactly. I think that the evidence speaks for itself. We’ve had, you know, not only the ICJ’s ruling, not only the U.N. Security Council ruling. Clearly, the administration is unwilling to admit to reality. And again, I just want to reiterate, I think this is not only obviously devastating for the lives of people in Gaza, but is doing incredible damage to America’s standing on the international stage. It is incredibly demoralizing for people inside the State Department, many of whom believe very deeply in what America says it stands for. So, I’m trying to speak on behalf of those many, many people who feel so betrayed by our government’s stance.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Annelle, could you explain the effect that the massive protests across the United States have had within the State Department, what discussion there was of them, and then, of course, the “uncommitted” vote?
ANNELLE SHELINE: So, within the State Department, you know, civil servants are very committed to their role of being nonpolitical, of following the instruction that they receive. You know, within State, people are aware of what’s going on outside. But, you know, this is not the first time that people have been involved or had to carry out policies they perhaps did not agree with, and it is something that many of these people have signed up for. This is the role of carrying out America’s foreign policy.
On this issue, I think, because it has been so horrific and because we are seeing such growing political pushback from the American public, people are increasingly frustrated. You know, many other people with whom I spoke said they’re considering resigning. But again, it is challenging for someone to — you know, it’s not easy to not have a job in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to quote further what you’ve said in explanation of why you’re resigning. You said you’re “haunted by the final social media post of Aaron Bushnell, the 25-year-old US Air Force serviceman who self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington on February 25.” You quote him: “Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.” If you can explain what that meant to you and how people have responded to you?
ANNELLE SHELINE: Sorry. You know, that post, I think, spoke to me and many people, who had to really look at what they were doing and whether — you know, for me, I have a young daughter. And I thought about, in the future, if she were to ask me, you know, “What were you doing when this was happening? You were at the State Department.” I want to be able to tell her that I didn’t stay silent. And I know many people who are deeply affected by those words that Aaron Bushnell posted. And I do think people are trying to do what they can. There is still very important work being done inside the State Department. But I do think, until our top levels of leadership are ready to make a change, there’s very little that the rank and file are able to do.
AMY GOODMAN: Annelle Sheline, we want to thank you so much for being with us. Annelle has just resigned from the State Department in protest of U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza. She worked as foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. She’s also the first State Department official to publicly resign since Josh Paul did months ago.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we speak to the spokesperson for UNRWA. President Biden just signed off on a bipartisan bill, turning it into law, which says that UNRWA will not be funded by the U.S. government for the next year. Stay with us.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 175 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." THE NATIONAL notes, "The total number of people killed since October 7 has increased to 32,623, with 75,092 injured." 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:
The International Court of Justice’s order for Israel to provide the unhindered delivery of aid is not likely to increase the amount of assistance flowing into Gaza unless a ceasefire is reached, analyst Marc Owen Jones has told Al Jazeera.
“After the last ICJ provisional measures [in January], the amount of aid entering Gaza actually decreased,” the Middle East expert at Hamad Bin Khalifa University said. “Just because the ICJ have put this ruling forward doesn’t necessarily mean Israel is going to comply.”
About one third of the aid that was required in Gaza before the war is currently reaching the bombarded territory. “The only thing that will result in a spike in aid is a ceasefire,” he said.
“Otherwise, I’m afraid Israel’s response will just be rhetoric.”
+ I’ll never forget the irate call we got from an Obama senate staffer when we reported that Lieberman was Obama’s mentor in the Senate during his first year in office. “He didn’t have a f**king choice about it, man!!!!!!!” Sure.
+ When Joe Lieberman arrived in the US Senate in 1989, Strom Thurmond greeted him by saying, “I understand we think a lot alike in the way we do things.” “Yes, sir, I think we do,” admitted Lieberman. Strom probably learned about this reassuring profile of Lieberman’s center-right political beliefs from his weekly lunch date in the Senate cafeteria with Joe Biden who, like Lieberman, was one of the founding nowhere men of the Democratic Leadership Council, whose mission was to keep the Democratic Party from ever again straying to the Left of Michael Dukakis…
+ Al Gore’s Harvard mentor (and later political promoter at the New Republic) Martin Peretz convinced Gore to put Lieberman–the most obnoxious senator in a chamber full of them–on the ticket in 2000 for the express purpose of winning Florida by courting the Jewish and the Cuban exile vote in Miami-Dade, even they didn’t like him.
+ Political piety was Lieberman’s calling card and, like McCain, this pretense of recoiling from the dirty work of politics won him many friends in the mainstream press. In reality, Lieberman was a censor and a prude. He supported labeling hip-hop and heavy rock records and restricting the sale of video games to minors. He censured Bubba for having consensual sex and publicly denounced him for it. Gore’s pick of Lieberman meant that Bill Clinton, still enormously popular, couldn’t campaign for this ticket featuring two of the stiffest politicians in American history, likely costing the pair the election.
+ After the 2000 elections, Lieberman played an entirely malicious role in American politics. He spread lies about WMDs in Iraq, championed the wars on terror, condoned torture and campaigned against universal health care, successfully severing the public option from ObamaCare and gutting the planned extension of Medicare to people 55 or older.
+ Lieberman: “Every day Saddam Hussein remains in power with chemical weapons, biological weapons and the development of nuclear weapons is a day of danger for the United States.” September 4, 2002.
+ Petulant and vainglorious, Lieberman couldn’t handle being defeated by the progressive Ned Lamont in the CT primary, largely over his support for the Iraq War, and waged a nasty independent campaign backed by many in the GOP to narrowly win in the general elections. Then he endorsed McCain over Obama in 2008. He served as a model for figures such as Manchin and Sinema, who practiced a kind of political extortion against their own party.
+ Lieberman was one of the chief architects of the post-911 police state in the US, working side-by-side with the Bush administration to construct the new Department of Homeland Security, lending it vast new powers not only to harass immigrants, especially those from Muslim countries, but to invade nearly every aspect of the lives of American citizens in the name of “security.”
+ No defender of civil liberties, Lieberman was no defender of civil liberties, Lieberman was a supporter of the Patriot Act and backed nearly every variety of government surveillance. He authored the so-called Kill-Switch Bill, which would have given the President to assume complete control of the Net.
+ Lieberman was one of the first, if not the first, prominent politicians to advocate prosecuting Julian Assange under the Espionage Act, and introduced a bill in Congress to expand the law with that explicit purpose. Lieberman’s vendetta against Wikileaks included convincing (extorting?) Amazon, Visa, MasterCard and Pay Pal to stop servicing payments to the independent media organization.
+ Long an advocate of privatizing education, Lieberman testified before the Senate Education Committee in 2017 in favor of Betsy DeVos’ nomination to become Trump’s Education Secretary, telling the committee: “I know that some people are questioning her qualifications to be secretary of education, and too many of those questions seem to me to be based on the fact that she doesn’t come from within the education establishment. But honestly, I believe that today, that’s one of the most important qualifications you could have for this job. She has many others. She’s a mother and a grandmother. She cares about children more generally, and she has been involved in education, like so many parents and local citizen school board members across America for almost 30 years.”
+ Lieberman’s one benign contribution to the Republic was in helping to defang the federal government’s toxic posture toward homosexuals…but then so did Lynne and Dick Cheney.
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Sad, disgusting, and tacky6 hours ago
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