The Progressive Populist Today Blog: 2024-04-07

Saturday, April 13, 2024

The Ongoing Gaetz Investigation

Several Republican congressmen have left the US House.Then there's Matt Gaetz who is still under investigation for sexual misconduct and may be removed. In short, House Republicans - through self inflicted wounds - may very soon lose their majority and at least be at parity with Democrats.

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Kennedy in the Punchbowl

Robert F Kennedy Jr and his independent longshot 2024 campaign bid for the presidency has the potential for being a spoiler. However, no one is quite sure if he'll spoil the election for Biden or Trump. Ironically, Republicans have been largely responsible for bankrolling RFK Jr's campaign.

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Friday, April 12, 2024

Editorial: Throttle Bibi to Beat Trump

Joe Biden has seven months to beat Donald Trump, the known adulterer and compulsive liar who has been found liable for sexual assault and fraud and is accused of at least 88 felonies, including the misuse of business assets to cover up adulterous affairs before the 2016 election.

Most of these character flaws — and more — were known before Trump’s election in 2016, but they were not enough to stop the grifter and “reality” TV celebrity from winning the election through the Electoral College, as enough disgruntled progressives in swing states either sat out the election or voted for Green candidate Jill Stein to deny Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton the election, with a vacant Supreme Court seat to be filled.

Trump filled that vacant Supreme Court seat with right-winger Neil Gorsuch in 2017. Then he named Brett Kavanaugh to replace moderate conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018. And conservative Amy Coney Barrett replaced liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Sept. 18, 2020. The Republican-led Senate rushed Barrett’s confirmation, giving the Big Lie Party a 6-3 majority to overturn progressive achievements from the 20th century.

John Nichols, associate editor of the Madison, Wis., Capital Times, noted in The Nation April 4 that Trump has very real problems in the battleground state of Wisconsin, which he won in 2016 by roughly 22,000 votes, in what may have been a high-water mark for MAGA Republicans. Democrats won the governorship and every other statewide office in 2018, then Biden beat Trump in Wisconsin by almost 21,000 votes, which Trump never conceded, fighting the results in court and demanding a recount, and losing both ways, but he continues to insist he was robbed.

In the April 2 Wisconsin primary, Biden faced an organized challenge from activists who object to his policies regarding support of Israel in Gaza. The effort to get voters to cast ballots for an “uninstructed delegation” option, in order to send a message to Biden, was backed by a number of Democratic state legislators and local officials, as well as groups such as Our Revolution, Progressive Democrats of America, Democratic Socialists of America, Voces de la Frontera Action, and Jewish Voice for Peace Action.

On the Republican side, all of Trump’s challengers had suspended their campaigns. Hence the victory lap, with a Trump rally in Green Bay April 2 before the polls were closed.

Turnout for the primary was roughly equivalent, with both sides drawing close to 600,000 voters. By any reasonable measure, Trump should have gotten the higher popular vote and the higher percentage of the total, Nichols noted. But that didn’t happen.

Biden won 511,845 votes, with almost all the ballots counted, to 476,355 votes for Trump. Though their names appeared on different ballot lines for their respective primaries, that’s still a margin of more than 35,000-votes—far better than Trump’s in 2016, or Biden’s in 2020, Nichols noted.

Biden also is doing better in polls of seven key battleground states, Nichols noted. A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll March 26 showed Biden leading by 1 point in Wisconsin and tied in Michigan and Pennsylvania in head-to-head matches, but Trump leads by 2 in Nevada, 5 in Arizona, 6 in North Carolina and 7 in Georgia.

When Robert Kennedy Jr., Cornell West and Jill Stein are included in the poll, the results are complicated, showing Trump leading by 2 points in Wisconsin, and 4 points in Pennsylvania but still tied in Michigan. Trump leads by 6 in Arizona, 7 in Georgia, 6 in Nevada and 5 in North Carolina. But the Big Liar still faces at least 88 felony charges in four jurisdictions, including New York on April 15.

To overtake Trump, Biden should distance himself from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, who has abused Biden’s trust in pursuing revenge against Hamas terrorists in Gaza, regardless of the casualties among civilian residents of Gaza.

Biden was right to pledge support for Israel after Hamas and other Palestinian militant commandos broke the ceasefire between Israel and Gaza Oct. 7, 2023, by crossing a largely unguarded border to kill more than 1,000 people in Israel, most of them civilians, including participants in a music festival. The Gazans took approximately 250 hostages, including women, children and elderly people, with the stated goal to force Israel to exchange them for imprisoned Palestinians.

Biden assured Israelis that the US would continue to support Israel’s right to defend itself against a movement that aspires to wipe the Jewish state off the map “from the river to the sea,” but Biden warned Netanyahu not to give in to the demand for revenge.

Biden cautioned Israel against getting bogged down in Gaza, as the US did in Iraq and Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

“Justice must be done,” Biden said Oct. 18 in Tel Aviv. “But I caution this: While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it … After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”

Biden’s pleas fell on deaf ears. Netanyahu ordered bombing of population centers, with the stated intention of hitting Hamas personnel who were embedded with the civilian population. He also shut off electricity, water, fuel and food distribution in Gaza.

Over the past six months, the war has cost the lives of more than 33,000 Palestinians, including more than 13,000 children and 8,400 women, Al Jazeera reported. More than 75,000 have been injured, and more than 8,000 are reported missing. The casualties include more than 300 aid workers, including seven World Central Kitchen workers killed by Israeli missile strikes April 1.

In the US, Muslim and Arab populations have turned sharply against Biden. Despite being a part of Biden’s 2020 winning coalition, particularly in Michigan, they have been vial to the success of the ‘uncommitted campaign’ during the 2024 presidential primaries, which has sent strong signals that Biden has a realistic chance of losing the election in several battleground states in November 2024 if his administration does not shift its unwavering support for Israel.

Ironically, if Arabs sit out the election, it could put Trump back in the White House, who has been an ally of Netanyahu and has urged Israel to finish off the war to avoid bad “optics.” Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, praised the potential value of waterfront property in Gaza if Israel could move the Gazans into the Negev desert.

Biden already has gotten Israeli officials to approve the reopening of the Erez crossing between Israel and northern Gaza to allow more aid to reach starving Palestinians. He reportedly threatened to condition the transfer of weapons to Israel on limiting civilian casualties. He should demand that Israel restore water, electricity, food and fuel supplies in Gaza. Israel must negotiate a ceasefire that returns hostages. And Israel must replace Netanyahu, who has shown he can’t be trusted as an ally. — JMC