Electoral Short Circuit

Jan 08, 2024

UPDATE: The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, has said he is running as an MEP in June’s European elections and will stand down if elected, sparking a race to replace him or risk the role reverting to Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

With US military support for Israel holding steady, youth supporters say that the White House’s current handling of the situation in Palestine is alienating young people – the very demographic Biden will need to win re-election in 2024.

It took a tremendous push down the stretch, but the U.S. national debt was able to hit the 34 trillion dollar mark before the end of 2023. At this moment I am just so overwhelmed that I don’t know who to thank first. Over the past few years, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Chucky Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Kevin McCarthy and so many other hard working spenders have been instrumental in helping us reach this remarkable achievement.

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Michel sabotages Orbán’s EU Council presidency

By Jon Henley

The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, has said he is running as an MEP in June’s European elections and will stand down if elected, sparking a race to replace him or risk the role reverting to Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

“I have decided to run in the European elections in 2024,” Michel told Belgian media late on Saturday. The former Belgian prime minister has served as chief of the EU Council, the group of government leaders of the 27 EU member states, since 2019.

“If I get elected, I will take my seat [in the European parliament]. The European Council can anticipate and name a successor by end-June, early-July,” he said, adding that he would be running as the lead candidate for his Belgian centre-right Reformist Movement party.

The surprise decision means EU heads of government, who jointly appoint the council president, are under significant pressure to agree on a successor to Michel before 1 July, when Hungary is due to take over the rotating six-month council presidency.

Under EU rules, in the absence of a permanent council president, the post – which involves chairing council meetings and, with parliament, is central to forming the new commission – falls to the member state holding the rotating presidency.

That would leave Orbán – who has repeatedly been accused of holding European backing for Ukraine hostage over billions of euros of EU funding for Hungary frozen over a range of rule-of-law disputes – in effect running the council.

On Sunday, Michel reacted to criticism of his decision, saying: “I want to be clear that in any case, in June the decision was to be made on my successor and the parliament decision will be in July so it’s easy for the council to decide, to anticipate for my successor to enter into function.

“There are many tools if there is the political will to avoid Viktor Orbán.”

European leaders are due to meet on 17 June and 27-28 – after the five-yearly parliament elections, which take place across the bloc from 6-9 June – to begin wrangling over the bloc’s top jobs, including the commission and council presidents.

The wheeling and dealing would normally last months, culminating in the installation of the new commission in late November – which is when Michel’s term as council president was due to end. But leaders will now have much less time.

Some EU-watchers downplayed the significance of Michel’s move. Hosuk Lee-Makiyama of the European Centre for International Political Economy thinktank said it “merely moves the race for his successor six to nine months earlier”.

That would be “a nuisance for a couple of candidates who will be still stuck in national politics” he said, but it was “a tier-two job that is already earmarked for someone close to France and [on the] left”.

Others, however, condemned the council president’s decision as rash and egotistical. Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law at the College of Europe, said the move was “not only self-centred but irresponsible”.

Opening the door to Orbán – who stands accused of breaching of EU law, but could find himself chairing council meetings – becoming council president even temporarily would be “even more problematic and irresponsible”, Alemanno said.

Michel had been “the least effective council president ever appointed” and his “constant battle of egos” with the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, had weakened the union on the international stage, he said. Von der Leyen has so far kept quiet on whether she intends to seek a second term.

Steven Van Hecke, a professor of European politics at the University of Leuven, told Belgian radio that Michel was clearly signalling that “his personal interests take precedence over the interests of the European institutions”.

Orbán was “the last thing anyone wants”, Van Hecke said. “There will now have to be a ‘job deal’ by the end of June, straight after the elections … It’s quite a challenge.”

The Dutch MEP, Sophie in’t Veld, accused Michel of abandoning ship. “The captain leaving the ship in the middle of a storm. If that is how little committed you are to the fate of the European Union, then how credible are you as a candidate?” she asked.

Young voters abandon Biden

By Whitney Bauck

Voting bloc who supported Biden in 2020 over climate change see war in Gaza as environmental justice issue. Elise Joshi stumped for Joe Biden as a college freshman, motivated in no small part by her sense of urgency about climate change. The environmental policy student campaigned before the 2020 election as part of TikTok for Biden, in hopes of persuading other young people to show up to the polls.

The work undertaken by Joshi and her peers paid off for Democrats – youth voter turnout surged in 2020, and has been widely credited as playing a key role in propelling Biden to victory.

But as the Israeli bombing of Gaza has killed more than 22,000 Palestinians to date, Joshi is feeling disillusioned with the president she once “happily” voted for. She’s not alone. With US military support for Israel holding steady, Joshi says that the White House’s current handling of the situation in Palestine is alienating young people – the very demographic Biden will need to win re-election in 2024.

“My generation is appalled. There’s a lot of people who are not willing to put their votes towards this administration as a result of their actions in Gaza,” she said.

And if Democrats think their climate track record will be enough to redeem them, she said, then they’re miscalculating how young people view the current administration’s actions on climate in the first place.

Biden has sometimes been described as the “climate president” for signing into law the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest investment in clean energy in American history. But many young people in Joshi’s cohort are more concerned with the oil and gas provisions within the IRA, as well as Biden’s unwillingness to declare a climate emergency. Joshi also says her peers are frequently disappointed over the Willow Project, an oil-drilling project approved by the Biden administration early last year that’s estimated to emit more climate pollution per year than 99.7% of all single-point sources in the country.

Joshi is just one leader connected to the youth climate movement trying to warn the current administration about the potential consequences of its stance on Gaza. She signed an open letter to that effect in her capacity as executive director of Gen-Z for Change – the organization formerly known as TikTok for Biden — alongside leaders from groups like the Sunrise Movement and March for Our Lives this fall.

“The vast majority of young people in this country are rightfully horrified by the atrocities committed with our tax dollars, with your support,” the letter read. “The position of your administration is badly out of step with young people and the positions of Democratic voters, whom have been shown to support a ceasefire by supermajorities in multiple polls.”

Numerous polls have indeed shown Biden trailing Trump among young voters, in stark contrast to their overwhelming preference for Biden in 2020. Recent polling by the New York Times suggests that young people’s support of Biden is wavering in light of his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “The young Biden ’20 voters with anti-Israel views are the likeliest to report switching to Mr Trump,” the Times’ analysis read.

That prospect would be extremely concerning to the youth climate vote, who understand the risk Trump poses to the environment.

War as environmental injustice

While many big green groups and climate-focused news organizations in the US have been slow to address Israeli attacks on Gaza, the youth climate movement globally has overwhelmingly expressed solidarity with Palestinians, and staunchly rejected the idea that criticizing the actions of the Israeli government is inherently antisemitic. From Greta Thunberg posting a picture of herself holding a “Stand with Gaza” sign to activists at COP28 staging pro-Palestine rallies, climate-focused youth have made clear that they see the war as an environmental justice issue.

For climate activists used to raising the alarm about the ways that climate change is causing displacement and forced migration, increasing food and water insecurity and ravaging beloved landscapes and ecosystems, it’s not hard to draw a parallel to the way that Israel’s bombing is having the same impacts on Gaza and its inhabitants. That’s not to mention the emissions associated with military operations, nor the symbolic connection many environmentalists, whom some call “tree huggers”, might feel to Palestinians who have been photographed hugging olive trees after their orchards were attacked by Israeli settlers.

“Many of these people that are from global south countries had an unwavering support for Palestine,” said Isaias Hernandez of his experience meeting other young people at the UN climate conference in Dubai. Hernandez, who posts environmental content under the username @queerbrownvegan, is one of more than 120 content creators with a combined audience of millions who signed onto an open letter of their own in support of a “free Palestine”.

Youth climate activists are often close with their peers in other countries, connecting via social media, meeting up and working together to stage actions at global conferences multiple times a year. That sense of global solidarity is helping bolster US youth in their convictions about Gaza.

“We are a nonviolent movement that is fighting for the safety and well-being of all people in their communities,” said Michele Weindling, the political director of the Sunrise Movement. “We feel a direct link and a stake in what’s happening in Gaza in that we believe that no people should lose access to life-sustaining resources like water.”

Even for young people who might be hesitant to weigh in on a geopolitical conflict with a long, complex and painful history, the simple math of US spending is enough to spark outrage.

“Our president has, time and time again, told us we don’t have the money or the resources to implement climate solutions at the scale that we’re asking for; that we can’t forgive student debt at the scale that we need; but that we have the resources to send more bombs to the Israeli military,” Weindling said. “And young people are really upset about that.”

The road to November 2024

Both Weindling and Joshi want to make clear that they’re not asking their movement to withhold votes in the primary election. On the contrary, they want young people to vote.

“I really hope young people don’t become apathetic to voting in the first place and stop showing up to the polls, because the president is an important job,” Joshi said. “I’m incredibly worried about that.”

But both organizers want to warn the current administration about where the youth vote is currently headed. What’s more, they argue that the administration’s reluctance to call for a ceasefire in Gaza will make it increasingly challenging for grassroots groups to mobilize youth voters who are disillusioned with Biden’s “pro-war” stance.

“This is not only a morally problematic direction of leadership, but it’s also politically a very risky one,” said Weindling. “We cannot explain [Biden’s] position to our generation, and that will have significant effects, not just on how young people turn out in 2024 to vote, but also on whether or not they volunteer and get their friends and family out to vote.”

Still, the alternative – potentially four more years of Trump – is “frightening”, according to Joshi. Not only did Trump make the US dirtier and the planet warmer in his four years in office, weakening environmental regulations, pulling the nation out of international climate agreements and more, but he recently promised to expand oil drilling on day one of the presidency if he’s re-elected.

This – along with the havoc Trump wreaked on immigration rights, voting rightsand the democratic process, among other things – is why Hernandez said he plans to vote. He sympathizes with his peers who plan to opt out, but he wants “to help reduce harm and violence throughout the world”.

If Biden wants to lure more young people back to the voting booth come November, he may still have time to course-correct, the young activists said, but he needs to act decisively, and soon.

“The first step toward preventing a Trump administration is calling for a ceasefire right now,” said Joshi. “Climate voters and voters that care about Palestinians – they’re one and the same.”

Has America's Empire Of Money Reached The Endgame?

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

We did it Joe!

And we never would have gotten here without the relentless help of CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, the New York Times, the Washington Post and all of the other mainstream news outlets that kept assuring the American people that it was okay to steal trillions of dollars from our children and our grandchildren.

Of course I am being quite facetious. The truth is that what we are doing to future generations of Americans is beyond criminal. We are literally committing national suicide, but each election cycle most of the same big spending politicians just keep winning over and over again.

Those on the other side would argue that it has been absolutely necessary to borrow and spend so much money.

If we had not propped up the U.S. economy with giant mountains of borrowed money, it would have collapsed long ago.

In addition, spending so much money allows us to project military and economic power all over the planet. If we only spent what we brought in, America’s standing in the world would be greatly reduced.

Having the primary reserve currency of the world is an enormous source of power, but now that power is fading.

Nations all over the globe are starting to move away from using the U.S. dollar in international trade, and they are becoming a lot more hesitant to buy our debt.

You can only borrow and spend so much before the entire Ponzi scheme collapses, and at this moment we are more than 34 trillion dollars in debt…

US national debt has reached a record high – hitting $34 trillion for the first time in history.

Data published by the Treasury Department Tuesday showed that outstanding federal borrowing soared to $34.001 trillion on December 29, just weeks ahead of Congress deadlines for new federal funding plans.

The staggering figure, which is a major point of contention between Republicans and Democrats, is equal to $101,233 in federal debt for every person in America, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

So if there are four people living in your household, your share of the national debt is more than $400,000.

And every day the debt gets even larger. As Wolf Richter has pointed out, the size of the national debt has increased by 2.5 trillion dollars in just the last seven months…

The total US national debt spiked by $1.0 trillion in 15 weeks since September 15, to $34.0 trillion, according to the Treasury Department’s figures this afternoon. In the seven months since the debt ceiling was lifted, the national debt spiked by $2.5 trillion.

These are huge gigantic numbers that are piling up as a result of the incredible hard-to-fathom daredevil reckless shake-your-head deficit spending by Congress.

Overall, the U.S. national debt has grown by $6.25 trillion since Joe Biden entered the White House.

It took the first 225 years of U.S. history for the U.S. national debt to reach the 6 trillion dollar mark, and now we have added more than 6 trillion dollars to the debt in less than 3 years.

This is what the endgame looks like.

We are in a debt spiral that is totally out of control, and there is no way that this story is going to end well.

And despite the fact that we are endlessly pumping colossal piles of cash into the economy, our economic conditions continue to deteriorate.

On Wednesday, we learned that U.S. job openings have fallen “to the lowest level in more than two years”…

U.S. job openings dropped in November to the lowest level in more than two years, the latest evidence that the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate hike campaign is continuing to cool the labor market.

That is a sign that the economy is getting worse.

And more large companies continue to lay off workers. For example, Xerox just announced that it will be laying off 15 percent of its workforce…

So what can we do to “get the economy going again”?

Well, we can follow the example of the federal government and borrow and spend even more money.

Of course much of the nation is already drowning in debt. According to one recent survey, only about half the country will be able to pay off their December credit card balances in full…

Our forefathers handed us the keys to the greatest economic machine in world history.

But that was never enough for us.

We always had to have more, and so we just kept borrowing and spending.

Now the endgame has arrived, and it is going to be excruciatingly painful.

U.S. consumers are drowning in record levels of debt, U.S. corporations are drowning in record levels of debt, state and local governments are drowning in record levels of debt, and the federal government is drowning in record levels of debt.

America’s empire of money was nice while it lasted, but now the jig is up and the collapse that is looming is truly going to be one for the history books.

The Chair

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