Biden’s support of Gaza genocide big factor in Trump’s reelection

Biden’s support of Gaza genocide big factor in Trump’s reelection

During the campaign those of us in the peace community horrified by President Biden’s support of Israeli genocide in Gaza, said it would contribute to Trump’s reelection. Polling showed over half of Democratic voters joined us in that revulsion.

We pleaded with Biden and his genocide supporting Democrats, including Harris, to cease funding the genocide which could not continue without America’s $22 billion in bombs that have obliterated Gaza's 139 square miles. We were not just committed to ending the genocide. We warned it could defeat Kamala Harris’ bid to replace Biden and keep autocratic traitor Trump from returning to power.

We were right.

Post election polling by the Institute for Middle East Understanding and YouGov reveals that of the millions of Biden’s 2020 voters who voted for third party or didn’t vote, 29% the number 1 reason, cited his support of genocide. 24% cited the economy and only 11% named immigration. Harris got a staggering 6.3 million less votes that Biden in 2020, with genocide cited as the primary factor.

Genocide was widely cited by voters abandoning Harris in in 5 crucial states Biden won that Harris lost: 38% in Arizona, 32% in MI and WI, 19% in Pa and 6% in GA. Had Harris kept those 5 states she’d be inaugurated Monday instead of the wannabe authoritarian oligarch.

Harris made a mistake not breaking with Biden on genocide. By a more than three-to-one margin, Biden 2020 voters who did not vote for Harris, say they would more likely have voted for Harris had if she “pledged to break from President Biden's policy toward Gaza by promising to withhold additional weapons to Israel.” Doesn’t surprise me as I and many of my peace community colleagues were so inclined. We could not vote for genocide enabler Harris under any circumstances, but would in a heartbeat had she pivoted to peace.

There was precedent for Harris doing so. In 1968 Democratic nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, was losing badly to Richard Nixon due to massive defections from anti-Vietnam War Democrats. Humphrey, like Harris was a good soldier VP supporting his boss’s self-destructive war policies. A month before the election Humphrey timidly pivoted to peace in a prime time address. It closed the double digit gap but was too little too late. Had he broken from LBJ from the get go…no Nixon and likely no 7 year prolonged bloodbath under Nixon.

Harris should have broken with Biden on genocide the day she was selected to replace the unfit incumbent. Only 4 years old when Humphrey belated tried, Harris didn’t learn from history of how to foolishly lose a presidential election.

In the billions of pixels and newsprint lamenting the return of Trump Monday, virtually nothing is offered about the genocide issue promoting Harris’ loss. The entire Democratic establishment and their sycophantic media has scrubbed ‘genocide’ from any mention whatsoever, before, during and after the heartbreaking loss.

That is horrible for the 2,300,000 Palestinians (less the hundred thousand dead) being genocided by Biden and Harris’s 2,000 lb. bombs. But it’s calamitous for future Democratic electoral success for failing to learn from history and governing from basic humanitarian decency.

Joe Biden’s foreign policy worst in my lifetime

 

 Joe Biden’s foreign policy worst in my lifetime

In my 80 years I’ve lived under 15 presidents. Followed the governance of everyone but the first, FDR, due to being 33 days old when he died.

Living my entire life in the nuclear age, foreign policy has always been my focus as nuclear war, the worst possible outcome of reckless policy, can easily occur. The second most horrible consequence of such policy is nation destroying instead of nation building.

On both counts Joe Biden gets my nod as worst foreign policy president I’ve followed.

The irony is he began by pivoting to peace in Afghanistan after 20 years, 3,800 dead Americans and $2 trillion in squandered US treasure. After 2 decades Afghanistan is much worse off than 20 years ago, but at least the Taliban kicked out the American invaders. The US War Party blasted Biden over the blasphemy of losing a war, but he did the right thing.

Alas, that was Biden’s last foray promoting peace. He’s spent the last 41 months of his tarnished presidency destroying hundreds of thousands of innocents combined in war zones Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Haiti to name six.

His signature descent into foreign policy madness was provoking a proxy war between his Ukrainian proxies with hated Russia to weaken his and America’s imagined enemy. That war, now in its 35th month, has largely destroyed Ukraine as a viable country. Over half a million dead, over 15 million fled, shattered economy, authoritarian rule by a democracy destroying thug, with no chance of prevailing is a dastardly Biden legacy. Worse, every day of this endless war puts Russia and America on the cusp of nuclear war.

As horrible as Biden’s Ukraine policy is, it pales in grotesqueness to his enabling of Israel’s ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. The genocide is an Israeli project wholly supported by Biden with UN Security Council vetoes, public support and $22 billion in genocide weapons. Israel admits they could not do it without Biden’s help while the rest of the world recoils in horror.

The most recent Biden descent into regime change involved buddying up with Islamic jihadist group HTS to overthrow the secular government of Syria. To do so Biden pretended that HTS and leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, who cheered on the 911 attacks, are now good guys doing America’s noble regime change work. Once again Christians and Alawites are being kidnapped, murdered, driven from their homes by Biden’s bloodthirsty new pals.

Sixty two years ago, President Kennedy’s reckless foreign policy in Cuba provoked a nuclear confrontation with Russia that nearly got us all incinerated. At 17, I lost all illusions that America was a sane, righteous nation in foreign affairs. But at least Kennedy learned the lesson that sensible diplomacy, not zero sum game brinkmanship, was the only path to saving peoplekind. He opened up a hotline to Moscow to prevent a recurrence. He bonded with Khrushchev who shared similar angst from Moscow’s version of the War Party. Had he lived the Cold War might have ended in 1963 instead of never.

Unlike JFK, Biden dumped diplomacy from America’s foreign policy toolkit. He even bragged about refusing to engage Russia’s Putin on matters that could lead to nuclear war. That is madness. His US propaganda machine, both governmental and sycophantic media, demonize anyone who dares suggest we talk to Putin. Biden phantacizes that Putin is recreating the Soviet empire.

He continues to squander tens of billions to fuel the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. The pending ceasefire, if approved, will do nothing to end Israel’s colonial Apartheid destruction of the 2,300,000 Palestinians trapped in Israel’s open air prison Gaza made uninhabitable by Biden’s 50,000 tons of bombs. Biden refused to acknowledge that one visit by a Trump envoy to Israel closed the tepid ceasefire deal Biden couldn’t achieve since proposed last spring.

Biden may leave office Monday with his head high, but tragically for Ukraine, Gaza, Syria and others, he will remain in denial and delusion of this destruction of millions in countries worldwide.

 

Illinois poised to become America’s leader in fully decriminalizing sex work

Illinois poised to become America’s leader in fully decriminalizing sex work

As a progressive libertarian, I’ve long pondered our archaic criminalization of sex work. It’s progressive for government to stay out of folks’ private lives unless alleviating an urgent societal problem.

That is why it’s encouraging Illinois will be the first state to introduce legislation fully decriminalizing sex work.

Sponsored by Representative Will Guzzardi and Senator Celina Villanueva, the legislation provides extensive relief to beleaguered, endangered sex workers kept in fear and danger by wrongheaded societal mores and laws.

If passed, it would remove criminal penalties for adults engaging in consensual sex work, remove arrest and conviction records for sex workers, encourage sex workers to report abuse without threat of arrest and establish a sex workers’ bill of rights.

The legislation would not end prosecution for sex trafficking

Fully decriminalizing sex work in Illinois will reinforce Illinois’ status as a progressive state committed to the betterment of all its 13,000,000 residents, including the disparaged and marginalized.

What if….

 What if….

CNN, MSNBC, Fox, CBS, NBC ABC gave 24/7 coverage to the genocidal desolation America has enabled in Gaza, as they have to the fiery, nature enabled desolation in Los Angeles?

Might just force the Biden Administration, and soon the Trump administration, to end participation in Israeli genocide there.