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Bernie’s Pivot for Biden Isn’t Pleasant. But Trump Must Be Defeated.
Magical thinking and politics don't mix
This week, soon after Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign, one of its most effective message-crafters summed up a vital challenge ahead. “The best hope to defeat Trump is to positively and constructively motivate a large Democratic turnout,” David Sirota wrote . “The best way to do that is to show progressive voters they are actually valued, rather than taken for granted. And the best way to show them that they are valued is to actually embrace an agenda that they want.”
Progressives should never stop fighting for policies that truly represent our values. And activists, unlike even the best politicians, can avoid the pitfalls of making diplomatic statements that aren’t true.
While announcing the deactivation of his campaign on April 8, Bernie said that Joe Biden is “a very decent man.” But decency is not a word that remotely applies to Biden’s political record that spans several decades (as I’ve described in one article after another after another after another after another after another after another ).
Ironically, at this historic juncture, Biden -- a longtime eager corporate tool -- is now the only electoral implement available to progressives for preventing the re-election of Trump. At this point, there’s simply no other plausible way to prevent this monstrous president from winning a second term.
And so, in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Bernie spelled out a choice: “Do we be as active as we can in electing Joe Biden and doing everything we can to move Joe and his campaign in a more progressive direction? Or do we choose to sit it out and allow the most dangerous president in modern American history to get re-elected?”
Bernie started this week by endorsing Biden in an awkward video duet with the presumptive nominee. Symbolically, if not intentionally, when the video went to full screen while Bernie spoke, one object was clearly visible behind him -- a chessboard.
There are reasons to criticize some of Bernie’s recent tactical moves. (I wish he hadn’t suspended his campaign before the end of primary voting.) But, looking ahead, he’s being sensible about current political realities.
Crucially in swing states, Trump can only be defeated by votes for the Democratic presidential nominee, who’s now virtually certain to be Biden, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise. Magical thinking might be a wondrous literary device, but it’s useless -- or worse -- in politics.
“We had a contentious campaign,” Bernie told AP as he noted differences with Biden. “We disagree on issues. But my job now is to not only rally my supporters, but to do everything I can to bring the party together to see that (Trump) is not elected president.”
(A bit paradoxically, Bernie said that he’s hoping people will vote for him in the 20 or so states that have upcoming primaries -- so that there’ll be more Sanders delegates for the Democratic National Convention in August. More of those delegates will increase progressive leverage when the convention adopts a platform and sets future party rules.)
If anyone thinks it doesn’t matter much whether Trump is re-elected, they’re living in some kind of bubble . To those outside of such a soundproof bubble, Bernie is now sending an unequivocal message: “I believe that it’s irresponsible for anybody to say, ‘Well, I disagree with Joe Biden -- I disagree with Joe Biden! -- and therefore I’m not going to be involved.’”
Bernie Sanders is saying that progressives have a profound responsibility to fight against -- and oust -- the extreme right-wing forces that have gained control of the U.S. government’s executive branch and, increasingly, the federal judiciary. Of course, in political terms, progressives wish that we were in a very different place. But this is where we are.
______________________________
Norman Solomon is co-founder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Solomon is the author of a dozen books including “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”
For more information:
https://www.normansolomon.com/
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From Democrat Pres Woodrow Wilson (1913-21) who first promoted segregation in federal offices and who, in 1918, sent American troops to join the European capitalist forces to attack and invade the Soviet Union to overthrow the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution which fortunately resulted in defeat for the anti-Communist invaders, to millionaire war criminal Democrat Barack Obama (2009-2017), the Democratic Party has proven itself to be the twin party of the Republican Party, paid by the same capitalist class to carry out its profit-making war criminal agenda, by definition anti-labor, with the Democrats usually sounding good at election time to make sure the workingclass does not vote socialist (in California, Peace & Freedom) or Green, but once elected, serving the same capitalist class as the Republicans. Please take the time to read this historical offering.
We remember Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s support of the 1918 anti-communist, anti-Russian Revolution invasion by the capitalist European powers with American troops (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Russian_Revolution);
We remember Democrat Woodrow Wilson illegally invaded Haiti in 1915 and brought the US into World War 1 in 1917, a war of imperialist rivalries;
We remember Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s anti-immigrant, anti-labor and anti-communist Sedition Act of 1917, Espionage Act of 1918, and Palmer Raids of 1919 and 1920;
We remember the viciously racist Democrat Wilson’s promotion of segregation in the federal government (See https://charlesohalloranboyd.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/woodrow-wilson-most-anti-black-president-of-the-20th-century/, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/wilson-legacy-racism/417549/)
We remember Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) FBI’s 1936 investigations of the Communist Party for subversion, and his Order to intern Japanese Americans without trial in 1942;
We remember Democrat FDR’s allowing US businesses to invest in Nazi Germany so that it would, and did, attack the Soviet Union (1933-1945) (see https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-history-of-wall-streets-unspoken-relationship-to-nazi-germany-dragon-teeth-to-be-planted-all-over-europe-again/5398757);
We remember the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 (Democrat Truman);
We remember Democrat Harry Truman’s loyalty oaths, part of the anti-Communist, anti-labor witchhunt of the 1940s to smash the labor unions that had risen out of the Great Depression of the 1930s;
We remember the creation of the CIA in 1947 with $200 million from the Rockefellers and Mellons by 350 German Nazis under Nazi Army Major General Reinhard Gehlen (Truman);
We remember the frame-up and eventual execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and frame-up of Morton Sobell in 1950 (framed by Truman);
We remember Korea (1950-1953), with 3 million dead Koreans, 1 million dead Chinese, 36,000 dead Americans (Truman);
We remember germ warfare practiced by the US military against North Korea (see https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/19/the-bug-offensive/ The Bug Offensive by Wilfred Burchett) (Democrat Truman);
We remember Vietnam, with 3 million dead Vietnamese, 1 million dead Cambodians, 1 million dead Laotians, 58,000 dead Americans and thousands of other dead people (Democrats Truman, Kennedy, Johnson including under Truman the US paid 80% of the French war against Vietnam after WW2 until defeated in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu) (for more on JFK and his policy toward Vietnam and other matters, see https://www.truthdig.com/articles/joe-kennedy-iii-just-another-false-progressive-idol-like-jfk/);
We remember Democrats John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson continuing the racist, anti-communist FBI COINTELPRO program commenced in 1956; we remember the racist, anti-workingclass phony War on Crime of Democrat Johnson begun in 1965 integrating the federal government with local police;
We remember Democrat Kennedy’s infamous 1961 CIA invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba and the 1961 Operation Mongoose in Cuba (See https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKmongoose.htm), all attempts to overthrow the Cuban Revolution of 1959 that fortunately failed;
We remember Truman and the founding of US military base and settler colony, thief of Palestinian land and lives called Israel in 1948, which Zionist government has been supported by every single president from Truman to Trump, Democrat and Republican;
We remember Democrat Johnson’s support of a 1964 fascist coup d’etat in Brazil and his 1965 illegal invasion of the Dominican Republic (for more on the coup in Brazil and a comparison to the Democrat-Republican attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government of President Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela, see https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/07/trump-sends-gun-boats-to-venezuela-while-the-world-partners-to-fight-a-deadly-pandemic/);
We remember Unemployment Insurance being tax-free until 1978, the 1979 bipartisan Advisory Council which promoted taxing of Social Security which bipartisan Congress legalized in 1983 (See https://www.ssa.gov/history/taxationofbenefits.html), the disastrous effects of the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act (See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-morris/airline-deregulation-ideology-over-evidence_b_4399150.html); the US aid to the murderous Indonesian government at war with East Timor in 1977, US aid to CIA terrorists in Afghanistan in 1978, US aid to the fascist dictatorship of El Salvador in 1980 that murdered Archbishop Oscar Romero and thousands of other people, the Carter Doctrine that is the same as Trump’s war mongering against Iran (See https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/how-jimmy-carter-laid-the-groundwork-for-trump-to-go-to-war-with-iran/) (Democrat Carter);
We remember Democrat Carter’s support of the 1979 CIA Operation Cyclone arming anti-communists in Afghanistan;
We remember Democrat Carter’s support of fascist governments in Zaire, Angola, East Timor, Guatemala and El Salvador from 1977 to 1980;
We remember from 1978 to 1983, the HUD (public housing) budget shrank from $83 billion to $18 billion (in 2004 dollars), homeless shelters opened and the beginning of the homeless crisis in 1980 (Democrat Carter);
We remember Iraq and Yugoslavia, both victims of “depleted” uranium, and in the case of Iraq, over 1 million dead and hundreds of thousands displaced (Democrats Bill and Hillary Clinton);
We remember Democrat Clinton’s sanctions against Iraq, an act of war, from 1993 to 2001, killing over 1.5 million people, Democrat Clinton’s bombing of Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998 and Yugoslavia in 1999;
We remember the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of January 1, 1994 that destroyed the Mexican economy, forcing whole villages to flee to the US to try to find work and caused the loss of 879,000 jobs in the US (see http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/) (Bill and Hillary Clinton);
We remember the destruction of a welfare system that actually helped people get out of poverty, replaced by the poverty-promoting Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) (see http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clinton-the-anti-woman-feminist/5541857); we remember the prison, death penalty and racism promoting 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act eliminating higher education for prisoners, a form of rehabilitation (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act) the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiterrorism_and_Effective_Death_Penalty_Act_of_1996) (Bill and Hillary Clinton); and the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996 that makes it more difficult for prisoners to file lawsuits in federal court complaining of the horrifying prison-concentration camp conditions they experience (see https://www.nlg.org/struggles-of-using-legal-recourse-as-a-path-toward-better-prison-conditions/; and https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/images/asset_upload_file79_25805.pdf and the result of these police state acts being much higher mass incarceration, a militarized police force, accelerated executions and less civil liberties, all by definition racist and anti-workingclass (Bill and Hillary Clinton) ;
We remember the Faircloth Amendment or Faircloth Limit (as in 1-term Senator Lauch Faircloth (R-NC)) to the 1998 Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act which prevented HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) from supporting the construction of new public housing, signed into law in 1999 by Democrat Pres. Bill Clinton capping the supply of public housing to 1999 levels. For the legal definition of this outrage, see https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/public_indian_housing/programs/ph/capfund For more on the “US Public Housing Hall of Shame” from Clinton to and including Democrat Obama, see https://alexisandjesse.tumblr.com/post/67478272962/its-hard-to-tell-who-hates-public-housing-more;
We remember from 1995 to 2011, HUD (housing authority) dismantled 290,588 units of public housing and 360,000 Section 8 units (from 1995 to 2000, Bill & Hillary Clinton);
We remember from 1996 to 2017 HUD (public housing) funding for new public housing units has been ZERO since 1996 (from 1995 to 2000, Bill & Hillary Clinton);
We remember the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, an Inside Job that was a rehearsal for the 9/11/01 Inside Job, and was led by Andreas Strassmeir, a German national from a Nazi German family and resident of Elohim City, Oklahoma, a bastion of fascist organizations (Bill & Hillary Clinton)
We remember Sudan, Somalia and many more (See http://technoccult.net/archives/2007/10/11/war-casualties-under-clinton-and-bush/)(Bill and Hillary Clinton);
We remember the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, also known as the Mexican Exclusion Act, authorizing Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) to use secret “evidence" against aliens in various immigration proceedings if the evidence is deemed classified and the ICE considers it relevant to the case AND it
made today’s immigration enforcement the nightmare that it is and led to the rise of the MS-13 gang (See https://www.democracynow.org/2018/1/31/made_in_the_usa_the_real
https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11515132/iirira-clinton-immigration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_Immigration_Reform_and_Immigrant_Responsibility_Act_of_1996 (Bill & Hillary Clinton);
We remember influencing the Russian election of Boris Yeltsin in 1996 to continue the impoverishment of the Russian people, whose Soviet Union was destroyed by the US in 1991 (see https://www.blackagendareport.com/us_fixed_russian_election_1996 and Rescuing Boris, 7/15/1996 at http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,984833-2,00.html) (Bill and Hillary Clinton);
We remember Bill Clinton took $500,000 from a Russian bank in 2010 to give a speech in Moscow. See
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5009373/FBI-surprised-Bill-Clinton-took-500-000-Russia.html;
We remember the Helms-Burton Act of 1996 codified the US embargo against Cuba which previously had been by presidential proclamation, now was an Act of Congress, which only the US Congress could cancel, and the embargo, in effect since 1962 started by Democrat Kennedy, is the longest genocide in history (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRJp6t9RGaU Blockade Against Cuba: The Longest Genocide in History) (Bill and Hillary Clinton);
We remember The Clinton Foundation founded by Bill Clinton in 1997 and whose Board of Directors includes Bill and Hillary Clinton, which became a significant promoter of capitalism and its accompanying low wages in Haiti after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Foundation) and the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund formed by Bill Clinton and George Bush, Jr. at the behest of Barack Obama in 2010 promoting the same poverty wages (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Bush_Haiti_Fund) (See also https://www.liberationnews.org/trumps-kkk-style-racism-liberal-counterpart/) (Bill and Hillary Clinton)
We remember 50% poverty and 80% living from paycheck to paycheck including the 50% in poverty after 8 years of Democrat Obama’s failed presidency;
We remember from 1995 to 2011, HUD (public housing authority) dismantled 290,588 units of public housing and 360,000 Section 8 units (2009 to 2011 Democrat Obama);
We remember from 1996 to 2017 HUD (public housing) funding for new public housing units has been ZERO since 1996 (2009 to 2016 Democrat Obama);
We remember 2010-2016 HUD (public housing) housing and community development funding fell $4.6 billion or 8.7% since 2010 (adjusted for inflation) (Democrat Obama);
We remember the 2011 Budget Control Act requiring a mandatory cap on government spending annually until 2021 in its sequestration process (Democrat Obama);
We remember 43 million student loan debtors because we do not have free education for all and it should be free from pre-school through university; we remember the failure to forgive all student loans; we remember the theft of Social Security payments from the poor who have student debt under the pretext of paying for student loans (http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/12/21/older-americans-pushed-poverty-feds-garnish-social-security-student-debt and http://www.aging.senate.gov/hearings/indebted-for-life-older-americans-and-student-loan-debt) (Democrat Obama);
We remember Democrat Obama’s use of the military to engage in union-busting in February 2012, when in Longview, Washington, Obama ordered an armed Coast Guard cutter escort a scab grain ship (see https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/12/the-survival-of-the-ilwu-at-stake/);
We remember Democrat Obama’s refusal to support socialized medicine guaranteeing free medical care to all who live or visit here upon demand from cradle to grave and instead, with both the House and Senate majority Democrat when first elected, promoted a tax give away to the insurance companies with high deductibles and co-pays for American citizens only and restrictions on abortion payments known as Obamacare or the “Affordable” Care Act also known as Republican Mitt Romney’s medical plan for Massachusetts when he was its governor, with an increase in Medicaid tossed in which Medicaid expansion could have passed separately, all of which covers only 10% of the population, with the lack of socialized medicine for all causing about 1,000 deaths per year (see http://www.pnhp.org/news/2015/september/more-americans-gain-health-coverage-but-many-can%E2%80%99t-afford-to-use-it-doctors-group and http://kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/coverage-for-abortion-services-in-medicaid-marketplace-plans-and-private-plans/ and http://kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/data-note-5-misconceptions-surrounding-the-aca/;
We remember a decline in life expectancy in 2014 for the first time in 20 years due to increased poverty, despite 8 years of Democrat Obama being in office (See https://www.liberationnews.org/u-s-life-expectancy-falls-for-first-time-in-20-years-as-inequality-rises/ and https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db267.htm);
We remember Democrat Obama cut auto workers’ wages in half during the takeover of the bankrupt General Motors in 2009 (See http://labornotes.org/2010/10/uaw-members-protest-50-wage-cut-gm-plant-demand-vote, https://socialistworker.org/2009/06/02/a-giant-falls-and-workers-pay);
We remember Democrat Obama cut $8.7 billion in food stamp funding in the 2014 Farm Bill: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-signs-food-stamp-cut;
We remember Democrat Obama bailed out Wall Street but not Main Street: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104 and http://www.commondreams.org/news/2009/12/13/obamas-big-sellout-president-has-packed-his-economic-team-wall-street-insiders;
We remember Democrat Obama froze federal worker wages from 2011 through 2013 and came up with a paltry 2.1% raise in 2016: http://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2017/01/obamas-track-record-federal-pay-and-benefits/134485/
We remember Democrat Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, who helped bail out predatory banks, and then went to work for a Warburg Pincus, which exploits the poor with phony loans with high interest rates and sues those who cannot pay (See https://www.alternet.org/after-long-career-bailing-out-big-banks-obama-treasury-secretary-tim-geithner-now-runs-predatory);
We remember Democrat Obama’s transfer of wealth, $4.5 trillion tax dollars to the 1% known as his quantitative easing program (see https://nypost.com/2016/01/17/occupy-obama-he-orchestrated-a-massive-transfer-of-wealth-to-the-1-percent/);
We remember the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in 2010 and how Democrat Obama did everything he could to prevent the EPA from going after BP for its murder of its 11 workers and destruction of the Gulf of Mexico (See https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/26/how-obama-defanged-the-epa-before-trump-gutted-the-agency/);
We remember Democrat Obama’s stockpile of nuclear weapons which no one needs, but not of medical equipment and supplies needed by all hospitals in a pandemic to save our lives. (See https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/05/tale-two-stockpiles : “Among the synonyms for the word “stockpile,” along with “cache,” “hoard,” “store” and “lay-away” is the word “treasure.” We stockpile what is valuable to us, the things that we treasure, what we want to keep for the future.”)
We remember the spending of $1 trillion to upgrade US nuclear weapons instead of abolishing all nuclear weapons and nuclear power (Democrat Obama);
We remember that the Obama administration sold more weapons than any other since World War 2 (See http://www.globalresearch.ca/obamas-administration-sold-more-weapons-than-any-other-since-world-war-ii/5566411);
We remember Obama approved the B61-12, a nuclear bomb, considered small by some, that can have the power of 50 kilotons, 3-4 times more powerful than the US nuclear bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 (See https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/18/its-not-just-trump-and-the-republicans/);
We remember that the US has never renounced a nuclear first strike, never promised not to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear adversary, has come close to starting and repeatedly threatened to start a nuclear war from 1945 to the present, Democrats & Republicans together;
We remember Democrat Obama’s military coup d'état in Honduras in 2009, promoted by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to overthrow President Manuel Zelaya (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Honduran_coup_d'%C3%A9tat, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-honduras-coup-memoirs_us_56e34161e4b0b25c91820a08);
We remember Democrat Obama ABOLISHED the opium eradication program in Afghanistan, causing a major heroin epidemic in the US (See http://www.globalresearch.ca/narco-state-afghanistan-leeds-to-heroin-addiction-in-the-usa/5519104;
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-spoils-of-war-afghanistan-s-multibillion-dollar-heroin-trade/91; http://www.globalresearch.ca/heroin-dealer-in-chief-afghanistan-source-of-90-of-the-worlds-heroin/5502813);
We remember Democrat Obama’s National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 promoting indefinite detention, ending habeas corpus, and sanctioning Iran, sanctions being a war-promoting act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_201
2 and https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/detention/indefinite-detention-endless-worldwide-war-and-2012-national;
We remember Democrat Obama refusal to support the Columbia 2016 peace accords ending the 53 year civil war between the government and FARC (See
https://www.liberationnews.org/worldwide-vigils-demand-end-to-rightwing-violence-in-colombia/);
We remember that in 2015 Democrat Obama started the sanctions against oil-rich Venezuela which has used its oil profits to lift its people out of poverty (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Venezuela_relations)
We remember that Venezuela and Haiti signed the PetroCaribe agreement in 2006, allowing Venezuela to provide Haiti with 20,000 barrels of oil daily for which Haitai had to pay only 60% of the price while 40% of the oil funds went to the PetroCaribe Fund, which was repayable after 25 years at 1% interest. This fund was to pay for schools, hospitals, roads and social programs for Haitians. In 2011, Michel Martelly was installed in a rigged election as president by Obama & his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who squandered the PetroCaribe Fund and used the money to elect Jovenel Moise in 2016. Moise is now supporting Republican Trump in attacking the legally elected socialist government of Venezuela. For more on the Obama-Clinton attack on the workingclass of Haiti, see:
“Mass Protests in Haiti, Like France’s Yellow Vests, Threaten Modern Oligarchic Structure” by Whitney Webb, 2/12/19 at
https://www.mintpressnews.com/protests-in-haiti-like-frances-yellow-vests-threaten-oligarchic-structure/255009/
We remember Democrat Obama’s murder of Libyan president Mummar al-Gaddafi, by an illegal drone sent from Las Vegas, Nevada, and then Qaddafi was raped by a bayonet. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Muammar_Gaddafi “For over 40 years, Gaddafi promoted economic democracy and used the nationalized oil wealth to sustain progressive social welfare programs for all Libyans. Under Gaddafi’s rule, Libyans enjoyed not only free health-care and free education, but also free electricity and interest-free loans…Unlike many other Arab nations, women in Gaddafi’s Libya had the right to education, hold jobs, divorce, hold property and have an income. The United Nations Human Rights Council praised Gaddafi for his promotion of women’s rights. When the colonel seized power in 1969, few women went to university. Today, more than half of Libya’s university students are women. One of the first laws Gaddafi passed in 1970 was an equal pay for equal work law.” See https://www.globalresearch.ca/libya-from-africas-richest-state-under-gaddafi-to-failed-state-after-nato-intervention/5408740
We remember Democrat Obama’s escalation of drone strikes. See https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/13/droning-world-assassination-complex-bush-obama-trump;
We remember Democrat Obama’s illegal wars against Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Syria (On Iraq, see https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2016/10/13/troops-from-sixteen-different-countries-currently-involved-in-iraq
; on Libya, see http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/5-Years-Later-US-Is-Carrying-Out-More-Airstrikes-in-Libya-20160801-0018.html; on Yemen, crimes against humanity perpetrated by the US puppet, Saudi Arabia, at https://www.rt.com/news/373712-yemen-starvation-fishing-houthis/); on Pakistan, where Democrat Obama sent illegal drone strikes repeatedly, see https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2016/07/01/obama-drone-casualty-numbers-fraction-recorded-bureau/; on Somalia, see http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-attacks-in-somalia-expose-failure-of-decade-long-war-strategy/5514312; on Afghanistan, see http://inthesetimes.com/article/19285/its-time-to-put-an-end-to-us-occupation-of-afghanistan; and on Syria, see http://www.globalresearch.ca/i-am-a-syrian-living-in-syria-it-was-never-a-revolution-nor-a-civil-war-the-terrorists-are-sent-by-your-government/5544450;
We remember Democrat Obama’s illegal installation of Nazi Ukraine in 2014 with $5 billion of our tax dollars, where they worship a proud Nazi, the late Stepan Bandera and have named a street after him (on the May 2, 2014 Odessa massacre at the House of Trade Unions and the history of Nazi Ukraine, see http://ersieesist.livejournal.com/813.html, http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-odessa-massacre-was-a-carefully-planned-covert-intelligence-operation/5382253; http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-white-houses-nazis-from-hitlers-germany-in-the-1930s-to-kiev-today-the-us-disturbing-partnerships-with-nazis/5382188; http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-may-2nd-odessa-massacre-why-obamas-coup-regime-still-runs-ukraine/5446593; http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-u-s-has-installed-a-neo-nazi-government-in-ukraine/5371554 , https://www.voltairenet.org/article183807;
We remember Democrat Obama’s illegal drone killings, illegal targeted assassination weekly lists, praise of US war crimes in Vietnam, providing skin-melting white phosphorus to Saudi Arabia to aid in killing 10,000 people in Yemen (same chemical used for same purpose by USA during American War against Vietnam), illegal use of “depleted” uranium in Syria, illegal use of white phosphorus in Iraq by American troops illegally there, all bombings and massacres in the US and Europe which were all staged INSIDE JOBS by definition as was the 9/11 Inside Job staged by the previous CIA family member, Bush, as is Obama, from 2009 to 2017, accelerated destruction of Civil Liberties (See “The Obama Legacy Part V: Waging War on Civil Liberties,” 8/2/16, by Danny Haiphong at http://www.blackagendareport.com/obama_legacy_civil_liberties), the refusal to compensate CIA torture victims or prosecute any officials responsible for their crimes (See : “Former CIA Detainees Describe Previously Unknown Torture Tactic: A Makeshift Electric Chair” by Alex Emmons, 10/3/16
https://theintercept.com/2016/10/03/former-cia-detainees-describe-previously-unknown-torture-tactic-a-makeshift-electric-chair/);
We remember that in 2016, Democrat Obama dropped 26,171 bombs last year on the poor people of the world in 7 countries, 3,027 more than in 2015 (see http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article124842824.html);
We remember the increased US military presence in mineral-rich Africa by Democrat Obama (see https://www.liberationnews.org/us-military-presence-in-africa-continues-to-grow/)’
We remember that Democrat Obama continued the scapegoating of Muslims started by Republican Bush with his 9/11 Inside Job, the American Reichstag Fire, and continued with all bombings and massacres since 9/11/01, all inside jobs, to justify war and fascism, the same reason the Nazis perpetrated the Reichstag Fire and scapegoated Jews for everything, including all kinds of watch lists, such as the No-Fly List, which lists a 7-month-old baby as a terrorist (See
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/how-democrats-helped-pave-way-trumps-islamophobia);
We remember that in 2015, Obama supported the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, and updated it in February 2016, HR 158, which names the same countries listed under Trump's Muslim Ban. See https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/158/text
and http://www.nafsa.org/Professional_Resources/Browse_by_Interest/International_Students_and_Scholars/Visa_Waiver_Program_Improvement_and_Terrorist_Travel_Prevention_Act_of_2015/
We remember Democrat Obama’s failure to grant amnesty to all undocumented immigrants;
We remember Democrat Obama was the biggest deporter in history, deporting 2.5 million immigrants;
We remember that then Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden and Charles Schumer supported the Secure Fence Act of 2006 which was an expensive attempt to build a wall at the US-Mexican border;
We remember that Bush and Obama already built a 702 mile border fence wall at the US Mexican border out of 1,954 miles of border;
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/apr/23/mick-mulvaney/fact-check-did-top-democrats-vote-border-wall-2006/
We remember that then Senator Obama, with then Senator Kerry, both on the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005 when Pres Bush nominated John Roberts to be Chief Justice and in 2006 when the same president nominated Sam Alito to be a Supreme Court Justice, refused to stall, delay and filibuster the nominations and instead let their nominations go out of committee to the Senate floor, now we have a 5-person anti-abortion, anti-labor, anti-environment gang consisting of Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas to undue all the gains of the past many decades on those issues and more. (See https://www.blackagendareport.com/obama-and-democrats-share-blame-trumps-supreme-court)
We remember Democrat Obama’s re-election campaign on the false statement that he had Osama bin Laden killed when Osama bin Laden, who had nothing to do with the 9/11 Inside Job but was a CIA agent who was on the CIA’s payroll in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet Union in the 1980s and in 2001 was the CIA’s prearranged fall guy or pasty, died of kidney disease and Marfan’s Syndrome in December 2001. See
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15601 (Griffin: Bin Laden died Dec 2001)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24622 (Dr. Pieczenik: Bin Laden died Dec 2001 of marfan syndrome, genetic disease that shortens life span.)
http://911blogger.com/news/2011-05-06/michael-ruppert-proof-obama-lying-about-killing-bin-laden (DNA sample not possible in time frame given.)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25898
(Roberts, 8/4/11: The Mysterious Death of OBL: Creating Evidence Where There Is None)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden-was-an-american-hoax/5350261
(Roberts: 9/17/13: The Killing of Osama bin Laden was an “American Hoax”)
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24625 (In 48 hours, bin Laden “death” story changed for pending presidential election)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30654 (“Who Was Osama? Who Is Obama? By Michel Chossudovsky)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30671 (One Year On, Still No Evidence For Osama Bin Laden's Killing by Brit Dee)
We remember the failure to fulfill the promise to close Guantanamo Concentration Camp where the inmates are held indefinitely and receive no charges, trial or convictions and suffer torture, all illegal, and where 41 inmates remain from the 242 Democrat Obama inherited from his predecessor, Republican Bush who originally illegally imprisoned without charge and tortured 780 men, and we remember the same Democrat Obama who upgraded the illegal Guantanamo Concentration Camp with $40 million of our tax dollars (Democrat Obama) (See https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/sites/default/files/gtmo-by-the-numbers.pdf);
We remember the Democrat Party’s revival of anti-Russian hysteria in 2016, even though the US destroyed the Soviet Union in 1991 and Russia is now a capitalist country, to promote Democrat Hillary Clinton as president with no evidence being presented of wrongdoing by the Russians (but plenty of evidence that the Republicans again won the Electoral College vote with election fraud by tossing the black vote, as they did in 2000 and 2004 as that is the only way they can win the presidency since 1992), and promoting a possible attack on Russia by NATO-USA in the last days of Democrat Obama’s presidency (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev, http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-meddling-in-1996-russian-elections-in-support-of-boris-yeltsin/5568288, http://www.globalresearch.ca/outgoing-president-obamas-operation-atlantic-resolve-against-russia-us-sends-3600-tanks-against-russia-massive-nato-deployment-underway/5566679);
We remember Democrat Obama failing to improve the environment in that 1. He did not clean up the water in Flint, Michigan and the rest of the 3,000 communities that have contaminated water; 2. He approved 1500 offshore oil drilling plans including fracking in the Gulf of Mexico from 2010 to 2014; 3. He failed to permanently cancel the Dakota Access Pipeline; 4. He approved new oil pipelines equal to 10 Keystone pipelines from 2010 to 2015; 5. He continued to allow oil and gas rail shipments. (See http://www.mintpressnews.com/donald-trump-is-anti-environment-but-so-was-barack-obama/223540/);
We remember Democrat Obama joining with Democrat California Governor Jerry Brown in destroying the Delta Tunnels and destroy the Delta’s ecosystem, and destroy local fisheries, agriculture, and recreation (see https://mavensnotebook.com/2017/01/05/this-just-in-well-sorta-secretary-jewell-lays-out-strategy-to-address-impacts-of-drought-and-climate-change-in-california/ and http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/7/27/1553375/-Delta-Tunnels-Restoring-An-Estuary-by-Diverting-Its-Water);
We remember that the Democrat & Republican parties are both bought and paid for by the oil companies (See “Buying Silence: Why So Many Democrats are Mute About Standing Rock” by Michael Sainato, 11/23/16 at http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/23/buying-silence-why-so-many-democrats-are-mute-about-standing-rock/);
We remember that on Friday, December 23, 2016 while people were busy preparing for a holiday weekend, Democrat Obama signed a $619 billion military appropriations bill for the 800 US military bases and 7 illegal wars Obama was promoting, which in and of itself is unconscionable, but it also contained a Ministry of Truth clause known as the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act, an anti-free speech and anti-free press law that was part of this 3,000 plus page war-mongering bill which Congress did not read, but did approve (See http://www.blackagendareport.com/obama%27s_propaganda_gift_to_trump)’
We remember that Democrat Obama’s 2016 Ministry of Truth clause followed his 2011 Indefinite Military Detention Law for American citizens without trial or charge as part of the December 31, 2011 military appropriations bill (see https://www.aclu.org/news/president-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-bill-law, http://www.blackagendareport.com/obama_and_trump_neo-fascism, http://www.blackagendareport.com/obama%27s_propaganda_gift_to_trump and for a comprehensive list of Obama’s horrors including this one, see http://www.blackagendareport.com/locating_fascism_on_home_map and http://www.blackagendareport.com/obama%27s_last_presidential_lies);
We remember that Democrat Obama expanded the powers of the spy agencies to do warrantless searches in January 2017 (See http://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/01/13/obama-expands-spy-agencies-access-private-data-just-time-trump);
We remember Democrat Obama promoted deregulation of Boeing that allowed Boeing to inspect itself, resulting in certifying its faulty MCAS software that lead to the air crashes of “the two Boeing 737 Max 8 airplane crashes: the Lion Air crash off the coast of Jakarta, Indonesia in October 2018 that killed all 189 on board and the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March 2019 that killed all 157 on board.” See “Boeing, Obama A Gold Watch and 346 Dead” by Russell Mokhiber, 6/7/19 at
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/07/boeing-obama-a-gold-watch-and-346-dead/
We remember Democrat Obama telling us, who voted in the majority against the Republican Donald Trump in 2016, to get in line behind Trump, whose attorney was the vicious US attorney Roy Cohn (who later became an attorney for organized crime friends of Trump, organized crime often being a part of the construction industry) who framed and prosecuted the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell, innocent of the false and phony charge of conspiracy to commit atomic espionage and Democrat Obama opposed the recount in the contested states where the Republicans again committed election fraud in 2016, as they did in 2000 and 2004, which vote for his fellow Democrat presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, was a popular vote by a wider count, 2.9 million votes, than the victorious candidates in 1948 (Truman over Dewey), 1960 (Kennedy over Nixon), 1968, (Nixon over Humphrey) and 1976 (Carter over Ford) (see http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html);
We remember the failure to exonerate Ethel Rosenberg, despite a petition with over 59,733 signatures to him to do so (see http://www.rfc.org/ethel); we remember the refusal to abolish the federal death penalty, the refusal to legalize all drugs to remove them from the street to end the prison pipeline as they will have no market value, the refusal to free Leonard Peltier, Sundiata Acoli, Aafia Siddiqui and all other political prisoners; the refusal to pardon Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Assata Shakur, Mutulu Shakur; the refusal to completely close all federal maximum security prison-concentration camps and the refusal to demand that all state governors abolish the death penalty, free Mumia Abu-Jamal and all other political prisoners, the refusal to free all prisoners over age 50, the refusal to transform all prisons, federal and state, into high schools providing a high school diploma and job training for decent paying jobs, changing all sentences to a maximum of 5 years (Democrat Barack Obama);
We remember Democrat Obama’s FBI increased the bounty on Assata Shakur on May 2, 2013 to $2 million and placed her on the FBI’s Most Wanted List (she is safely in Cuba) and increased the militarization of the police (see https://www.blackagendareport.com/free_assata_fight_black_misleadership_class)
We remember Democrat Biden wrote the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act signed by Democrat Clinton which among other things eliminated higher education for prisoners, a form of rehabilitation ( See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act)
We remember Palestine being destroyed by Israel (Truman through Obama, Democrats and Republicans together, 100%)
We remember the twin parties of war and fascism paid for by the same capitalist class to maximize their profits, the Democrat-Republicans, refused to abolish the stock market, refused to nationalize everything and abolish the private profit system replacing it with a planned economy to satisfy the needs of everyone as equitably as possible, refused to establish socialized medical care, including dental care and all related medical treatments and drugs, free to all upon demand from cradle to grave, refused to support free abortion on demand to all who live here and refused to repeal the anti-abortion Hyde Amendment, refused to provide free education, including tuition and books, from pre-school through university to all upon demand, refused to legalize all drugs, thereby ending the prison pipeline; refused to abolish the military, the police, the prison-punishment system; refused to abolish the CIA, FBI and all other police state agencies; refused to abolish nuclear power and nuclear weapons and transform the US into a renewable energy state, using solar, wind and tidal power for our energy needs, along with massive, free public transit, thereby reducing cars to being rarely used; refused to house the homeless and provide free public housing to all upon demand, with housing built with full laundry and child care facilities in transit villages to minimize the need to travel to work, school, pharmacy, grocery and clothing stores and medical appointments;
DEMOCRATIC PARTY, WE KNOW WHICH SIDE YOU ARE ON!
We remember Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s support of the 1918 anti-communist, anti-Russian Revolution invasion by the capitalist European powers with American troops (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Russian_Revolution);
We remember Democrat Woodrow Wilson illegally invaded Haiti in 1915 and brought the US into World War 1 in 1917, a war of imperialist rivalries;
We remember Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s anti-immigrant, anti-labor and anti-communist Sedition Act of 1917, Espionage Act of 1918, and Palmer Raids of 1919 and 1920;
We remember the viciously racist Democrat Wilson’s promotion of segregation in the federal government (See https://charlesohalloranboyd.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/woodrow-wilson-most-anti-black-president-of-the-20th-century/, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/wilson-legacy-racism/417549/)
We remember Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) FBI’s 1936 investigations of the Communist Party for subversion, and his Order to intern Japanese Americans without trial in 1942;
We remember Democrat FDR’s allowing US businesses to invest in Nazi Germany so that it would, and did, attack the Soviet Union (1933-1945) (see https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-history-of-wall-streets-unspoken-relationship-to-nazi-germany-dragon-teeth-to-be-planted-all-over-europe-again/5398757);
We remember the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 (Democrat Truman);
We remember Democrat Harry Truman’s loyalty oaths, part of the anti-Communist, anti-labor witchhunt of the 1940s to smash the labor unions that had risen out of the Great Depression of the 1930s;
We remember the creation of the CIA in 1947 with $200 million from the Rockefellers and Mellons by 350 German Nazis under Nazi Army Major General Reinhard Gehlen (Truman);
We remember the frame-up and eventual execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and frame-up of Morton Sobell in 1950 (framed by Truman);
We remember Korea (1950-1953), with 3 million dead Koreans, 1 million dead Chinese, 36,000 dead Americans (Truman);
We remember germ warfare practiced by the US military against North Korea (see https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/19/the-bug-offensive/ The Bug Offensive by Wilfred Burchett) (Democrat Truman);
We remember Vietnam, with 3 million dead Vietnamese, 1 million dead Cambodians, 1 million dead Laotians, 58,000 dead Americans and thousands of other dead people (Democrats Truman, Kennedy, Johnson including under Truman the US paid 80% of the French war against Vietnam after WW2 until defeated in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu) (for more on JFK and his policy toward Vietnam and other matters, see https://www.truthdig.com/articles/joe-kennedy-iii-just-another-false-progressive-idol-like-jfk/);
We remember Democrats John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson continuing the racist, anti-communist FBI COINTELPRO program commenced in 1956; we remember the racist, anti-workingclass phony War on Crime of Democrat Johnson begun in 1965 integrating the federal government with local police;
We remember Democrat Kennedy’s infamous 1961 CIA invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba and the 1961 Operation Mongoose in Cuba (See https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKmongoose.htm), all attempts to overthrow the Cuban Revolution of 1959 that fortunately failed;
We remember Truman and the founding of US military base and settler colony, thief of Palestinian land and lives called Israel in 1948, which Zionist government has been supported by every single president from Truman to Trump, Democrat and Republican;
We remember Democrat Johnson’s support of a 1964 fascist coup d’etat in Brazil and his 1965 illegal invasion of the Dominican Republic (for more on the coup in Brazil and a comparison to the Democrat-Republican attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government of President Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela, see https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/07/trump-sends-gun-boats-to-venezuela-while-the-world-partners-to-fight-a-deadly-pandemic/);
We remember Unemployment Insurance being tax-free until 1978, the 1979 bipartisan Advisory Council which promoted taxing of Social Security which bipartisan Congress legalized in 1983 (See https://www.ssa.gov/history/taxationofbenefits.html), the disastrous effects of the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act (See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-morris/airline-deregulation-ideology-over-evidence_b_4399150.html); the US aid to the murderous Indonesian government at war with East Timor in 1977, US aid to CIA terrorists in Afghanistan in 1978, US aid to the fascist dictatorship of El Salvador in 1980 that murdered Archbishop Oscar Romero and thousands of other people, the Carter Doctrine that is the same as Trump’s war mongering against Iran (See https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/how-jimmy-carter-laid-the-groundwork-for-trump-to-go-to-war-with-iran/) (Democrat Carter);
We remember Democrat Carter’s support of the 1979 CIA Operation Cyclone arming anti-communists in Afghanistan;
We remember Democrat Carter’s support of fascist governments in Zaire, Angola, East Timor, Guatemala and El Salvador from 1977 to 1980;
We remember from 1978 to 1983, the HUD (public housing) budget shrank from $83 billion to $18 billion (in 2004 dollars), homeless shelters opened and the beginning of the homeless crisis in 1980 (Democrat Carter);
We remember Iraq and Yugoslavia, both victims of “depleted” uranium, and in the case of Iraq, over 1 million dead and hundreds of thousands displaced (Democrats Bill and Hillary Clinton);
We remember Democrat Clinton’s sanctions against Iraq, an act of war, from 1993 to 2001, killing over 1.5 million people, Democrat Clinton’s bombing of Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998 and Yugoslavia in 1999;
We remember the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of January 1, 1994 that destroyed the Mexican economy, forcing whole villages to flee to the US to try to find work and caused the loss of 879,000 jobs in the US (see http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/) (Bill and Hillary Clinton);
We remember the destruction of a welfare system that actually helped people get out of poverty, replaced by the poverty-promoting Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) (see http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clinton-the-anti-woman-feminist/5541857); we remember the prison, death penalty and racism promoting 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act eliminating higher education for prisoners, a form of rehabilitation (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act) the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiterrorism_and_Effective_Death_Penalty_Act_of_1996) (Bill and Hillary Clinton); and the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996 that makes it more difficult for prisoners to file lawsuits in federal court complaining of the horrifying prison-concentration camp conditions they experience (see https://www.nlg.org/struggles-of-using-legal-recourse-as-a-path-toward-better-prison-conditions/; and https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/images/asset_upload_file79_25805.pdf and the result of these police state acts being much higher mass incarceration, a militarized police force, accelerated executions and less civil liberties, all by definition racist and anti-workingclass (Bill and Hillary Clinton) ;
We remember the Faircloth Amendment or Faircloth Limit (as in 1-term Senator Lauch Faircloth (R-NC)) to the 1998 Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act which prevented HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) from supporting the construction of new public housing, signed into law in 1999 by Democrat Pres. Bill Clinton capping the supply of public housing to 1999 levels. For the legal definition of this outrage, see https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/public_indian_housing/programs/ph/capfund For more on the “US Public Housing Hall of Shame” from Clinton to and including Democrat Obama, see https://alexisandjesse.tumblr.com/post/67478272962/its-hard-to-tell-who-hates-public-housing-more;
We remember from 1995 to 2011, HUD (housing authority) dismantled 290,588 units of public housing and 360,000 Section 8 units (from 1995 to 2000, Bill & Hillary Clinton);
We remember from 1996 to 2017 HUD (public housing) funding for new public housing units has been ZERO since 1996 (from 1995 to 2000, Bill & Hillary Clinton);
We remember the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, an Inside Job that was a rehearsal for the 9/11/01 Inside Job, and was led by Andreas Strassmeir, a German national from a Nazi German family and resident of Elohim City, Oklahoma, a bastion of fascist organizations (Bill & Hillary Clinton)
We remember Sudan, Somalia and many more (See http://technoccult.net/archives/2007/10/11/war-casualties-under-clinton-and-bush/)(Bill and Hillary Clinton);
We remember the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, also known as the Mexican Exclusion Act, authorizing Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) to use secret “evidence" against aliens in various immigration proceedings if the evidence is deemed classified and the ICE considers it relevant to the case AND it
made today’s immigration enforcement the nightmare that it is and led to the rise of the MS-13 gang (See https://www.democracynow.org/2018/1/31/made_in_the_usa_the_real
https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11515132/iirira-clinton-immigration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_Immigration_Reform_and_Immigrant_Responsibility_Act_of_1996 (Bill & Hillary Clinton);
We remember influencing the Russian election of Boris Yeltsin in 1996 to continue the impoverishment of the Russian people, whose Soviet Union was destroyed by the US in 1991 (see https://www.blackagendareport.com/us_fixed_russian_election_1996 and Rescuing Boris, 7/15/1996 at http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,984833-2,00.html) (Bill and Hillary Clinton);
We remember Bill Clinton took $500,000 from a Russian bank in 2010 to give a speech in Moscow. See
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5009373/FBI-surprised-Bill-Clinton-took-500-000-Russia.html;
We remember the Helms-Burton Act of 1996 codified the US embargo against Cuba which previously had been by presidential proclamation, now was an Act of Congress, which only the US Congress could cancel, and the embargo, in effect since 1962 started by Democrat Kennedy, is the longest genocide in history (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRJp6t9RGaU Blockade Against Cuba: The Longest Genocide in History) (Bill and Hillary Clinton);
We remember The Clinton Foundation founded by Bill Clinton in 1997 and whose Board of Directors includes Bill and Hillary Clinton, which became a significant promoter of capitalism and its accompanying low wages in Haiti after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Foundation) and the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund formed by Bill Clinton and George Bush, Jr. at the behest of Barack Obama in 2010 promoting the same poverty wages (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Bush_Haiti_Fund) (See also https://www.liberationnews.org/trumps-kkk-style-racism-liberal-counterpart/) (Bill and Hillary Clinton)
We remember 50% poverty and 80% living from paycheck to paycheck including the 50% in poverty after 8 years of Democrat Obama’s failed presidency;
We remember from 1995 to 2011, HUD (public housing authority) dismantled 290,588 units of public housing and 360,000 Section 8 units (2009 to 2011 Democrat Obama);
We remember from 1996 to 2017 HUD (public housing) funding for new public housing units has been ZERO since 1996 (2009 to 2016 Democrat Obama);
We remember 2010-2016 HUD (public housing) housing and community development funding fell $4.6 billion or 8.7% since 2010 (adjusted for inflation) (Democrat Obama);
We remember the 2011 Budget Control Act requiring a mandatory cap on government spending annually until 2021 in its sequestration process (Democrat Obama);
We remember 43 million student loan debtors because we do not have free education for all and it should be free from pre-school through university; we remember the failure to forgive all student loans; we remember the theft of Social Security payments from the poor who have student debt under the pretext of paying for student loans (http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/12/21/older-americans-pushed-poverty-feds-garnish-social-security-student-debt and http://www.aging.senate.gov/hearings/indebted-for-life-older-americans-and-student-loan-debt) (Democrat Obama);
We remember Democrat Obama’s use of the military to engage in union-busting in February 2012, when in Longview, Washington, Obama ordered an armed Coast Guard cutter escort a scab grain ship (see https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/12/the-survival-of-the-ilwu-at-stake/);
We remember Democrat Obama’s refusal to support socialized medicine guaranteeing free medical care to all who live or visit here upon demand from cradle to grave and instead, with both the House and Senate majority Democrat when first elected, promoted a tax give away to the insurance companies with high deductibles and co-pays for American citizens only and restrictions on abortion payments known as Obamacare or the “Affordable” Care Act also known as Republican Mitt Romney’s medical plan for Massachusetts when he was its governor, with an increase in Medicaid tossed in which Medicaid expansion could have passed separately, all of which covers only 10% of the population, with the lack of socialized medicine for all causing about 1,000 deaths per year (see http://www.pnhp.org/news/2015/september/more-americans-gain-health-coverage-but-many-can%E2%80%99t-afford-to-use-it-doctors-group and http://kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/coverage-for-abortion-services-in-medicaid-marketplace-plans-and-private-plans/ and http://kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/data-note-5-misconceptions-surrounding-the-aca/;
We remember a decline in life expectancy in 2014 for the first time in 20 years due to increased poverty, despite 8 years of Democrat Obama being in office (See https://www.liberationnews.org/u-s-life-expectancy-falls-for-first-time-in-20-years-as-inequality-rises/ and https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db267.htm);
We remember Democrat Obama cut auto workers’ wages in half during the takeover of the bankrupt General Motors in 2009 (See http://labornotes.org/2010/10/uaw-members-protest-50-wage-cut-gm-plant-demand-vote, https://socialistworker.org/2009/06/02/a-giant-falls-and-workers-pay);
We remember Democrat Obama cut $8.7 billion in food stamp funding in the 2014 Farm Bill: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-signs-food-stamp-cut;
We remember Democrat Obama bailed out Wall Street but not Main Street: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104 and http://www.commondreams.org/news/2009/12/13/obamas-big-sellout-president-has-packed-his-economic-team-wall-street-insiders;
We remember Democrat Obama froze federal worker wages from 2011 through 2013 and came up with a paltry 2.1% raise in 2016: http://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2017/01/obamas-track-record-federal-pay-and-benefits/134485/
We remember Democrat Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, who helped bail out predatory banks, and then went to work for a Warburg Pincus, which exploits the poor with phony loans with high interest rates and sues those who cannot pay (See https://www.alternet.org/after-long-career-bailing-out-big-banks-obama-treasury-secretary-tim-geithner-now-runs-predatory);
We remember Democrat Obama’s transfer of wealth, $4.5 trillion tax dollars to the 1% known as his quantitative easing program (see https://nypost.com/2016/01/17/occupy-obama-he-orchestrated-a-massive-transfer-of-wealth-to-the-1-percent/);
We remember the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in 2010 and how Democrat Obama did everything he could to prevent the EPA from going after BP for its murder of its 11 workers and destruction of the Gulf of Mexico (See https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/26/how-obama-defanged-the-epa-before-trump-gutted-the-agency/);
We remember Democrat Obama’s stockpile of nuclear weapons which no one needs, but not of medical equipment and supplies needed by all hospitals in a pandemic to save our lives. (See https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/05/tale-two-stockpiles : “Among the synonyms for the word “stockpile,” along with “cache,” “hoard,” “store” and “lay-away” is the word “treasure.” We stockpile what is valuable to us, the things that we treasure, what we want to keep for the future.”)
We remember the spending of $1 trillion to upgrade US nuclear weapons instead of abolishing all nuclear weapons and nuclear power (Democrat Obama);
We remember that the Obama administration sold more weapons than any other since World War 2 (See http://www.globalresearch.ca/obamas-administration-sold-more-weapons-than-any-other-since-world-war-ii/5566411);
We remember Obama approved the B61-12, a nuclear bomb, considered small by some, that can have the power of 50 kilotons, 3-4 times more powerful than the US nuclear bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 (See https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/18/its-not-just-trump-and-the-republicans/);
We remember that the US has never renounced a nuclear first strike, never promised not to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear adversary, has come close to starting and repeatedly threatened to start a nuclear war from 1945 to the present, Democrats & Republicans together;
We remember Democrat Obama’s military coup d'état in Honduras in 2009, promoted by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to overthrow President Manuel Zelaya (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Honduran_coup_d'%C3%A9tat, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-honduras-coup-memoirs_us_56e34161e4b0b25c91820a08);
We remember Democrat Obama ABOLISHED the opium eradication program in Afghanistan, causing a major heroin epidemic in the US (See http://www.globalresearch.ca/narco-state-afghanistan-leeds-to-heroin-addiction-in-the-usa/5519104;
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-spoils-of-war-afghanistan-s-multibillion-dollar-heroin-trade/91; http://www.globalresearch.ca/heroin-dealer-in-chief-afghanistan-source-of-90-of-the-worlds-heroin/5502813);
We remember Democrat Obama’s National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 promoting indefinite detention, ending habeas corpus, and sanctioning Iran, sanctions being a war-promoting act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_201
2 and https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/detention/indefinite-detention-endless-worldwide-war-and-2012-national;
We remember Democrat Obama refusal to support the Columbia 2016 peace accords ending the 53 year civil war between the government and FARC (See
https://www.liberationnews.org/worldwide-vigils-demand-end-to-rightwing-violence-in-colombia/);
We remember that in 2015 Democrat Obama started the sanctions against oil-rich Venezuela which has used its oil profits to lift its people out of poverty (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Venezuela_relations)
We remember that Venezuela and Haiti signed the PetroCaribe agreement in 2006, allowing Venezuela to provide Haiti with 20,000 barrels of oil daily for which Haitai had to pay only 60% of the price while 40% of the oil funds went to the PetroCaribe Fund, which was repayable after 25 years at 1% interest. This fund was to pay for schools, hospitals, roads and social programs for Haitians. In 2011, Michel Martelly was installed in a rigged election as president by Obama & his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who squandered the PetroCaribe Fund and used the money to elect Jovenel Moise in 2016. Moise is now supporting Republican Trump in attacking the legally elected socialist government of Venezuela. For more on the Obama-Clinton attack on the workingclass of Haiti, see:
“Mass Protests in Haiti, Like France’s Yellow Vests, Threaten Modern Oligarchic Structure” by Whitney Webb, 2/12/19 at
https://www.mintpressnews.com/protests-in-haiti-like-frances-yellow-vests-threaten-oligarchic-structure/255009/
We remember Democrat Obama’s murder of Libyan president Mummar al-Gaddafi, by an illegal drone sent from Las Vegas, Nevada, and then Qaddafi was raped by a bayonet. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Muammar_Gaddafi “For over 40 years, Gaddafi promoted economic democracy and used the nationalized oil wealth to sustain progressive social welfare programs for all Libyans. Under Gaddafi’s rule, Libyans enjoyed not only free health-care and free education, but also free electricity and interest-free loans…Unlike many other Arab nations, women in Gaddafi’s Libya had the right to education, hold jobs, divorce, hold property and have an income. The United Nations Human Rights Council praised Gaddafi for his promotion of women’s rights. When the colonel seized power in 1969, few women went to university. Today, more than half of Libya’s university students are women. One of the first laws Gaddafi passed in 1970 was an equal pay for equal work law.” See https://www.globalresearch.ca/libya-from-africas-richest-state-under-gaddafi-to-failed-state-after-nato-intervention/5408740
We remember Democrat Obama’s escalation of drone strikes. See https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/13/droning-world-assassination-complex-bush-obama-trump;
We remember Democrat Obama’s illegal wars against Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Syria (On Iraq, see https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2016/10/13/troops-from-sixteen-different-countries-currently-involved-in-iraq
; on Libya, see http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/5-Years-Later-US-Is-Carrying-Out-More-Airstrikes-in-Libya-20160801-0018.html; on Yemen, crimes against humanity perpetrated by the US puppet, Saudi Arabia, at https://www.rt.com/news/373712-yemen-starvation-fishing-houthis/); on Pakistan, where Democrat Obama sent illegal drone strikes repeatedly, see https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2016/07/01/obama-drone-casualty-numbers-fraction-recorded-bureau/; on Somalia, see http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-attacks-in-somalia-expose-failure-of-decade-long-war-strategy/5514312; on Afghanistan, see http://inthesetimes.com/article/19285/its-time-to-put-an-end-to-us-occupation-of-afghanistan; and on Syria, see http://www.globalresearch.ca/i-am-a-syrian-living-in-syria-it-was-never-a-revolution-nor-a-civil-war-the-terrorists-are-sent-by-your-government/5544450;
We remember Democrat Obama’s illegal installation of Nazi Ukraine in 2014 with $5 billion of our tax dollars, where they worship a proud Nazi, the late Stepan Bandera and have named a street after him (on the May 2, 2014 Odessa massacre at the House of Trade Unions and the history of Nazi Ukraine, see http://ersieesist.livejournal.com/813.html, http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-odessa-massacre-was-a-carefully-planned-covert-intelligence-operation/5382253; http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-white-houses-nazis-from-hitlers-germany-in-the-1930s-to-kiev-today-the-us-disturbing-partnerships-with-nazis/5382188; http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-may-2nd-odessa-massacre-why-obamas-coup-regime-still-runs-ukraine/5446593; http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-u-s-has-installed-a-neo-nazi-government-in-ukraine/5371554 , https://www.voltairenet.org/article183807;
We remember Democrat Obama’s illegal drone killings, illegal targeted assassination weekly lists, praise of US war crimes in Vietnam, providing skin-melting white phosphorus to Saudi Arabia to aid in killing 10,000 people in Yemen (same chemical used for same purpose by USA during American War against Vietnam), illegal use of “depleted” uranium in Syria, illegal use of white phosphorus in Iraq by American troops illegally there, all bombings and massacres in the US and Europe which were all staged INSIDE JOBS by definition as was the 9/11 Inside Job staged by the previous CIA family member, Bush, as is Obama, from 2009 to 2017, accelerated destruction of Civil Liberties (See “The Obama Legacy Part V: Waging War on Civil Liberties,” 8/2/16, by Danny Haiphong at http://www.blackagendareport.com/obama_legacy_civil_liberties), the refusal to compensate CIA torture victims or prosecute any officials responsible for their crimes (See : “Former CIA Detainees Describe Previously Unknown Torture Tactic: A Makeshift Electric Chair” by Alex Emmons, 10/3/16
https://theintercept.com/2016/10/03/former-cia-detainees-describe-previously-unknown-torture-tactic-a-makeshift-electric-chair/);
We remember that in 2016, Democrat Obama dropped 26,171 bombs last year on the poor people of the world in 7 countries, 3,027 more than in 2015 (see http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article124842824.html);
We remember the increased US military presence in mineral-rich Africa by Democrat Obama (see https://www.liberationnews.org/us-military-presence-in-africa-continues-to-grow/)’
We remember that Democrat Obama continued the scapegoating of Muslims started by Republican Bush with his 9/11 Inside Job, the American Reichstag Fire, and continued with all bombings and massacres since 9/11/01, all inside jobs, to justify war and fascism, the same reason the Nazis perpetrated the Reichstag Fire and scapegoated Jews for everything, including all kinds of watch lists, such as the No-Fly List, which lists a 7-month-old baby as a terrorist (See
http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/how-democrats-helped-pave-way-trumps-islamophobia);
We remember that in 2015, Obama supported the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, and updated it in February 2016, HR 158, which names the same countries listed under Trump's Muslim Ban. See https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/158/text
and http://www.nafsa.org/Professional_Resources/Browse_by_Interest/International_Students_and_Scholars/Visa_Waiver_Program_Improvement_and_Terrorist_Travel_Prevention_Act_of_2015/
We remember Democrat Obama’s failure to grant amnesty to all undocumented immigrants;
We remember Democrat Obama was the biggest deporter in history, deporting 2.5 million immigrants;
We remember that then Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden and Charles Schumer supported the Secure Fence Act of 2006 which was an expensive attempt to build a wall at the US-Mexican border;
We remember that Bush and Obama already built a 702 mile border fence wall at the US Mexican border out of 1,954 miles of border;
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/apr/23/mick-mulvaney/fact-check-did-top-democrats-vote-border-wall-2006/
We remember that then Senator Obama, with then Senator Kerry, both on the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005 when Pres Bush nominated John Roberts to be Chief Justice and in 2006 when the same president nominated Sam Alito to be a Supreme Court Justice, refused to stall, delay and filibuster the nominations and instead let their nominations go out of committee to the Senate floor, now we have a 5-person anti-abortion, anti-labor, anti-environment gang consisting of Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas to undue all the gains of the past many decades on those issues and more. (See https://www.blackagendareport.com/obama-and-democrats-share-blame-trumps-supreme-court)
We remember Democrat Obama’s re-election campaign on the false statement that he had Osama bin Laden killed when Osama bin Laden, who had nothing to do with the 9/11 Inside Job but was a CIA agent who was on the CIA’s payroll in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet Union in the 1980s and in 2001 was the CIA’s prearranged fall guy or pasty, died of kidney disease and Marfan’s Syndrome in December 2001. See
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15601 (Griffin: Bin Laden died Dec 2001)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24622 (Dr. Pieczenik: Bin Laden died Dec 2001 of marfan syndrome, genetic disease that shortens life span.)
http://911blogger.com/news/2011-05-06/michael-ruppert-proof-obama-lying-about-killing-bin-laden (DNA sample not possible in time frame given.)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25898
(Roberts, 8/4/11: The Mysterious Death of OBL: Creating Evidence Where There Is None)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden-was-an-american-hoax/5350261
(Roberts: 9/17/13: The Killing of Osama bin Laden was an “American Hoax”)
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24625 (In 48 hours, bin Laden “death” story changed for pending presidential election)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30654 (“Who Was Osama? Who Is Obama? By Michel Chossudovsky)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30671 (One Year On, Still No Evidence For Osama Bin Laden's Killing by Brit Dee)
We remember the failure to fulfill the promise to close Guantanamo Concentration Camp where the inmates are held indefinitely and receive no charges, trial or convictions and suffer torture, all illegal, and where 41 inmates remain from the 242 Democrat Obama inherited from his predecessor, Republican Bush who originally illegally imprisoned without charge and tortured 780 men, and we remember the same Democrat Obama who upgraded the illegal Guantanamo Concentration Camp with $40 million of our tax dollars (Democrat Obama) (See https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/sites/default/files/gtmo-by-the-numbers.pdf);
We remember the Democrat Party’s revival of anti-Russian hysteria in 2016, even though the US destroyed the Soviet Union in 1991 and Russia is now a capitalist country, to promote Democrat Hillary Clinton as president with no evidence being presented of wrongdoing by the Russians (but plenty of evidence that the Republicans again won the Electoral College vote with election fraud by tossing the black vote, as they did in 2000 and 2004 as that is the only way they can win the presidency since 1992), and promoting a possible attack on Russia by NATO-USA in the last days of Democrat Obama’s presidency (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gorbachev, http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-meddling-in-1996-russian-elections-in-support-of-boris-yeltsin/5568288, http://www.globalresearch.ca/outgoing-president-obamas-operation-atlantic-resolve-against-russia-us-sends-3600-tanks-against-russia-massive-nato-deployment-underway/5566679);
We remember Democrat Obama failing to improve the environment in that 1. He did not clean up the water in Flint, Michigan and the rest of the 3,000 communities that have contaminated water; 2. He approved 1500 offshore oil drilling plans including fracking in the Gulf of Mexico from 2010 to 2014; 3. He failed to permanently cancel the Dakota Access Pipeline; 4. He approved new oil pipelines equal to 10 Keystone pipelines from 2010 to 2015; 5. He continued to allow oil and gas rail shipments. (See http://www.mintpressnews.com/donald-trump-is-anti-environment-but-so-was-barack-obama/223540/);
We remember Democrat Obama joining with Democrat California Governor Jerry Brown in destroying the Delta Tunnels and destroy the Delta’s ecosystem, and destroy local fisheries, agriculture, and recreation (see https://mavensnotebook.com/2017/01/05/this-just-in-well-sorta-secretary-jewell-lays-out-strategy-to-address-impacts-of-drought-and-climate-change-in-california/ and http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/7/27/1553375/-Delta-Tunnels-Restoring-An-Estuary-by-Diverting-Its-Water);
We remember that the Democrat & Republican parties are both bought and paid for by the oil companies (See “Buying Silence: Why So Many Democrats are Mute About Standing Rock” by Michael Sainato, 11/23/16 at http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/23/buying-silence-why-so-many-democrats-are-mute-about-standing-rock/);
We remember that on Friday, December 23, 2016 while people were busy preparing for a holiday weekend, Democrat Obama signed a $619 billion military appropriations bill for the 800 US military bases and 7 illegal wars Obama was promoting, which in and of itself is unconscionable, but it also contained a Ministry of Truth clause known as the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act, an anti-free speech and anti-free press law that was part of this 3,000 plus page war-mongering bill which Congress did not read, but did approve (See http://www.blackagendareport.com/obama%27s_propaganda_gift_to_trump)’
We remember that Democrat Obama’s 2016 Ministry of Truth clause followed his 2011 Indefinite Military Detention Law for American citizens without trial or charge as part of the December 31, 2011 military appropriations bill (see https://www.aclu.org/news/president-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-bill-law, http://www.blackagendareport.com/obama_and_trump_neo-fascism, http://www.blackagendareport.com/obama%27s_propaganda_gift_to_trump and for a comprehensive list of Obama’s horrors including this one, see http://www.blackagendareport.com/locating_fascism_on_home_map and http://www.blackagendareport.com/obama%27s_last_presidential_lies);
We remember that Democrat Obama expanded the powers of the spy agencies to do warrantless searches in January 2017 (See http://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/01/13/obama-expands-spy-agencies-access-private-data-just-time-trump);
We remember Democrat Obama promoted deregulation of Boeing that allowed Boeing to inspect itself, resulting in certifying its faulty MCAS software that lead to the air crashes of “the two Boeing 737 Max 8 airplane crashes: the Lion Air crash off the coast of Jakarta, Indonesia in October 2018 that killed all 189 on board and the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March 2019 that killed all 157 on board.” See “Boeing, Obama A Gold Watch and 346 Dead” by Russell Mokhiber, 6/7/19 at
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/06/07/boeing-obama-a-gold-watch-and-346-dead/
We remember Democrat Obama telling us, who voted in the majority against the Republican Donald Trump in 2016, to get in line behind Trump, whose attorney was the vicious US attorney Roy Cohn (who later became an attorney for organized crime friends of Trump, organized crime often being a part of the construction industry) who framed and prosecuted the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell, innocent of the false and phony charge of conspiracy to commit atomic espionage and Democrat Obama opposed the recount in the contested states where the Republicans again committed election fraud in 2016, as they did in 2000 and 2004, which vote for his fellow Democrat presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, was a popular vote by a wider count, 2.9 million votes, than the victorious candidates in 1948 (Truman over Dewey), 1960 (Kennedy over Nixon), 1968, (Nixon over Humphrey) and 1976 (Carter over Ford) (see http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html);
We remember the failure to exonerate Ethel Rosenberg, despite a petition with over 59,733 signatures to him to do so (see http://www.rfc.org/ethel); we remember the refusal to abolish the federal death penalty, the refusal to legalize all drugs to remove them from the street to end the prison pipeline as they will have no market value, the refusal to free Leonard Peltier, Sundiata Acoli, Aafia Siddiqui and all other political prisoners; the refusal to pardon Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Assata Shakur, Mutulu Shakur; the refusal to completely close all federal maximum security prison-concentration camps and the refusal to demand that all state governors abolish the death penalty, free Mumia Abu-Jamal and all other political prisoners, the refusal to free all prisoners over age 50, the refusal to transform all prisons, federal and state, into high schools providing a high school diploma and job training for decent paying jobs, changing all sentences to a maximum of 5 years (Democrat Barack Obama);
We remember Democrat Obama’s FBI increased the bounty on Assata Shakur on May 2, 2013 to $2 million and placed her on the FBI’s Most Wanted List (she is safely in Cuba) and increased the militarization of the police (see https://www.blackagendareport.com/free_assata_fight_black_misleadership_class)
We remember Democrat Biden wrote the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act signed by Democrat Clinton which among other things eliminated higher education for prisoners, a form of rehabilitation ( See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act)
We remember Palestine being destroyed by Israel (Truman through Obama, Democrats and Republicans together, 100%)
We remember the twin parties of war and fascism paid for by the same capitalist class to maximize their profits, the Democrat-Republicans, refused to abolish the stock market, refused to nationalize everything and abolish the private profit system replacing it with a planned economy to satisfy the needs of everyone as equitably as possible, refused to establish socialized medical care, including dental care and all related medical treatments and drugs, free to all upon demand from cradle to grave, refused to support free abortion on demand to all who live here and refused to repeal the anti-abortion Hyde Amendment, refused to provide free education, including tuition and books, from pre-school through university to all upon demand, refused to legalize all drugs, thereby ending the prison pipeline; refused to abolish the military, the police, the prison-punishment system; refused to abolish the CIA, FBI and all other police state agencies; refused to abolish nuclear power and nuclear weapons and transform the US into a renewable energy state, using solar, wind and tidal power for our energy needs, along with massive, free public transit, thereby reducing cars to being rarely used; refused to house the homeless and provide free public housing to all upon demand, with housing built with full laundry and child care facilities in transit villages to minimize the need to travel to work, school, pharmacy, grocery and clothing stores and medical appointments;
DEMOCRATIC PARTY, WE KNOW WHICH SIDE YOU ARE ON!
For his ongoing effort, I believe Norman Solomon wants a call from Biden.
The commentator "We Remember" is spot on. We do indeed remember.
There are really no excuses for understanding what Sanders was about all along. (Especially from someone as smart and experienced as Norman Solomon.)
See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83DQoU0opRE
And read the book:
What Happened to Bernie Sanders (2018)
It took me a long time to understand, but pseudo-leftists like Solomon make a career pushing people to the Democratic Party-- a party that works on behalf of the capitalist ruling class (as does the Republican Party).
Their interests are aligned with the better-off who scrimmage with each other for influence and financial rewards. (If not for that-- they are utter, benighted fools.)
They do not want the world working class to unite; they feed us false choices.
For those who may wonder, attached is a .pdf file that clarifies what "Pseudo-left" means.
The commentator "We Remember" is spot on. We do indeed remember.
There are really no excuses for understanding what Sanders was about all along. (Especially from someone as smart and experienced as Norman Solomon.)
See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83DQoU0opRE
And read the book:
What Happened to Bernie Sanders (2018)
It took me a long time to understand, but pseudo-leftists like Solomon make a career pushing people to the Democratic Party-- a party that works on behalf of the capitalist ruling class (as does the Republican Party).
Their interests are aligned with the better-off who scrimmage with each other for influence and financial rewards. (If not for that-- they are utter, benighted fools.)
They do not want the world working class to unite; they feed us false choices.
For those who may wonder, attached is a .pdf file that clarifies what "Pseudo-left" means.
For more information:
http://shttps://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2...
The link I wanted to provide for "Website URL" should be:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/14/sand-a14.html
not the address listed which sends one to a distrusted website.
My apology to anyone inconvenienced.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/14/sand-a14.html
not the address listed which sends one to a distrusted website.
My apology to anyone inconvenienced.
New York Times
Politics|6 Takeaways From the Biden-Sanders Joint Task Force Proposals
Election Updates
Primary Results
Biden’s V.P. Search
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Continue reading the main story
6 Takeaways From the Biden-Sanders Joint Task Force Proposals
Signature progressive programs like “Medicare for all” and the Green New Deal did not make it into the recommendations. But Senator Bernie Sanders’s allies pushed some policies to the left.
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. created six task forces to help ease divisions among Democrats.
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. created six task forces to help ease divisions among Democrats.Credit...Mark Makela for The New York Times
By Maggie Astor, Lisa Friedman, Dana Goldstein, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Margot Sanger-Katz and Jim Tankersley
July 9, 2020
The new policy recommendations for Joseph R. Biden Jr., crafted jointly by allies of Mr. Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, are the clearest sign yet that the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party are trying to unite far more than they did in 2016.
But the ideas put forth on Wednesday are also indications that progressives succeeded in pushing some proposals leftward, influencing Mr. Biden’s policy platform as he prepares to accept his party’s nomination for president next month.
Here are key points from the six areas.
Health care: Expanding government-run plans, without ‘Medicare for all’
Criminal justice: Broad agreement on many priorities, but not on marijuana
Climate change: New near-term targets, but no fracking ban
The economy: Closing racial gaps and creating jobs programs
Education: Rethinking Obama-era priorities
Immigration: A focus on undoing Trump policies
Health care: Expanding government-run plans, without ‘Medicare for all’
The task force’s recommendations stop far short of Mr. Sanders’s signature health care policy initiative, a single-payer “Medicare for all” system that would enroll all Americans in a generous government-run health plan.
Instead, the task force supports a government-run insurance option that would be offered to all Americans on a sliding scale according to income — and automatically provided to low-income Americans free.
A so-called public option has always been a part of Mr. Biden’s health plan, but the recommendations specify new details, such as a requirement that certain prescription medicines be offered without any out-of-pocket spending by patients. Similar to Mr. Biden’s most recent health proposal, this one would allow Americans to become eligible for Medicare coverage at 60 instead of the current threshold, 65. The document also suggests considering how Medicare could expand its benefits to cover treatment for dental care, vision and hearing loss.
The task force also recommends special insurance options for people during the coronavirus pandemic. For those who lost coverage because they became unemployed, the task force suggests that the federal government pay the full cost of continuing that coverage under the federal law known as COBRA. People without previous coverage would be allowed to buy a new plan with no deductible, at a price determined by their income, or an existing Obamacare plan.
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Criminal justice: Broad agreement on many priorities, but not on marijuana
Mr. Biden’s views on criminal justice had already shifted drastically since he helped pass the 1994 crime bill, and the task force’s recommendations reinforce that transformation. They call for eliminating private prisons, ending cash bail and eliminating mandatory minimum sentences, steps that both candidates supported in the primary; eliminating private prisons, in particular, was something Mr. Sanders championed early.
The task force also suggested a federal standard for police departments’ use of force, a national database of police officers who commit misconduct and an end to sentences of life without parole for juvenile offenders.
It did not, however, bridge a notable gap between the Biden and Sanders platforms. The task force called for decriminalizing marijuana and legalizing it at the federal level for medical use, but for letting the states decide whether to legalize it for recreational use. That is the position Mr. Biden held in the primary, in contrast to Mr. Sanders, who supports full legalization.
Climate change: New near-term targets, but no fracking ban
The climate change task force, led by former Secretary of State John Kerry and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, declared rising planet-warming emissions a nationwide “emergency.” It also directly tied the effort to reduce fossil fuels to a need to address racial injustices that have led low-income communities to bear a disproportionate level of air and water pollution.
The recommendations make no mention of the Green New Deal, an ambitious plan that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and other supporters of Mr. Sanders have championed.
There is also no mention of a national ban on fracking, which Mr. Biden has avoided calling for, despite pressure from young climate activists. But there are other signs that progressives on the task force were able to push Mr. Biden to the left.
https://cory-robert-yost.blogspot.com/2020/07/beware-of-cory-yost-cory-robert-yost-is.html
Specifically, critics of Mr. Biden’s plan to invest $1.7 trillion in order to achieve net-zero emissions before 2050 had complained that his platform included few details on how it would achieve that faraway goal. The recommendations set a number of specific near-term benchmarks that Democrats would promise to reach. They include moving all electric power off fossil fuels by 2035; achieving carbon-neutrality in all new buildings by 2030; and installing 500 million solar panels in the next five years.
The economy: Closing racial gaps and creating jobs programs
The economics recommendations to Mr. Biden include more expansive and expensive plans than he has embraced in the campaign. They are heavily focused on addressing racial inequality and on getting Americans back to work in the wake of the recession caused by the pandemic.
The task force suggested that Mr. Biden consider several plans that his more liberal rivals had championed during the Democratic primaries, though at times it stopped short of endorsing them.
The recommendations call for “a comprehensive agenda for communities of color with ambition that matches the scale of the challenge and with recognition that race-neutral policies are not a sufficient response to race-based disparities.”
The details include asking Mr. Biden to “explore” a so-called baby bonds proposal to provide every child with a government-funded savings account at birth, a policy favored by Darrick Hamilton, an Ohio State University economist who was one of Mr. Sanders’s appointees.
A section on job creation urges consideration of another plan favored by Mr. Sanders’s appointees: a large-scale federal employment program in areas such as infrastructure development. “In order to ensure that everyone who wants to work has a pathway to employment,” the recommendation says, “the government must enact measures to create jobs and jobs programs like those effectively used during the New Deal.”
Biden’s Plan
Mr. Biden will deliver a speech on Thursday about his economic agenda.
Education: Rethinking Obama-era priorities
On K-12 education, the task force report represents something of a shift away from the policy commitments of the Obama-era Democratic Party.
Instead of emphasizing standardized tests to drive accountability for teachers and students, the document talks about holistic tests of students’ skills and the importance of schools as community centers that provide a broad array of social services, such as health care and meals.
While the Obama administration was strongly supportive of charter schools, the task force promises to subject charters, which are publicly funded but privately managed, to stricter federal scrutiny, echoing policy plans released by Mr. Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, during the primary.
The document commits to tripling federal aid for low-income schools and to increasing funding for students with disabilities. School desegregation by race and class has emerged in recent years as a major concern for progressives. The task force commits to addressing the problem through strategies like busing and magnet schools, but does not mention a specific amount of funding. (Mr. Biden’s opposition to federally mandated busing was a major campaign issue last year, but he has never opposed voluntary busing.)
While many supporters of Mr. Sanders were excited by his promise of universal free tuition at public four-year colleges, the task force stops short of that commitment. It says instead that public universities should be free for families earning under $125,000 per year, and that community colleges should be free for all.
Immigration: A focus on undoing Trump policies
The report indicated that the immigration agenda of a Biden administration would focus on undoing President Trump’s restrictionist policies, which have been anathema to Democrats.
The task force recommended that Mr. Biden work with Congress to maintain protections for about 700,000 young immigrants known as Dreamers from deportation, a program that Mr. Trump is trying to end. It also recommended ending Mr. Trump’s travel restrictions against 13 countries, most of which have substantial Muslim populations.
The report said Mr. Biden should end a program that forced more than 60,000 migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum cases wound through immigration courts, and should stop diverting asylum seekers to Central American countries. Mr. Biden should increase the number of refugees who can be allowed into the United States to 125,000 per year, from Mr. Trump’s level of 18,000, and raise that cap over time, the committee said. And it called for ending the national emergency declaration that Mr. Trump has used to siphon billions of dollars in Pentagon funding for a wall along the southwestern border.
The task force stopped short of calling for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be abolished, as some in the party have called for. Instead, the report recommends increasing oversight of immigration enforcement and border agencies with the creation of an ombudsman and a panel. There was also no suggestion that unauthorized border crossings should be decriminalized and made a civil offense, a change Mr. Sanders has supported, although the committee recommended prioritizing prosecutions of human traffickers.
Sydney Ember contributed reporting.
Our 2020 Election Guide
Politics|6 Takeaways From the Biden-Sanders Joint Task Force Proposals
Election Updates
Primary Results
Biden’s V.P. Search
Delegate Count
The Candidates
Continue reading the main story
6 Takeaways From the Biden-Sanders Joint Task Force Proposals
Signature progressive programs like “Medicare for all” and the Green New Deal did not make it into the recommendations. But Senator Bernie Sanders’s allies pushed some policies to the left.
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. created six task forces to help ease divisions among Democrats.
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. created six task forces to help ease divisions among Democrats.Credit...Mark Makela for The New York Times
By Maggie Astor, Lisa Friedman, Dana Goldstein, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Margot Sanger-Katz and Jim Tankersley
July 9, 2020
The new policy recommendations for Joseph R. Biden Jr., crafted jointly by allies of Mr. Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, are the clearest sign yet that the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party are trying to unite far more than they did in 2016.
But the ideas put forth on Wednesday are also indications that progressives succeeded in pushing some proposals leftward, influencing Mr. Biden’s policy platform as he prepares to accept his party’s nomination for president next month.
Here are key points from the six areas.
Health care: Expanding government-run plans, without ‘Medicare for all’
Criminal justice: Broad agreement on many priorities, but not on marijuana
Climate change: New near-term targets, but no fracking ban
The economy: Closing racial gaps and creating jobs programs
Education: Rethinking Obama-era priorities
Immigration: A focus on undoing Trump policies
Health care: Expanding government-run plans, without ‘Medicare for all’
The task force’s recommendations stop far short of Mr. Sanders’s signature health care policy initiative, a single-payer “Medicare for all” system that would enroll all Americans in a generous government-run health plan.
Instead, the task force supports a government-run insurance option that would be offered to all Americans on a sliding scale according to income — and automatically provided to low-income Americans free.
A so-called public option has always been a part of Mr. Biden’s health plan, but the recommendations specify new details, such as a requirement that certain prescription medicines be offered without any out-of-pocket spending by patients. Similar to Mr. Biden’s most recent health proposal, this one would allow Americans to become eligible for Medicare coverage at 60 instead of the current threshold, 65. The document also suggests considering how Medicare could expand its benefits to cover treatment for dental care, vision and hearing loss.
The task force also recommends special insurance options for people during the coronavirus pandemic. For those who lost coverage because they became unemployed, the task force suggests that the federal government pay the full cost of continuing that coverage under the federal law known as COBRA. People without previous coverage would be allowed to buy a new plan with no deductible, at a price determined by their income, or an existing Obamacare plan.
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Criminal justice: Broad agreement on many priorities, but not on marijuana
Mr. Biden’s views on criminal justice had already shifted drastically since he helped pass the 1994 crime bill, and the task force’s recommendations reinforce that transformation. They call for eliminating private prisons, ending cash bail and eliminating mandatory minimum sentences, steps that both candidates supported in the primary; eliminating private prisons, in particular, was something Mr. Sanders championed early.
The task force also suggested a federal standard for police departments’ use of force, a national database of police officers who commit misconduct and an end to sentences of life without parole for juvenile offenders.
It did not, however, bridge a notable gap between the Biden and Sanders platforms. The task force called for decriminalizing marijuana and legalizing it at the federal level for medical use, but for letting the states decide whether to legalize it for recreational use. That is the position Mr. Biden held in the primary, in contrast to Mr. Sanders, who supports full legalization.
Climate change: New near-term targets, but no fracking ban
The climate change task force, led by former Secretary of State John Kerry and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, declared rising planet-warming emissions a nationwide “emergency.” It also directly tied the effort to reduce fossil fuels to a need to address racial injustices that have led low-income communities to bear a disproportionate level of air and water pollution.
The recommendations make no mention of the Green New Deal, an ambitious plan that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and other supporters of Mr. Sanders have championed.
There is also no mention of a national ban on fracking, which Mr. Biden has avoided calling for, despite pressure from young climate activists. But there are other signs that progressives on the task force were able to push Mr. Biden to the left.
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Specifically, critics of Mr. Biden’s plan to invest $1.7 trillion in order to achieve net-zero emissions before 2050 had complained that his platform included few details on how it would achieve that faraway goal. The recommendations set a number of specific near-term benchmarks that Democrats would promise to reach. They include moving all electric power off fossil fuels by 2035; achieving carbon-neutrality in all new buildings by 2030; and installing 500 million solar panels in the next five years.
The economy: Closing racial gaps and creating jobs programs
The economics recommendations to Mr. Biden include more expansive and expensive plans than he has embraced in the campaign. They are heavily focused on addressing racial inequality and on getting Americans back to work in the wake of the recession caused by the pandemic.
The task force suggested that Mr. Biden consider several plans that his more liberal rivals had championed during the Democratic primaries, though at times it stopped short of endorsing them.
The recommendations call for “a comprehensive agenda for communities of color with ambition that matches the scale of the challenge and with recognition that race-neutral policies are not a sufficient response to race-based disparities.”
The details include asking Mr. Biden to “explore” a so-called baby bonds proposal to provide every child with a government-funded savings account at birth, a policy favored by Darrick Hamilton, an Ohio State University economist who was one of Mr. Sanders’s appointees.
A section on job creation urges consideration of another plan favored by Mr. Sanders’s appointees: a large-scale federal employment program in areas such as infrastructure development. “In order to ensure that everyone who wants to work has a pathway to employment,” the recommendation says, “the government must enact measures to create jobs and jobs programs like those effectively used during the New Deal.”
Biden’s Plan
Mr. Biden will deliver a speech on Thursday about his economic agenda.
Education: Rethinking Obama-era priorities
On K-12 education, the task force report represents something of a shift away from the policy commitments of the Obama-era Democratic Party.
Instead of emphasizing standardized tests to drive accountability for teachers and students, the document talks about holistic tests of students’ skills and the importance of schools as community centers that provide a broad array of social services, such as health care and meals.
While the Obama administration was strongly supportive of charter schools, the task force promises to subject charters, which are publicly funded but privately managed, to stricter federal scrutiny, echoing policy plans released by Mr. Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, during the primary.
The document commits to tripling federal aid for low-income schools and to increasing funding for students with disabilities. School desegregation by race and class has emerged in recent years as a major concern for progressives. The task force commits to addressing the problem through strategies like busing and magnet schools, but does not mention a specific amount of funding. (Mr. Biden’s opposition to federally mandated busing was a major campaign issue last year, but he has never opposed voluntary busing.)
While many supporters of Mr. Sanders were excited by his promise of universal free tuition at public four-year colleges, the task force stops short of that commitment. It says instead that public universities should be free for families earning under $125,000 per year, and that community colleges should be free for all.
Immigration: A focus on undoing Trump policies
The report indicated that the immigration agenda of a Biden administration would focus on undoing President Trump’s restrictionist policies, which have been anathema to Democrats.
The task force recommended that Mr. Biden work with Congress to maintain protections for about 700,000 young immigrants known as Dreamers from deportation, a program that Mr. Trump is trying to end. It also recommended ending Mr. Trump’s travel restrictions against 13 countries, most of which have substantial Muslim populations.
The report said Mr. Biden should end a program that forced more than 60,000 migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum cases wound through immigration courts, and should stop diverting asylum seekers to Central American countries. Mr. Biden should increase the number of refugees who can be allowed into the United States to 125,000 per year, from Mr. Trump’s level of 18,000, and raise that cap over time, the committee said. And it called for ending the national emergency declaration that Mr. Trump has used to siphon billions of dollars in Pentagon funding for a wall along the southwestern border.
The task force stopped short of calling for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be abolished, as some in the party have called for. Instead, the report recommends increasing oversight of immigration enforcement and border agencies with the creation of an ombudsman and a panel. There was also no suggestion that unauthorized border crossings should be decriminalized and made a civil offense, a change Mr. Sanders has supported, although the committee recommended prioritizing prosecutions of human traffickers.
Sydney Ember contributed reporting.
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