Sympathy for the Devils...

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10591
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Sun Oct 16, 2022 3:14 pm

Image

BIDEN STATE DEPARTMENT EMBRACES FLAWED LOGIC FOR BOLIVIAN COUP IN LEAKED REPORT

Adopting debunked claims of election fraud, the report reflects Trump-era support of the far-right coup regime of Jeanine Áñez.
Daniel Boguslaw
October 12 2022, 5:00 a.m.

A STATE DEPARTMENT report obtained by The Intercept shows the Biden administration continuing to embrace claims of electoral fraud that opened the door for a right-wing takeover of the Bolivian government in 2019. Mandated by the most recent omnibus spending bill, the report delivered to Congress mirrors the posture the Trump administration pushed three years ago, when it sought to cement the replacement of Bolivia’s Indigenous socialist president Evo Morales with the country’s right-wing Christian senator Jeanine Áñez.

The report relies almost entirely on the conclusions of the Organization of American States, which found in a November 2019 audit that a “series of willful actions were taken to alter the results” of the election — and which proved key to the coup that followed. The OAS’s initial analysis has since been discredited by multiple statistical models, nonprofit revues, a peer reviewed academic study, and news outlets including the New York Times and the Washington Post, yet continues to be endorsed by the State Department. When the analysis was first published on November 10, 2019, it helped transform street protests into a right-wing seizure of power.

The State Department’s recent report comes as Arturo Murillo, Áñez’s interior minister under the temporary coup regime, filed changes to his plea agreement in a money laundering case in the southern district of Florida. According to the U.S. Justice Department, Murillo and another former official received bribes from three U.S. citizens — also arrested — to obtain a Bolivian government contract for tear gas and other weapons, laundering their bribes through U.S. banks.

Murillo’s efforts ultimately failed, but his party’s far-right agenda upended Bolivian politics. As The Intercept reported last year, even after the 2020 election of Luis Arce restored Movimiento al Socialismo, or MAS, to power, far-right politicians were planning a second coup and attempting to recruit U.S. private mercenaries to carry it out, underscoring the close ties Bolivia’s coup leaders have maintained with U.S. citizens and corporations.

The U.S. government, meanwhile, has maintained a faithful allegiance to the flawed statistical analysis that spurred the first coup. The State Department did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.

THOUGH MORALES CLINCHED a decisive first-round victory in October 2019, the State Department under both the current and previous presidential administrations has repeatedly cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election. “With the official count underway, internet service was intentionally cut in the count center, including at the TREP,” the report reads, referring to the transmission system that tallied the initial votes. “When internet service was finally restored, the vote count showed Morales poised for a first-round win.”

The State Department’s framing suggests that there was a highly intentional effort to delay the vote count for subversive purposes. But scrutiny of the OAS’s initial report and its later, in-depth audit, combined with an interview from a former member of the Bolivian electoral board, makes clear that the unofficial rapid vote count, Transmisión de Resultados Electorales Preliminares, or TREP, was almost certainly stalled without attempt to alter the course of the election and instead to ensure accurate results.

Image

An analysis of the election and the OAS’s role conducted by the Center for Economic Policy Research found that Ethical Hacking, the company that supplied much of the technical detail for the OAS audit, “investigated the use of the BO1 server during the time in which the TREP was stopped and concluded that ‘there was no alteration of data.’” The company rebuked the notion that the TREP delay was an attempt to alter the course of the election.

In the wake of the OAS audit, Morales was accused of election tampering, ousted by military force, and forced to flee Bolivia for Mexico. Áñez, who proudly represents neo-colonialist values, declared victory after three weeks of civil protests that included violent clashes with security forces. Wielding an enormous Bible in the governmental headquarters, she broadcasted her plans to restore Christian nationalism to Bolivia, seeking to reverse the gains in Indigenous rights that Morales, the country’s first Indigenous president, used as the foundation for his political success.

In the first week of Áñez’s interim presidency, Bolivian forces conducted two mass killings of protesters in the towns of Sacaba and Senkata. Murillo, the coup regime’s interior minister, alleged that the MAS party had killed its own supporters and vowed to prosecute members of the former government. Morales was charged with terrorism and sedition.

The State Department in its report notes “‘grave violations of human rights’ by Bolivian security forces surrounding the election under both the Morales and the Áñez administrations, including illegal detentions, sexual violence, torture, and the killing of 37 people in the towns of Sacaba and Senkata.” Citing a report from a joint group appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Bolivian government, the State Department says that while “[s]ome of the violations were partly motivated by racial and anti-indigenous elements,” the commission “also found evidence of violence ‘instigated’ by the Morales administration, including abductions and torture of anti-MAS activists.”

As cited by the UN Human Rights Office, the report found that the 2019 “violence had a racial and anti-indigenous character, and that the security forces used excessive or disproportionate force and did not adequately prevent acts of violence.”

This February, the International Criminal Court rejected a plea from the Áñez government to prosecute Morales for the alleged injuries resulting from an August 2020 general strike, launched in protest of her administration’s seizure of power.

In February 2020, just over three months after the OAS completed its audit and Bolivia spiraled into unrest, an MIT analysis found that the initial vote count mirrored the final results and that there was not “a statistically significant difference in the margin before and after the halt of the preliminary vote.” The MIT modeling was so thorough that both the Washington Post and the New York Times publicly revised their prior stances on the Bolivian election.

The State Department, evidently, did not. “The OAS audit team found irregularities in all four electoral processes it examined: the IT system for the TREP and the final results; the chain of custody of electoral materials; the lawfulness and integrity of the results forms; and a statistically improbable tendency in the final 5 percent of results,” reads this month’s report to Congress. It made no mention of the statistical critiques.

“OAS has an outsized influence in the course of events across the southern hemisphere, not just in Bolivia but in Haiti and beyond. This history of controversial interventions is well documented,” David Adler, general coordinator of the Progressive International, told The Intercept. His group helped monitor the 2020 Bolivian elections.

The Biden administration’s stance, in this respect, mirrors that of its predecessor. “This has been a long-standing complaint of our neighbors south of the border, and I think it is clear that the OAS and the Trump administration at the time sensed a real opportunity,” Adler added. The Trump administration had been so invested in the Bolivian election result, it threatened the MIT researchers with a subpoena to explain how they reached their conclusions.

“We fully support the OAS and Bolivian calls for new elections and a new Electoral Tribunal that can ensure free and fair elections that reflect the will of the Bolivian people,” wrote then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2019. “We support @JeanineAnez in Bolivia as she works to ensure a peaceful democratic transition through free elections,” tweeted his boss, former President Donald Trump. “We denounce the ongoing violence and those that provoke it both in Bolivia and from afar. The U.S. stands with the people of the region for peace and democracy!”

As part of the 2022 omnibus spending bill, Congress directed the State Department to “submit a report to the Committees on Appropriations evaluating: (1) the transparency and legitimacy of the 2019 Bolivia general elections by soliciting information from independent, internationally recognized experts; and (2) progress in investigations of responsibility for violations of human rights that occurred during that period.” The report could have served as a refutation of the Trump administration’s stance, but instead it largely confirms that posturing.

AFTER MAS RETURNED to power with Arce’s 2020 election, the party began prosecuting coup leaders for human rights violations, terrorism, and corruption during the short-lived regime. In 2021, free from threat of prosecution by the Áñez government, one of the election officials involved in the TREP delay condemned the OAS’s handling of the audit and initial refutation of election results.

The State Department report cites the resignation of this official, vice president of Bolivia’s electoral board Antonio Costas, as another reason to doubt the election results. But Costas has said he resigned due to the overwhelming evidence that Morales’s jump in the polls was legitimate, telling a Bolivian outlet: “The reason why I resigned was because the TREP was interrupted and I said at the time that I did not find any situation that calls attention after the verification that I did. I also stated this to the Observation Mission that I met with two days after my resignation. … I told them: “Look, here is the analysis of almost 14,000 tally sheets, comparing the TREP and the calculation, and I don’t find any big differences that could be relevant.”

A peer-reviewed study in the American Journal of Politics examining the Bolivian election disproved the same claim of election tampering made by Trump during the 2020 presidential elections: namely, that shifts in late-counted votes, like what occurred in Pennsylvania, are a legitimate basis for accusations of fraud and vote manipulation.

“When late-counted votes delivered a narrow victory for the incumbent, fraud accusations followed — with dramatic political consequences. But we find that the vote-share trend can be explained without invoking fraud and that the allegedly suspicious shift in late-counted votes was actually an artifact of methodological and coding errors on the part of electoral observers,” the study states. And while Biden has diligently condemned accusations of election stealing in the United States, in the case of Bolivia, his administration seems less keen on applying the same standard abroad.

“For decades, the U.S. has understood the OAS as a primary instrument for the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine,” said Adler. “Morales had been an opponent not just of U.S. domination of Bolivia but of the hemisphere at large, and these questions of fraud and interference in the 2019 election were fertile ground for an OAS-backed political intervention, and so the stars aligned for the U.S. to mobilize.”

https://theintercept.com/2022/10/12/bol ... 5ac15b4f7e

Just like Joe Biden said, ain't nothin' gonna change.

Nothing short of revolution.

Which must start with the collapse of the Democratic Party.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10591
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Thu Oct 20, 2022 3:16 pm

Biden Manipulates Oil Price To Buy More Votes

The Biden administration continues to bribe mid term voters with cheap gas prices by releasing even more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Remarks by President Biden on Actions to Strengthen Energy Security and Lower Costs - Oct 19, 2022 - White House

Earlier this year, because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the price of oil and gas increased dramatically, and I acted decisively at the time.
...
That’s why I have been doing everything in my power to reduce gas prices since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine caused these price hikes — these prices to spike and rattled international oil markets. (Clears throat.) Excuse me.
...
Today I’m announcing three critical steps that my administration will take to reduce gas prices at the pump. First, the Department of Energy will release another 15 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, extending our previously announced release through the month of December.


On February 24 2022, the day Russia entered the war in Ukraine, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude closed at $92.81/bl.

Image

On October 19, 2022, the day of Biden's recent SPR release announcement, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude closed at $85.55/bl.

Image

Is Putin's invasion of Ukraine responsible for the 8% drop of the oil price?

The early spring of 2020 saw a stark drop in oil prices due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Mid March 2020 WTI closed at around $22.00/bl. Then president
Trump decided to use the very cheap price to fill the SPO to the top.

Trump to buy oil for strategic reserve to aid energy industry: ‘We’re going to fill it’ - Mar 13 2020 - CNBC

President Donald Trump on Friday said he’s directed the U.S. Department of Energy to purchase crude oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to support the battered energy sector.
“Based on the price of oil, I’ve also instructed the Secretary of Energy to purchase at a very good price large quantities of crude oil for storage in the U.S. strategic reserve,” Trump said.


Unfortunately the Democrats blocked the quite reasonable move.

Funds said to be blocked for crude oil purchase to fill strategic reserve - Mar 26 2020 - Oil&Gas Journal

Senate Democrats apparently negotiated elimination of additional funds for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) that were going to be included in the big coronavirus assistance package pending in the Senate Mar. 25.
A plan to buy about 77 million bbl of crude oil for the SPR was announced by the Trump administration Mar. 13, and the US Department of Energy issued a solicitation Mar. 19 to buy as much as 30 million bbl of oil in a first step for that plan (OGJ Online, Mar. 19, 2020).

But Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate minority leader, circulated word Mar. 25 to fellow senators saying the SPR purchase language was removed from the coronavirus bill, according to reports from Capitol Hill. He reportedly referred to the oil purchase plan as a “$3 billion bailout for big oil.”
...
Republicans had been intending to fund the purchase of oil for the SPR with an appropriation in the coronavirus bill. The rationale was that oil prices have crashed and oil companies are laying off workers not only because of an expected oversupply of crude oil from Saudi Arabia and Russia but because of virus-related slumping demand for oil.


Yesterday Biden announced that he plans to refill the SPO at a much higher price.

Today, I’m announcing a plan to refill the Strato- — the Strategic Petroleum Res- — Oil Reserve in the years ahead at a profit for taxpayers. The United States government is going to purchase oil to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve when prices fall to $70 a barrel. And that means oil companies can invest to ramp up production now, with confidence they’ll be able to sell their oil to us at that price in the future: $70.
Refining and refilling the reserve at $70 a barrel is a good price for companies and it’s a good price for the taxpayers, and it’s critical to our national security.


Since its inauguration the Biden administration has sold more than 220 million barrels from the 650+ reserve. Refilling it at $70/bl, nearly $50 per barrel more than Trump was going to pay, will be quite costly.

Will Senator Schumer lament Biden's (220*70) = "$15.4 billion bailout for big oil"?

By the way - what happens if OPEC+ holds steady and does not allow the price of oil to drop below the $80/bl the Saudis need to balance their budget?

Posted by b on October 20, 2022 at 10:13 UTC | Permalink

Forget the warm fuzzies for Trump: his lack of imperialist elan is the major reason he gets any credit from foreigners. If you were a target of imperial military aggression or near one you might feel the same way.
But never mind that, where are the howls of protest from the environmental orgs and other suckfish of the Democratic Party for the entire reversal of Biden's environmental promises?............<crickets>
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10591
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Wed Oct 26, 2022 2:48 pm

The 'Progressives' In Congress Are Useless Wimps

Progressives urge Biden to push harder for Ukraine peace talks - 10/24/22 3:47 PM ET - The Hill
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3702 ... ace-talks/

Thirty progressive House lawmakers wrote a letter to President Biden on Monday urging him to consider directly engaging with Russia and to become more assertive in negotiating a cease-fire in Ukraine.
...
All 30 signatories have voted for more than $50 billion in various forms of assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion and in the letter expressed no regrets for doing so, tying the aid to Ukrainian military successes.
...
“We are under no illusions regarding the difficulties involved in engaging Russia given its outrageous and illegal invasion of Ukraine and its decision to make additional illegal annexations of Ukrainian territory,” they wrote. “However, if there is a way to end the war while preserving a free and independent Ukraine, it is America’s responsibility to pursue every diplomatic avenue to support such a solution that is acceptable to the people of Ukraine.”
------------------------------------

Progressive Caucus tries to clarify call for Biden to find diplomatic solution to Ukraine - 10/24/22 8:43 PM ET - The Hill
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3702 ... o-ukraine/

The Congressional Progressive Caucus on Monday evening sought to couch a statement from earlier in the day requesting that President Biden shift his administration’s policies on Ukraine and start some form of negotiations with Russia.
...
“Let me be clear: we are united as Democrats in our unequivocal commitment to supporting Ukraine in their fight for their democracy and freedom in the face of the illegal and outrageous Russian invasion, and nothing in the letter advocates for a change in that support,” [Congressional Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)] added.
----------------------------------
Progressives ‘didn’t consider election timing’ with letter on Biden’s Ukraine strategy - 10/25/22 11:22 AM ET - The Hill
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3703 ... -strategy/

Progressives worked over the summer to get nearly three dozen House Democrats to sign off on a letter that would call into question President Biden’s handling of Ukraine and urge him to engage diplomatically with Russia, according to two sources directly familiar with the negotiations.
...
“They waited to get about 30 and released,” one source texted The Hill on Tuesday morning, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal negotiations. “Didn’t consider election timing.”
A House aide said the letter was “circulated for signatures” in June. “We aren’t sure why it was released now.”

---
Progressive Caucus withdraws letter on Ukraine strategy amid blowback - 10/25/22 1:03 PM ET - The Hill
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3703 ... -blowback/

“The Congressional Progressive Caucus hereby withdraws its recent letter to the White House regarding Ukraine,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the caucus chairwoman, wrote in a statement, representing a stunning shift in their call for a diplomatic push to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
“The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting. As Chair of the Caucus, I accept responsibility for this,” Jayapal wrote.

---
An ex-Hill staffer who worked closely with a top progressive Democrat says there's no chance she didn't vet the controversial Ukraine letter. 'She keeps a tight grip on media relations' - 10/25/22 3:10 PM ET - Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/pramila ... ?r=US&IR=T

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal withdrew a controversial letter to President Joe Biden on Ukraine, saying it was drafted months ago and "unfortunately was released by staff without vetting."
But a former Hill staffer who worked closely with her office called the idea "absurd" that a release left her office without her approval.
...
A current senior Democratic aide familiar with her office operations also told Insider, "There is no way that Pramila Jayapal doesn't know every word that leaves her office."

---
Progressives go on damage control after Ukraine diplomacy letter - 10/25/22 5:04 PM ET - The Hill
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3703 ... cy-letter/

Few progressives on Tuesday were willing to defend Jayapal or the Progressive Caucus’s messages, particularly as they shifted over the past two days.
Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), in an interview with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC, noted that while she was a progressive, she was not a signatory to the letter. She deflected a question about whether sending it had been a mistake.

Others privately took shots at Jayapal, arguing the misstep was part of a broader problem.


Posted by b on October 26, 2022 at 10:24 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/10/t ... .html#more

There will be no progress in this country until the Democratic Party is utterly rejected by the working class.

Image
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10591
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Thu Oct 27, 2022 1:54 pm

Biden Orders Progressives to Denounce Themselves on Ukraine
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 26 Oct 2022

Image

Progressives made a mealy mouthed appeal to Biden to engage in talks regarding Ukraine. He slapped them down and they in turn slapped themselves.

“But as legislators responsible for the expenditure of tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in military assistance in the conflict, we believe such involvement in this war also creates a responsibility for the United States to seriously explore all possible avenues, including direct engagement with Russia, to reduce harm and support Ukraine in achieving a peaceful settlement.” October 24, 2022 letter from congressional progressives to Joe Biden

Congressional “progressives” are cowards and charlatans. They may actually believe in some of what they claim to espouse but at the end of the day they are more opportunistic than anything else. They have carved out a niche for themselves in certain parts of the country where voters are in fact progressive and want to see their political ideology put into practice. But good luck ever seeing that when the leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus makes a fool of herself and her members when they didn’t have the courage of their very slim convictions.

On October 24, 2022, the House Progressive Caucus released a letter to president Biden that was signed by Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal and 29 other members. The letter stated that Vladimir Putin is evil, and Ukrainians are noble, and rehashed every nonsensical pro-war trope created since Russia’s special military operation began in February 2022. They reiterated their support for giving billions of dollars to the military industrial complex and the Ukrainian coup regime, but they also asked Biden to consider negotiating with Russia to end the conflict.

It could have been a small step towards congress reasserting itself and living up to its responsibility to represent people in this country. The one step forward and two steps back statement gave them the opportunity to show leadership and legitimized talk of peace, which is what millions of people want.

The potential presented in the letter was precisely why the White House smacked down the tepid request. If members of congress begin to question the war propaganda narrative the rest of the public may work up their courage too. The anti-war movement might become stronger, and some members of congress might actually grow a spine. All of these scenarios are anathema to the bipartisan war party and because of that Congresswoman Jayapal retracted the letter 24 hours later, claiming that it hadn’t been properly vetted by staff.

In recent weeks a group of LaRouche party members publicly confronted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, two of the signatories, and asked why they have voted to fund the Ukrainian regime which is controlled by neo-Nazi and other right wing forces. It is a good question, regardless of who asks it. So weak is the anti-war left that the site of even a right wing group asking questions sparked the dormant desire to speak up themselves. The targeted members were searching for a way out of their predicament, and issuing a statement which both supported the administration but which also claimed they sought peace seemed like an expedient solution.

In addition, the republicans were beginning to look like they might claim the mantle of peacemaker. Donald Trump said that negotiations should take place and republican House leader McCarthy made mention of ending Ukraine’s “blank check.” No one knows if McCarthy was serious but the progressives needed better optics and released the letter.

Fears of a hot war between Russia and the U.S. have grown, as Joe Biden recklessly speaks of “nuclear armageddon .” His friends in corporate media try to convince us that Putin has done likewise, although the Russian president is far more adept and made no such statement. It is an understatement to say that Biden does not inspire confidence at a perilous moment. After some $70 billion given to the military industrial complex and the Ukrainian coup regime, there is no end in sight.

Russia has upped the ante by mobilizing 300,000 more troops, claiming Ukrainian territory as its own, Ukraine blows up bridges and may have planned to use a so-called “dirty” nuclear material device to escalate the conflict. European nations are hoping for a mild winter because their Russian gas connection has been cut. Their people are in revolt, and the UK has had three prime ministers in less than two months because the economic war of attrition meant to damage Russia has damaged that nation instead. Of course, everyone with common sense knows that the U.S. was involved in the damage done to the NordStream 1 and 2 pipelines which were built to send Russian natural gas to Europe. All of these complications pushed the envelope and gave the insincere so-called progressives a nudge in the correct direction.

The progressives were right to stick a toe in the water, but shouldn’t have done so unless they were willing to fight their own leadership. Obviously they were not, as their feckless chairwoman gave in to the White House and stabbed her members in the back, embarrassing them and herself too.

This fiasco is yet another reminder that the left in this country had better start speaking up for themselves. The democrats are the party of war and will not allow even a tiny expression of dissent. Some of the letter signatories have fallen on their swords, yelled loud mea culpas and joined in condemning themselves. Others are silent after having stepped out only to be stepped upon.

No one should think that help is coming from Washington. The U.S. involvement in Ukraine will end with negotiations or with a hot war. That determination will not be made by Pramila Jayapal or anyone else in congress who calls themselves progressive.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/biden ... es-ukraine

'Red' and bolding added.

So, you're going to vote for the "lesser evil" again...

Image
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10591
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 28, 2022 3:50 pm

Worthless House Progressives Retract Mild Peace Advocacy Under Pressure From Warmongers

Image

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has retracted an extremely mild, toothless letter its members had written to President Biden politely asking him to consider adding a little diplomacy into the mix to help end the conflict in Ukraine. The retraction followed a deluge of public outrage against their slight deviation from the official imperial narrative.

If you actually read the original letter signed by House progressives including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman and Ro Khanna, you will quickly see that it’s as innocuous and anodyne as any statement could possibly be while still containing words. It opens with effusive praise for Biden’s interventionism in Ukraine and condemns the Russian government unequivocally throughout, offering only the humble suggestion that he “pair the military and economic support the United States has provided to Ukraine with a proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.” Its authors make it abundantly clear that they support making sure such diplomacy is agreeable to Ukraine at every step of the way.

This impotent nothing salad was bizarrely spun by The Washington Post as a call on Biden to “dramatically shift his strategy on the Ukraine war,” despite nothing that could be remotely construed as “dramatic” existing anywhere in the body of the text. The letter received backlash from warmongers in both parties, including from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It was personally slammed by Bernie Sanders, the pope of American progressivism. Trolls and warmongers swarmed the social media notifications of every account which posted the letter in an official capacity, mindlessly bleating the words “appeasement” and “Chamberlain” in unison.

In a statement on the retraction of the letter, CPC chair Pramila Jayapal says she accepts responsibility for the publication of the offending act of peacemongering while in the same breath blaming its publication on her staff.

“The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting. As Chair of the Caucus, I accept responsibility for this,” Jayapal said.

“Every war ends with diplomacy, and this one will too after Ukrainian victory,” the statement reads, ignoring mainstream reports that US officials quietly believe Ukraine stands no chance at outright victory in this war. “The letter sent yesterday, although restating that basic principle, has been conflated with GOP opposition to support for the Ukrainians’ just defense of their national sovereignty. As such, it is a distraction at this time and we withdraw the letter.”

Empire critics were quick to highlight the obsequious nature of this retraction.

“For progressives, I didn’t think it could get more pathetic than voting for a disastrous proxy war that the US provoked and prolonged, handing billions to arms makers in the process. In retracting their tepid call for diplomacy and blaming staffers for it, they somehow surpassed it,” tweeted Aaron Maté.

“Certainly speaks to the insanely hawkish atmosphere in Washington that pressured the progressive caucus to withdrawal a totally reasonable, responsible and necessary call for diplomacy in a conflict that risks escalating to nuclear armageddon,” tweeted Rania Khalek.

“Imagine being elected to Congress based on promises of challenging ‘the establishment’ or whatever, then being so petrified of anger from bipartisan DC establishment mavens that you can’t even wait 24 hours before meekly retracting the only mild dissent you’ve expressed,” tweeted Glenn Greenwald.

For progressives, I didn't think it could get more pathetic than voting for a disastrous proxy war that the US provoked & prolonged, handing billions to arms makers in the process. In retracting their tepid call for diplomacy & blaming staffers for it, they somehow surpassed it: https://t.co/kyONvPlifY

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) October 25, 2022

I don’t know what pressures were the ultimate deciding factor in the CPC’s decision to retract its feeble advocacy for a bit more diplomacy, or how much of that pressure was brought to bear behind the scenes by bigger political monsters in the Beltway swamp, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. The important take-home from this lesson, once again, is that progressive Democrats are worse than worthless at opposing the mechanisms of oligarchy and empire.

In fact if you look at their actions it’s not even really accurate to describe them as “progressive Democrats” as though they are a faction that has meaningful differences with the rest of that party. Aside from the occasional empty soundbyte about healthcare or debt forgiveness, they’re not doing anything to advance progressive agendas which make American lives better, and they’re certainly doing nothing to impede the expansion of the US war machine.

The progressive Democrat is a myth, like the good billionaire or the righteous American war. “The Squad” is nothing more than the social media-savvy branch of the Democratic establishment. The United States has two warmongering oligarchic parties, and a tremendous amount of narrative management goes into manipulating, cajoling and coercing Americans into staying psychologically plugged in to that fraudulent political paradigm.

This comes at the same time the defense minister of Romania was forced to resign for saying peace talks were necessary to achieve peace in Ukraine. It just reveals so much about where we’re at and where we’re headed that the most incendiary and outrageous thing you can say in our society is that we should probably attempt to diplomatically de-escalate hostilities between nuclear superpowers. The fact that the Overton window of acceptable political discourse has already been dragged that far in the direction of warmongering insanity prevents peace from ever having any space to get a word in edgewise.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/10/26 ... armongers/

'Red' added.

***************

PSL Editorial – Supporting peace in Ukraine is nothing to be ashamed of
Liberation StaffOctober 26, 2022 655 3 minutes read
Download PDF flyer https://flyer-generator.herokuapp.com/? ... sts/109746

Over the last two days, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus issued and almost immediately retracted an open letter calling for a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Ukraine. The controversy over this statement reveals both the ferociousness of pro-war sentiment among elite politicians and media pundits, and the folly of backing down instead of standing strong in the face of the warmongers.

The letter, addressed to Joe Biden, was released on Monday. It was immediately met with condemnation from all corners of ruling-class politics, Democrats and Republicans alike. Virtually the entire political establishment has been in lock step in support for heavy U.S. involvement in the war, with the Pentagon and its junior partners taking responsibility for equipping Ukraine’s armed forces, sharing intelligence and providing direct guidance about how to conduct the fighting.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus surrendered right away. Representative Pramila Jayapal, head of the caucus, put out a statement explaining that, “The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting.” Media reports suggest that the letter was initially circulated in June, before the Ukrainian military’s summer counteroffensive began making major gains.

Aside from blaming staffers for not double checking that the letter still reflected their bosses’ opinion, the caucus’ retraction bizarrely attempted to position themselves as more pro-war than Republicans, lamenting that the release of their statement, “created the unfortunate appearance that Democrats, who have strongly and unanimously supported and voted for every package of military, strategic, and economic assistance to the Ukrainian people, are somehow aligned with Republicans who seek to pull the plug on American support for President Zelensky.”

How fierce the backlash against the Progressive Caucus letter was is especially remarkable considering how mild its contents were. The letter began with gushing support for Biden’s proxy war strategy thus far, “We write with appreciation for your commitment to Ukraine’s legitimate struggle against Russia’s war of aggression … Your administration’s policy was critical to enable the Ukrainian people, through their courageous fighting and heroic sacrifices, to deal a historic military defeat to Russia.”

They then go on to note that “the catastrophic possibilities of nuclear escalation and miscalculation” should be taken into account as a “national-security priority” (oh really!) and call for the Biden administration to “seriously explore all possible avenues, including direct engagement with Russia, to reduce harm and support Ukraine in achieving a peaceful settlement.” But even this is couched in language condemning Russian brutality and citing quotes from Ukrainian president Zelenskyy to support their point.

The drafters of this letter clearly did everything they could to adapt themselves to the ultra-aggressive ruling class consensus and frame their positions as essentially tactical advice to U.S. imperialism. And it was all for nothing. No deviation from the pro-war line, regardless of how minor, will be tolerated.

To hold a principled stand on the war under these circumstances, one has to be willing to take on the entire establishment — without regard for what this means for one’s standing in mainstream ruling class political circles. Conciliation and back tracking only makes the attacks worse and demoralizes potential supporters.

The only thing that can break the suffocating pro-war atmosphere prevailing in national politics is for people to stand up and boldly state their support for peace. This will take serious courage especially at first, since the attacks on those who defy the imperialist consensus will be considerable.

But the antiwar argument has the potential to resonate with a huge number of people. Why should tens of billions of dollars be funneled to the weapons manufacturers when people are struggling to afford the bare necessities? Isn’t a conflict between the countries with the two biggest nuclear arsenals something to be avoided at all costs, regardless of your opinion of the Russian government? Why shouldn’t NATO promise to stop expanding towards Russia’s borders if such a pledge ensures peace and stability? These are all completely legitimate questions to ask, and those who seek to shut down all consideration of them exposes the weakness of their own position.

https://www.liberationnews.org/psl-edit ... rationnews
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10591
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Sat Oct 29, 2022 3:20 pm

Image
Matt Duss on lone wolf attacks in Israel. (Screenshot: Youtube)

What accounts for the war lust among American Liberals?
Originally published: American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord (ACURA) on October 27, 2022 by James W. Carden (more by American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord (ACURA)) (Posted Oct 29, 2022)

This past June, Senator Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy adviser Matt Duss (an alumnus of the Saudi-and UAE-funded Center for American Progress) published a widely discussed essay in The New Republic in which he declared that American liberals and progressives need to prioritize expressions of “solidarity” with Ukraine over policies that might put an end to the bloodshed.

In this Duss, a reliable weathervane of liberal opinion, is hardly alone among liberal commentators and policy practitioners, after all, Democrats on the Hill unanimously voted for each of President Biden’s billion dollar aid packages to Ukraine.

What accounts for the enthusiasm for war in Eastern Europe against Russia among American liberals?

A seminal essay by the late scholar of France and Central Europe, Tony Judt, titled “Silence of the Lambs: On the Strange Death of Liberal America” (2006) may put the current mania in perspective. Because of their insatiable need for approval, liberals like Duss are prone to drift in the direction the winds are blowing, and never is that more true when the opportunity to cheer on American intervention in “a good war” presents itself.

Judt, writing in the aftermath of the decision by George W. Bush to wage an unnecessary and illegal war of choice in Iraq, noted with dismay that in the run up to the March 2003 invasion, many of the country’s leading liberal voices eagerly went along for the ride. “A fearful conformism gripped the mainstream media,” wrote Judt.

And America’s liberal intellectuals found at last a new cause.

Liberals saw in the battle against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq “a Good Fight, reassuringly comparable to their grandparents’ war against Fascism and their cold war liberal parents’ stance against international Communism.”

“Once again,” wrote Judt,

they assert, things are clear. The world is ideologically divided. As before, we must take our stand on the issue of the age. Long nostalgic for the comforting verities of a simpler time, todays’ liberal intellectuals have at last discovered a sense of purpose.

Back then, it was the war against Islamo-fascism. Today, liberals (and neoconservatives with whom they invariably ally themselves when it matters most) have divided the world up into “democracies and autocracies” and the war in Ukraine has handed them a renewed opportunity to display their mettle.

In this Duss, though prominent by way of his connection with the serial presidential also-ran, is representative of liberal and progressives who for much of the past several years have been unstinting in their criticism of America’s illegal and immoral adventures in the Greater Middle East but who now have fallen silent.

In a sense, the enthusiasm of self-righteous American liberals for an American crusade against Russia makes a good deal of sense given the current mania for spreading, indeed, imposing, specifically American-style “rights” abroad.

According to Duss, the Biden Administration “clearly did not seek this war, in fact, they made a strenuous and very public diplomatic effort to avert it.” Yet this assertion is contradicted by State Department counselor Derek Chollet who admitted in a recent interview that the U.S. never seriously considered negotiations over the core demands of Russia’s December demarche which called for a non-aligned Ukraine.

Duss also praised the administration for having “acted with restraint and care not to get drawn into a wider war with Russia.” Duss may have a different definition of restraint than most, because in just the last week reports have surfaced that the administration is in the process of sending to Ukraine four MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones that can be armed with Hellfire missiles; High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) that could potentially hit targets inside Russia; long-range M270 multiple-rocket launchers (MLRS); and M109 self-propelled howitzers.

Ukraine, as even Volodymyr Zelensky now admits, has lost a fifth of its territory and is losing soldiers at a rate of 60 to 100 men a day (knowledgeable sources in Washington speculate the Ukrainian losses are at least double the losses of the Russians).

Solidarity or whatever Duss says he’s calling for, is no substitute for a strategy based on U.S. national interests. A continuation of this war, which is Biden’s current policy, poses unacceptable risks of escalation and only promises a continuing loss of life.

https://mronline.org/2022/10/29/what-ac ... -liberals/

Not the lesser evil but the greater, the first line of defense of the ruling class and the imperialism which sustains them.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10591
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Mon Oct 31, 2022 3:01 pm

What the 2022 Midterm Election Charade Offers Us
OCTOBER 29, 2022

Image
A man waves a flag in front of the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Photo: AFP.JIJI.

By Stansfield Smith – Oct 27, 2022

That neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are offering anything to alleviate the problems working people face is illustrated by their campaign fear-mongering – the former over “fascism” and the latter over “socialists” and “radicals.” No matter which party dominates the midterm elections, do not expect either will herald in fascism or socialism.

Actual socialists in Congress would demand we stop instigating war with Russia, (now topping $66 billion), and instead eliminate homelessness (costing $20 billion) and hunger ($25 billion) as emergency first steps. Those swayed by Republican propaganda need not fear impending socialism: 100% of the Democrats including Bernie, AOC and the Squad voted like neo-cons for tens of billions in handouts to military contractors to further war in Ukraine.

Concerning any supposed threat of “fascism,” some of us explained soon after Trump was elected, “so long as corporate America has the liberal-left tied to their two party system, they have no need for fascism. They need fascism only when their customary method of rule breaks down and they face a very direct threat of losing control to revolutionary forces. The historic function of fascism is to smash the radicalized working class and its allies, destroy their organizations, and shut down political liberties when the corporate rulers find themselves unable to govern through their charade of democracy. No such problem exists here in the US.” Impending fascism is no more real than any impending socialist revolution that will result if the Democrats win the midterms.

It is particularly regretful that many leftists themselves stoop to this low level of seeking to scare people about fascism to get them to vote Democratic. Leftists should be educating people to think for themselves, to organize together to fight for their rights, not instill fear of some bogeyman.

Neither party has anything to offer to improve our lives which could win us their vote. They offer us fear and hatred of the other party. Ironic, as both parties are substantially the same thing.

Whoever we vote for, we will be voting for authoritarian corporate rule, with the national security state, the real US government – an unelected one – running the show. The national security state has been more aligned with the Democrats than the Republicans since 2015-16 when Trump began denouncing their wars in the Middle East.

To use the now meaningless terms of “left” and “right,” the Republicans are far more to the left than the Democrats on the war in Ukraine. For instance, 68 Republicans – 57 in the House and 11 in the Senate – voted against the $40 billion Ukraine military package (out of their 50 in the Senate and 212 in the House). All the Democrats toed the national security state line on squandering now $66 billion to advance war against Russia.

This is reminiscent of 2008 when the Republicans stood more left during the first bailout for Wall Street banks, whose ruthless greed had caused a world economic meltdown. The first corporate handout package was voted down, 228-205, with 133 Republicans voting against it. Only a third of the Republicans (65) joined with 140 Democrats to vote for it, while 95 Democrats voted against.

For almost one day the “leftist” Congressional Progressive Caucus published a letter to Biden asking him to support negotiations to end the Ukraine war. But they almost immediately withdrew it and apologized, scared they would be seen as aligned with “rightwing” anti-war Republicans. They pointed out that the Democrats, like good Bush-Cheney neo-cons, “have strongly and unanimously supported and voted for” every military escalation in the war.

Meanwhile, we have alleged extreme “fascists” like Marjorie Taylor Greene taking traditional left positions, calling for Free Assange, Defund the FBI, and condemning the tens of billions wasted in the proxy war with Russia. It may be true she would welcome the FBI being used to crush leftwing movements, but then how is that different from many on the left welcoming the FBI and CIA being used to suppress Trump and the MAGA movement?

In the midterm elections a number of Democrats make an issue of voting for them to protect women’s right to choose. However, we can expect women’s right to abortion will be forgotten the day after the election, junked like past Democrat promises to take US troops out of Iraq, create national health care, and raise the minimum wage. Biden himself had not been a supporter of the Roe v Wade decision on women’s right to choose, even supported a constitutional amendment that would allow states to overturn it and pass their own laws about abortion – basically the same as the recent Republican Supreme Court decision.

The 2022 midterm elections are expected to cost $9.3 billion. Whether we swallow the just-so story that Trump stole the 2016 election, or the just-so story that the Democrats stole 2020, in reality, US elections were long ago stolen and auctioned off to corporate funders.

This $9.3 billion would have allowed 215,278 children under six to live above the poverty level for all of 2022. The child poverty rate increased from 12% in December 2021 to 17% in January 2022, the highest rate since the end of 2020, under Trump. This means 3.7 million more children in poverty because the monthly Child Tax Credit payments were not renewed by Biden. As a result, poverty rates for Latino and Black children went up more than among White children, all under the allegedly pro-People of Color Democrats.

Child poverty remains the same, under the past “Fascist” President and the present “Socialist” President. That is basically the choice we are offered – the election will not change the conditions we face, be it child poverty, our declining standard of living, never-ending neo-con wars, or worsening global warming. Elections offer us only a choice of which party we hope against all hope would do something for us. Neither corporate party presents us with solutions, they only present obstacles. Change will only come when more of us stop being passive observers and become the very agents of the change we hope some of those in elected positions would be.

https://orinocotribune.com/what-the-202 ... offers-us/

***************

PSL Statement: The right wing’s program is deeply unpopular. So why are the elections so close?
Liberation StaffOctober 29, 2022
Download PDF flyer https://flyer-generator.herokuapp.com/? ... sts/109800

The corporate media is on a nonstop campaign asserting that the U.S. electorate is turning to the right and rejecting progressive policies. It is clear that if Republicans win back either the House or Senate, this message will be amplified a thousand times over. But this narrative is completely fraudulent. In the working class especially, there is a widespread rejection of corporate power, an embrace of core progressive policies and a desire to fight. Whether or not that sentiment is fully reflected in the midterm outcome — and there are various factors suppressing it — there is no reason for any socialist to adopt the false picture of the working class provided by the corporate media.

The contest between the two ruling-class parties for control of Congress is entering its final stretch. The midterm election is now less than three weeks away, with Republicans hoping to take control of one or both houses of the legislature. The outcome will have a major impact on the trajectory of U.S. politics in the coming years, potentially hobbling the already-unpopular Biden administration, deepening gridlock and turmoil at the summits of elite politics, and setting the stage for an even fiercer confrontation in 2024.

Republicans are favored to win the House but polls show the race for the Senate in a dead heat. But in such a volatile political and economic period, surprises in either direction cannot be ruled out.

Considering how unpopular the core political positions of the right wing are, the fact that the election is so close is truly remarkable. From abortion rights to taxes to healthcare, climate change, false election fraud allegations and beyond, the bulk of Republican Party politicians hold positions that are rejected by the majority of people in this country. How can it possibly be that they stand a chance to seize control of Congress this election?

A confluence of dramatic events and long-standing trends have created this opening for the right wing, perhaps none more important than the dire economic situation. Skyrocketing prices for essential goods have caused great suffering for the working class while major corporations register record profits. And now the specter of all-out recession looms as the Federal Reserve embarks on a policy of interest rate hikes designed to bring about just such a crisis. The explicit goal of this policy is to increase unemployment and reduce workers’ incomes, which the Wall Street-dominated Federal Reserve argues will bring down inflation.

The Republicans do not have an economic program that appeals to the needs of those who are bearing the brunt of this turmoil. Instead, they have sought to paint Biden and by extension the whole Democratic Party as incompetant managers of the economy whose bad decision making is responsible for the situation.

This approach, which involves little to no mention of specific measures that the Republicans would actually take once in office, has only been effective because of the complete failure of the Democratic Party to take action over the last two years to provide relief for working people. The dramatic change involving a major expansion of social and economic rights that Democrats promised on the campaign trail and in the opening months of the Biden administration simply did not materialize. And the Democrats failed even though they controlled both houses of Congress!

The pathetic collapse of Biden’s domestic agenda has demoralized the Democratic Party’s base. In fact, it is so common for the party in power to immediately abandon their campaign promises that it has become a universally accepted truth in U.S. politics that the party that wins the White House is always at a disadvantage going into their first midterm.

In his first year in office, Biden pushed a reform program called “Build Back Better.” This would have made community college free, established guaranteed parental leave and sick leave, sent monthly payments to working class parents through a tax credit, created universal pre-K and childcare subsidies, initiated a major program to slash the use of fossil fuels in electricity production, funded desperately-needed improvements to public housing, and more. Biden also supported the passage of the PRO Act to make it easier to form a union, the Equality Act to protect the rights of LGBTQ people, and police reform legislation to address racist brutality.

Had these widely popular measures become a reality, the Democrats would be in a position to sweep the midterm elections. But because of the objections of a handful of right-wing Democratic Party members of Congress – especially Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema – this push fell apart. Instead of putting the power of the presidency to use pressuring these holdouts, Biden praised them in public and entered into a series of dead-end negotiations in an attempt to appease them. After slashing his original proposal, it was eventually buried on national TV when Joe Manchin went on Fox News to announce he would no longer consider voting in favor of Build Back Better in any form.

Democrats held out hope that this problem could be at least partially remedied by the passage of the “Inflation Reduction Act” in August, which was followed later that month with the cancellation of up to $10,000 of student loan debt. While the Inflation Reduction Act did take limited steps to address the climate crisis and the spiraling cost of healthcare, it plus debt relief appears to have only produced a short-term boost to Democrats’ popularity.

Struggle for abortion rights betrayed by Democrats

The Supreme Court’s evisceration of abortion rights in the Dobbs decision has been a central feature of the campaign. The outrageous decision by five unelected, millionaire judges to roll back a right that had existed at the federal level for half a century infuriated tens of millions of people across the country.

Abortion rights are widely popular, and the far right’s push to ban this medical procedure is rejected by a clear majority. For example, a Pew Research Center opinion poll that came out in June, just before the Dobbs decision was officially announced, found that 61 percent of people believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases – including 38 percent of Republicans.

This is a major factor in people’s decision-making when it comes to the election. Only 45 percent of people surveyed for an Economist/YouGov poll in late October were sure they would even consider voting for a candidate who was “pro-life” and 27 percent ruled it out entirely. On the other hand, 57 percent of respondents would consider a pro-choice candidate, and only 18 percent said it was impossible that they would vote for someone who was pro-choice.

People make their decision at the polls based on many factors and considerations. It is not as simple as voters determining what their main issue is and choosing candidates that reflect their position on it. It is crucial to reject the simplistic narrative spun in the corporate media that a Republican victory would mean that people care about the economy – the main issue they have been emphasizing – but not abortion, the main issue being emphasized by Democrats. This is simply not how politics works.

While huge numbers of people were taking to the streets in protest and demanding immediate action to reverse this historic assault on women’s rights, Democratic Party political operatives were quietly celebrating. Their impending electoral defeat, they reasoned, could now be avoided because the right wing had done something so wildly unpopular that Democrats would be able to overcome their own lack of concrete achievements.

But if this does not come to pass and the Democrats are defeated nonetheless, it is not because the issue of abortion rights has become unimportant or a secondary issue. It would in fact be a reflection of the Democratic Party’s failure to take action to defend this basic right. Masses of people become engaged in a struggle when there is a realistic prospect to win. If it appears that there is no hope for the movement to prevail, the anger that initially drove hundreds of thousands of people to take to the streets in protest can easily turn into demoralization.

In the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision, there were a number of concrete steps the Democrats could have taken to fight back. Most importantly, they could have passed federal legislation legalizing abortion once and for all. They would not have needed a single Republican vote in Congress to do this, but they would have had to eliminate the undemocratic “filibuster” rule that requires a 60-vote supermajority – a step they are unwilling to take out of concern for the long-term unity of the ruling class. Short of an act of Congress, the White House could have taken dramatic executive action like offering abortion services on federal land in states that passed bans.

But instead the Democratic Party was content to simply fundraise and urge people to vote for its candidates in November. Biden gave a major speech on October 18 promising that Democrats would pass a bill legalizing abortion if they won expanded majorities in Congress in the midterms. But in light of the Democrats’ total failure to do what is currently in their power to defend abortion rights, why would anyone believe this pledge?

The referendums on abortion rights in several key states shows how the problem is Democratic Party politicians, not the issue itself. For instance, a September opinion poll in Michigan found that 64 percent supported the referendum to guarantee a right to an abortion in the state constitution, but an October 19 opinion poll showed Democratic candidate for governor Gretchen Whitmer only 2 points ahead of her far right opponent Tudor Dixon. Four of the crucial House races rated by the Cook Political Report as “tossups” are in California, where a referendum to cement abortion rights is taking place that polls around 70 percent support. If the Democrats hold on to these seats, they may very well have increased turnout due to the referendum to thank.

Right-wing elites stoke bigotry

After the economy, the Republicans’ campaign messaging has focused heavily on promoting racism and anti-LGBTQ bigotry. Right-wing attack ads across the country focus on “out of control crime” that can only be remedied through hardline crackdowns implemented by notoriously racist police departments. Others stoke hatred of immigrants from Latin America and condemn fictional “open borders” policies.

The wave of state-level laws prohibiting schools from teaching the history of racism in America – bans on “Critical Race Theory” – are also a form of midterm campaign messaging positioning Republicans as the party to push back against the movement for Black lives. Likewise, “don’t say gay” laws and attacks on transgender children and their parents are intended to appeal to those who want to turn back the clock on equality.

This is a classic case of the ultra-rich employing the strategy of divide-and-rule. At a time when the vast majority of people are dealing with major hardships caused by big business’ greed, the right wing is hoping that people will instead focus on oppressed groups that they slander using the most vile bigotry.

This may have the effect of energizing a section of the Republican Party’s most loyal supporters and bolstering the right wing through increased turnout, engagement and fundraising. But the underlying message is, like the rest of their platform, rejected by the majority. An opinion poll by the Public Religion Research Institute last year found that 76 percent of Americans – including 62 percent of Republicans – support legal protections prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ people. An Associated Press poll this March found that only 27 percent of people thought that schools “focus too much on racism” and a separate poll last December by the University of Massachusetts Amherst showed just 25 percent of respondents saying they thought schools should not teach about racial inequality at all (outnumbered by the 34 percent who thought schools should teach “a lot” about racial inequality).

Rehearsing to steal the 2024 election

As the political and economic turmoil gripping the country plays out, a major section of the ruling class is pursuing a campaign to fundamentally alter the political system in a way that locks in the domination of the right wing by severely curtailing fundamental democratic rights. The chaos of the 2020 election and its aftermath may very well prove to not be an exceptional crisis, but the beginning of a new era in the political situation where the basic concept of “one person, one vote’ is in danger of being completely done away with. The 2024 presidential election may be a decisive showdown, and the midterm gives the right wing an opportunity to set the stage and test out their main strategies to steal elections.

Once among the lowest-profile electoral contests, races for Secretary of State positions have emerged as a major battleground. A Secretary of State is the top official responsible for administering a state’s elections, and in many cases has considerable influence over how elections are conducted, how votes are tallied and how a winner is ultimately certified.

A wave of far right conspiracy theorists running on a platform focused on the false claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent have risen to prominence as part of an alliance called the America First Secretary of State Coalition. The grouping is led by Jim Marchant, who won the Republican nomination for Secretary of State in the critical swing state Nevada. Two other members of the coalition prevailed in the primary and are now on the November ballot in states that could prove decisive in 2024: Kristina Karamo of Michigan and Mark Finchem of Arizona. Should these candidates prevail, they would be in a position to aid an effort to overturn the results of the election and install a far-right government – in fact, this is the thinly-veiled premise of their entire campaigns.

Another facet of this strategy is to insert far right activists into the administration of the election itself as poll workers. This is meant to serve as an asset in a post-election scenario where the right wing wants to invalidate the results. An October 17 article in the New York Times titled, “Right-Wing Leaders Mobilize Corps of Election Activists” reports that this effort involves, “compiling testimony from G.O.P.-allied poll workers, the temporary employees who run polling places, and poll watchers, the volunteers who monitor operations, to build challenges and contest results … Both Democrats and Republicans have long enlisted poll watchers and workers to oversee voting and planned ahead for disputes. But this year, officials are grappling with the prospect that those efforts may be driven by activists who spread fantastical or debunked theories.”

And as has been a constant theme throughout U.S. history, physical voter intimidation is playing a role as well. The Associated Press wrote in an article titled “Arizona sheriff steps up security around ballot drop boxes” that was published on October 25:

“The sheriff in metropolitan Phoenix said Monday he’s stepped up security around ballot drop boxes after a series of incidents involving people keeping watch on the boxes and taking video of voters after they were apparently inspired by lies about the 2020 election.

“On Friday, deputies responded when two masked people carrying guns and wearing bulletproof vests showed up at a drop box in Mesa, a Phoenix suburb. The secretary of state said her office has [referred] six cases of potential voter intimidation to the state attorney general and the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as a threatening email sent to the state elections director.

“People watching the boxes and voters showing up to vote have covered their license plates, according to photos shared on social media.”

The right wing is willing to go to extreme lengths, trampling on the basic democratic rights the vast majority of the country rightly feels entitled to in order to force through their deeply unpopular, reactionary and anti-worker program. And the Democratic Party’s complete failure to live up to popular expectations is an irreplaceable element of the right wing’s chilling offensive. The outcome of the midterm election will be another milestone as this historic struggle plays out.

https://www.liberationnews.org/psl-stat ... rationnews

'One hand washes the other....'
'Red' added.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10591
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Wed Nov 09, 2022 6:37 pm

Woke Imperialism: The Tactic Liberals are Using to Try to Delay Revolution
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on NOVEMBER 8, 2022
Rainer Shea

Democratic Party infiltrators are at this moment the biggest threat to the communist movement in the USA. Conversely, the pro-NATO psyop is the largest propaganda operation happening at present. The great priority of our ruling class as of now is to maintain imperial hegemony, which they’re trying to do by using Ukraine as a cudgel to destabilize Eurasia. They’re sacrificing the U.S. economy’s stability, as well as the stability of Europe’s, in order to make their geopolitical ploy in Ukraine pay off.
It’s getting increasingly apparent that such a payoff for the empire won’t come. After exhausting Ukraine’s forces to the point where Kiev is having to draft men up to their sixties, Russia has so far only used around a fourth of its potential mobilization capacity, and it’s only now transitioning into a full-on war campaign. As the costs of this futile effort mount, the ultra-nationalist faction of the U.S. ruling class will likely win the midterms, brought to victory by Biden’s prioritization of geopolitical games over the people’s economic wellbeing. “Woke” imperialism, where liberals market Washington’s global violence as a social justice mission, has created a political vacuum, soon to be filled by America’s fascist movement.

As a consequence, the LGBT community, racially marginalized groups, and the other targets of this reactionary force will come under greater threat. Liberals have shown themselves incapable of combating the rising far right. The goal of the Democrat infiltrators within leftist and communist spaces is to keep woke imperialism dominant within the opposition to the GOP, even after woke imperialism has so thoroughly lost credibility.

These actors seek to serve as an obstacle for anti-imperialists, perpetuating a culture within the left that passively goes along with every facet of the Democratic Party’s foreign policy agenda. They regurgitate each shallow argument about current affairs that their funders in the ruling class provide for them, upholding the cultural hegemony which keeps imperialism in motion. One organization that plays this left imperialist role is NDN Collective, the group that’s sought to establish itself as the default face of the Land Back concept within the eyes of the public.

The fact that they’ve received $12 million from Jeff Bazos isn’t in itself the reason why they advance a pro-imperialist agenda. It’s because their ideas are not based in a revolutionary analysis, much less the type of analysis which recognizes how Russia’s operation is a justified response to Washington’s using Ukraine as a proxy terrorism weapon. Without this perspective, an organization naturally takes on the pro-imperialist stance in regards to Ukraine and other foreign policy issues. This is the case even if that org recognizes the U.S. as an imperialist power, as NDN does in its statement on Ukraine:

The crisis started by the Russian government has the potential to impact the entire world – and while the US government has already been quick to get involved, we must be wary of their imperialist tactics. At this moment, it is critical that we stand in solidarity with Russians and Ukranians who are protesting the moves towards war. The future of humanity depends on our ability to divest from the fossil fuel industry, and nothing is a greater threat to our environment than increased militarization. As the war machine ramps up, there will be direct impacts on Indigenous people from the Ukrainian region and globally. They will extract resources from our lands and recruit our young people to risk their lives for a fight rooted in greed, pride, and colonization. We need to center ourselves in the truth that the US is not the hero – that only the people have the answers we need to build a safe and peaceful world.

What makes liberal infiltrators like them a threat to our movement is that their arguments are insidious. They decry imperialism as a concept and say to be wary of U.S. imperialist tactics, which are the bare minimum for leftists who haven’t yet been ideologically trained in Marxism and geopolitics. At the same time, they blame the crises that U.S. imperialism has caused—in this case through a 2014 fascist coup in Ukraine—on the same countries imperialism seeks to destabilize. One can repudiate the idea that the U.S. is a hero while taking a pro-imperialist stance. All they need to do is reinforce the lies imperialism needs in order to exact its violence.

To sell these lies, the Collective frames what it’s saying in the rhetoric of decolonial liberation and environmentalism. It emphasizes the ways this conflict is harming the planet and America’s indigenous communities, again making the ideologically untrained leftist more inclined to trust what this organization is saying. But you don’t have to be studied in Ukraine to see NDN is a force for bourgeois co-optation. You simply have to have the bare minimum of intellectual honesty about what it means when a nonprofit organization receives corporate funding. The radical group Indigenous Action wrote this last year about NDN, and about the other parts of the nonprofit-industrial complex that claim to represent hope for the liberation movements:

The overall strategy of the NPIC is colonial, upholds unjust power relationships, and capitalism. Groups like NDN Collective are prime examples of the problems with the NPIC. They have co-opted the term “collective,” which is a radical non-hierarchical practice, but are structured with a president and CEO. They purchase and maintain private property as a “land back” campaign that is not a radically anti-colonial action to build Indigenous autonomy, but a capitalist strategy.Their CEO is paid more than $200,000 a year and their annual operating budget is more than $10 million dollars. They recently received more than $10 million dollars from extreme capitalist and working class exploiter Jeff Bezos. The NDN Collective organizes with the idea of “Decolonizing Wealth,” which is really just a marketing strategy to commodify and cash-in on Indigenous struggles.

Organizations like NDN are the U.S. empire’s domestic equivalents of the NGOs that get sent across the globe to advance counterrevolutionary schemes under the guise of social justice and “humanitarianism.” They exist to drown out the revolutionary organizations in the competition over organizing platforms, making themselves the more easily visible groups to the casual observer. This effort depends on their bourgeois funding, as their rhetoric and analyses are shallow compared to that of revolutionaries and therefore less able to gain an audience on their own merits.

They seek to absorb and redirect popular discontent, particularly discontent from within the U.S. empire’s internal colonies. This is because the internal colonies are what pose an existential threat to the U.S. empire. It’s with their guidance that the class struggle in this country can act as a genuine class struggle, a struggle which liberates the peoples who are currently ensnared by the prison house of nations which is the USA. Without a vision to dismantle settler-colonial land relations, to restore full sovereignty to the occupied nations, the continent’s proletariat will remain divided. Restorative justice for the nations whose land and labor were stolen to create the U.S. empire is indispensable for freeing the working class as a whole, because colonialism and capitalism are inextricably intertwined.

The first phase in the bourgeoisie’s effort to thwart such a revolution is a campaign to co-opt the liberation movements. They both poison these movements with corporate grifting schemes disguised as sources for help, and divert these movements towards embracing the Democratic Party as the thing which will address their needs. The latter tactic has particularly been applied to the black liberation struggle, as described by Black Agenda Report in its analysis on how the capitalist settler state manages the “substance” of discontent within the African diaspora: “Attempts to outright suppress this substance only further stoke the flames of rebellion. Conversely, supporting its unfettered spread is State suicide. So, whether it’s suppressed or supported, explosion is imminent. As a result, Black Rage cannot be entirely controlled, only managed. To manage Black Rage, it must be laundered like the Blood Money that birthed it. To launder Black Rage into the market, its potency must be defanged. The social capital it produces, the clarion call by the Black masses for a free and equitable world, must be snatched and funneled into the hands of the State; ‘cleaned’ of the original people and conditions that manufactured its existence but still recognizable enough to appear untraced.”

The next phase is a campaign of racial terror, as we’ve seen happen in cycles dozens of times throughout U.S. history. The liberals who are exploiting the struggles of colonized peoples to sell imperialist agendas hold no commitments to actually aiding these struggles. Biden could have reversed the continued flow of military equipment to police, but he’s remained complacent these last two years, instead focusing on the buildup to and execution of another proxy war. When the Democratic Party’s hypocrisy allows reactionaries to regain control, these liberals will blame the black community; they already have been scapegoating them in a preemptive sense. The more the country declines, the more the internal colonies will be sacrificed in favor of imperialism’s military adventures and further neoliberal austerity. And the more brutal our police state will be in waging war against these communities, who are being harmed the most by the economic and climatic crises.

This betrayal by America’s liberal leaders will spark a revolt that the empire can’t contain. So for as long as possible, the empire’s liberal wing seeks to pretend to be on the side of these movements, selling reformist faux-solutions and using decolonial rhetoric as another imperialist marketing tool. But at some point, this game won’t be able to be played any longer, and the struggle will escalate.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/11/ ... evolution/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10591
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:28 pm

Why Democrats Don't Win The Way They Should
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 09 Nov 2022

Image

The people prefer the initiatives which democratic party leadership claim to support. But their interests are those of the oligarchy and not of the voters. Slim margins of legislative victory bring compromise and gridlock which the leadershiop don't really oppose.

“What better way for corporate Dems to maintain the appearance of fighting for the people (while actually preserving the status quo) than for the GOP to hold more power? That way, Dem leaders can blame Republicans for gridlock, while keeping their donor class happy.”
Peter Daou , former democratic strategist


Votes are still being counted in the midterm elections. It isn’t clear which party will control the House and the Senate with so many races still in contention. Democrats won a senate seat in Pennsylvania, while a Georgia race is so close that it will probably result in a runoff election which will determine control of the Senate.

But it is worth noting that issues connected with the democrats are very popular yet they do not result in the large gains one would expect to see. In every presidential election since 1992 the democratic candidate has received more votes than their republican opponent. Bill Clinton won two three-way races, but received the most votes. Al Gore and Hillary Clinton received more popular votes but lost in the electoral college. Regardless of these historical footnotes, the statement holds true. In presidential elections, which is when more people vote, democrats are the clear favorite.

Yet this preference does not show itself in the rest of the electoral process. There are states like Wisconsin , where democrats usually win in presidential elections, but also where republicans came close to holding a veto-proof majority in the legislature against the democratic governor. Regardless of what happens in presidential elections or gubernatorial races, the Pennsylvania legislature has a republican majority. In congress, democrats held razor-thin majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate, despite the fact that Joe Biden bested Donald Trump by more than 10 million votes in 2020.

It isn’t incompetence that keeps the democrats from fully realizing their political power. The terrible truth is that they prefer horse trading over the issues of importance to their donor class than they do meeting the needs of the people. Why does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi constantly speak of the need for a “strong republican party?” She needs a strong republican party, that is to say one which doesn’t resemble the January 6th rabble that frightened most of the nation. A more respectable and traditional republican party is one she can compromise with, and both sides of the aisle can represent the interests of the U.S. oligarchy while pretending otherwise.

Claims that every election is the most important in history, or a test of democracy, is a line meant for gullible rubes. They tell us so themselves. As president, Barack Obama presented republicans with a “grand bargain” of austerity so bad that Congressional Black Caucus member Emmanuel Cleaver referred to it as a “sugar coated satan sandwich.” As part of this plan Obama convened a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that was soon dubbed “the catfood commission.” Yet Obama hit the 2022 mid-term election campaign trail and condemned republicans for wanting to cut social security, which is exactly what he proposed doing ten years earlier.

Democrats raise millions of dollars for their presidential campaigns but come up empty in those state races which have a great impact on Americans’ lives. They don’t want to transform the country on behalf of the people. They are always on the side of their donor class and that is why the national leadership aren’t very concerned when republicans control state capitals. They will actually take a dive and then use their own corruption as a fundraising tool, pointing fingers at the republicans they have declared villains while secretly hoping they have to share power with them.

The inevitable result is senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia being in a close race with Herschel Walker, a former football player who mouths right wing, that is to say white wing, talking points on every issue. Warnock should have been further ahead but close races are guaranteed when there is no minimum wage increase while inflation runs rampant.

Of course inflation is high. Corporations gouge the public as much as they like because there is no major political party opposing them. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act won’t reduce inflation by itself, but clever marketing is one of the tools used to keep the people fooled about how politics really work.

Why are margins so close in the House and the Senate when the people prefer what democrats claim to offer? The democrats are the ultimate cynics. They know what the people want and campaign accordingly, but once in office use the senate parliamentarian, arcane rules, or the bad cops among them to say that their hands are tied. The charade is a perfect crime.

Whatever the outcome of the races still to be decided, it is clear that the people must look to themselves and not at Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, or former president Obama, to guard their interests. They have different interests which are antithetical to those of the people. Electioneering fanfare cannot cover up this terrible but obvious truth.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/why-d ... hey-should

***********

10 BILLIONAIRES WHO DONATED RESOURCES FOR MID-TERM ELECTIONS IN THE US
7 Nov 2022 , 5:28 pm .

Image
George Soros, founder of the Open Society Foundations, is the billionaire who contributed the most resources to the midterm election campaign (Photo: AP Photo)

This Tuesday, November 8, the midterm elections will be held in the United States, whose importance lies in the fact that whoever wins will control the Congress and the Senate and define the American political map.

More than a "democratic" process in which voters lean towards two major parties that compete for political power in the country, there are other hidden financial powers that have their own agenda and affect the electoral contest.

These elections in particular have been the most costly. According to the research group OpenSecrets, federal election spending increased by nearly $2 billion compared to 2018.

Next, we review the 10 largest donors in the elections systematized by The Hill , whose invested capital was 540 million dollars.

george soros
Total donations: $128.5 million

Affiliation: Democratic

Richard Uihlein
Total donations: $80.7 million

Affiliation: Republican

Kenneth Griffin
Total donations: $68.6 million

Affiliation: Republican

Jeff Yass
Total donations: $47.3 million

Affiliation: Republican

Timothy Mellon
Total donations: $40 million

Affiliation: Republican

Sam Bankman Fried
Total donations: $39.8 million

Affiliation: Democratic

fred eychaner
Total donations: $35.8 million

Affiliation: Democratic

stephen schwarzman
Total donations: $35.5 million

Affiliation: Republican

Peter Thiel
Total donations: $32.6 million

Affiliation: Republican

Larry Ellison
Total donations: $31 million

Affiliation: Republican

https://misionverdad.com/10-multimillon ... no-en-eeuu

Google translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10591
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Fri Nov 18, 2022 3:50 pm

Joe Biden’s Garbage Career: A Timeline
NOVEMBER 13, 2020

Image

NOTE: Orinoco Tribune doesn’t normally republish opinion articles over seven days old, but in this case we are making an exception.

By Anderson Bean – May 7, 2020

Joe Biden is not only a loyal soldier of neoliberalism, he has been the architect of much of today’s hellish political landscape. The last fifty years of ruling class ascendancy is a timeline studded with Creepy Joe’s despicable actions.

1970s

• Biden led the fight against desegregating schools.

• As an anti-busing crusader, Biden promoted nearly a dozen pieces of legislation aimed at placing strict limits on federal agencies and the courts’ ability to mandate busing to achieve racial integration in schools.

• As part of his crusade against the desegregation of schools, he was the only member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to block two Black appointees to the Department of Justice.

• Biden opposed Roe v. Wade.

• Biden defeated a 1977 amendment that would have removed all restrictions on federal funding of abortions.

• Biden voted against abolishing the undemocratic, anachronistic Electoral College. A relic of slavery, the Electoral College undemocratically installed both Bush and Trump.

1980s

• Biden voted for a conservative constitutional amendment (at the time the National Abortion Rights Action League called it “the most devastating attack yet on abortion rights”) that would allow individual states to overturn Roe v. Wade.

• Biden crafted the “Biden Amendment” which barred US aid from being used for biomedical research related to abortions.

• Years later, Biden intimidated a woman when confronted about his lack of support for reproductive justice.

• Biden was one of the original architects of the disastrous War on Drugs.

• Biden built upon his history of racism, from making racist comments to defending segregationistsand more segregationists and white supremacists.

• Biden lied about marching in the Civil Rights Movement.

• Biden voted for the landmark Reagan tax bill that slashed the top income tax rate from 70 percent to 50 percent and exempted many wealthy families from the estate tax on earned inheritances, a measure that cost the federal government $83 billion in annual revenue.

• For years, Biden advocated for cuts in social security. After voting for Reagan’s mammoth tax cut for the rich, Biden called for a freeze on federal spending and insisted on including social security in that freeze, even as the Reagan administration fought to protect the program from cuts.

1990s

• As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Biden led an all white, all male committee grilling Anita Hill in excruciating detail, attempting to degrade her character, destroy her credibility, and accuse her of being a liar, an erotomaniac, and a fantasist.

• Biden sexually assaulted Tara Reade. Inappropriate sexual behavior did not start or end with Reade; Biden has a long history of groping, sniffing, and kissing women and young girls without consent. Years later he issued a non-apology where he tried to justify his acts.

• Biden voted to ban immigrants with HIV, locking up Haitian refugees in Guantanamo Bay.

• Biden cowrote the racist and disastrous 1994 Crime Bill. The crime bill was one of the key contributors to the problem of mass incarceration that we have today. Years later he bragged about writing the bill.

• Biden cowrote the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act, which in many ways laid the groundwork for the US Patriot Act, and stripped citizens of a wide range of fundamental civil liberties.

• Biden opposed equal rights for the LGBTQ community.

• Biden voted to expand deportations and indefinite detention for immigrants on several occasions.

• Long before Trump, Biden argued for the unprecedented step of sending military troops to the border.

• Biden sided with banks to overturn Glass-Steagall and deregulate the banking system, which more than any other factor facilitated the 2008 financial crisis. The crisis resulted in over 10 millionAmericans losing their homes and the African American community losing half their wealth.

• Biden was an architect for Plan Colombia, which internationalized the War on Drugs, resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians, the displacement of over a million people, and the destruction of large swaths of food crops.

2000s

• Biden voted for the USA Patriot Act, which was an all-out assault on civil liberties.

• Biden voted for the disastrous Iraq war, a war that cost over 3 trillion dollars, killed over 1 millionIraqis, displaced over 3 million people and injured millions more. Years later, Biden said he would do it again.

• Biden was a key architect for the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which made it more difficult for people to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and made it completely impossible to discharge student debt.

• Biden’s second largest source of contributions was credit card company MBNA, the company most ardently supporting the above bill. MBNA also gave Biden’s son Hunter a job.

• Biden voted to build border walls along the southwest border of the United States.

• Biden supported requiring immigrants to learn English in order to get documentation.

• Continuing on his long history of praising segregationists, Biden gave the eulogy for Strom Thurmond and called him one of his “closest friends.”

• Biden voted against enhancing the enforcement of labor protections.

2010s

• Biden helped expand a deportation apparatus that Trump now uses to commit human rights violations by 3,600 percent.

• Biden worked to undermine reproductive rights by trying to cut mandated coverage for contraception from the Affordable Care Act.

• The Obama/Biden administration awarded Biden’s brother James’s company a $1.5 billion construction contract, despite having no prior residential construction experience.

• Biden supported apartheid and ethnic cleaning in Palestine.

• Biden presented racist, chauvinist, reactionary war criminal John McCain with a Liberty Medal.

• Biden presented war criminal George Bush with a Liberty Medal.

• Biden said the CIA torture report was “not a black stain on this country” but rather a “badge of honor.”

2020s

• Biden opposes Medicare For All.

• Biden opposes the legalization of marijuana.

• Biden opposes meaningful action on the climate crisis, including opposing the Green New Deal.

• Biden still to this day opposes federal funding for abortion.

• Biden sides with Trump in backing a right-wing coup in Venezuela.

• Biden supports sanctions on Venezuela which have killed as many as 40,000 innocent Venezuelans.

• Biden openly courts Republican billionaires for donations, including John Catsimatidis, who likened taxing the wealthy to Nazi persecution of Jews.



Featured image: Photo by Gage Skidmore. Design by Rampant.

https://orinocotribune.com/joe-bidens-g ... -timeline/

And he has 'built' on this legacy these past two years...Some 'lesser evil' huh?

Even if we wish to ignore some of it, I wouldn't, through the direct and undeniable machinations of his regime we are closer to nuclear annihilation than any time since 1962. Whadda guy.....

If it ain't time t dump these chumps then I dunno...
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

Post Reply