It doesn't matter what Mimi's motivation is, Biden isn't (a) responsible for the decisions made by another sovereign country or (b) able to control decisions made by SCOTUS. but s/he continues to complain over and over that Bidenis responsible for Dobbs, and should stop the Israelis in Gaza - accusing him of not doing things he has no way of doing. THAT is stupid.
I am a she.
I said that Biden was the president when Dobbs was passed; not that he was responsible for Dobbs. It's damning that a Democrat was the president was the right to abortion was lost. Protecting abortion was probably the primary reason to elect Biden. He was required to be bold about abortion. Advocates were pressing him to take any and all steps to protect abortion given that they knew the Republican lead court would rule on it asap. At the beginning of his presidency, he had to be talked into carving out exceptions to the filibuster. Which ultimately defeated the Women's Protection Health Act.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/joe-biden-can-barely-say-abortion-can-he-lead-on-it For 468 days, supporters of Roe v. Wade called on President Joe Biden to say the word “abortion.” Once he finally did, however, some of them almost wished he hadn’t.
Biden’s use of the phrase “abort a child”—as well as his near-exclusive preference for language about “women’s health” or “reproductive choice” or making “Roe the law of the land”—reflects career-long discomfort discussing abortion, one longtime adviser told The Daily Beast.
The administration has redirected nearly all questions about the president’s personal feelings on abortion to matter-of-fact recitation of his policies on the issue and has aggressively shut down questions about whether the use of the phrase “abort a child” undermines those positions.
Incidentally, I'm also a church-going Catholic. Abortion is not the be all and end all for me. I actually don't even have an issue with abortion. Polls have shown that most American Catholics are in favour of abortion rights. To me it's more damning that Biden has never referenced his Catholicism when speaking of his actions in Gaza.
Anyways, the way forward on abortion is to expand the courts, which Biden will also not do.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/to-preserve-abortion-rights-biden-must-expand-court/ Blaming Trump as the one true villain may feel satisfying—and it probably makes political sense—but it also allows Biden to avoid talking about the real problem and lets him and the senators running on his coattails sidestep the only real solution: expanding the Supreme Court. There is simply nothing the elected branches of government—the president and Congress—can do to “restore Roe” without expanding the Supreme Court. Legislation and executive orders are of no use in the face of an extremist Republican judiciary willing to prohibit care and let people who are pregnant die.
You cannot be for abortion rights but against the Supreme Court’s expansion anymore. The two are now inextricably linked. Biden and other establishment Democrats are essentially lying to you when they pretend that they can restore through legislation what the court took by fiat. Either we expand the Supreme Court and break the conservative supermajority, or we accept that women and pregnant people are second-class citizens who will lack equal access to healthcare for a generation. That is the world we live in, and the people who deny it are selling you a fantasy.
The Biden administration’s new “actions” to protect reproductive rights—offered on the 51st anniversary of the Roe decision—show just how useless executive power is on this issue as long as conservatives control the courts. The administration announced plans to expand access to contraceptives under the Affordable Care Act, which is good. But the announcement didn’t include plans to expand access to mifepristone, one of the key drugs in the most widely used method for terminating pregnancies. And that’s because the Supreme Court is poised to make a major ruling on this pill, which would supersede any access to the medication that Biden might like to provide.
Look, I get that Trump is the easier target. He’s the perfect poster boy for the misogyny and filth that animate conservative rulings against reproductive rights. And I get that in our low-information, attention-deficient, celebrity-obsessed society, pretending that a president can single-handedly “restore Roe” is perhaps a necessary fiction. But abortion rights and access to lifesaving reproductive care will never again be allowed in the United States as long as conservative justices are allowed to control the Supreme Court.
On Gaza, the reason why I say Biden is responsible is because he's authorized the only US funding to Israel since October 7th using his executive order. The House and Senate are too dysfunctional to authorize funding. He has refused to use this same power to fund Ukraine. Without Biden's funds, there is no genocide.
It's offensive to claim he has no responsibility. Please watch the press briefings where his Sean Spicer equivalents try and deflect the press. It's absolutely ridiculous to claim that Biden has no influence over Israel.
He has lied for Israel on numerous occasions and has been forced to walk back the lies. His lies have weight. He knows damn well that his funding of the Israelis contravenes American law that the funds cannot be used to purchase weapons that are used for actions contravening international law. Biden has given Israel until mid-March to provide written reassurances that they are compliant with international law. He has floated a temporary ceasefire by this Monday while instructing his UN representatives to veto 3 immediate ceasefires. He has vetoed a UN Security Council statement on Israel being responsible for the flour bag massacre. He is now reduced to promising air drops for food while giving Israel billions in dollars for weapons.
After a closed emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the deaths of more than 100 Palestinians who were waiting for food aid, the US remained the only nation to deny the UN Security Council the right to make a statement to blame Israel for the deaths. The draft statement was brought to the UN Security Council by Algeria, and although it was rejected, it must be noted that the UK had chosen to be in favour of the draft rather than abstaining from a decision as they did with all of the ceasefire votes.
So fuck him. This week's horrific images were Israelis firing on people waiting for flour with the video of human beings appearing as ants, more children dying of starvation and a zip-tied Gazan being interrogated and then crushed to death by a bulldozer. We can't Zone of Interest our way out of this horror. Our ability to ignore this is affecting our daily lives by making us more inhuman.
Biden fucking knows it. The coward:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/biden-aides-shield-president-pro-palestinian-protests-rcna141251 WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s team is increasingly taking extraordinary steps to minimize disruptions from pro-Palestinian protests at his events by making them smaller, withholding their precise locations from the media and the public until he arrives, avoiding college campuses and, in at least one instance, considering hiring a private company to vet attendees.
The efforts have resulted in zero disruptions at events the White House or the campaign have organized for Biden in the five weeks since he was interrupted a dozen times during an abortion rights speech in Virginia. But they have also meant that Biden is appearing in front of fewer voters and not personally engaging with some of the key constituencies whose support he is struggling to gain, such as young voters.
For people who thinks this is not filtering down to the average joe - go to any march or protest and be amazed by how many average joes are attending with their kids and dogs. I live in the most redneck of provinces (the Canadian equivalent of Texas). The two big cities have held regular marches from October, but now marches are starting to appear in the most hick of towns in the middle of winter. I have yet to experience an overtly negative reaction from regular people though we disrupt them and inconvenience them (mainly blocking traffic on main roads). The most threatening thing about a march is the police presence.
Uncommitted is the biggest gift to the Democrats. I wish that was an option for me. It will get people out to vote Democrat down ballot while signaling clear disapproval over the monster at the top.
It would also be great if the men in this thread would refrain from calling me an idiot or a troll. You don't agree with me, but there is support for my views from actual experts in these fields - legal experts, abortion experts, foreign policy experts and actual people in Gaza. I encourage you to read and expand your minds on these issues. I put the links so you can read their thoughts directly as admittedly my way of expressing is somewhat crude.
