‘Morally Bankrupt’ Biden Blasted for $8 Billion More in Arms to Israel Amid Gaza Genocide

Spread the love

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Injured Palestinians, including children, are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah for treatment aftermath of Israeli attack on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Bureij Camp, Gaza on January 4, 2025.  (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“The Biden administration is ending its tenure as it has acted throughout it,” said A New Policy co-founder Josh Paul, “with a complete disregard for Palestinian humanity, American laws, and American interests.”

Human rights advocates in the United States and around the world on Monday condemned outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden for continuing to fuel Israel’s genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip with a pending $8 billion weapons package.

Since Axoisrevealed late Friday that his administration had notified Congress of the deal, Biden has faced a fresh flood of outrage, with critics calling the president “morally bankrupt” and his decision to keep arming Israel “willful madness.”

“Too many kids still alive in Gaza for Joe Biden’s liking,” Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian American political analyst, said on social media. “This is an administration of cowards and criminals and will go down as a historic worst.”

Two men who resigned from the Biden administration over U.S. support for Israel’s assault on Gaza—which has killed at least 45,854 Palestinians and led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice—shared sharp critiques on Monday.

“The Biden administration is ending its tenure as it has acted throughout it,” said ex-U.S. State Department official Josh Paul, “with a complete disregard for Palestinian humanity, American laws, and American interests.”

“The precedent set by the Biden administration will surely haunt our nation for many years to come.”

Paul and former Education Department official Tariq Habash launched the lobbying group A New Policy in October. Habash also took aim at Biden’s new effort to arm Israel with missiles for fighter jets and attack helicopters, 155 mm artillery shells, small-diameter bombs, 50-pound warheads, bomb fuzes, and kits used to convert “dumb bombs” into precision-guided munitions.

“Americans continue to struggle here at home, so the notion that the Biden administration would push another $8 billion in weapons to Israel on the backs of American [taxpayers] demonstrates how unmoored this administration has become from its values and its commitments to the American people,” said Habash. “The precedent set by the Biden administration will surely haunt our nation for many years to come.”

Win Without War executive director Sara Haghdoosti also denounced the effort, saying in a Monday statement that “these weapon sales won’t bring hostages home and don’t get us closer to a viable long-term solution that ensures Israelis and Palestinians can live with dignity without the threat of violence.”

“Many of the types of weapons reported to be part of this $8 billion package have been used—or are likely to be used—to kill and wound Palestinian civilians in Gaza, in a war that drags on because the president and his advisers refused to exercise real leverage to end it,” she noted. “This new tranche of weapons will surely be used to the same horrific ends.”

Haghdoosti highlighted that “President Biden and his senior advisers continue skirting U.S. laws that should prohibit the sale of deadly weapons while Israeli officials restrict humanitarian aid and seek to make Gaza uninhabitable.”

Despite attempts by progressives in Congress such as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to block some arms to Israel, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have repeatedly voted to send more—including with the $895 billion National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2025 that they sent to Biden’s desk last month.

News of the $8 billion package comes just two weeks away from the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

Paul said that “there is no need to rush these sales to completion, but it is clear President Biden and his appointees at the State Department do not have confidence in the Trump administration to follow through on their decision to rush arms to Israel with no questions asked, which is why they are pushing through these sales now.”

While the current administration is clearly aiming to push the package through ahead of the looming transition of power in the United States, Trump is widely expected to serve as an ally to Israel, as he did in his first term. Haghdoosti sounded the alarm about the Republican’s return to the White House with a GOP-controlled Congress.

“These latest sales mark a bleak handoff to the incoming Trump administration, whose senior nominees openly ally with far-right Israeli government ministers who plan to settle Gaza and annex the West Bank, all but guaranteeing another generation of displacement and deprivation that will undermine security for Palestinians and Israelis alike,” she said.

Trump and far-right leaders in Israel—including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir—”will use these sales to advance that violent project,” Haghdoosti added. “It is an utter shame that President Biden has chosen to abet it during his final days in office.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Genocide Joe Biden
Genocide Joe Biden
CHORUS:
I'm Genocide Joe, Genocide Joe
Genocide is my name
Genocide is my game
I'm Genocide Joe, Genocide Joe
Just so you know
Do you know?
I'm Genocide Joe, Genocide Joe

Anything Bibi wants
I'm there every time
As soon as I can
There every time
CHORUS

There at his beck and call
All that Bibi wants
200lb feck off bombs?
Sure you don't want some more?
CHORUS

I bend the rules, bend the rules
Get away with mass murder, Genocide
Get away with mass murder, Genocide
I'm Genocide Joe, Genocide Joe
CHORUS

8.10 GMT 7/1/25. I posted this originally at approx 23.30 GMT 6/1/25. This blog was immediately disabled with a “we are checking your connection” endless loop. I’ve since disabled Cloudflare CDN and need to fully disengage it. Please be inspired by the song – it can be developed in so many ways. Son with a gun … Pardon?

Continue Reading‘Morally Bankrupt’ Biden Blasted for $8 Billion More in Arms to Israel Amid Gaza Genocide

Morning Star Editorial: Starmer’s private healthcare fixation puts ideology before patients

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmers-private-healthcare-fixation-puts-ideology-patients

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaks to medical staff and media during a visit to Elective Orthopaedic Centre in Epsom, Surrey, to highlight his ‘plan for change’ commitments on health, January 6, 2025

KEIR STARMER says he is expanding NHS dependence on the private sector because he is “not interested in putting ideology before patients.”

But continuing to increase outsourcing of NHS care to private providers ignores the evidence of the last decade and puts corporate profit, not patients, first.

Labour’s plans for the NHS represent continuity with Tory policy, not change.

The number of procedures outsourced by the NHS has steadily grown since 2014, without any discernible impact on waiting lists, which have soared in the same period.

Private hospitals have claimed an ever greater share of routine operations, now performing about a quarter of hip and knee replacements and the same proportion of cataract removals: extracting sizeable profits on simple operations which would cost less in-house.

In the process, they undermine the NHS’s capacity to deliver such treatments. Most medics working in the private sector also carry out work for the NHS, while private providers are constantly seeking to recruit more NHS staff: the greater the demand for private operations, the greater the drain on the NHS workforce. Outsourcing is not driven simply by need but by greed: with higher rates available in the private sector, some doctors have an incentive to refer patients for private treatment at public expense.

Starmer wants to raise the number of privately provided operations by another 20 per cent. But with a shared workforce, this could mean the NHS paying more for the same number of procedures rather than slashing waiting lists.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmers-private-healthcare-fixation-puts-ideology-patients

Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Starmer’s private healthcare fixation puts ideology before patients

Starmer plans to ‘embed profit-seeking parasites’ into NHS, campaigners warn

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-plans-to-embed-profit-seeking-parasites-into-nhs-campaigners-warn

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (centre) and Health Secretary Wes Streeting (left), with NHS CEO Amanda Pritchard (right) during a visit to Elective Orthopaedic Centre in Epsom, Surrey, to highlight his ‘plan for change’ commitments on health, January 6, 2025

TARGETING a 20 per cent increase in the use of the private sector to cut waiting lists risks “permanently embedding the profit-taking parasite” into the health service, campaigners have warned.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer claimed he is “not interested in putting ideology before patients” as he unveiled the NHS’s growing use of private healthcare in a major speech today.

Private operators will receive an extra £2.5 billion a year in government funding under his new elective reform plan to address a waiting list for planned care on which 6.4 million people are waiting for 7.5m treatments.

This amounts to as many as a million extra appointments, scans and operations a year by the for-profit sector, with the official aim of patients no longer having to wait more than 18 weeks for non-urgent hospital care by spring 2029.

During his speech in Surrey, the prime minister acknowledged some people will “not like” expansion of the private sector in the NHS, but said: “To cut waiting times as dramatically as possible, our approach must be totally unburdened by dogma.”

Keep Our NHS Public co-chair Dr Tony O’Sullivan said: “The commitment of Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting to long-term contracts with the private sector threatens to permanently embed the profit-taking parasite in the NHS host, undermining the prospect of NHS recovery as a publicly provided universal service meeting the needs of the population.

“Starmer says he will ‘not let ideology stand in the way’ but it is their ideological choice that will stand in the way of sustainable NHS recovery.

“Safe and prompt community care will only be delivered through an urgent expansion of skilled staff.”

We Own It lead campaigner Johnbosco Nwogbo said: “Using the private sector to cut waiting lists was the centrepiece of the Conservative government’s Elective Recovery Plan in February 2022, but waiting lists kept going up.

“Starmer’s ‘new’ initiative looks suspiciously similar to the Conservatives’ failed plan.

“Hospitals are crumbling while the NHS is haemorrhaging at least £10m a week to private shareholder profits — money which could build a new operating theatre every week.

Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-plans-to-embed-profit-seeking-parasites-into-nhs-campaigners-warn

Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the "hard times".
Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.

Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.

Continue ReadingStarmer plans to ‘embed profit-seeking parasites’ into NHS, campaigners warn

First Palestine protests of 2025 take place across Britain

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/first-palestine-protests-of-2025-take-place-across-britain

Protesters march in Huddersfield Photo: Neil Terry Photography

THE first Palestine protests of 2025 took place across Britain at the weekend.

In Wales, campaigners staged a day of healthcare protests including outside Maelor Hospital in Wrexham.

The protest was against “the total destruction of key hospitals and healthcare facilities in Gaza and the wholesale slaughter of Palestinian doctors, nurses and paramedics by the Israeli military.”

A freedom march was also staged through the town of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire on Saturday, organised by Huddersfield Freedom For Palestine.

And hundreds marched through the streets of Manchester on Saturday in a weekly protest organised by Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine (GMFP), which brings together a dozen support groups in the region.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign said: “Israel is escalating its attack on Palestinian healthcare system — attacking hospitals and imprisoning hundreds of healthcare workers.

“Join us to demand our government takes action to save Gaza’s healthcare workers.”

The next national demonstration for Palestine takes place in London on January 20.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/first-palestine-protests-of-2025-take-place-across-britain

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Continue ReadingFirst Palestine protests of 2025 take place across Britain

The far right’s dangerous new playbook for 2025

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/far-rights-dangerous-new-playbook-2025

RISING RIGHT: Activists wearing masks of far-right politicians (L-R) Marine Le Pen, former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Vox leader Santiago Abascal, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni protest before the EU elections, Madrid, May 19 2024

Driven on by novel forms of hard-right populism like Modi and Trump, European neofascists are skillfully rebranding themselves and taking power by copying the left’s language — just as they did in the last century, writes JOHN GREEN

AROUND the world, we have been witnessing the rise of new right-wing and neofascist political forces at the same time as we have experienced the demise or marginalisation of strong left-wing forces.

We face a new and more virulent Donald Trump presidency in the US, we have seen the success of Giorgio Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia party in Italy, Modi’s fundamentalist Hinduism in India, Javier Milei’s neoliberal extremism in Argentina, Victor Orban’s authoritarian regime in Hungary and the jack-in-the-box rise of Nigel Farage, who sees himself as a prime minister in waiting, here in Britain.

The right loves using the German fascists’ full name, National Socialist German Workers Party, rather than the shortened term Nazi in order to deliberately conflate fascism with socialism and communism in the public’s mind.

As we know, Hitler only belatedly incorporated the term socialist into his party’s name in order to sow confusion and win over working-class voters, which he managed to do very successfully. The National Socialists were soon demasked as firm upholders of rampant capitalism, not socialism.

Of course, drawing comparisons between 1930s Germany and our world today can be dangerous, but there are undoubted parallels from which we can learn. Once again, world capitalism is in a deep crisis, and fascism is seen in some quarters, once again, as offering an apparent way out.

Just as the Nazis did, the neofascists today, recognising the widespread anger among large sections of the population at the way the super-wealthy are destroying our societies with impunity, are pretending to attack the unaccountable oligarchs and super-wealthy tech CEOs, big pharma and authoritarian government.

This is, however, mere rhetoric in order to win over the disaffected working classes; they have no intention of doing anything about the super-rich and tech monopolies who are or will be funding them.

I recommend this article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/far-rights-dangerous-new-playbook-2025. I didn’t understand the reference to Tucker Carlson.

Continue ReadingThe far right’s dangerous new playbook for 2025