The Cost Of Being A Jerk
Continuing in the Mideast the BBC reports that Barack Obama will not meet Benjamin Netanyahu in March. John Boehner, the well-known chain-smoking golfer … oh, also the Speaker of the House, has invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress on Iran.
Obama used the diplomatic excuse that Presidents don’t meet with officials who are facing elections, but he is also annoyed with Netanyahu attempts to sabotage the Iran nuclear negotiations and multiple instances of Netanyahu insulting members of Obama’s administration.
Relations with the US has become a major issue in the Israeli election.
6 comments
Has anyone told Israel that their genocide of Palestinians in Gaza is a major issue for many of us here.
What was their excuse? Bottle rockets?
The majority of the Congress would parrot the Israeli claim of ‘self defense’, just like they claim that they aren’t really stealing Palestinian lands for their settlements, or forcing Palestinians out of Jerusalem. The Likud makes a lot of claims that are absurd on their face, like being a US friend and ally, but a majority in Congress are as afraid of the power of AIPAC propaganda as they are of the NRA propaganda and Americans voters can forget getting their voices heard.
Meanwhile, Congress, specifically the House, is going full-blown batsh!t crazy with the ultra-conservative agenda. Take a gander at TPM or at my site; I surely hope Obama has his veto pen ready and intends to use it…
The Republicans have been doing this since they took over the House. Look at all the votes to overturn the Affordable Care Act. They pass laws to make the most vocal crazies among their base as a matter of course, not in any expectation of these things actually becoming law.
Too bad the Democrats have never attempted to pass laws that would appeal to their base when they were in charge – they might have been in charge longer if they had. Bipartisanship is something that only the Democrats and other fools do.
I don’t expect most of these attempts will even get a vote in the Senate, much less actually pass to be vetoed.
“Bipartisanship is something that only the Democrats and other fools do.”
… which is exactly why I renounced my formal affiliation with the Democratic Party. It’s not that there’s no difference between D and R; it’s that neither major party represents any significant part of my political agenda, and minor parties have little if any positive influence on the process or the agenda. I’ll just stay home and listen to my built-in involuntary radio…
The election laws passed by the state legislatures really give the two major parties huge advantages in an election, beyond the power they get from their financial resources.
Howard Dean was on the right track, but the gang that allied themselves with Zero destroyed what Dean had done by backing Blue Dogs instead of real Democrats.