#Obama appointed her

[inkandguns]

I’ve sold shoes, stocked groceries, shoveled snow, sold dime bags, written essays, sold housewares, cut fish, served in the Army, cleaned hotel rooms, served civil process, grown cannabis, and ran a surgical center. If I was anywhere near as bad at ANY of those jobs as Sotomayor I would have been swiftly fired.

How brainless can you be to interpret the 14th amendment as justifying race based admissions??

These people won’t stop until there’s a black person hung by the neck from every fucking tree in America.

[esmeyaleal]

person in the last reblog does bring up a good point tho: this isnt all bidens fault, its also rbg's fault for not retiring while obama was president.

[simply-ivanka]

Democrats, former President Obama, President Biden, his Administration officials, the CIA, FBI, Department of Justice, those elected officials that provided cover, those "intelligence experts" who lied about the Hunter Biden Laptop, mainstream media, social media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and others and all others involved directly or indirectly should be investigated by an independent prosecutor (with no political ties and strict legal authority that would severely punish them for unfair, unreasonable, false and political decision making), indicted and prosecuted. Punishment upon conviction should include banishment from elected and appointed government office, LOSS OF BRAODCASTING LICENSES lengthy prison terms with no parole, hefty financial penalties, public humiliation and apologies and no access to media at all.

(Siberia!)

Enough is enough with all this. Wiped the slate clean. Start over. Eliminate our society and country from this filth!

[ridenwithbiden]

THANK YOU

FOR THE FEDERAL JUDGE

WHO GOT THE JANUARY 6th TRIAL in D.C.

Who Hasn't Been Soft On These Criminals

Thank You OBAMA For Appointing Her

[sourcreammachine]

✨My Favourite Moments of 2024!✨

uk prime minister keir starmer resigns in disgrace after accidentally referring to a trans woman by her correct pronouns

elon musk attempts to prove the safety of the tesla truck by letting mitch mcconnell drive. both men die within seconds of entering the vehicle

in response to worldwide famine, the World Food Programme appoints taylor swift as its director-for-life

the IDF continues carpetbombing occupied gaza after the ghosts of hamas are spotted. all gazans are required to evacuate into a shallow grave

the conclave repeatedly fails to elect a new pope, causing a schism. one conclave elects some italian bishop you’ve never heard of while the other conclave elects agent Q

the IMF buys pakistan

donald trump wins the republican primary carrying 60 states, 14 countries, and 8 circles of hell. during his victory broadcast from prison he suffers what it clinically described as a MegaStroke, removing his ability to move and speak. he declares one of his busty nurses to be his running mate and leads biden by 30 points

following the death of musk twitter is divided by gavelkind amongst multiple rival warlords

joe biden finally finishes his 13th genocide, winning a bet he made with obama

after it retreats from ukraine and georgia, putin personally murders every single member of the russian army. he is reelected in a landslide

his holiness the ayatollah ali khamenei dies peacefully of old age surrounded by his loving family and a grieving nation. days later he is found in a disused oil pipeline hiding from protesters while off his tits on heroin, and is dragged through the streets and beaten to death

the largest war in human history erupts in africa, costing dozens of millions of lives. it is a slow news day at the UN

president millei attaches argentina to the dollar. the us economy immediately crashes and undergoes apocalyptic hyperinflation, the dollar becoming the first currency to have a negative value. the only surviving american industry is joe biden ‘i did that’ stickers

the PLA begins its amphibious invasion of taiwan. the war claims the lives of one million PLA soldiers, ending within 20 minutes when the generals learn that tanks can’t swim

donald trump wins the us presidential election carrying all 100 states. during his victory broadcast from the intensive care unit, he suffers what is clinically described as a Heart Apocalypse, rupturing every single artery in his body and leaving him as pile of blood and gore. the supreme court rules that despite being, quote, “the most dead person ever recorded”, he is still eligible to be president. he and vp-elect Busty Nurse will be inaugurated on 20 january

due to a weird loophole, elon musk’s trans daughter inherits his entire estate. she immediately uses all her wealth to found a mutually-owned food distribution network, ending world hunger

the switch 2 still doesn’t have fucking analogue triggers

[qqueenofhades]

BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME!!!, SCOTUS edition:

Clarence Thomas: appointed by George H.W. Bush (Republican)

Samuel Alito and John Roberts: appointed by George W. Bush (Republican)

Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett: appointed by Donald Trump (Republican)

Conservative total: 6

Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan: appointed by Barack Obama (Democrat)

Ketanji Brown Jackson: appointed by Joe Biden (Democrat) replacing Stephen Breyer, appointed by Bill Clinton (Democrat), who also appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg;

Liberal total: 3

Most common split on all these bad decisions: 6-3

Gee, it's almost like SCOTUS actually is incredibly important, Hillary Clinton and the entire mainstream Democratic electorate knew that in 2016, Democratic presidents consistently appoint the justices who are on the side of the rulings that you agree with, it was maybe a bad idea to let a man charged with 71 felony counts including criminal espionage appoint one-third of the current court, and yet BUH BUH BERNIE AND HER EMAILS.

[matan4il]

Thank you for your daily updates.

I've been seeing people discussing why/not the ICJ case is valid, but nothing on how the judges are likely to rule, a discussion that happens often when there is a big SCOTUS case.

What of their temperaments? Sure there's a Lebanese judge, that doesn't inherently make him antisemitic. Do you know if the judges are more "left" or "right?" My hopes are not high, considering they refuse to see evidence of the actual Oct 7 massacres (shame, since Hamas really wanted that broadcasted).

Hi Nonnie,

I usually try to reply to asks at the same order I got them, but I'll make an exception, because of how relevant this is to the current proceedings at the ICJ right now.

I don't think that being Muslim makes anyone inherently biased, nor do I think being Jewish means a person is free of the antisemitism of their environment, so I generally believe it's impossible for judges to be completely disconnected from what their country's position is. I believe the ICJ recognizes this as well, and that's why, a country that is suing or sued at the ICJ without having a representation among the permanent judges, has the right to appoint one. Specifically when it comes to Lebanon, I have to admit that IDK how possible it is for the Lebanese judge to ignore the fact that his country has for decades implemented an actual apartheid, a legally imposed policy of discrimination against Palestinians who live there.

Well, for this trial, we have an Israeli judge, a SA judge, and the 15 permanent judges. Here's one analysis about the 15 that I read:

American judge: had worked as a legal advisor to the administrations of Clinton and Obama, believes the scope of international law is limited (so she's less likely to grant SA a provisional measure that's a legal precedent).

Russian judge: advises Russia on two legal matters (regarding Georgia, and Kosovo), believes the scope of international law should be wider, has voted against demanding of Russia to stop the military operation in Ukraine, and has published independently his opinion that the ICJ has no right to judge the Russia-Ukraine conflict, because Russia didn't recognize its authority on this. Has visited Israel in 2015 for an international space conference, and together with 2 other ICJ judges, has conducted a "trial" regarding space law.

Slovak judge: sees the scope of international law as narrower, in the past he indicated that he thinks the crime of committing a genocide can't be decided in this court (that it should be in a criminal one), he has also said that quotes uttered in "the heat of battle" (the kind at the basis of SA's lawsuit) are not indicative of policy intent, they're just war propaganda. Has visited Israel in 2015 for an international space conference, and together with 2 other ICJ judges, has conducted a "trial" regarding space law.

French judge: Jewish, considered critical of Israel. In the past, while arguing against Israel, he has also said that the conflict here is political by nature and that the involvement of the ICJ in it is unhelpful to dialogue between the parties.

Moroccan judge: in the past, his decisions included non-legal considerations (for example, he said he's not sure Ukraine's move against Russia fits the convention on the prevention of genocide, but he still was in favor of granting Ukraine the provisional measures it was asking for). He was also a minority vote in the matter of whether the Serbs committed a genocide against the Bosnian Muslims, where the majority determined that the conditions to define it as such were not met.

Somali judge: there are no past indications of how he might rule from an international law perspective. He's Muslim, but in the past he has joined an Iftar dinner at the home of the Israeli ambassador at the Hague, and has also once opened a Holocaust Day lecture for the ICJ.

Chinese judge: has worked for her government in the past. She has voted against the provisional measures Ukraine has asked for against Russia, saying that it seems like an attempt to use the convention in order to get the ICJ to decide in broader political matters than the convention allows for. She has also argued against provisional measures that only demand one side would stop the fighting.

Ugandan judge: has worked for her government in the past. There are no past indications of how she might rule from an international law perspective.

Indian judge: tends towards an expanded view of what is discrimination. Has visited Israel in 2015 for an international space conference, and together with 2 other ICJ judges, has conducted a "trial" regarding space law.

Jamaican judge: has worked for his government in the past. Has voted against Russia when it came to the provisional measures demanding it stops its fighting against Ukraine.

Lebanese judge: has expressed anti-Israel views in the past, and has also repeatedly shown that he takes his country's position into account in his decisions. Has argued in the past that in situations of military occupation, the burden of proof is very low, or that the burden of proof should be on the occupier.

German judge: in the past, he has published his opposition to an Israeli law professor's article, arguing that a wider view is required when it comes to the right to self defense.

Japanese judge: in the past, he has published an article that sees the right of third party countries to appear before the ICJ (as is SA in this case) as limited.

Australian judge: very active in the field of women and gender rights. In the past, she has criticized ICJ rulings that allowed the coalition forces a lot of freedom in Iraq.

Brazilian judge: in the past, he has referred to the PLO as a terrorist organization (at the time about which he was writing), but he did the same regarding the Jewish underground movement, the Hagana (which worked to protect Jews, and to smuggle them "illegally" into the Land of Israel to save them from the Nazis during WWII).

According to one legal correspondent that I listened to, SA has asked for so many provisional measures, that the ICJ is unlikely to turn them all down. This reporter believes that the ICJ will likely not grant the provisional measure calling on Israel to stop the fighting, but it will probably grant at least two other provisional measures. She had a bet which two, the provisional measure calling on more humanitarian aid to be brought into Gaza (if true, this would be so redundant. One of the points made at the ICJ proceedings, was that Israel has agreed to allow in as much humanitarian aid as could be taken in on the Gazan side, and was willing to expand its operations on the Israeli side for this to happen. In other words, what's currently limiting the amount of aid going in is the capacity to handle it on the Gazan, not Israeli, side), and to collect evidence regarding the fighting in Gaza (which Israel is already doing).

I hope this helped! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

She’ll be even loonier if she gets to go to Washington and mingle

Nothing is stopping her from doing that now.

Oh, wait. Except:

That time she bungled paid parental leave by calling senators on personal private lines.

The time she sent lemons to Jill Biden and then blabbed to everyone about how she was a close confidante to the First Lady.

The time she tried to use President Biden and Air Force One as her own personal Uber.

The time she crashed Michelle Obama's event at the London O2 arena and broke a bunch of protocol rules.

The time she gaslit the world into thinking she was besties with Michelle Obama by telling us they were having lunch and eating fish tacos, when really it was an email exchange.

The time she made public comments that the Obamas were personally advising her and Harry during Megxit and the Obamas had to put out a press release saying "no we are not."

The time she tried to access secure spaces in the United Nations headquarters without authorization and with private camera crews in tow.

The time she booked it to Uvalde with a private camera crew in tow to merch her grief as a mother while even the President knew to stay away from the community to let them grieve privately.

The time she, and her husband, used their British titles for a motivational commercial about voting.

Plus a few others like:

All the times she lied about the BRF, the family of the UK's head of state. (US government officials will prioritize the US/UK special relationship over the whines of one single woman.)

The time she was NFI to the US/UK state dinner, held at Buckingham Palace. (It was explained as maternity leave but yeah, she wasn't invited. If she was frothing at the mouth to wear a tiara in Fiji, she would've done the Trump State Visit for a tiara.)

All the times she hasn't been invited to the White House for state dinners or advocacy since 2021 since she has COVID vaccinations, motherhood, and supporting military veterans/families in common with Jill Biden.

The times the White House sent the Secretary of Transportation, the NASA Administrator, and other not-well-known government officials to represent them at 2022 and 2023 Invictus Games.

The time Nancy Pelosi's office laughed when a reporter asked them about Meghan's political prospects.

The time she aligned with the unimportant side of the Kennedy family (versus the "real" Kennedy).

And that's just the stuff that's been confirmed. We haven't even scratched the surface of the alleged gossip (like her work to lobby Newsome for Feinstein's recess appointment or her manipulations of Gloria Steinem).

So all that considered...makes one think that the establishment doesn't like Meghan and won't engage with her. Which says a lot about her standing in political Washington.

She loves the idea of Washington IG in theory, but she's gonna hate it once she's here. And that's just the dignitaries attending the ceremonies. We haven't even started to talk about the weather and what the humidity is going to do to her appearance (since the brief sounds like it's going to be a spring/early summer event).

[deadpresidents]

Kamala Harris suggested in her CNN interview that she'd appoint a Republican to her cabinet. Are there any current Republicans you'd think would be good picks?

Mitt Romney. Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. Former Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker. Former Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval (who should have been the future of the Republican Party if the GOP hadn't gone fucking batshit crazy and been taken over by a dangerous cult of personality). I could see someone like Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney being considered, which just shows you how insane American politics has gone when one of the Republicans that Democrats have the most trust and respect for at the moment has the last name of "Cheney".

I've seen some people who were borderline shocked at the idea of Kamala Harris appointing a Republican to her Cabinet, but it's not unusual at all for a President to appoint someone from the other party to their Cabinet. Until recently, it was practically a tradition for Presidents to appoint a member of the opposing party to a Cabinet post. I think Trump was the first President since Herbert Hoover to not appoint someone from the opposition party to his Cabinet. President Obama had two Republican Secretaries of Defense -- one of the most prominent Cabinet positions in the government -- including Robert Gates, who he retained from George W. Bush's Administration.

[odinsblog]

And right on schedule, Mitch McConnell has returned to block the now-deadlocked Judicial committee from selecting a replacement for the ailing Feinstein. So Democrats are now successfully blocked from appointing any of Biden’s judicial nominees to the bench. Feinstein stepping down and allowing California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, to name her replacement is one easy way to end this Republican farce, but she won’t do what’s best for her constituents. (source)

Feinstein has been missing in action for months now. Her absence is materially harming the nomination and appointment of judges—judges who could counter the radical zealots that Trump seated. If she cannot do the job any longer (and there is a lot more to be said on that front), then she needs to make room for someone else who can.

I understand that a lot of Blue MAGA sycophants do not like to read, see or hear anything even slightly negative about RBG, but the truth is that she had cancer and knew that her health was failing.

Despite two previous bouts with metastatic pancreatic cancer and public pleas from Democratic law scholars, she decided not to retire in 2013 or 2014 when Obama and a Democratic-controlled Senate could have appointed and confirmed her successor. Waiting until Hillary could replace her was a selfish and incredibly risky gambit, and in the end, she lost. Now everyone else is paying the price for her hubris.

Had to be said. Sorry.

I’m not necessarily his biggest fan, but at least Stephen Breyer understood that when a Supreme Court Justice decides to retire, and who will pick their replacement, is an important part of post-electoral politics.

Look, I’m a BIG believer in going hard and doing all the good you can, while you can. This goes doubly for people in positions of power, like politicians. Because guess what? Tomorrow is not promised to anyone.

This is another reason why I have such a problem with “pragmatism”… we won’t always win, but we must always fight for what is right. Settling for what you can get is one thing, but deliberately aiming low so as not to make waves or upset the conservative base is entirely different.

So IF you can get more good things™ done today, then you should go for it while the getting is still good. Time is a luxury and incrementalism favors the wealthy and powerful. Republican strategist Lee Atwater understood that stalling and delaying on a political outcome was just as good as winning the battle. Because stalling and delaying, with only minor cosmetic changes, maintains the status quo.

Democrats need to understand that “triangulating” and “pragmatically” waiting for a better time is precisely what Republicans want. It’s acquiescing.

I believe in what MLKjr called the fierce urgency of now, not the fierce urgency of pragmatically waiting for conservatives to decide on when would be a better time for progress.

It’s super easy to be “pragmatic” and wait just a bit longer when it’s not YOUR rights that are being denied and trampled on.

Anyway, Dianne Feinstein needs to retire. Now.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

The American appeasement of Iran has left many people mystified. They should have been paying more attention.

Twelve days before the October 7 pogrom, Jay Solomon reported on the Semafor site that Ariane Tabatabai, chief of staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defence for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, was part of an “Iran Experts Initiative” created by senior Iranian foreign ministry officials to bolster Tehran’s position on global security issues, particularly its nuclear programme. 

In other words, Tabatabai was an agent of influence for Iran, at the heart of the US government and with the highest level of security clearance.

Semafor and the Iranian opposition group Iran International had obtained a large cache of Iranian government correspondence and emails. These revealed that in 2021 Robert Malley, who was the point man on Iran under both the Obama and Biden administrations until he was removed in June 2023 following a still unexplained “mishandling of classified materials,” had infiltrated Tabatabai into the US State Department to assist him in his negotiations with Iran. 

The day Solomon’s article appeared, 31 US Senators wrote to the Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, to express their concern. They wrote: “We find it unconscionable that a senior department official would continue to hold a sensitive position despite her alleged participation in an Iranian government information operation”.  

They noted that in March 2021, shortly after Tabatabai was appointed senior adviser to the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Iranian dissidents had reported her long history of echoing the Iranian regime’s talking points.

Indeed, that month Adam Kredo reported in the Washington Free Beacon on these dissidents’ shock at Tabatabai’s appointment. They claimed she had parroted the regime’s position in multiple public appearances, and that her father was part of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s inner circle.

In April 2021, several House members requested a review of Tabatabai’s security clearance. In response, the Biden administration dismissed these claims as “smears and slander”.

Even more astonishingly, Tabatabai runs the office overseeing hostage negotiations. Three weeks after the October 7 pogrom, a reporter asked the White House spokesman, John Kirby, whether it was appropriate for Tabatabai to be in such a position given the claims made against her.  Kirby stalled. Tabatabai is still there. 

Online, several commentators (including myself) wrote about this. The mainstream media studiously ignored it.

In the past few days, they’ve ignored another vital revelation. 

[thebreakfastgenie]

Some man on twitter took the opportunity of someone literally celebrating Ruth Bader Ginsburg's 90th birthday to push the "Ginsburg should have retired and this is her/Democrats' fault" line and unfortunately I have some time on my hands so you're getting this rant from me again.

First and foremost, putting the blame on a dead woman when there is a living man who is more directly responsible for losing control of the Supreme Court is profoundly stupid and while I doubt it's consciously misogynistic it does reflect a society that holds women responsible for everything.

I don't know how many times I can say this, but we didn't lose the court in 2020, we lost it in 2018 when Anthony Kennedy retired and Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed. A 6-3 conservative majority is certainly worse, but the Dobbs decision, for example, would have been the same.

You don't get to blame Democrats or Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the fact that you dismissed the importance of the Supreme Court in 2016. Whatever you think should have been done in 2014, you knew what the reality was in 2016. There was already an open seat on the Supreme Court during that election.

If Hillary Clinton had won in 2016, Antonin Scalia would have been replaced by a liberal justice, likely Merrick Garland, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have been replaced by another liberal justice. Anthony Kennedy would either have remained in his seat or been replaced by a moderate or liberal justice. The tentative 5-4 liberal majority we had prior to 2016 would have become a tentative 6-3 majority with a solid 5 liberal votes. This Supreme Court would not have overturned Roe and would not be threatening policies like student loan forgiveness and affirmative action. That is the court we would have if 50,000 people in three states had voted for Hillary Clinton.

Instead, Donald Trump appointed three Supreme Court Justices and there is a solid 6-3 conservative majority that will continue handing down horrible decisions that are nakedly political and barely even bother with constitutional justification. At the moment we're basically waiting for a couple of them to die and hoping there is a Democratic president and senate when it happens.

I think the position that Ginsburg should have retired in 2014 is heavily influenced by hindsight, but even accepting that it was a good idea, it's not as simple as people who began believing it in 2020 make it sound. First of all, I cite 2014 because Democrats lost control of the senate that year. This argument relies on Democrats seeing that loss coming. Even if they could do that, Democrats did not have filibuster-proof majority in the senate in 2014. At the time, senate rules required such a majority for supreme court confirmations. Harry Reid had only recently changed the rules to allow all other federal judicial nominations to be confirmed with a simple majority.

It's easy to forget now, but the level of Republican obstructionism during the Obama administration was unexpected. The rule change came about because there were so many judicial vacancies. Unfortunately, not all of them were filled even after the rule change, which allowed a number of Republican appointments during the Trump administration. I didn't have a position on senate rules in 2012-14 because I was in high school, but my position now is that I support ending the filibuster.

I think it's very clear that Republicans will simply change the rules to benefit themselves anyway the second they have power, so Democrats are not gaining anything by preserving the filibuster. However, I reached this position with the benefit of having observed Mitch McConnell's actions as Majority Leader between 2015 and 2019. Democrats in 2012-14 did not have that benefit. I don't know how predictable this Republican behavior was, but it's certainly not the same as having observed something that already happened. If Mitch McConnell had not already changed the rule for Supreme Court confirmations in 2017 in order to confirm Neil Gorsuch, I would have urged Democrats to do it in order to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson. But I don't know if it's fair to expect Democrats to have done so in 2014.

It's also worth remembering that the open politicization of the Supreme Court is fairly recent. It's been obviously political at least since the 1980s, but for quite a long time both parties kept up a pretense that it wasn't. It's easy to see why Democrats might not have expected Republicans to keep a seat open for an entire year rather than even give a Democratic nominee a hearing.

I think "in hindsight, things would be better if Ruth Bader Ginsburg had retired in 2014 and Harry Reid had changed the senate rules so Democrats could confirm a replacement" is a reasonable take. But it's academic. There's no point in assigning blame. And Democrats clearly did learn from this, because Stephen Breyer retired and was replaced by Ketanji Brown Jackson.

And, once again, whatever you think should have happened in 2014, we all went into 2016 knowing exactly what did and did not happen. Few people were saying Ginsburg should have retired at that time, and even those who were would not have been justified in not voting for Hillary Clinton, or discouraging others from supporting her, or downplaying the importance of the Supreme Court.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Biden should support the UAW

On September 22, I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. That night, I'll be in person at LA's Book Soup for the launch of Justin C Key's "The World Wasn’t Ready for You." On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

The UAW are on strike against the Big Three automakers. Biden should be roaring his full-throated support for the strike. Doing so would be both just and shrewd. But instead, the White House is waffling…and if recent history is any indication, they might actually come out against the strike.

The Biden administration is a mix of appointees from the party's left Sanders/Warren wing, and the corporatist, "Third Way" wing associated with Clinton and Obama, which has been ascendant since the Reagan years. The neoliberal wing presided over NAFTA, the foreclosure crisis, charter schools and the bailout for the bankers – but not the people. They voted for the war in Iraq, supported NSA mass-surveillance, failed to use their majorities to codify abortion rights, and waved through mega-merger after mega-merger.

By contrast, the left wing of the party has consistently fought monopoly, war, spying, privatized education and elite impunity – but forever in the shadow of the triangulation wing, who hate the left far more than they hate Republicans. But with the Sanders campaign, the party's left became a force that the party could no longer ignore.

That led to the Biden administration's chimeric approach to key personnel. On the one hand, you have key positions being filled by ghouls who cheered on mass foreclosures under Obama:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/personnel-are-policy/#janice-eberly

And on the other, you have shrewd tacticians who are revolutionizing labor law enforcement in America, delivering real, material benefits for American workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

Progressives in the Biden administration have often delivered the goods, but they're all-too-often hamstrung by the corporate cheerleaders the party's right wing secured – think of Lina Khan losing her bid to block the Microsoft/Activision merger thanks to a Biden-appointed, big-money-loving judge:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

These self-immolating own-goals are especially visible when it comes to strikes. The Biden admin intervened to clobber railway workers, who were fighting some of the country's cruelest, most reckless monopolists, whose greed threatens the nation:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp

The White House didn't have the power to block the Teamsters threat of an historic strike against UPS, but it publicly sided with UPS bosses, fretting about "the economy" while the workers were trying to win a living wage and air conditioning for the roasting ovens they spend all day in.

Now, with the UAW on strike against the monopolistic auto-makers – who received repeated billions in public funds, gave their top execs massive raises, shipped jobs offshore, and used public money to lobby against transit and decarbonization – Biden is sitting on the sidelines, failing to champion the workers' cause.

Writing in his newsletter, labor reporter Hamilton Nolan makes the case that the White House should – must! – stand behind the autoworkers:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/whose-fault-is-it?

Nolan points out that workers who strike without the support of the government have historically lost their battles. When workers win labor fights, it's typically by first winning political ones, dragging the government to the table to back them. Biden's failure to support workers isn't "neutral" – it's siding with the bosses.

Today, union support is at historic highs not seen in generations. The hot labor summer wasn't a moment, it was a turning point. Backing labor isn't just the moral thing to do, it's also the right political move:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

Biden is already partway there. He rejected the Clinton/Obama position that workers would have to vote for Democrats because "we are your only choice." Maybe he did that out of personal conviction, but it's also no longer politically possible for Democrats to turn out worker votes while screwing over workers.

The faux-populism of the Republicans' Trump wing has killed that strategy. As Naomi Klein writes in her new book Doppelganger, Steve Bannon's tactical genius is to zero in on the areas where Democrats have failed key blocks and offer faux-populist promises to deliver for those voters:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

When Democrats fail to bat for workers, they don't just lose worker votes – they send voters to the Republicans. As Nolan writes, "working people know that the class war is real. They are living it. Make the Democratic Party the party that is theirs! Stop equivocating! Draw a line in the sand and stand on the right side of it and make that your message!"

The GOP and Democrats are "sorting themselves around the issue of inequality, because inequality is the issue that defines our time, and that fuels all the other issues that people perceive as a decline in the quality of their own lives." If the Democrats have a future, they need to be on the right side of that issue.

Biden should have allowed a railroad strike. He should have cheered the Teamsters. He should be on the side of the autoworkers. These aren't "isolated squabbles," they're "critical battles in the larger class war." Every union victory transfers funds from the ruling class to the working class, and erodes the power of the wealthy to corrupt our politics.

When Democrats have held legislative majorities, they've refused to use them to strengthen labor law to address inequality and the corruption it engenders. Striking workers are achieving the gains that Democrats couldn't or wouldn't take for themselves. As Nolan writes:

Democratic politicians should be sending the unions thank you notes when they undertake these hard strikes, because the unions are doing the work that the Democrats have failed to accomplish with legislation for the past half fucking century. Say thank you! Say you support the workers! They are striking because the one party that was responsible for ensuring that the rich didn’t take all the money away from the middle class has thoroughly and completely failed to do so.

Republican's can't win elections by fighting on the class war. Democrats should acknowledge that this is the defining issue of our day and lean into it.

Whose fault is a strike at the railroads, or at UPS, or in Hollywood, or at the auto companies? It is the fault of the greedy fuckers who took all the workers’ money for years and years. It is the fault of the executives and investors and corporate boards that treated the people who do the work like shit. When the workers, at great personal risk, strike to take back a measure of what is theirs, they are the right side. There is no winning the class war without accepting this premise.

Autoworkers' strikes have been rare for a half-century, but in their heyday, they Got Shit Done. Writing in The American Prospect, Harold Meyerson tells the tale of the 1945/46 GM strike:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-18-uaw-strikes-built-american-middle-class/

In that strike, the UAW made history: they didn't just demand higher wages for workers, but they also demanded that GM finance these wages with lower profits, not higher prices. This demand was so popular that Harry Truman – hardly a socialist! – stepped in and demanded that GM turn over its books so he could determine whether they could afford to pay a living wage without hiking prices.

Truman released the figures proving that higher wages didn't have to come with higher prices. GM caved. Workers got their raise. Truman touched the "third rail of American capitalism" – co-determination, the idea that workers should have a say in how their employers ran their businesses.

Co-determination is common in other countries – notably Germany – but American capitalists are violently allergic to the idea. The GM strike of 45/6 didn't lead to co-determination, but it did effectively create the American middle-class. The UAW's contract included cost-of-living allowances, wage hikes that tracked gains in national productivity, health care and a defined-benefits pension.

These provisions were quickly replicated in contracts with other automakers, and then across the entire manufacturing sector. Non-union employers were pressured to match them in order to attract talent. The UAW strike of 45/6 set in motion the entire period of postwar prosperity.

As Meyerson points out, today's press coverage of the UAW strike of 2023 is full of hand-wringing about what a work-stoppage will do to the economy. This is short-sighted indeed: when the UAW prevails against the automakers, they will rescue both the economy and the Democratic party from the neo-feudal Gilded Age the country's ultrawealthy are creating around us:

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom-bfad6f3b35a9?sk=207d6afdb89b0351b92233cc3318ab94

There's a name for a political strategy that seeks to win votes by making voters' lives better – it's called "deliverism." It's the one thing the Trump Republican's won't and can't do – they can talk about bringing back jobs or making life better for American workers, but all they can deliver is cruelty to disfavored minorities and tax-breaks for the ultra-rich:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/10/thanks-obama/#triangulation

Deliverism is how the Democrats can win the commanding majorities to deliver the major transformations America and the world need to address the climate emergency and dismantle our new oligarchy. Letting the party's right wing dominate turns the Democrats into caffeine-free Republicans.

When the Dems allowed the Child Tax Credit to lapse – because Joe Manchin insisted that poor people would spend the money on drugs – they killed a program that had done more to lift Americans out of poverty than anything else. Today, American poverty is skyrocketing:

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4206837-poverty-made-an-alarming-jump-congress-could-have-stopped-it/

Four million children have fallen back into poverty since the Dems allowed the Child Tax Credit to lapse. The rate of child poverty in America has doubled over the past year.

The triangulators on the party's right insist that they are the adults in the room, realists who don't let sentiment interfere with good politics. They're lying. You don't get working parents to vote Democrat by letting their children starve.

America's workers can defeat its oligarchs. They did it before. Biden says he's a union man. It's time for him to prove it. He should be on TV every night, pounding a podium and demanding that the Big Three give in to their workers. If he doesn't, he's handing the country to Trump.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/18/co-determination/#now-make-me-do-it

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Kelby Vera at HuffPost:

Donald Trump says he never called for Hillary Clinton to be arrested, tried and jailed, despite publicly pleading to “lock her up” multiple times over the years. During an interview on “Fox and Friends” Weekend Edition on Sunday, the former president acted like he had nothing to do with the calls to imprison Clinton ― calls that were so common during his 2016 run for the Oval Office. [...] Shifting the blame to his supporters, Trump added, “Hillary Clinton — I didn’t say, ‘Lock her up,’ but the people would all say, ‘Lock her up, lock her up.’ OK. Then we won, and I said pretty openly, I’d say, ‘Alright, come on, just relax. Let’s go. We gotta make our country great.’” The Republican’s claim was easy to debunk, however.

He repeatedly invoked “lock her up” cries during his 2016 run for president and, at the time, even said he would appoint a special prosecutor to look into accusations Clinton improperly used a private email server during her time as Barack Obama’s secretary of state. While Trump did soften his stance a bit after securing his 2016 presidential win, telling supporters they “owe” Clinton “a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country,” by 2020 he was back to his old schtick.

Dear Donald Trump, you cannot credibly claim to back away from leading "Lock Her Up" chants aimed at Hillary Clinton when there's irrefutable evidence of you doing it at multiple rallies over the years, particularly during the run-in to the 2016 elections.

From the 06.02.2024 edition of FNC's Fox and Friends Weekend:

[kevinmchalenews]

Glee Icon Lauren Potter

Not many got close to the ruthless, sharp-tongued Sue Sylvester, except Becky Jackson! Lauren Potter joins Jenna and Kevin to discuss her iconic role as Becky, including how she got the role, what it was really like working with Jane Lynch, one of her favorite days on the set involving Cory Monteith, and, of course, Becky and Artie's date at Breadstix! Plus, Lauren reveals what it was like being appointed to the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, going to the White House, and meeting Michelle Obama!

[dosesofcommonsense]

Accurate summation from #TruthHammer Telegram

From Anon: 40_head

Summarizing the past 48 hours:

1 of 2

https://x.com/thereal40_head/status/1815647586721911275?s=46

BREAKING: According to multiple sources, the following message is circulating the internet.

"A verified source has informed the Global Press team that Joe Biden is currently in hospice care and is unlikely to survive the night."

Never forget, 1 week ago an assassination attempt was made against Donald Trump. The Secret Service was complicit, the FBI was complicit, and as Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said in the Congressional investigation today, Sheila Jackson Lee was heavily involved in controlling the Secret Service. Jackson Lee suddenly died days after the failed attempt on Trump.

For months, Biden was adamant about continuing his presidency and refusing to drop out of the 2024 election. Then, staunch liberal democrat Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and several other high profile liberals proclaimed yesterday that Obama's shadow presidency and elites in the democrat party are mounting a massive coup against Joe Biden. Some in the media repeated these claims. Shortly afterwards, we hear that Biden has COVID-19 and has been isolated in his home and all future appointments are cancelled.

Then, on ordinary white paper, with no presidential, white house, or campaign letterhead or seals, an apparent resignation alleging to be from Biden, says he is resigning from the 2024 campaign, appears on Biden's social media page on X. His sole support for Kamala Harris to take over the campaign also appears in this letter on Joe Biden's Twitter (X) page. There is nothing in the letter about the current presidential administration.

What's even more shocking is, not one single Biden staffer, including his own chief of staff, was aware of Biden's intentions to drop out of the race. They collectively flood social media in shock saying they had no idea Biden was going to drop out and they only found out with this letter on Biden's social media account. What's more is, Biden's signature on the letter has been compared to his actual signature and it has publicly been called a forgery. It's a bad forgery at that. Multiple media personalities and politicians have said they don't believe the letter is real and are demanding proof of life from Joe Biden before they accept this alleged resignation from the 2024 campaign.

There is one main point noticed in the following hours. Many democrats fall in line to support Harris. However, Obama DOES NOT support a Harris campaign and publicly states THEY will decide who the candidate for the democrats will be for the upcoming election.

Then, a video surfaces showing someone that looks like Joe Biden but has several distinct differences, claiming he is stepping down from the 2024 election campaign. It is obviously pre-recorded as it does not address several key questions about the legal process to turn over a heavily funded campaign for Joe Biden to Kamala Harris that were raised immediately after the letter appeared on his X account. And Kamala is hundreds of miles away, already on her own campaign trail, when she gets an alleged phone call from what sounds like Joe Biden. It is aired at the campaign event for the audience to hear.

In that call the conversation doesn't quite match up, there appears to be friendly banter between Harris and Biden but then the truth comes out in a slip from Harris. She says she knows Joe is still there in the "recording"...then catches herself halfway through the word and says "the call". She acts all lovey dovey but they talk over each other for a moment then the "call" ends. The audience goes nuts and they believe Joe has given his blessing to Kamala.

But...another incident occurred yesterday that set all of this up. We found out yesterday morning, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) had received paperwork from Kamala Harris during the last few days changing the 2024 Biden Presidential campaign to the 2024 Harris Presidential campaign. The entire $46 million in Biden's campaign funds were taken over by Harris and her campaign.

Summarizing the past 48 hours:

2 of 2

https://x.com/thereal40_head/status/1815647586721911275?s=46

Biden's 2024 campaign account on Twitter was changed to being a Harris campaign. Elon Musk immediately suspended the account, apparently because no legal documentation was presented to show the right to change the account.

All this time, with all of this activity, there has not been one personal appearance of Joe Biden. Then, just hours after the alleged phone call to Harris' campaign event, Biden's doctor announces Joe is just fine, healthy as ever, and only self-isolating as a precaution. Meanwhile, nobody is in charge of the country. Nobody is in the oval office. And then, just an hour later, reports emerge that Biden has been placed on hospice care and is so ill that he is not expected to make it through the night.

Somebody or a lot of somebody's, are flat out lying. Joe Biden is either dead or close to it according to numerous staff rumors. Harris takes over the campaign but it's not legal because donations were being made to Biden, not to Harris. If Biden drops out the funds are either supposed to be returned to the donors or taken into a Democrat party fund. They are not allowed to just immediately go to Harris. And, there appears to be an internal power struggle between Harris' group and the Obama shadow presidency. No matter how you look at it...

...there is currently a coup in place to take over the office of the president of the United States by elites in the democrat party. I doubt we'll see the actual Joe Biden again. What's more is, there's been no talk of any emergency sessions of the House or the Senate to decide on the 25th amendment proceedings, no talk of swearing in Kamala and again...nobody is in charge at this very moment.

There's multiple other issues going on. All air space over Delaware was temporarily closed. Communications from Deleware have been restricted and certain cell phone communications in the area were temporarily cut off. And then there's the surfacing of a 2022 presidential executive order apparently signed by Biden that is now circulating that shows Joe Biden delegated numerous aspects and authorities invested solely in the President, to members of his cabinet and chief of staff which would effectively prevent anybody from taking over if something actually happened to Biden. Top it all off with the fact that Hillary Clinton is being seen as the most likely candidate that the Obamas will appoint to take over the democrat bid for president.

Kamala is illegally using democrat party funding to campaign with right now and has illegally taken control of the FEC filing for the Biden campaign. No democrat party meeting and decision has been made by the party to grant Harris the right to use the money donated to Biden, nor have they given Harris permission to take over the resources that were set aside for the Biden campaign.

It's a huge mess folks. The democrat party is imploding. At least one very real coup is in taking place as I write this post. And Americans are not being told the truth by anybody at this point. It's only been by leaked information and by people just like you and me, searching the FEC database and looking at the act being played out by Kamala's team and Obama's team. And the whole time, Joe Biden is completely absent with word that he is not expected to live through the night which also means he will not be able to inform the American people about what's true and what's not, who will be running in 2024 and more importantly, who is actually in control of the country right now.

Is that really what you approve of? Is that what you really voted for? Are you ok with your party plotting coups against its own? Are you ok with democrats hiding the president of the united states from public view and presenting pre-recorded and even faked AI videos and pre-recorded faked phone calls?

When is enough going to be enough?