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Joe Biden

Why The Ukraine Conflict Will Unravel NATO And Biden

July 21, 2023 Radhika Desai, Orinoco Tribune. , , , , ,
The proxy war on Russia is the centre piece of Biden’s foreign policy of uniting the world’s ‘democracies’ against ‘autocracies’, particularly China and Russia. He boasts repeatedly of uniting US allies, most in NATO, as never before. Though the real unity is spotty at best, until recently, the rhetoric seemed to work. No longer. At its recent Vilnius Summit, NATO’s disunity bubbled over, though not for the reasons most discussed in the press. The real reasons are rooted in developments that threaten to unravel not only Biden’s strategy, but also NATO. Discordant strains were amply discussed in the run up to the summit.

Assange Is ‘Dangerously Close’ To Extradition For Revealing Crimes

July 18, 2023 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. , , , , , ,
For nearly five years, publisher and journalist Julian Assange has fought extradition to the United States where he faces 175 years in prison for revealing evidence of U.S. war crimes. Instead of protecting freedom of the press, to which he pledged allegiance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April, Joe Biden is continuing Donald Trump’s prosecution of Assange under the infamous Espionage Act. James Ball is one of at least four journalists that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI are pressuring to cooperate with the prosecution of Assange, Ball wrote in Rolling Stone.

Ukraine Is Dying For NATO; NATO Will Never Die For Ukraine

July 17, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , , ,
NATO leaders met in Vilnius, Lithuania on July 11 and 12. The major topic of the summit was what to do about Ukraine. Clearing the FOG spoke with Scott Ritter, a former Marine intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector, who wrote recently that the NATO meeting was "a theater of the absurd." Ritter explains why Ukraine is not being admitted to NATO and why NATO will require Ukraine to fight to the end. He provides a history of NATO to place current events in context and important insights into the recent failed mutiny by Wagner leader Yevgeny Prighozin. Ritter states that the best the West can do at this point is to "normalize defeat" in Ukraine and what this means for President Biden.

Why I Crashed The White House Garden Party For Narendra Modi

July 17, 2023 Basav Sen, Foreign Policy in Focus. , , ,
On June 22, the White House held a “welcoming ceremony” for visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the South Lawn of the White House, where members of the public could register to attend.  I signed up, along with my friends Keya and Apoorva. Our goal was not to welcome Modi, but rather to be a visible presence as dissenting voices. We wore t-shirts with the hand-painted message “Modi=Fascist” under our outer garments and smuggled in printed signs denouncing the Modi government’s human rights violations and persecution of religious minorities. An overwhelming majority of the crowd of more than 1,000 were Indian American, and judging by their chants and their visible symbols, many were Modi supporters.

Biden Order Activates 3,000 Reservists For Europe Deployments

July 16, 2023 Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com. , , ,
President Biden on Thursday signed an executive order allowing the Pentagon to mobilize 3,000 reservists for deployments in Europe, where the US military has significantly increased its presence since Russia invaded Ukraine. Since February 2022, the US has deployed over 20,000 additional troops to Europe, bringing US troop levels on the continent to over 100,000 for the first time since 2005. The US has beefed up its presence in Eastern Europe and currently has over 10,000 troops in Poland, which has become a hub for weapons bound for Ukraine. The mobilization of 3,000 reservists signals the US military is strained by maintaining a large troops presence in Europe.

Fear And Loathing On Air Force One

July 15, 2023 Seymour Hersh, Scheer Post. , , , , ,
Joe Biden got what he needed before the NATO summit this week by somehow turning Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inside out and getting him to rebuff Vladimir Putin by announcing that he would support NATO membership for Sweden. The public story for Biden’s face-saving coup was talk about agreeing to sell American F-16 fighter bombers to Turkey. I have been told a different, secret story about Erdogan’s turnabout: Biden promised that a much-needed $11-13 billion line of credit would be extended to Turkey by the International Monetary Fund. “Biden had to have a victory and Turkey is in acute financial stress,” an official with direct knowledge of the transaction told me.

Veterans’ Group Responds To Biden’s ‘Cluster Bombs For Ukraine’

July 8, 2023 Veterans For Peace, Globe Newswire. , , , ,
Veterans For Peace and other U.S. anti-war organizations denounce the Biden administration's decision to send cluster bomb munitions to Ukraine and they will hold a rally on July 22 at 11 am at the Scranton (PA) Army Ammunition Plant to oppose sending cluster bombs, and all weapons, into the Ukraine War, and call for an immediate ceasefire. The Scranton plant produces 11,000 artillery shells a month  but cannot keep up with the demand for killing.  That the U.S. would even consider sending cluster bombs, a weapon designed to wound as many people as possible, into the Ukraine War to make up for the lack of artillery shells, is horrifying and also revealing.

Biden Nominates Elliott Abrams To Public Diplomacy Commission

July 5, 2023 Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com. , , ,
President Biden announced Monday that he will nominate Elliott Abrams to the bipartisan United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, CNN has reported. Abrams is a neoconservative hawk who led the Trump administration’s failed Venezuela regime change effort, which involved crushing economic sanctions that are still in effect today, besides Biden giving Chevron a limited license to pump oil in the country. Toward the end of Trump’s presidency, Abrams was also assigned as the US’s top Iran envoy, where he oversaw a sanctions policy designed to prevent President Biden from re-entering the Iran nuclear deal.

Biden’s Three Am Moment In Ukraine

July 4, 2023 Scott Ritter, Consortium News. , , , ,
During the 2008 Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton ran an ad which sought to diminish her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama, in the eyes of the voters. Building upon Obama’s lack of experience in national security affairs, and what the potential cost would be should Obama falter at a critical moment, Clinton’s ad sought to make the question personal, setting a scene that could be any home in suburban America at night. “It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep, but there’s a phone in the White House and it’s ringing. Somethings happening in the world.”

Biden Administration Breathes New Life Into Trump’s Abraham Accords

July 1, 2023 Miko Peled, MintPress News. , , , ,
H.R. 3099 was Introduced in the House of Representatives on May 5, 2023. This bill, known as the “Special Envoy for the Abraham Accords Act,” is the latest act by the United States in the service of Israel. This bill establishes the position of Special Envoy for the Abraham Accords within the Department of State. For anyone who does not remember, the Abraham Accords are agreements to normalize relations between Israel and Arab states that do not recognize Israel. It is an anti-Palestinian accord more than anything. It should be named “a bill to guarantee that governments who go against the wishes of their people and are willing to turn their backs to the plight of the Palestinian people will be rewarded.”

US Supreme Court Strikes Down Student Debt Relief

July 1, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , ,
On June 30, the US Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s student debt relief program, which had been held up in the courts for several months due to right-wing legal challenges. The six ultra-conservative justices which make up the majority of the court ruled against the program, while the three centrist justices voted to uphold it. The Court ruled that Biden had overstepped his authority when he announced a sweeping student debt relief program on August 24, 2022. The program would have zeroed out the debts of 20 million people. Biden issued an executive action in August to forgive the debts of student loan borrowers by up to USD 20,000.

Breaking Bread With Authoritarians

June 27, 2023 Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News. , , ,
“For the first time in recent history, the White House is hosting a state dinner that’s entirely plant-based: no meat, no dairy and no eggs,” the reliably supercilious NPR reported as it curtain-raised the Biden White House’s state dinner for Narendra Modi last Thursday. The Indian prime minister, our corporate-sponsored national radio broadcaster explained, is a strict vegetarian. The headline on this shattering piece of reportage was, “For Modi’s state dinner, the White House is elevating the mushroom.” This is big, to state the obvious. “While there are no specifically Indian dishes on the menu, many Indian spices and flavors are incorporated into the courses,” NPR’s Deepa Shivaram wasted our time informing us.

500 March On White House To Demand Biden End The Blockade Of Cuba

June 26, 2023 Bill Hackwell, Resumen English. , , ,
Culminating a week of activism in Washington DC in support of the Cuban people, 500 people gathered here today in the plaza that holds the statue of the Argentinian liberator General José de San Martín, that ironically is located next to the US State Department where offices work overtime to come up with ways and methods to punish Cuba for insisting on its sovereignty.  The majority of the protestors came from the cities on the East Coast including New York, Boston Philadelphia, Baltimore, Virginia, South Carolina and a delegation from Puentes de Amor from Florida. Prior to the march a large art mosaic made up of 100 panels was assembled and meticulously held up by activists conjuring a temporary image that referenced Cuba be taken of the List of State Sponsors of Terrorism.

The Unfolding Medicaid Disaster

June 26, 2023 Andrew Perez and Nick Byron Campbell, The Lever. , , , ,
As states have begun clearing out their Medicaid rolls for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly three quarters of the Americans who’ve lost coverage have been terminated not because they’re ineligible for the low-income health insurance program, but due to administrative reasons, such as failing to quickly respond to a piece of mail. In February, President Joe Biden bragged in his State of the Union speech that “more Americans have health insurance now than ever in history.” Biden made that comment six weeks after he set the stage to massively increase the United States’ uninsured population, when he signed legislation from Congress ending the pandemic-era requirement that states maintain Medicaid beneficiaries’ coverage in exchange for extra federal funding.

IRS Whistleblowers Allege Misconduct Of Biden Investigation In Testimony

June 24, 2023 Diego Ramos, Scheer Post. , , , ,
After pleading guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges this week, Hunter Biden faces new scrutiny after two IRS whistleblowers allege extensive misconduct in the handling of his tax investigation. Biden failed to pay tax on more than $3 million in income. His plea helps him “avoid full prosecution on a separate gun possession charge,” according to a CBS report. Gary Shapley, one of two IRS whistleblowers—the second remains anonymous—testified to the House Ways and Means Committee that the IRS substantiated the need for stricter penalties and Biden was given a sweetheart deal. “I am alleging, with evidence, that DOJ provided preferential treatment, slow-walked the investigation, did nothing to avoid obvious conflicts of interest in this investigation,” Shapley testified.
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