The Biden administration is due in federal court later this month, while Israel faces charges of genocide at The Hague this week.

In late December, 77 groups — representing tens of thousands of lawyers, civil society leaders, and activists from six continents — filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit that Palestinian human rights organizations, residents of Gaza, and U.S. citizens with family members impacted by Israel’s ongoing assault brought against the Biden administration.

According to Law for Palestine, a human rights and legal advocacy organization, there have been at least 500 instances of Israeli lawmakers, officials, and officers inciting genocide.

Sourani said that the statements by Israeli officials, along with the actual blockade, the indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian buildings, the basic lack of safe space, and the mass displacement of millions of Palestinians makes it clear: “All of this is tantamount to genocide.”

The plaintiffs responded to the administration’s motion to dismiss on December 22, arguing that there is precedent for U.S. courts to adjudicate questions surrounding genocide and that their legal challenge is about more than the actions of a foreign state. Rather, the plaintiffs argued, their injuries are “fairly traceable” to the actions of the U.S. government. “The suggestion that the U.S. does not or cannot influence Israel borders on the absurd, not least because the Israeli government acknowledges its actions could not happen without U.S. license and support, and Defendants have boasted about their coordination with and influence over Israel,” the plaintiffs wrote.

  • TigrisMorte
    2•11 months ago

    Biden is the only choice as he is the Incumbent. Any other consideration is a direct path to losing. That is the simple reality. That is exactly what happened in 2016. People stayed home after their candidate did not get the nod. Demanding, promoting, or in fact whining about not having any other choices is naive and self defeating.

    Our system in place creates a binary. There is no third option that is viable. You don’t have to like choosing between a giant douche and a shit sandwich, but at least the douche is trying to clean something.

    • @KeeponstalinOPEnglish
      -1•11 months ago

      That’s an understandable argument considering the historical incumbent advantage. However, I think this election is unlike other incumbents and there is reason to believe the incumbent advantage doesn’t apply for Biden this election cycle.

      The long-standing reasons political scientists gave for a presidential incumbency advantage included: 1) political inertia and status quo bias (most people will support an incumbent they voted for the last time); 2) experience campaigning; 3) the power to influence events (such as well-timed economic stimulus); 4) the stature of being a proven leader; 5) the ability to command media attention in a “constant campaign” environment; and 6) a united party with no bruising primary challenges.

      Today, these advantages seem less clear. Instead, growing disadvantages have supplanted them: Unrelenting media scrutiny; a bruising political environment; pervasive anti-politician bias; and above all, a spiraling hyper-partisan doom loop of animosity and demonization that imposes a harsh starting ceiling on any president’s approval.

      I don’t understand your point about the 2016 election, none of the articles I read about how Hilary lost the Electoral College vote despite winning the popular vote mentioned her having opposition in the primaries as one of the reasons.

      I’m not saying vote third party, that’s a red herring in a FPTP voting system. (It should be a kind of ranked voting system like approval or STV, hopefully if enough states switch, the national one can too.)

      • TigrisMorte
        1•11 months ago

        The Voter turn out was depressed across the States in play. That is not remotely in question.
        You must get ranked choice in place before not pretend it’ll get put in place.

        • @KeeponstalinOPEnglish
          -1•11 months ago

          Yes, it’s very true that 2016 has historical low voter output. But I don’t see how you’re attributing that to her opposition in the primaries. All the analysis I’ve read over and data I’ve seen suggests that it was her as a candidate and what the DNC decided to focus on. Her policies not improving the material conditions of the voter base and the democratic party not focusing on key demographics.

          Although the exact strategy for achieving this is beyond the confines of this paper, we have argued in the past that Democrats must go beyond the “identity politics” versus “economic populism” debate to create a genuine cross-racial, cross-class coalition that supports economic opportunity, good jobs, and decent social provisions for all people and makes specific steps to improve the conditions of people of color, many of whom continue to suffer from the legacy of historical and institutional racism in housing, schools, wealth building, and job access.

          • TigrisMorte
            0•11 months ago

            It was very ugly and suppressed turn out because the folks that bought into the propaganda stayed home “to teach the Dem.s a lesson”. Of course the actual lesson was lost a many folks that are again buying into the propaganda.

            • @KeeponstalinOPEnglish
              -1•11 months ago

              Do you have any sources to suggest that? Without evidence I find it hard to believe that claim

              • TigrisMorte
                -1•11 months ago

                Then you were not there and didn’t pay attention.
                Ben Ghazi and his Buttery Males review were pounded by the Republicans and the infighting over the primary season gave backing to it as that was the primary argument made against her and Democratic Party saw poor turn out as folks were apathetic, since they bought into the claims as a result of the infighting getting used by Corpo media to cudgel Clinton as corrupt and they all thought otherwise there was no horse race. The infighting was the singular reason it wasn’t ignored by the apathetic no shows. Social media was full of “teach the Dems a lesson”, much as it is today.

                https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/08/09/an-examination-of-the-2016-electorate-based-on-validated-voters/
                https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/voter-turnout-2016-elections
                https://news.yale.edu/2021/04/21/swing-vote-trumped-turnout-2016-election
                https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-democrats-real-turnout-problem.html

                • @KeeponstalinOPEnglish
                  -1•11 months ago

                  Although our main result is evidence that both conversion and compositional change drive electoral change, we also uncovered important variability in the relative balance of these factors across states. In two of the six states—the ethnically and racially diverse states of Georgia and Nevada—we estimate compositional changes to have been of larger magnitude than conversion. In the remaining four states, conversion was of larger magnitude than composition. We also find that in four of the six states, composition and conversion favor different candidates. Conversion effects, however, are more often in the same direction as electoral change

                  The third article does suggest conversion played a larger role than compositional change (attracting more voters).

                  Clinton also pulled in a lower share of voters between ages 18 and 29 than Obama did during his two campaigns, Becker said.

                  “Several million voters didn’t come out to vote,” Becker said. “Which is telling me that this idea of the Trump wave, a huge number of voters shifting over to Trump, is certainly not the story.”

                  Either way, though, turnout is a problem for Democrats that will persist long after this election. Many strong Democratic constituencies — like young voters, Latinos and Asian-Americans — have relatively low turnout rates. African-American turnout has trailed white turnout when Obama was not on the ballot.

                  The other three articles notify a lack of turnout as the main culprit. A lack of turnout will naturally diminish voters from compositional change and highlight voters of conversion. That makes it clear that the driving factor was Hilary and the DNC’s campaign strategy not attracting enough voters. Which brings me back to the reasons I stated above. None of these blame the primaries or ‘infighting’ as the reason. It seems you really want to blame Hilary’s opposition like Bernie for her loss instead of Hilary and the DNC.

                  The situation was more complex that some people on the Internet switching votes to own the libs

                  • TigrisMorte
                    -1•11 months ago

                    estimate AKA guess.

                    oops, “Several million voters didn’t come out to vote,” Becker said. “Which is telling me that this idea of the Trump wave, a huge number of voters shifting over to Trump, is certainly not the story.” seems you skipped some stuff just like you ignored what was being reported and posted in 2016.

                    Sadly, as you are blatantly in bad faith, Yeah sure dude, whatever.