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Harris vows at Michigan rally to ‘do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza’
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2024
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All the one-issue voters: uhh... what now?
Well, now Democrats will start coming up with excuses for why conditioning or ceasing arms sales to Netanyahu isn't within her power.
EDIT: I already voted for Harris.
It is within the President's power to use executive authority to halt the military financing to Israel.
(While this could maybebe overruled by congress, it would be a huge blow to Israel in the interim)
So in May the (majority Republican) House passed H.R.8369 - Israel Security Assistance Support Act:
This bill attempts to force the completion of arms sales to Israel. This basically amounts to the legislative branch meddling directly with how the executive branch conducts foreign policy and defense policy, which the White House objected to (completely correctly). Biden threatened to veto the act if it were sent to him. The bill was placed on the Senate's legislative calendar on May 21, 2024, and has not been voted on. It will probably not go anywhere at this point.
The executive branch has already been actively delaying some military equipment transfers to Israel, that's why the House pushed this act.
So if the Dems wanted to repeal this bill, they would need to control the house, correct?
Nah, the bill was never passed in the senate so it isn't law at all. Just unenforceable posturing.
If Democrats controlled the House the bill would likely not have passed there in the first place.
In any case it doesn't matter because the Senate will probably never vote on it, and even if they did and it passed Biden would veto it.
It's also important to understand that this bill would not add any new arms transfers to Israel, but only compel the completion of existing transfers which the executive branch had chosen to withhold.
Ultimately, the point is that Congress does not have the authority to force the transfer of US military equipment to a foreign power. The disposition of military equipment is the purview of the Department of Defense, and trade with other national governments is the purview of the Department of Foreign Affairs, both of which report to the President.
Thankfully it costs nothing to not send weapons.
This is essentially the crux of the issue. Congress can designate funds in the budget for aid to Israel and they can specify what the funds are for (military equipment, humanitarian aid, loans, etc), but they don't have the authority to perform the actual transfer of the funds (or material paid for by the funds) to Israel, that falls under the authority of the executive branch. Congress can provide the money but they can't actually force the spending of the money.
Praise be to the system of checks and balances.
I don't know why you're getting downvotes, I think you've got it right.
people are panicing because harris might lose and acting like morons towards anyone who doesn't unequivocally support her atm. add to that many people don't understand how the system works on top of it. 🤷 its no matter internet points are useless to me anyway. =)
It is, yes. But Democrats are fucking outstanding at inventing bureaucratic hurdles to stand in the way of things they ran on but don't want to do.
Is this the new "I condemn hamas" disclaimer everyone is required to have in their comments in order to criticize the democratic party?
Always has been. "I voted for the person, you can't say I'm voting for Trump or third party."
We have to otherwise we get smug liberals posting strawmen.
Two days before the election with no substance?
With no time for AIPAC to completely rat fuck the election and get Trump elected. Give her some time to help prevent the destruction of democracy and if she doesn't move on the issue then she'll reap what she sows.
This was my thought as well. I get the feeling she's been fairly quiet on the subject until now due to the power AIPAC has in our politics. If she spoke out this whole time, I'm sure they would have thrown all their financial and political power against her.
I hope we're right.
Me too. Although even once Harris takes office, AIPAC would still have a lot of power and influence. But I'm choosing to remain optimistically hopeful here.
All we need to do is freaking STOP standing in the way of the UN. How many times has the US vetoed the UN in attempts to assuage the horrors being visited on these Gazan people.
Yep, hopefully Harris will be able to direct the US reps at the UN to stop doing that much.
Unfortunately it seems there's a law that requires the US to defund where the UN recognizes Palestine as an independent state (see https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/unesco-votes-to-admit-palestine-over-us-objections/2011/10/31/gIQAMleYZM_story.html / https://archive.is/67xzK ) but I don't think that applies to the scenario you just discussed.
(I also don't get how that law works with the US supporting a two state solution - how can the US support a two state solution, one of which being Palestine - and defund those who recognize two states too?)
Even given that, "end the war as soon as possible" is an open ended statement. The war would end if everyone in Gaza was dead, and that could happen pretty quick if all the gloves came off.
Still, saying something is nice.
Obama promised he'd close Guantanamo....
This seems about the same
Maybe start saying it outside of Muslim heavy areas and more than two days out and it won't look so much like pandering
Obama was prevented from closing Gitmo by congress. IIRC, a big part of the problem was how to handle the criminal cases; all of the prisoners ("detainees") in Gitmo have been tortured, the chain of evidence has multiple breaks in it, and it's highly debatable that they can be tried in any kind of court. Yet intelligence agencies remain convinced that the remaining prisoners are guilty of terrorism. Congress didn't want to move any of them to the US, because they didn't want purported terrorists being held on US soil because ???
The president isn't supposed to be able to act unilaterally, but we've allowed that Overton window to shift towards heavily authoritarian.
He was prevented by language in bills he signed, and that was only after the Republicans took control in 2010. The failure to close Gitmo was just the same dithering and cautiousness that doomed or degraded many of his other optimistic goals. The whole reason Gitmo is bad is because it can be governed by unilateral executive decisions. It's one of those situations where he had real power to decide how things worked, but wanted everything to process through a slow bureaucracy rather than taking a more active role.
For fuck sake... HE TRIED
It's hilarious how libs think this is any different from what genocide joe has been saying for the past year.
Nothing? This is nothing new from her. Its no commitment..its vaguely worded trash.
As someone who is frequently called a single issue voter over a number of different issues:
Ummm what? Her statement was insultingly empty (the entire article is air) and the title contradicts what she's been saying for 6 months. I'm not suddenly about to put a Harris billboard on my lawn
Do they have billboards saying "reluctantly voting Harris out of necessity"?
They should. The overwhelming majority of Biden voters voted against Trump more than for Biden and I'd bet the farm that, while probably to a significantly lesser degree, Harris is going to win in the same way.
The Dem leadership hasn't updated the pillars of their electoral and policymaking strategy since 1992 and it really shows.
Even when Harris or Walz say something truly based that gets the Left hopeful for real change in the right direction (which has happened a few times), some apparatchik always takes pains to point out that it's "not part of the platform" 😮💨
Press releases walking back good things she said was kind of the hallmark of her primary campaign in 2020 too.
Yeah I really wish she had been saying this before yesterday.