U.S. Politics

[Rick Plant]

President Biden @POTUS

My team and I have been monitoring the BA.5 variant of COVID-19 for months. We're prepared, and we know how to manage this moment with the vaccines, treatments, and other tools we have made widely available.



https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1546869482278342660

[Rick Plant]

President Biden @POTUS

Today’s report is a reminder that inflation is too high – fighting inflation is my top economic priority. And while the numbers today are not acceptable, they are also outdated.
 
In the past 30 days, the average price of gas has dropped by 40 cents a gallon.

That's breathing room for American families, but oil prices have come down $20/barrel while gas at the pump has only come down 40 cents. Oil and gas companies must pass these lower costs on to consumers.

Lastly, annual core inflation is down for the third month in a row. To lower inflation more, without giving up the economic gains we’ve achieved, Congress must act – now. They must work to reduce the cost of everyday expenses for working families.

Send legislation to my desk.

Energy alone comprises nearly half of today's inflation numbers. So, here's what's important:

- The price of gas has decreased for 30 days straight, the price at the pump has dropped by 40 cents since mid-June.
- Gas should continue to come down in the days and weeks ahead.

It's time for gas retailers to pass the cost declines they’re feeling in the market onto American families at the pump.



https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1547289291155558401

[Rick Plant]

Biden greeted as old friend in Israel at start of Middle East tour



TEL AVIV (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden arrived on Wednesday in Israel, which embraced him as an old friend on the first leg of a high-stakes trip dominated by efforts to bring it closer to Saudi Arabia and to persuade Washington's Gulf allies to pump more oil.

Landing at Ben Gurion Airport, whose tarmac he first trod in 1973 as a senator, Biden bumped fists with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and President Isaac Herzog and, in a speech, described the connection between the two nations as "bone-deep".

"You do not need to be a Jew to be a Zionist," Biden added, voicing support for the ideology behind Israel's foundation on lands with ancient Jewish roots, and which is deeply resented by many Palestinians.



Biden also reiterated U.S. desire for negotiations, stalled since 2014, to create a Palestinian state on Israeli-occupied territory, calling this two state solution "the best hope" for both peoples.

Biden's first visit to Israel as president is his tenth of a long political career. Israel has stepped carefully around disputes with Washington over Iranian nuclear diplomacy and long-stalled Palestinian statehood negotiations.

"Your relationship with Israel has always been personal," Lapid said in a speech, calling Biden "one of the best friends Israel has ever known".

Biden will spend two days in Jerusalem before meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday in the occupied West Bank.

He will then fly directly from Israel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for talks with Saudi officials and to attend a summit of Gulf allies.

U.S. officials say the trip could produce more steps toward normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, historic foes but also two of America's strongest allies in the turbulent region.

That would build on the establishing or upgrading of Israeli relations with United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco under a U.S. initiative in 2020 dubbed the Abraham Accords, after the biblical patriarch revered by both Jews and Muslims.

In a similar vein, Herzog played on Biden's first name, deeming him "both a visionary and a leader" like the biblical Joseph. Biden was "truly amongst family" in Israel, Herzog said.

Biden's trip aims to promote regional stability, deepen Israel's integration in the region and counter Iranian influence and aggression by Russia and China.

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan reiterated Washington's desire for the reopening of a Jerusalem consulate shut down by the former U.S. administration of President Donald Trump. The consulate had served the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as capital of a future state.

"Obviously that requires engagement with the Israeli government," Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force 1. Israel deems all of Jerusalem its capital - a status not recognised abroad - and does not consent to the consulate reopening.

Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said he saw nothing new from Biden on Palestinian issues.

“Biden’s visit aims to integrate the occupation state in the Arab region and build a new alliance against Iran. When it comes to the promises President Biden made during his electoral campaign and early in office, we don’t see any practical formula to reflect that on the ground,” he added.



OUTREACH TO PALESTINIANS

Biden's talks with Abbas will be the first between a U.S. president and a Palestinian leader since the Obama administration. The Palestinians boycotted the Trump administration over a peace plan they saw as biased against them.

Tensions are high between Israel and the Palestinians over the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May during an Israeli army raid in the West Bank.

Palestinians say she was killed by Israeli troops deliberately; Israel denies this. Washington has concluded she was killed by a bullet from the direction of an Israeli position but it has no evidence it was intentional.

The Palestinians, while appreciating the resumption of ties under Biden, want him to make good on pledges to reopen the Jerusalem consulate.

They also want the United States to remove the PLO from the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, block changes to rules for worship at Jerusalem sites revered by Muslims and Jews, and curb Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Israeli officials said Biden's visit would work towards what they called a Jerusalem Declaration on the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership.

One official said the joint declaration "takes a very clear and united stand against Iran, its nuclear program and its aggression across the region and commits both countries to using all elements of their national power against the Iranian nuclear threat."

Biden is likely to face questions from Israel and from Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates about the wisdom of his attempts to revive a nuclear deal with Iran that was abandoned by his predecessor Trump.

At Ben Gurion Airport, Biden received a briefing on Israel's U.S.-supported Iron Dome defense system and a new laser-enabled system called Iron Beam. He will also pay his respects at Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to Holocaust victims in World War Two.

Israel has been jolted by internal political strife with previous prime minister Naftali Bennett's coalition collapsing in June.

This has left Lapid as caretaker prime minister until a new election in November, the fifth in less than four years. He and Biden will give a joint news conference on Thursday.

Biden will also meet past prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now the opposition leader. Netanyahu was a close ally of Trump and a critic of the Obama administration when Biden served as vice president.

AFP

[Rick Plant]

The Roe backlash is real. And, as they say, it is spectacular

People are enraged about the Supreme Court unceremoniously overturning Roe. Now we’re seeing just how angry they are.

Organizers behind Michigan’s Reproductive Freedom for All proposal report that they’ve already collected over 800,000 signatures, nearly double the 425,059 needed by July 15 to get the measure on the ballot – a Michigan record for a ballot initiative.

If approved, this proposal would amend that state’s Constitution to sup1931 law that banned abortion until Roe came along.

And more importantly, it would send a message to the enemies of reproductive rights everywhere – be afraid. Right now, you’re looking upon your works. You should despair.

A ten-year-old rape victim forced to flee her home. Doctors fearing prison if they decide to save a patient from an ectopic pregnancy. Red state politicians salivating at being able to hunt anyone seeking an abortion by preventing them from crossing state lines.

For now, you’re getting exactly what you wanted.

But voters won’t rest until the rights Roe guaranteed are restored.

The popularity of this measure also confirms something that should be obvious to anyone who pays attention to politics – Michigan is the model for resisting autocracy.

You may say that I’m a little too proud of my adopted home state. You might also say I’m overcompensating for the shame of my state of having helped elect Donald Trump in 2016.

You would be right. But so am I.

Like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Michigan responded to the realization that they’d put a Putinist in the White House by electing Democrats to key statewide offices, including governor, in 2018.

But the Mitten took the extra step of passing two ballot measures that helped undo some of the damage done to voting rights.

Proposal 2 gave the state one of the best approaches to ending gerrymandering in the nation. Proposal 3 expanded ballot access dramatically by, among many other things, giving every Michigander the option to vote by mail.

Both proposals passed with more than 61 percent support. Both were more popular than the measure legalizing weed, which also passed.

Making it easier to vote helped Michigan reject Trump in 2020 by 146,000 votes, more than 10-times his margin of victory in 2016.

Thanks to our new fair maps, Democrats have a chance to win back the state Senate for the first time since 1984 along with the state House, which has been in GOP hands most of the last decade.

This would not only give Governor Gretchen Whitmer a chance to actually govern in 2023, it would prevent what is shaping up as the GOP’s plan to steal key swing states in 2024 by using gerrymandered legislatures to overrule voters.

Increased voting rights and fair maps are the simplest way to fight back at the attrition of democracy that made Trump possible. And to be fair, I have to note that Michigan has a huge advantage in achieving these goals over many states, including our fellow bricks in the Blue Wall – Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Pennsylvanians need the state legislature to approve a measure before it can go on their ballot. And the GOP-controlled, gerrymandered-for-their-pleasure state House in the Keystone State will never do anything like that to risk their power or ability to help elect Trump or a Trump impersonator.

In Wisconsin, you need the measure to pass two consecutive legislatures to pass a ballot measure that would modify the state Constitution. Something that will never happen because the state is, at this point, barely a democracy.

But Michigan’s unique ability to fight for democracy makes it more important to the rest of the nation, not less.

If Michigan’s Reproductive Freedom for All passes in the nation’s third most important swing state with nearly two-thirds of voters supporting it, as I imagine it will, this will send a message to the rest of the nation.

That message will be loud and it will resonate much in the same way that Mallory McMorrow’s righteous speech calling out Republican BS did. And hopefully it will embolden weak-kneed Democrats to stand up on an issue where voters overwhelmingly and clearly oppose Republican BS.

It will say, we’re sick of your garbage and we’re not going to take it anymore. Yes, this isn’t enough, given the depths and depravity of the threats to our rights and democracy we face.

But it’s definitely a start.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/roe-backlash-real-and-spectacular/

[Rick Plant]

President Biden @POTUS

The United States' support of the State of Israel's defense capabilities is stronger than ever before, including our partnership with Israel on the most cutting-edge defense systems in the world like the Iron Dome and Israel’s new laser-enabled system called the Iron Beam.




Today, I paid a visit to the hallowed ground of Yad Vashem where I had the distinct honor of meeting Dr. Gita Cycowicz and Ms. Rena Quint, two Holocaust survivors.

I vow to continue our shared, unending work to fight the poison of antisemitism wherever we find it in the world.



https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1547337043059113986

[Rick Plant]

Each of these Republicans gave tax cuts to the ultra wealthy resulting in record deficits. The GOP tax scams exploded the debt and put us into an economic crisis in 2008 under Bush and 2020 with Trump. Now, the GOP wants to get back into power to give more tax cuts to the ultra wealthy as they are talking about eliminating Social Security and Medicare.   

Each Democrat decreased Republican deficit and fixed Republican economic disasters.   

The Bush Tax Cuts Are the Disaster that Keeps on Giving
6/7/11
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-bush-tax-cuts-are-the-disaster-that-keeps-on-giving/

How Trump’s tax cuts and tariffs will make coronavirus recession worse
5/19/20
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-05-19/trumps-tax-cuts-trade-wars-economy-coronavirus-recession

[Rick Plant]

WATCH: Biden, Israeli leaders deliver remarks in Tel Aviv