CARTOON: Congress Bending The Weak Knee To Bibi
The crazed, immoral, war criminal boss addresses his timid, limp employees.
See if your member of congress is one of the 37 who will not attend Netanyahu event here. If they are not, call their office and let them know what you think of them cheering genocide.
Cartoon by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
Netanyahu’s Orchestration Of Congress Is A Desperate Ploy To Rally Support For Brutal Genocide
Congressional leadership’s invitation is an act of political violence.
By Souzan Naser
truthout (7/23/24)
Congressional leadership’s invitation for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress on July 24 was an act of political violence.
Since October of last year, the war criminal Netanyahu has ordered the mass murder of at least 39,000 Palestinian people in Gaza, including more than 15,000 children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. In addition, over 21,000 children are thought to be missing. [Actual death count at least 186,000.]
Rather than holding Netanyahu accountable, top U.S. lawmakers like House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) have given him carte blanche to justify the genocide. It comes as no surprise that their invitation has ushered in a wave of condemnation.
Millions across the world have been out in the streets for months protesting the genocide, the largest mobilization for Palestinian rights in history. Karim Khan, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, is pursuing a warrant to arrest Netanyahu for war crimes. Criticism over the visit is bipartisan, with 230 anonymous congressional House and Senate staffers signing on to a letter speaking out against it. And a small but growing number of lawmakers, including Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), plan to skip the speech. While well-meaning, these politicians have a responsibility to do more than just boycott. They should push harder by demanding an end to the genocide and organizing some kind of protest from the floor, even in the face of Speaker Johnson’s threat to arrest anyone who disrupts Netanyahu.
Beyond boycotting or protesting Netanyahu’s speech, if members of Congress want to truly get serious about stopping the genocide and ending the racist Israeli state’s illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian land, they must withdraw their votes of financial, military and diplomatic support, and urge their colleagues to do the same. Anything less will be disastrously ineffective.
Meanwhile, a boycott of Netanyahu’s speech by Rep. Jim Clyburn, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) seems rather performative considering they voted in favor of sending aid to Israel.
But the liberation of Palestine won’t come from the halls of the U.S. Congress, or the growing Israeli protests in Tel Aviv. Instead, Palestinian liberation will be won by Palestinians themselves, who are resisting illegal military occupation, defending their people and land, and fighting for self-determination.
The other piece that will lead to victory is the power of the people: the collective voices of organizers, activists, trade unionists, students, artists, workers and scholars in the U.S. and around the world, who are fervently rejecting not only Netanyahu’s visit, but also Israel’s bombing, murdering, stealing, jailing, unhousing and demolishing — over 75 years of war crimes all intended to rob Palestinians of freedom, justice and a life of dignity. …
Ten Reasons Netanyahu Should Not Be Permitted To Address Congress
Members of Congress should boycott Netanyahu’s address, and the public should join the protests organized of his visit.
Demonstrators protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo: CODEPINK)
By Medea Benjamin
Common Dreams (7/23/24)
On Wednesday, July 24, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to deliver his record-setting fourth address to a Joint Session of Congress. Here are 10 compelling reasons why he should not have been invited and why members of Congress should boycott his visit:
Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza: Under Netanyahu’s leadership, the Israeli government has killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, predominantly women and children; has forcibly displaced 90% of the population; and has used starvation as a weapon, plunging Gaza into a famine that will likely result in thousands more dead.
International Criminal Court (ICC) Arrest Warrant: The chief prosecutor of the ICC is seeking an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
International Court of Justice Ruling on Occupied Territories: The International Court of Justice has just issued an unprecedented, sweeping condemnation of Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a ruling that Netanyahu has denounced as he continues to green light new settlement construction and empower violent settlers.
Child Rights Abuses:The United Nations secretary-general has listed Netanyahu’s government as a violator of children’s rights, citing horrific instances of abuse and mistreatment of Palestinian children. Netanyahu responded by attacking the United Nations, saying, “The U.N. put itself on the black list of history today.”
Corruption Charges: Netanyahu is currently under criminal prosecution in Israel for bribery, fraud, and conflict of interest. That’s why U.S. President Joe Biden said it was “reasonable” to conclude that Netanyahu was prolonging the war in Gaza for his political benefit.
Judicial Independence: Netanyahu has been attempting to undermine the impartiality and independence of the Israeli judiciary. Before October 7, there were massive protests against his efforts to weaken judicial oversight.
Intelligence Failure: Netanyahu is responsible for the monumental intelligence failure on October 7, 2023, which led to the devastating Hamas terrorist attack. It is considered the worst Israeli intelligence failure since the surprise attack that led to the Arab-Israeli war of 1973.
Torture and Abuse: Netanyahu’s government has been implicated in the torture and abuse of thousands of Palestinian detainees. Over 9,000 Palestinians from the West Bank have been detained since October 7, while thousands more have been “forcibly disappeared” from Gaza. Netanyahu’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has advocated denying prisoners sufficient food and water and called for the government to deal with overcrowding by shooting prisoners in the head.
Opposition to a Cease-Fire: While President Biden put forward a cease-fire plan that supposedly came from Israel, Netanyahu immediately dismissed the plan, saying, “We’re committed to continuing the war after the truce,” and that the idea that Israel would agree to a permanent cease-fire before Hamas was destroyed was a “non-starter.” Netanyahu’s government lacks a plan to end the conflict with Hamas other than the extermination of Palestinians.
No Interest in a Long-Term Solution: On July 17, the Israeli Knesset voted overwhelmingly by 68 to 9 to reject any creation of a Palestinian state, a policy that has been the stated goal of the U.S. government. Netanyahu’s cabinet includes officials such as Security Minister Ben-Gvir and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi who have called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.
For these reasons, members of Congress should boycott Netanyahu’s address and the public should join the protests being organized during his visit.
Scott Ritter: Hezbollah CRUSHES & Embarrasses Israel In Defeat Of IDF!
Dialogue Works (7/22/24)
23-minute video
BYE-BIDEN: Three Things Missing From The Shameless Big Biden Butt Kiss Farewell
“In matters of public policy and governmental decision making, lobbying demonstrates how little the actions of the electorate matter. The proliferation of Washington lobbyists, who now number in the thousands, is indicative of a radical change in the meaning of who and what are being represented, and indicative also of the final defeat of majority rule.”
― Sheldon S. Wolin
By Paul Street
CounterPunch (7/23/24)
I get it: in order to induce the declining, cognitively crippled Joe Biden to admit that he’s a catastrophic loser bringing down his party and greatly increasing the likelihood of full Republi-fascist takeover in 2025, Democrats have had to kiss the president’s ass. The only way to get Bernie Sanders’ “good friend” “Genocide Joe” Biden to give up his delegates and allow them to go to someone with (perhaps) a better shot at beating Adolph Trump (the man Trump’s 2024 vice presidential running mate JD Vance called “America’s Hitler” in 2016) was to praise the incumbent as “a man of great integrity with a long and noble record of service to America and humanity including his heroic defeat of Trump in the 2020 election.”
Big Biden butt smooch
There are three key things missing from this big Biden butt smooch.
First, Biden’s career has not been remotely exemplary, honorable, and virtuous. It been a moral and humanitarian disgrace. Please read this 2019 CounterPunch exposé I wrote on then presidential candidate Biden’s long record of lying, cheating, and dutifully serving finance capital while pretending to be “Blue Collar Joe” and advancing the bloody US empire: “No Joe: On Character, Quality, and Authenticity,” CounterPunch, September 6, 2019.
Consistent with my warning, the Biden presidency has been a Weimar-like capitalist-imperialist nightmare. The Biden administration has:
+ intensified the climate catastrophe.
+ preserved the savage economic insecurity of masses of ordinary Americans living from paycheck to paycheck.
+ swung far to the nativist right on immigration.
+ made no serious effort to stem a horrible eviction crisis.
+ made no serious effort to stop the continuing plague of racist police killings.
+ cost tens of thousands of lives in Ukraine and Palestine.
+ pushed the world closer to nuclear war than it has been in decades.
+ backed horrific genocidal ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
+ appeased a women-hating Christian Fascist Supreme Court on abortion rights and more.
+ failed to prosecute Donald “Take Down the Metal Detectors” Trump in a timely way for trying to overthrow previously normative American bourgeois electoral and rule of law democracy.
+ failed to seriously address the nation on the homegrown white supremacist, sexist, nativist, and fascist menace that stalks and the land.
+ let Amerikaner Trumpism-fascism run rampant without calling it out or making any serious effort to seriously wield government power and mobilize masses against it.
Like his Democratic president predecessors Barack Obama and Bill Clinton but without any of their telegenic eloquence and charisma, President Biden is a monument to the late Princeton political scientist Sheldon Wolin’s memorable description of the Democrats as “the inauthentic opposition…Should Democrats somehow be elected,” Wolin prophesied in his book Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism (Princeton, 2007), they would do nothing to “alter significantly the direction of society” or “substantially revers[e] the drift rightwards. … The timidity of a Democratic Party mesmerized by centrist precepts,” Wolin wrote, “points to the crucial fact that for the poor, minorities, the working class and anti-corporatists there is no opposition party working on their behalf.” The dismal, dollar-drenched Dems would work to “marginalize any possible threat to the corporate allies of the Republicans.”
“Managed democracy is centered on containing electoral politics; it is cool, even hostile toward social democracy beyond promoting literacy, job training, and other essentials for a society struggling to survive in the global economy. Managed democracy is democracy systematized. The United States has become the showcase of how democracy can be managed without appearing to be suppressed.”
― Sheldon S. Wolin
That was an apt characterization of the Clinton, Obama, and Biden presidencies. And since Wolin wrote those words, the Republican Party that Biden and his party have failed to authentically oppose has gone full-on MAGA – something Biden once haltingly described to wealthy donors as “like semi-fascism.” He could have dropped the “like” and the “semi-.” (Trump and the party of Trump check off one fascist box after another, as I have been arguing for years. For starters, see the first three chapters of my latest book).
It wasn’t Biden who defeated Trump in 2020
A second problem with the big Biden butt kiss is that Biden did not heroically defeat Trump in 2020. He didn’t really defeat Trump at all. Covid-19, the racist Minneapolis cop who murdered George Floyd, and Trump himself defeated Trump in 2020. But for the coronavirus, the George Floyd Rebellion, and Trump’s terrible response to both, Biden would surely have lost the last presidential election. …
“The citizen is irrelevant. He or she is nothing more than a spectator, allowed to vote and then forgotten once the carnival of elections ends and corporations and their lobbyists get back to the business of ruling.”
― Sheldon S. Wolin, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism - New Edition
Everybody knows AmeriKKKa is Israel’s bitch
When Israel says bend over the POTUS says how low to go Then Bibi or whoever buggers ‘murica up its
collective arse good
I have sat with what you portrayed so clearly in this post. What frightens me personally is that I can’t name the feeling that is coursing through my soul. Befuddlement. Horror. Inability-to-grasp-the-shear-agony ….. of knowing that Americans will stand and applaud this evil beast. He is dripping with blood and skin and the bowels of children… he stinks of death … his putrid soul will infect that room and those people. I could vomit right now but it would be little more than the yellow green bloody puss of what this country, my money, has perpetrated. And most people I know don’t want to talk about it. Head in the sand. I wish those 37 WOULD go and yell and scream and get arrested … I’m so tired of the ‘performance’ like you state Mark. A variation of bending over so that hopefully the money keeps flowing into their empty souls. Dearest God we are living through our own holocaust and the evil beast is being allowed to stand in the halls of our government … our version of Hitler is being greeted with ovation. Lord have pity on us. Allah… I beg you … do something. We humans are not doing a thing. I beg of you dear lord … do something