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Caitlin Johnstone: The next two years will be the Democratic Party at its most transparent

The sooner Americans can discredit the Democratic Party as a legitimate vehicle for progressive change, the sooner they can start looking for other tools.

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The motorcade of the 46th President of the United States Joseph Biden in Washington D.C, January 20, 2021. | GPA Photo/Flickr

Joe Biden is now the president of the USA. His day-one executive orders should have prioritized ending the single worst crisis in the world in Yemen, a war in which he campaigned on ending US involvement, but they did not.

Ending US participation in the Yemen genocide could and should have begun on day one. In These Times reported the following back in November (emphasis added):

“One thing Biden can do, starting on day one, is end U.S. involvement in the Yemen war – involvement that he helped initiate. ​By executive order, Biden could get the Pentagon to end intelligence sharing for the Saudi coalition airstrikes, end logistical support, and end spare parts transfers that keep Saudi warplanes in the air,” Hassan El-Tayyab, lead Middle East policy lobbyist for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a progressive organization, tells In These Times. ​“He could restore humanitarian assistance to northern Yemen. He could use his power as president to put pressure on other nations that are supporting the Saudi coalition – like France, the United Kingdom and Canada – and get them to follow suit. He could have the State Department put a stop on all arms sales to Saudi Arabia unless they meet certain benchmarks.”

Biden did none of these things, which, while unsurprising, is still inexcusable. This isn’t some 10-year infrastructure plan we’re talking about. This is the worst mass atrocity on our entire planet, and it should be treated with proportionate urgency. This administration consciously chose not to end US participation in that atrocity as swiftly as possible, which will remain an inexcusable decision, even if the Yemen war is eventually ended later.

Instead of grilling Biden about his decision not to prioritize his promise to end the Yemen war, which is what any real journalist would do, the press are asking him stupid-nonsense questions about whether he can “unite the country.”

In the lead-up to Biden’s inauguration, we were treated to some Senate hearings on his cabinet picks, in which we learnt that this administration will continue Trump’s murderous coup-mongering in Venezuela, that it will maintain Trump’s incendiary decision to have the US embassy in Jerusalem, that reviving the Iran nuclear deal is a long way off from happening and will first require consultation with Israel, and that it will be continuing Trump’s cold-war escalations against China.

In one of the more bizarre displays in the Senate hearings, Biden’s nominee to lead the State Department, Tony Blinken, defended his support for the disastrous Libya intervention during his time in the Obama administration by blaming its aftermath on Muammar Gaddafi, the leader who was mutilated to death in the streets after a US-led intervention to oust him.

“Here’s what I think we misjudged,” Blinken said. “We didn’t fully appreciate the fact that one of the things Gaddafi had done over the years was to make sure that there was no possible rival to his power, and as a result there was no effective bureaucracy, no effective administration in Libya with which to work when he was gone.”

By “when he was gone,” Blinken means when he was dead, because the United States helped kill him after staging an intervention based on lies. He is defending his push for an intervention that led to a failed state in which people are sold as slaves by saying that, if Gaddafi had run his country better, it would not have collapsed into violence and chaos when the Obama administration murdered him.

This is like an axe murderer blaming his actions on his victim’s bad housekeeping. The brazenness with which imperialist goons can shrug off all responsibility for their actions will never cease to astonish.

The next two years will be the Democratic Party at its most transparent. After two years, they are statistically likely to lose control of the House and/or Senate, after which time they’ll be able to pawn off all imperialist bloodshed and lack of progress on an ‘obstructionist Congress’, like they did for the last six years of the Obama administration. But until then, the Democrats are going to have to own all their reactionary depravity and mass murder on their own.

This will set a sharp contrast from the past four years, during which every mundane part of the US empire’s institutionalized abuse was portrayed as an anomaly unique to the Trump administration. Unable to blame their refusal to advance progressive policies and basic human decency on Trump and Vladimir Putin these next two years, they’ll be forced to kill any leftward movement all on their own. Which is why we are now already seeing mass-media articles with headlines such as “Under Biden, it’s time for Democrats to let go of Medicare for All.”

And this period will provide ample opportunities to highlight the fact that’s exactly what the Democratic Party exists to do: kill all leftward movement in the most powerful government on earth. As the US continues its soul-crushing neoliberal policies at home and its murderous neoconservative policies abroad with the same degree of psychopathy it displayed in previous administrations, we must draw attention to the fact that it is the Democratic Party that bears the responsibility for these matters.

The sooner Americans can discredit the Democratic Party as a legitimate vehicle for progressive change, the sooner they can start looking for other tools. The first step to escape is to stop pushing against the fake door falsely labeled ‘exit’.

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Biden Wants To Give Separated Illegal Immigrants $450,000 Per Person

The average amount sought through the courts is roughly $3.4 million per family, according to the report.

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Image Credit: Phil Murphy/Flickr

The Biden administration is mulling a plan to offer immigrant families separated during the Trump administration $450,000 per person in compensation, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter.

The payments – part of an inter-agency solution to several lawsuits filed on behalf of separated parents and children claiming lasting psychological trauma could amount to nearly $1 million per family, though ‘the final numbers could shift,’ according to the report.

According to sources, most of the families crossing into the US from Mexico included one parent and one child. Depending on circumstances, many families could get smaller payouts.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents families in one of the lawsuits, has identified about 5,500 children separated at the border over the course of the Trump administration, citing figures provided to it by the government. The number of families eligible under the potential settlement is expected to be smaller, the people said, as government officials aren’t sure how many will come forward. Around 940 claims have so far been filed by the families, the people said. -WSJ

In total, the potential payout could reach $1 billion or more.

Throughout the Trump administration, thousands of children were separated from their parents (and coyotes paid to bring them into the country) after they had crossed illegally into the country from Mexico. The lawsuits allege some of the children suffered various ailments – including malnutrition, heat exhaustion, and were kept in freezing cold rooms with little medical attention. Some claim lasting mental health problems due to the trauma of being without their parents for several months.

The average amount sought through the courts is roughly $3.4 million per family, according to the report.

“President Biden has agreed that the family separation policy is a historic moral stain on our nation that must be fully remedied,” said ACLU deputy director, Lee Gelernt. “That remedy must include not only meaningful monetary compensation, but a pathway to remain in the country.”

Senate Republicans slammed the plan on Thursday afternoon following the WSJ‘s report.

“The Biden administration’s promises of citizenship and entitlement programs have already caused the worst border crisis in history—a huge cash reward will make it even worse,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR).

The discussions about the payouts have taken place over the past few months among a group of dozens of private lawyers representing the families and government lawyers. Some government lawyers have viewed the payouts as excessive for people who had violated the law by crossing the border, the people said. One government lawyer threatened to remove his name from the case out of disagreement with the potential settlement offer, the people said. -WSJ

“It is a complicated, complex piece of litigation” – trying to resolve hundreds of separate lawsuits at the same time, and “sometimes even more complex to try the cases” said Margo Schlanger, who ran the civil-rights office during the Obama administration at the Department of Homeland Security and now teaches at the University of Michigan law school.

What will the reparations crowd think of this?

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White House To America: ‘We’re Coming Door To Door…With Shots!’

Will CDC soon recommend a nation-wide re-count of Covid deaths?

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White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said at the daily press conference yesterday that President Biden’s strategy to get everyone a Covid shot – whether they want it or not – is to start going “door-to-door” to those not yet jabbed. So…they have a list? Also today: bomb-maker Raytheon goes “woke.” Capitol Hill Cops set up shop in California. Will CDC soon recommend a nation-wide re-count of Covid deaths?

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Half A Million Illegals Crossed Since Harris Named Border ‘Czar’

By the time June’s figures are reported in the coming days, the combined number is expected to be over half a million, more than the entire population of Miami, Florida or Cleveland, Ohio.

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According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures, around 500,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border since Kamala Harris was named border ‘czar’.

The Washington Free Beacon reported the findings, noting that only three months has passed since Harris took on the responsibility, and that the half a million figure is just those that have been apprehended.

The CBP says around 180,000 immigrants are being caught per month. In April agents arrested 178,854 illegal immigrants, the highest monthly figure for 21 years. That figure was then surpassed in May as agents apprehended 180,034 illegals.

By the time June’s figures are reported in the coming days, the combined number is expected to be over half a million, more than the entire population of Miami, Florida or Cleveland, Ohio.

Harris only bothered to visit the border when President Trump announced he was making a trip. Even then Harris visited El Paso, some 1000 miles away from where the crisis is taking place.

Previous to this, Harris lied and claimed she had been to the border, telling NBC’s Lester Holt “This whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.”

When Holt pushed back and said she had not, Harris snapped “I—and I haven’t been to Europe. And I mean, I don’t—I don’t understand the point that you’re making,” then again laughed maniacally:

On Tuesday, Republican Senator Ron Johnson argued that Harris’ trip to El Paso was designed to distract the media and keep them away from the real crisis hit areas of the border.

“They took her to a point in the border where she wouldn’t see the crisis and so the press wouldn’t report on the crisis,” Johnson said.

The Senator added, “You just simply can’t understand what this administration is doing. We literally are apprehending now about 6,000 people per day. That’s I mean, that’s a large caravan every day being processed, some of them being returned, others are being dispersed. But this crisis is not going away. It’s just under everybody’s radar because the press isn’t covering it.”

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