Mike Johnson is a very dangerous man, with a lot of power. I’m not sure how exactly we counteract that, but this from President Biden lays down the gauntlet. Will it work? There’s no crystal ball here, we just have to wait to see how it plays out.
Now, House Republicans have to decide. Do they want to solve the problem? Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border? I’ve made my decision. I’m ready to solve the problem. I’m ready to secure the border. And so are the American people. I know we have our divisions at home but we cannot let partisan politics get in the way of our responsibilities as a great nation. I refuse to let that happen.
The bipartisan national security agreement would also address two other important priorities. It allows the United States to continue our vital work, together with partners all around the world, to stand up for Ukraine’s freedom and support its ability to defend itself against Russia’s aggression. As I have said before, if we don’t stop Putin’s appetite for power and control in Ukraine, he won’t limit himself to just Ukraine and the costs for America will rise. This agreement also provides Israel what they need to protect their people and defend itself against Hamas terrorists. And it will provide life-saving humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people.
Still hoping that the one or two remaining sane Republicans – who understand that they are sabotaging the security of the U.S. and the world for decades – can get Mike Johnson to back down from his destructive position.
If they can’t, and something passes only for Israel, that doesn’t include the border or Ukraine, I want to see Biden play hardball and veto the bill. Israel is apparently the one thing Mike Johnson cares about, so it’s time for hardball, if that’s what it comes to. There are dangers in doing that, but there are dangers to the alternative, as well.
May you live in interesting times. That, we do.
WaterGirl
Something light for the late night peeps.
Mike in NC
The sooner Johnson goes, the better. He’s exactly what to expect from a Louisiana Republican Representative: white supremacist, extreme religious fanatic, and totally devoted to the fascist MAGA cult.
Alison Rose
This is the crux of the problem with the GOP. They don’t want to solve any problems they complain about. They want those problems to exist so they can attack Democrats and raise money. They don’t really give a shit about anything other than remaining in power and making money and getting conservative judges in place to ruin life for anyone and everyone they dislike, which means anyone who occupies at least one rung on the marginalization ladder and who doesn’t pretend like prejudice against that rung doesn’t exist.
If there were never another single person crossing the southern border, it would break the GOP’s black little lumps of coal they insist on calling hearts.
coin operated
Yutsano:
Dragging from below…hope I did it right. Thank you for the link. I think between that article and the chemistry we saw onstage….they got it right.
Geoduck
Is there any chance an “Israel only” bill will reach Biden’s desk for him to veto?
Eolirin
Vetoing a stand alone Israel aid bill has a good shot of helping the Biden administration’s leverage in negotiations with Netanyahu and his coalition at this point too. Feels like a win-win honestly.
But to the comment above me, no probably not.
SFAW
Part of me hopes that someone whispers in that mofo’s ear, something on the order of “You’re hoping that your support for The Joos will help you get to End Times faster? If that’s how you want it, why’n’t we help you out, by charging you with Treason? That’ll bring your very own End Times around, perhaps a little quicker than you expected.”
Eggs, omelets, etc.
Yes, I realize I am not a nice person.
sdhays
I’m not a supporter of sending money to Israel right now, period. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m not sure Israel having unwavering American support for whatever shit they do has been good for Israel. It certainly has been good for many innocent others.
To be honest, the right-wing and media have frothed about “the border” so many times, I now just always assume it’s lies. Are there issues with “the border” and immigration? I’m sure there are. Do I think this Congress is going to do anything constructive about them? Not really.
So, yeah. I hope we can get support for Ukraine. If we have to toss something to Israel and “do something” at “the border”, that’s ok, I guess, as long as the support for Ukraine is “a lot”. If Ukraine isn’t in the mix, then I hope all the bills die.
fish bicycle
@Eolirin: I think many people fail to appreciate how sticking by Israel and trying to dissuade bibi from his genocidal excesses is also a message to Ukraine about standing by our allies even when it is difficult.
Vetoing a standalone Israel bill that would further privilege one ally over another is, from that perspective, a decent bet.
Jay
@sdhays:
Pretty sure there was an earlier comment today that noted that:
The “trucker convoy” has no trucks, and is a few hundred morons,
Who were supposed to diverted to a “cult prayer meeting” instead of going to the actual border,
but a small bunch, about 1/2, said fuck no, headed to the border, and discovered that they outnumbered
the supposed “flood of illegals” 50:1.
Urza
There are no sane Republicans. If they were sane they would leave the party or at least criticize TFG, none of which is happening.
Hoppie
Mike Johnson needs to spend more time
with his familymonitoring his son’s porn consumption.HumboldtBlue
Balloon-juice communications.
Also, Salad came by for a visit.
Gretchen
I’m not in favor of sending more money to Israel if their idea of defending themselves is bombing Gaza into the Stone Age. Biden is losing the young voters when they don’t see him opposing bombing little kids. My own son in law says he’ll never vote for Biden for that reason.
Martin
@Gretchen: Problem with that attitude is that Trump will fully support bombing them more, and not voting for Biden guarantees that policy.
HumboldtBlue
Oh Carolina. When simple meets a beat.
Doc Sardonic
deleted
ArchTeryx
@Gretchen: When it comes to politics, way too many kids seem happy to cut off their noses to spite their faces. They just can’t stomach that politics is *always* the choice of the lesser of two evils to an idealist. They don’t want to sully their beautiful minds with such compromise, so they sit home, and old Republicans elect people in their stead to make their life hell. Do they learn? Ask the ones who voted for *spit* Jill Stein. I’m hoping enough of them do to keep Trump out of office, or their idealism will be the first against the wall and shot.
Ksmiami
Biden should veto the Israel aid. All or nothing and Johnson needs to be stuffed into a Congressional gym locker.
Roberto el oso
@Hoppie: I have a strong feeling that the monitoring of porn consumption runs in the other direction.
Roberto el oso
@Gretchen: is he voting 3rd party? or leaving the top slot blank on the ballot? or not voting at all?
ArchTeryx
@Ksmiami: What he needs is a serious threat of a discharge petition. That sort of thing is normally just wanking, but with such a narrow margin and a number of NY Repubs looking nervously over their shoulders, that might well be a threat with some teeth this time.
Ksmiami
@ArchTeryx: agreed. The GOP congressional majority is paper thin.
Ksmiami
@Gretchen: tell him, my daughters thank him so much for destroying their rights to a safe pregnancy… really great and I’m sure he cares a lot about the poor Palestinian ppl who are actually part of the problem. Sure.
Gretchen
@Martin: oh yes, I know, but that’s not convincing people who are sickened by the carnage. SIL has young children and that’s all he can think of. I wish Biden would at least sound sympathetic to those who have lost family members. That’s usually his strength. I don’t believe for a minute that our famously empathetic president isn’t troubled by this, but many people think he doesn’t care.
Gretchen
@Roberto el oso: SIL lives his New York so his vote won’t matter. Definitely won’t go Trump. I’m just worried about others like him in competitive states.
Gretchen
@ArchTeryx: I completely agree. All those people who voted third party in 2016 to usher in the rainbows and unicorns didn’t learn anything.
VFX Lurker
Serious question: any idea how his spouse might vote?
Kay
Balloon Juice is a little delusional over this issue,IMO.
70 per cent of voters now want Biden to call for a ceasefire. His approval on this has dropped 15 points in the last month. VP Harris has expressed concern based on what she’s hearing while campaigning on college campuses. Biden is losing the Democrats in the Senate – Van Hollen and Kaine have said they will join Sanders to hold back 10 billion of Israel aid that goes to weaponry.
This is no longer just an issue on the Left. The majority of voters oppose a blank check policy for Israel, and that opposition is stronger among voters younger than 45 and black and brown voters.
Kay
Most Independents now oppose our Israel policy along with most Democrats. They think Israel has “gone too far” and are concerned we are getting dragged into a wider ME war.
This is a real problem for us and yelling at imaginary “Stein voters” isn’t going to fix it. Van Hollen and Kaine are not fringe Left.
NotMax
Lays Down the Gauntlet
Inartful phrasing? A gauntlet is a type of glove.
HumboldtBlue
@NotMax:
A gauntlet, you say?
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
Also too, welders and associated vocations don them.
;)
Gretchen
@VFX Lurker: pretty sure my daughter will vote Biden. Her husband may too, if things are settled by November. He sees pictures of kids in bombed out Gaza and all he can see are his own kids who look a lot like the Palestinian kids. I see it too.
Gretchen
@Kay: yes. Biden’s empathy and understanding for people who have experienced loss is one of his greatest strengths. I don’t understand why that’s not kicking in now. When my SIL sees pictures of little Palestinian kids who look a lot like his beloved kids, crying about dead parents in bombed out buildings, he’s not persuaded by political arguments. He’s just thinking what if those were my babies and why isn’t anybody stopping it? And really, while I want to believe that Biden is trying his best, that’s what I’m thinking too.
Jackie
@Alison Rose: I hope Biden restates this in a speech so it gets HEARD. Americans need to hear these words. Normies need to understand a significant bloc of so called Americans who are supposed to have America’s best interests, DON’’T.
Brit in Chicago
@NotMax: It means to challenge. (An old idiom, from when knights apparently did challenge one another by doing that.)
RevRick
@ArchTeryx: Karl Barth, one of the Protestant theological giants of the 20th century, observed that the lesser of two evils is actually the good. Having come out of the horrors of World War II, he clearly recognized that the war with all its killing and destruction was necessary to crush fascism.
Ours is a broken world, and desires for perfection can often lead to far worse outcomes.
Oh, and here we are facing the same threat, only now Trump and MAGA want to invite it in through the front door.
Soprano2
@Kay: Thread is probably dead, but I want to respond to this. I agree, he needs to change track. The problem is how to do it. I saw on this board a comment that people who hold a grudge about the attack on the U.S.S. LIberty must just be anti-Semites who are using that to hide their true feelings. This is the big problem I think Biden faces – how to criticise Israel without being called anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas. That’s a slick advantage Israel has – any time anyone criticizes their government’s actions, they can whip out the “anti-Semite” attack, and that makes most people run away in fear. It gives them an advantage most other countries don’t have when it comes to getting support from other Western countries. How do you overcome that, even in the face of what we see in public opinion? It’s not an easy needle to thread. I’m not in denial about the problem, I’m just not sure how they can overcome it. I agree also that they need to be more forceful about talking about the terrible civilian toll in Gaza, and how it needs to stop. I heard an Israeli on NPR interviewed the other day who said that when they see those crying children, all they see are future terrorists who could come to kill them. They don’t seem to understand at all that their actions are creating those terrorists!!!
Eolirin
@Soprano2: Biden’s been making statements along the lines of what everyone wants him to be saying, but we also have defense agreements with Israel, they were attacked, and the Israeli government has agency and we can’t exactly get them to stop what they’re doing easily. The options that might have stronger effect are pretty nuclear and would require the US abandoning not just the current government but the whole state. And that could lead Iranian backed proxies to open up new fronts of conflict in a way that could be existential or throw the whole region into chaos.
There are no good options here, and what the Biden administration is doing behind the scenes will matter more than what’s being said publicly. We’re never gonna know the full details.
US domestic politics can’t be the only consideration for situations like this. This is a regional mess and the decision making has consequences for the whole world given the nature of that region. I do not envy the Biden administration here.
Xavier
@Soprano2: Palestinians are semites too.
Paul in KY
@Alison Rose: You have captured the zeitgeist of the modern GQP.
Paul in KY
@Hoppie: I would be so so so so so embarrassed if my dad had taken on that chore. I’d also be so so so so so scared that one of my peers would find out about that and I’d never hear the end of it…
Paul in KY
@Gretchen: Your son in law is a purity pony or maybe secretly MAGA and that’s his ‘reason’. It is laughable, because TFG will be ever so much more badderer for Palestinians.
kindness
The Senate isn’t going to approve an Israel only aid package. The House may be OK with drowning the hostages but the Senate won’t help them.
Miss Bianca
Frankly, I’m kind of rooting for the “stand-alone aid to Israel” bill getting to Biden’s desk and having him stamp his big red VETO on it. I like to think that that would send a message to ALL the folks who need to be whapped upside the head with a clue-by-four: Republicans, Netanyahu, *and* the performative protestors on the left.
way2blue
Agreed. Speaker Johnson thinks he’s backed the Democrats into a corner and that they’ll blink. If Congressional Democrats do—Biden must hold the line. And hopefully break this dysfunctional loop we’re stuck in. At least on these issues…