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UPDATE - 7/21/22

UPDATE - 7/11/22

This post was originally published in January. And things have only gotten worse for Joe Biden and establishment Democrats. The latest NY Times poll is absolutely abysmal for Dems:

President Biden is facing an alarming level of doubt from inside his own party, with 64 percent of Democratic voters saying they would prefer a new standard-bearer in the 2024 presidential campaign, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll, as voters nationwide have soured on his leadership, giving him a meager 33 percent job-approval rating.

The fascist GOP is now poised to retake the House:

Recent GOP polling in roughly a dozen swing districts offers a bleak portrait of how President Joe Biden’s anemic approval ratings are threatening to doom battle-tested swing-seat incumbents — and nudge once-safe districts into the middle of the danger zone.

Since the usual pundits and strategists love claiming the problem is that Biden has moved “too far left,” let’s look at his record, which is decidedly not leftist. If anything, Biden’s poll numbers are tanking because he has refused to embrace popular leftist policies. Campaigning as an ethical alternative to Trump, only to perpetuate many of Trump’s policies, isn’t exactly a recipe for success.

This is Joe Biden’s actual record:

• NO minimum wage hike

• NO serious student debt cancellation

• NO effective pandemic strategy (more deaths than Trump)

• NO medicare for all — or the promised public option

• NO more Roe v. Wade

• NO filibuster reform, just speeches

• NO voting rights protection, just more speeches

• NO court expansion, just a sham commission

• NO end to racist policing

• NO end to gun violence

• NO end to deportations & abuse of asylum-seekers

• NO end to cages for migrant children

• NO end to brutalizing Afghanistan and Yemen

• NO end to droning civilians without repercussions

• NO end to huge military budgets (bigger than Trump’s)

• NO end to arming and coddling oppressive regimes

• NO meaningful climate action

• NO end to oil drilling and fossil fuel subsidies

• NO end to poverty, hunger, and homelessness

• NO end to billionaires pocketing trillions

That’s just a partial list of Biden’s broken promises — and broken moral compass. Corporate Democrats like Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi have always relied on performative opposition and theatrics to pacify their supporters while preserving the status quo.

But there’s only so much Kente cloth wearing you can do, and only so much blame you can pin on Joe Manchin and the Senate Parliamentarian before people see the truth: Democratic leaders, like Republicans, are there to protect the ruling class.

Leftists predicted every bit of this. Biden ran on the claim that he was the only Democrat who could defeat Trump, but a tin can could have defeated Donald Trump in 2020. Biden was the candidate of the status quo, which is why the establishment rallied around him. Now we see the consequences. And we’re all paying the price.

From the war on abortion rights to the epidemic of gun violence to racist policing, America is under siege by the far right, which controls the GOP. Those who have turned to the Democratic establishment for help have been sorely disappointed.

Even liberal stalwarts like Debra Messing have had it with the feckless Democratic leadership. This CNN article depicts the staggering depth of Dem ineptitude:

Debra Messing was fed up. The former "Will & Grace" star was among dozens of celebrity Democratic supporters and activists who joined a call with White House aides last Monday to discuss the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

The mood was fatalistic, according to three people on the call, which was also co-organized by the advocacy group Build Back Better Together.

Messing said she'd gotten Joe Biden elected and wanted to know why she was being asked to do anything at all, yelling that there didn't even seem a point to voting. Others wondered why the call was happening.

That afternoon, participants received a follow-up email with a list of basic talking points and suggestions of Biden speech clips to share on TikTok.

The idea that you can fight rightwing Republicans by sharing Biden speech clips on TikTok is jaw-droppingly out of touch.

To effectively oppose the far right, we need direct action, strikes, protests, and much more. Voting for the same old corporate Democrats is a recipe for disaster. Many of them want to lose to the GOP, because it means more fundraising. Axios reports:

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, for instance, "broke cycle-long records" with its online content immediately following the [Roe v. Wade] ruling, according to a DSCC aide. The day of the ruling and the day after were its best and second-best days of the cycle, respectively.

It’s deeply frustrating to see how easily Democratic leaders pick the pockets of their supporters by letting the GOP dominate them, then fearmongering that they need more votes and money.

Leftists have been correct all along: We cannot keep enabling the GOP’s enablers. It’s time to actually fight, not to pretend to “resist.” Stopping the march of fascism in America will require courage, principle, self-reflection, and brutal honesty. And it means supporting activists and organizers who are putting their bodies on the line, not voting harder for the people who promise to be the opposition but are complicit in protecting the oppressive system.

It’s official: ROE V. WADE IS OVERTURNED

The Supreme Court cements its status as a full-fledged tool of the far right.

The end of Roe v. Wade come as no surprise to activists who have fought the GOP as it methodically crushes women’s reproductive rights across the country. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party, which controls the White House, Senate, and House, has always treated Roe as a fundraising opportunity.

Republicans have played the long game on abortion, systematically dismantling women’s rights at the local and national level. The Democratic establishment, on the other hand, has been an abject failure on the issue.

It doesn’t help that early in his career, Joe Biden said the Supreme Court went “too far” on abortion rights in Roe. And in May 2022, Biden rejected the idea of ending the filibuster to protect abortion rights.

In 2017, Nancy Pelosi claimed abortion is “kind of fading as an issue” for Democrats. “It really is,” she emphasized.

And of course, Republicans aren’t done. With Democrats focused on protecting the status quo for the billionaire class, fascism’s march continues…

LISTEN - On March 15th, after Missouri Republicans proposed a bill that would make it a crime to terminate an ectopic pregnancy, I had a conversation with friends and fellow activists about the GOP’s assault on women. My wife Leela Daou, who nearly died from an ectopic pregnancy, describes her experience. Click to listen.

The January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a condemnable, criminal, murderous act, aided and abetted at the highest levels of the Republican Party.

So what makes the January 6 Committee hearings such a farce?

1. The Democratic leaders who are supposedly “defending democracy” spent the Trump years enabling him and his thugs, funding his policies, and giving him expanded powers. And despite having majority control, the Democratic Party has perpetuated some of Trump’s worst policies.

2. The hearings have become an opportunity for Trump’s associates to repair their public image. Liz Cheney voted with Trump 93% of the time, but is now a liberal hero. Even contemptible GOP stalwart Mike Pence, one of Trump’s most loyal accomplices, is being lauded as a “patriot.”

3. Over the past few years, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden have repeatedly called for a stronger GOP. This, after having rehabilitated George W. Bush and his war criminal buddies. In recent months, Biden has called Mitch McConnell a “rational Republican” and a “man of honor.”

Simply put: The duopoly will never hold itself accountable.

As Chris Hedges eloquently explains:

The committee, which most Republicans boycotted, hired James Goldston, a documentary producer and former president of ABC News, to turn the hearings into engaging television with slick packaging and an array of pithy soundbites. The result is, and was meant to be, politics as reality television, a media diversion that will change nothing in the dismal American landscape. What should have been a serious bipartisan inquiry into an array of constitutional violations by the Trump administration has been turned into a prime-time campaign commercial for a Democratic Party running on fumes. The epistemology of television is complete. So is its artifice.

On June 17, Peter Daou spoke to Senate candidate Matthew Hoh (Green Party), and WA-02 congressional candidate Jason Call about current events through an anti-establishment lens. In particular, the January 6 hearings and how the ruling parties shield one another from meaningful consequences.

CLICK TO LISTEN

If there’s anything you can count on in American politics, it’s that establishment Democrats will go out of their way to praise the worst Republicans. The latest example is Nancy Pelosi paying tribute to Ronald Reagan: “It might come as a surprise to some of you that the president I quote most often is President Reagan.”

In recent weeks, Joe Biden has heaped praise on Mitch McConnell, thanking him for being his friend, calling him a “rational Republican” and a “man of word and man of honor.”

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has fully rehabilitated George W. Bush and his band of war criminals, while punching left at every opportunity. Barack Obama has used his post-presidency to repeatedly warn of the supposed dangers of leftists. Yet somehow, the Republicans who carved the path for Donald Trump (The Lincoln Project, Bush, Cheney, etc.) are embraced and lauded by Democrats.

Here’s a selection of quotes from Biden and Pelosi calling for a STRONGER Republican Party and complimenting the most egregious Republican figures:

BIDEN AND PELOSI PRAISE REPUBLICANS:

“You gotta remember at the end of the day we're friends. That's how it's always been.”
— Joe Biden on Kevin McCarthy, July 2023

“The president I quote most often is President Reagan … the gentleman that he was.”
— Nancy Pelosi, June 2022

Mitch McConnell is a “rational Republican.”
— Joe Biden, May 2022

Mitch McConnell is a “man of word and a man of honor.”
— Joe Biden, February 2022

“This country needs a strong Republican Party. They've made great contributions to our country.”
— Nancy Pelosi, February 2022

“You’re the grand old party of America, you’ve done wonderful things for our country.”
— Nancy Pelosi, September 2021

“I think our country needs a strong Republican party. It's very important."
— Nancy Pelosi, February 2021

"We need a Republican Party.”
— Joe Biden, January 2021

“In my view, we need a strong Republican Party. We need a Republican Party that’s united.”
— Joe Biden, November 2011

UPDATED 8/19/23

No civilized country allows for the slaughter of schoolchildren. Yet school shootings are a regular occurrence in America. The most recent, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde Texas, took the lives of nineteen children and two teachers.

Our nation’s gun violence calamity continues to wreak havoc because political leaders refuse to take meaningful action to prevent it. In a candid and emotional conversation, Peter Daou, Jason Call, Stephanie Voltolin, and friends discuss the roots and causes of mass shootings.

CLICK TO LISTEN

It’s easy (and understandable) to get dejected in the face of interminable oppression and injustice. But we are not powerless. We can draw strength from the courageous activists who came before us, and we can get inspiration from those around us who refuse to give up or give in.

One example is Kshama Sawant. Jordan Bollag writes:

On November 15, 2013, a socialist economist named Kshama Sawant was elected to the Seattle City Council not as a Democrat but as a member of the Marxist party Socialist Alternative. Having operated under a very different political strategy than progressives in D.C., Kshama Sawant and the Socialist Alternative movement represent exactly how the left can effectively use elected office to deliver substantive results for the working class.

When Sawant was elected on the promise of passing a $15 minimum wage, every other member of the City Council opposed it. Instead of writing a polite letter to her colleagues pleading with them to support it and then giving up when that failed, Sawant and Socialist Alternative created a campaign called 15 Now.

Essentially, “Sawant used her position as a city councilmember and the big media spotlight on her to build a powerful grassroots movement from below.” It was this grassroots mass mobilization—and its credible threat of a ballot initiative that would have passed an even more progressive minimum wage law—that led the Seattle City Council to reverse its opposition and pass the $15 minimum wage, the first of its kind in any major U.S. city, which quickly spread to other cities and even states and changed the national debate.

From direct action to strikes to mutual aid to protesting, we have an array of tools at our disposal. I posted a question on Twitter about actions we can take to bring about positive change.

Here are some of the many interesting replies:

If you’re a Twitter user, feel free to share your ideas in the thread, or you can reply to this post. Thank you for making a difference!

UPDATE:

A gunman killed at least 18 children and a teacher on Tuesday in a rural Texas elementary school, officials said, in the deadliest American school shooting since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary a decade ago.

The Buffalo white supremacist massacre is yet another reminder that our nation is broken.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes about the intersection of gun violence and racism:

Once startling and noteworthy, mass shootings have melded into the background of life in the U.S. Since January, there have been almost two hundred shootings involving at least four victims shot or killed, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Buffalo is one of the poorest cities in the nation, and the poverty is concentrated in the neighborhoods with the largest Black populations. Racism there comes not only in the form of a teen-age white supremacist murdering Black people at a grocery store. It is also evident in the policies that encourage disinvestment from public schools attended by Black students, in the annual failure to develop affordable-housing policies, and in the continued use of fees and fines that disproportionately impact Black residents.

Speaking of public schools, the New York Times covers plunging enrollment rates. This story caught my eye, and illustrates the suffering that goes on every day in our broken nation:

Jaime Parish’s three children also were gone from their former class as the year started. Rendered homeless in late 2020, they had struggled for months to keep up academically, shuffling for almost a year between motels, relatives and Ms. Parish’s 1997 Honda before they quietly stopped attending school entirely.

First their Wi-Fi was spotty. Then Ms. Parish’s mother got Covid-19. Then the car broke and a plan to move to Bakersfield fizzled. By February, a local nonprofit that helped them find housing could find no record of school enrollment for her sons, 17 and 6, or her daughter, 15.

“We tried,” said Ms. Parish, 38, who was camped under a bridge near Disneyland at one point. “But it just got too hard.”

How do we have tens of billions of dollars for war in Ukraine, but not to help our own citizens?

And how about America’s COVID response? Gone.

From kids in cages to rampant gun violence to obscene inequality, the litany of things that are wrong in America is endless. It’s painful. And infuriating. Yet we must continue to fight the system, to imagine a better world, and to build it. Thank you for doing your part. Thank you for caring.

From NBC News:

The U.S. on Wednesday surpassed 1 million Covid-19 deaths, according to data compiled by NBC News — a once unthinkable scale of loss even for the country with the world's highest recorded toll from the virus.

The number — equivalent to the population of San Jose, California, the 10th largest city in the U.S. — was reached at stunning speed: 27 months after the country confirmed its first case of the virus. 

Those lives are important. The pain of their loved ones matters. We must not forget their anguish and suffering.

And contrary to the denial from politicians, the pandemic is far from over. According to the New York Times, “cases are rising in nearly every corner of the United States.”

From the very beginning, the U.S. government’s response to the pandemic has been criminally negligent. As I wrote recently, Trump, Biden, and their respective parties have prioritized money over lives, guaranteeing that billionaires mint money as the working class suffers and dies.

This callous capitalism has condemned the disabled, immunocompromised, and other vulnerable populations to preventable sickness and death. And it has ignored the very real and debilitating effects of long COVID.

And lest anyone claim this is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” the Washington Post reports that “the pandemic’s toll is no longer falling almost exclusively on those who chose not to or could not get shots, with vaccine protection waning over time and the elderly and immunocompromised — who are at greatest risk of succumbing to covid-19, even if vaccinated — having a harder time dodging increasingly contagious strains.”

And despite it all, Democrats and Republicans continue to force people to fend for themselves:

This pandemic has been, and continues to be, a tragedy — and political travesty — at every level.

On April 29, Elon Musk tweeted:

Musk’s tweet sparked yet another wave of claims that Democrats — and American politics overall — have moved too far left.

Thankfully, more and more people see through this ridiculous propaganda:

When I launched Direct Left in January, I knew it would be tough to debunk deeply entrenched myths about leftism in America. Among the biggest of those myths is that the Democratic Party is leftist.

If anything, Democratic leaders regularly join Republicans in bashing leftists and pushing the “too far left” talking point. As I detailed in a recent piece, Barack Obama waded into the 2020 Democratic primary to warn candidates against echoing “certain left-leaning Twitter feeds.”

Obama cautioned that the universe of voters that could support a Democratic candidate — Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans — are not driven by the same views reflected on “certain left-leaning Twitter feeds” or “the activist wing of our party.”

Being one of those activists, I created the hashtag #TooFarLeft to criticize Obama’s remarks. It caught on, trended worldwide, and was covered by the New York Times:

“Mr. Obama’s remarks prompted fierce backlash online and the creation of the hashtag #TooFarLeft by Peter Daou, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton.”

Faced with the “too far left” question at a January 2022 press conference, Joe Biden brushed it off, contrasting himself with Bernie Sanders and insisting he was “mainstream, not socialist.”

The idea that there’s anything leftist about status-quo-Joe Biden is absurd on its face, but that doesn’t deter the corporate media from demonizing and discouraging the slightest shift away from oligarchic control. The idea that it’s a bad thing to be leftist has been ingrained and normalized across the political spectrum.

The crux of the issue is how to define “left,” which is merely a direction. If you set the starting point at white supremacy, anyone can be described as being to the left. Which makes “too far left” meaninglessly vague.

So let me restate the definition of leftism I’m using at Direct Left:

A leftist strives to eradicate existing systems of oppression, discrimination, and exploitation by fundamentally restructuring how humans coexist and cooperate.

By any reasonable standard, the current Democratic administration is too far right than left. Continuing Trump’s border atrocities, caging migrant children, militarizing the police, expanding an already bloated military budget to become larger than Trump’s, pushing tax cuts for millionaires, approving more oil drilling than Trump, and blocking every avenue to popular leftist policies, is hardly “moving left.”

Propaganda notwithstanding, there is nothing remotely leftist about the Democratic Party, which is half of the capitalist, corporate-owned duopoly. If anything, fascism is in full view in politics, policies, and policing across the country. But you’ll never hear “too far right” in the corporate media and political establishment. That’s because the oligarchs and their minions in government like it that way.

NOTE: Allegations against Joe Biden are not diminished by arguing that Donald Trump is worse. The U.S. presidency isn’t a sexual abuse competition.

It’s time to take another look at why U.S. presidents keep getting away with sexual misconduct.

Let’s start with Trump.

ACCUSATIONS AGAINST DONALD TRUMP

Trump has been accused of rape, sexual assault, and/or sexual harassment by more than two dozen women. His pattern of behavior is despicable. Former Miss USA and Miss Teen USA contestants have said that Trump used to walk into their dressing rooms.

In the infamous Access Hollywood tape that became public during the 2016 election, Trump boasted about committing sexual assault: "I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything."

Trump was sued by one of his victims, author E. Jean Carroll, and the Washington Post reported:

After Donald Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll … a judge has now clarified that … what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood.

In 2020, the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law called for a government inquiry into Trump’s crimes:

The many allegations reported in the media have not been amenable to judicial, legislative, executive, or political resolution. Women, including women who allege Trump committed sexual misconduct against them when they were minors, have generally not been afforded the remedies to which they are entitled. Because litigation and media accounts have proven inadequate to the task of addressing Trump’s sexual misconduct, there should be a government inquiry and resulting Report.

Trump has still not faced adequate consequences for his predatory behavior, and his accusers deserve justice.

ACCUSATIONS AGAINST JOE BIDEN

In May 2020, Business Insider reported that Biden faced at least eight accusations of sexual misconduct, inappropriate touching, and/or violations of women’s personal space:

Eight women have alleged that Biden either touched them inappropriately or violated their personal space in ways that made them uncomfortable.

Biden has also been criticized for repeatedly commenting on the physical appearance of women on the campaign trail, and for refusing to explicitly apologize for his behavior.

Biden’s long-standing reputation for disregarding the boundaries of women and girls led the Daily Show to run a 2015 piece, The Audacity of Grope, about Biden’s constant touching and hair-sniffing.

Professor Anthony Zenkus, who has spent years working with survivors of sexual assault and human trafficking, has spoken out about Biden’s troubling behavior. In the video below, he discusses Biden’s repeated intrusion on the physical space of children.

Biden’s inappropriate behavior became an issue during the 2020 presidential primary. Then-candidate Kamala Harris was asked about the women making allegations against him. Her response: “I believe them, and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it.”

In just about any other professional setting, Biden’s pattern of misconduct would warrant thorough investigation, and likely termination. Which is why I argued during the Democratic primary that Biden was disqualified from the presidency, something I believe just as strongly today:

BOTTOM LINE: Both Trump and Biden should face serious consequences for their behavior.

My roots are in an ancient Lebanese village called Lehfed. It’s where I learned about peace and stillness, wandering alone, breathing the crisp mountain air, the silence punctuated by birds and church bells.

Lehfed is where my father is buried, and his parents and grandparents, generations resting together under a grove of trees where he and I would walk and contemplate mysteries.

My mind wanders back to Lehfed often lately. I feel far away from home, from my childhood, before war and violence changed everything. A half century later, what anchors me is my loved ones and friends. And the passionate, dedicated, caring people I’ve met along the way. That includes you. So please consider this a note of appreciation for your presence in my life.

I started this newsletter on January 1, 2022. Thousands of you have subscribed. I’m deeply grateful and humbled. I’m sorry that in recent weeks, my pace of content has slowed. I’ve suspended payments for paid subscribers until I return to more robust posting. Thank you for understanding.

I wrote to you recently that it was time for a change and I’m posting the full letter below:

Friends,

After 22+ years in the political trenches, it’s time for a change. I’m switching gears from doing 24/7 political battle to putting more positivity into the world. In the weeks ahead, you’ll notice more original music, spiritual seeking, and mutual aid on my Twitter feed, Substack newsletter, and Callin podcast. This doesn’t diminish my commitment to activism, but instead redirects my energy toward fostering spaces for peace and healing.   

This brings me full circle. As a child of war in Lebanon, music was my salvation. When bombs were falling and gun battles raging in Beirut, I huddled in shelters with a short wave radio and found comfort in Voice of America’s Jazz Hour. During lulls in the fighting, I sat at my piano (which doubled as a barricade) and lost myself in improvisation. I’ve survived the lifelong scars of military conflict by taking solace and strength in music.

When I finally escaped the war and attended NYU, I was a regular at late night jam sessions in New York City. I spent hours at jazz venues like the Village Vanguard, Blue Note, Smalls, and Sweet Basil, learning from a generation of jazz elders who are now among the ancestors. In the early 90s, I became a professional keyboard player and landed in New York’s nascent house music scene. I worked on hundreds of remixes with Frankie Knuckles, David Morales, Danny Tenaglia, and other house pioneers, as they developed a new genre of music. My remix credits range from Miles Davis and Bjork to Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson. I co-wrote and produced three #1 Billboard Club singles and played on several deep house classics. I am profoundly grateful — and increasingly nostalgic — for that time.

At the turn of the millennium, politics called. George W. Bush took office and I dedicated myself to organizing, protesting, and opposing his presidency. In the two decades since, I’ve traversed a path from progressive outsider to Democratic Party insider (advising Hillary Clinton and John Kerry) to anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist establishment exile. Along the way, I’ve screwed up, gotten a bunch of things wrong, and tried to learn from my mistakes. But my mission has always been to defend the vulnerable and make the world a safer, kinder place.

I’ll be honest: I’m tired. I need to return to the source that gives me strength: music. I need to put out positive energy into a world that seems relentlessly negative. I respect and admire those who are in the streets, putting their bodies on the line to fight racism, misogyny, bigotry, and oppression. My heart is always with victims of injustice and the courageous souls who stand up for them.

I hope you understand my need for a change of focus and a recharge. Thank you for carrying the torch and for sharing this journey. —Peter

DIRECT DAOU for 3.29.22: What gives you hope?

There’s so much in the world to feel hopeless about. War. Racism. Misogyny. Violence. Inequality. Poverty. Hunger. The pandemic. Is there anything that gives us reason for hope?

CLICK TO LISTEN

Here are some responses to the question when I posed it on Twitter:

It has now been almost a month since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine. The war’s brutality on civilians was captured in photographer Lynsey Addario’s soul-crushing image of a mother and her two children killed while trying to escape the violence.

Putin’s war crimes are clear for the world to see. They are monstrous and unforgivable. Which brings me to the split among leftists over Ukraine, primarily over how to view Russian aggression in the context of U.S. imperialism and NATO provocations. From my perspective, it shouldn’t be complicated. We can vigorously condemn Putin’s aggression while simultaneously holding the United States accountable for its continued militarism and meddling across the globe.

As I wrote recently, lest anyone pretend Putin is the only bad guy in this cold war redux, Biden is currently starving millions of Afghan children and stealing their money, which is itself a form of violence.

Biden is also arming the slaughter of children in Yemen.

However, there is a sharp line between condemning American imperialism and defending the carnage that Putin has unleashed on the Ukrainian people. Consistency and morality demand that we denounce all nations (and leaders) that violently project power and attack civilians. Simply put: No matter how terrible America’s actions, there is no defending Vladimir Putin.

Rather, we should defend victims of imperialism and state violence, no matter who the perpetrator. Palestinian children. Yemeni children. Somali children. Syrian children. Afghan children. Ukrainian children. They are the victims. And they need us to stand up for them against militant global powers.

As a survivor of war who endured years of military conflict and was displaced from my home as a child, my focus is on those children who suffer and die at the hands of warmongers.

Listen to my firsthand description of what those kids are going through:

UPDATED 3/17/22

As Donald Trump’s senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller engineered one of the most heinous policies in recent U.S. history, systematically ripping migrant families apart to punish them for seeking a better life.

Stealing a child from a mother or father is one of the most acute forms of torture imaginable. The last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor called it a crime against humanity: “We list crimes against humanity in the Statute of the International Criminal Court. We have ‘other inhumane acts designed to cause great suffering’. What could cause more great suffering than what they did in the name of immigration law?”

Although I’m focusing on Miller’s so-called “zero-tolerance” policy, it’s worth noting that Democratic and Republican administrations have both been guilty of committing egregious human rights abuses at the border. Barack Obama was dubbed the “deporter in chief” for the surge in deportations during his presidency. In 2015, the ACLU slammed the Obama administration for using family detention as a deterrent.

The Obama administration doubled down on one of its worst immigration legacies: the return and expansion of family detention. Responding to a court order holding that its family detention camps violated the 1997 Flores settlement agreement, the Obama administration again defended family detention as necessary to send a message to Central American families that they are not welcome here—even though it concedes that most of them are fleeing persecution.

Joe Biden and his Democratic colleagues have been virtual carbon copies of Trump, funding ICE at Trump-era levels, reinstating and expanding Trump’s atrocious “Remain in Mexico” policy, and continuing to use Title 42 to expel asylum-seekers. Each of these politicians, Republican and Democrat, should face consequences for their despicable treatment of migrants, though it’s unlikely they ever will.

Miller, in particular, seemed to revel in cruelty and xenophobia. The policy he masterminded under Trump was depraved:

All migrant families at the border, even those who lawfully presented themselves at official ports of entry as refugees seeking asylum, were to be detained in separate facilities. Children were to be immediately taken from their parents and detained in separate facilities, sometimes hundreds of miles apart, with no knowledge of where their parents were and no contact with their parents.

Miller’s cruelty prompted his uncle to write a scathing op-ed saying, “I have watched with dismay and increasing horror as my nephew, an educated man who is well aware of his heritage, has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family’s life in this country.”

In an interview with Salon, author Jean Guerrero (who wrote a book about Trump and Miller), explained that Miller “does a really good job of laundering white supremacist ideas through the language of ‘heritage’ and ‘economics’ and ‘national security.’”

So why is Miller walking free after designing and implementing a policy of child torture?

And why is the Biden administration perpetuating Miller’s crimes?

The answer is that our two-party system is corrupt and monstrous. The ruling elites protect their own, so war criminals and child torturers sign book deals and play pundit instead of spending their days in a prison cell. We should never stop speaking out about these criminals. And we should never let ourselves become numb to the suffering of their victims.

A video is making the rounds of Florida’s rightwing governor Ron DeSantis berating students for wearing masks.

There is something deeply troubling about a political official scolding children for trying to protect themselves from a virus that has killed nearly a million Americans. A virus that continues to take thousands of lives every week. A virus that can have debilitating long-term effects. A virus that remains a deadly threat to older adults, the disabled, immunocompromised, those who can’t get vaccinated, and other at-risk populations.

As I wrote recently, it would be awful enough if Republican politicians were the only ones treating vulnerable people as throwaways. That’s to be expected from a callous, extremist, anti-science party. But disgustingly, Democratic leaders are following Republicans down the anti-mask and anti-mitigation path. And they’re doing it for crass political reasons.

What’s more, millions of Americans are unwilling to take the simplest measures to protect their fellow citizens — out of some distorted notion of “personal freedom.” Is it really that hard to wear a mask to potentially spare someone else the agony of coronavirus? Is a mask really such an onerous burden?

Capitalism has trumped public health from the beginning of the pandemic. And politics has driven the pandemic strategies of both ruling parties. But the fact remains: MASKS WORK.

From the Washington Post:

Wearing any kind of mask indoors is associated with significantly better protection from the coronavirus, with high-quality N95 and KN95 masks providing the best chance of avoiding infection, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday. In indoor public settings, surgical masks reduce the chances of testing positive by 66 percent, the CDC estimated. Top-of-the-line N95 and KN95 masks, the tight fitting face coverings often worn by health-care workers, cut the odds of infection by 83 percent, the health agency said.

It’s basic human decency to care for our fellow citizens. The science is unequivocal that masks (particularly non-cloth masks) can reduce the risk of catching coronavirus. Despite all the self-centered and insensitive arguments otherwise, wearing a mask to help the most vulnerable is a good thing to do.

The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is unforgiving:

The world faces unavoidable multiple climate hazards over the next two decades with global warming of 1.5°C (2.7°F). Even temporarily exceeding this warming level will result in additional severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible.

Increased heatwaves, droughts and floods are already exceeding plants’ and animals’ tolerance thresholds, driving mass mortalities in species such as trees and corals. These weather extremes are occurring simultaneously, causing cascading impacts that are increasingly difficult to manage.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the report “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.” The New York Times notes that the IPCC warns of “dislocation on a global scale.”

The report also carries a stark warning: If temperatures keep rising, many parts of the world could soon face limits in how much they can adapt to a changing environment. If nations don’t act quickly to slash fossil fuel emissions and halt global warming, more and more people will suffer unavoidable loss or be forced to flee their homes.

As I wrote recently, the stark reality is that neither ruling capitalist party is serious about addressing the climate emergency, and humanity will pay an unimaginable price. We already know that the GOP is the party of pollution and climate denial. But Democrats are competing for that title:

New federal data shows the Biden administration approved 3,557 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first year, far outpacing the Trump administration’s first-year total of 2,658. In California, the Biden administration approved 187 permits — more than twice the 71 drilling permits Trump approved in that state in his first year.

And there’s this:

When President Biden proposed his first budget last spring, it zeroed out tens of billions of dollars in oil and gas subsidies. Since then, the industry successfully lobbied to keep most of them.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg summed up the global response to the climate emergency as “blah, blah, blah.” She’s absolutely right. If we don’t move beyond platitudes and empty gestures, time will run out.

We can make a difference.

For those of us who are able, here are things we can do:

• Direct action

• Mutual aid

• Protesting

• Organizing

• Amplifying principled independent media

• Voting for principled independent candidates

• Supporting principled independent activists

• Donating to principled independent causes, candidates, & campaigns

• Digital media activism (speaking out, writing, sharing, etc.)