Biden says he regrets referring to 'an illegal' and defends direct criticism of Supreme Court in State of the Union
Biden says he regrets referring to 'an illegal' and defends direct criticism of Supreme Court in State of the Union
The president used the term to describe Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan who crossed the border into the U.S. and has been charged with the murder of Laken Riley.
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From the transcript of the speech:
REPRESENTATIVE GREENE: What about Laken Riley?
(Cross-talk.)
AUDIENCE: Booo —
REPRESENTATIVE GREENE: Say her name!
THE PRESIDENT: (The President holds up a pin reading “Say Her Name, Laken Riley.”) Lanken — Lanken (Laken) Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed.
REPRESENTATIVE GREENE: By an illegal!
THE PRESIDENT: By an illegal. That’s right. But how many of thousands of people are being killed by legals?
I don't see the problem. His response rightly points out that murders happen regardless of the perpetrators legal status.
It's just how propaganda works.
At any given time, there are a few different anecdotal-type "talking points" that are the new thing everyone's talking about. You're going to be hearing about Biden saying "an illegal" for a little while, even though as your transcript notes, it wasn't even him that chose the wording. People form their picture of the world through these little gestalt-facts, and if you can pick one that will shape the narrative you want to present, and arrange for people to hear it over and over from a variety of sources, and do that in a constant stream that all points to the same types of conclusions, it actually does a pretty good job at controlling how they'll perceive the totality of the situation.
It's almost exactly the same as how you will hear over and over that:
- We broke a record for fossil fuel extraction in 2023
- Biden's climate bill includes giving money to oil and gas companies
... and then all this weight of emotion behind how bad Biden is for the climate, how he's just the same, how it's such a shame that I as a good climate-change person can't support him... etc etc. Because the little factoids are in fact accurate, and properly sized and shaped to stick in your brain, they count as "supporting evidence" for Biden being bad on the climate.
The reality is, the way to analyze Biden's performance on the climate is to ask what's the total content of the climate bill he got passed, and what impact it's expected to have. That's it. Just like the reality is that how he performs on immigration has nothing at all to do with whether he said "an illegal" in this specific context.
If you hear someone repeating one of these specific little factoids, or if you start to see one specific one that is commonly repeated, my advice is to become suspicious of the message on top of which it is being placed, like a little evidence-cherry.
I mean the effects of the climate bill in comparison to the scale of the problem are fairly modest. And the US continues to slow-walk real change at the international stage as well. It’s a fair criticism.
That, what you said, is a completely fair statement. Let me expand on it. Here's a pretty solid summary of what was in the original bill. Here's what actually passed. They are both, sadly, fucking tragically, too little, and absolutely unforgivably late. But, blaming that aspect of it on Biden specifically, when he just got here and started immediately fighting to get something unprecedented in American climate action to start happening the instant he got in, seems unfair. As does shifting the conversation away from "how much is this gonna do" and towards "does this involve giving money to oil companies" or similar focus-grouped talking points, blaming him for not doing more, and saying he's just the same as the people who stopped him from doing it.
>You're going to be hearing about Biden saying "an illegal" for a little while, even though as your transcript notes, it wasn't even him that chose the wording.
why isn't he accountable for the words that come out of his mouth?
Always be wary of the Concern Troll.
You have made it crystal clear that you regard anything less than worship of Biden as being russian psyops.
Here's me saying that Biden should stop sending the Israelis aid, because that's accessory to mass murder.
Here's me posting an article that says "It lets ... duplicitous President Joe Biden be less servile when Netanyahu dismisses the low death toll."
Valid criticism, I'm fine with, and there is some to give (specifically on Gaza, absolutely). Propaganda and talking points that don't correspond to reality, I object to. Surely that's not confusing?
(I mean, I know you're not actually confused -- you're assigning me views I don't hold because that's way easier than addressing what I'm actually saying, and you're fully aware that you're being dishonest. I eagerly await your pivot to some other accusation which is just as untethered from the reality, or maybe just repeating this one and insisting on it. Or maybe a little drive-by quippy insult followed by radio silence. IDK. Let's see what the future holds.)
Here’s me saying that Biden should stop sending the Israelis aid, because that’s accessory to mass murder.
Have you ever called it the genocide it is?
The very first sentence in your link is a standard "Biden is the most [thing Biden emphatically isn't] ever!" statement, and you want to talk about propaganda and talking points.
Have you ever called it the genocide it is?
Moving of goalposts! Okay, I didn't have that one on the card, that's new.
The answer is yes:
Here's me saying "yes, I think Biden's complicit to a certain extent in the genocide going on in Gaza."
Here's me saying "if you don't like Biden enabling genocide by not reversing US foreign policy (which, again, I don't either)"
What's the new goal posts? My guess is that you'll read the context for those statements, and say that because I also wrote loads of stuff in them that doesn't fit your narrative (e.g. the fact, that you objected to, that Biden's done more anti-Israel stuff than the criminally low bar that is every other US president), they don't count.
Biden’s done more anti-Israel stuff than the criminally low bar that is every other US president
Yes, that's the bullshit line. Even Reagan was willing to cut Israel off. I hope Biden moves to the left of Reagan and stops supporting genocide.
Ah, picking one little element and ignoring the rest of the message completely! I need one more for a bad-faith bingo.
However I will tell you that the one piece you picked out also doesn't hold up. Citation:
The two countries signed strategic military agreements and Washington began stockpiling weapons in Israel officially assigned to US forces but which could quickly be handed to the Israelis.
There were tensions. Israel’s attack on Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 was done without US approval and prompted Reagan to suspend some weapons shipments. The US administration also soured on Israeli’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
But Washington continued to protect Israel at the UN, including vetoing a Soviet move in the security council to impose an arms embargo. Still, the Reagan administration shocked Israel by talking to Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation, a terrorist group in Israeli eyes.
Pausing weapons shipments had nothing to do with murder in Palestine; it was because they attacked Iraq and we liked Iraq back then. Reagan, of all people, was just as supportive of the slaughter of brown people in Palestine as he was of it in many other places. And even besides the reasons why he might have been briefly upset with Israel for non-Palestine reasons, he didn't place sanctions on any Israelis, he didn't meet pointedly with Begin's political opponents, and he sure as shit didn't land the US military in Palestine.
I'm not trying to say that Biden doing those things somehow undoes $10 billion worth of weapons and money to support Israel's ongoing slaughter. I'm simply saying that it's factually true that the tiny steps Biden is taking are more than any other US leader in the long line of neoliberals has decided to do.
Pausing weapons shipments had nothing to do with murder in Palestine; it was because they attacked Iraq and we liked Iraq back then. Reagan, of all people, was just as supportive of the slaughter of brown people in Palestine as he was of it in many other places. And even besides the reasons why he might have been briefly upset with Israel for non-Palestine reasons, he didn’t place sanctions any Israelis, he didn’t meet pointedly with Begin’s political opponents, and he sure as shit didn’t land the US military in Palestine.
So he was willing to cut off Israel and they weren't even committing genocide at the time? Why is Biden sticking with them when they are?
I notice we've fully moved away from the question of "am I open to criticism of Biden" without comment, and smoothly transitioned to disagreeing on some other topic without acknowledging the abandonment of the first topic. That's another common propaganda tactic; by clever selection of what parts of the message someone responds to or not, they're able to transition to a new topic without ever having acknowledged that now that we've analyzed the question a little, they were clearly completely fucking wrong about the original topic of discussion. This can be done any number of times, for any number of arguments that don't really hold up when challenged, in order to continue a hostile exchange that doesn't really go anywhere but still creates an overall impression of factual parity between the two viewpoints.
I regret to inform you that I've got a bingo now, so we'll have to close it here. I feel pretty comfortable with what I've laid out as far as Biden's record vs. Reagan's and all that, but if you don't feel the same way, I think you're gonna have to cope with that feeling all on your own.
I notice we’ve fully moved away from the question of “am I open to criticism of Biden” without comment, and smoothly transitioned to disagreeing on some other topic without acknowledging the abandonment of the first topic.
Throw enough distractions at me and then act like I distracted you. Neat DARVO.
The only real problem is he gave them a sound bite.
Which, I mean, even if he didn’t, they’d try and manufacture something anyhow.
Yeah I don't understand why he engaged or acknowledged her. That seems dumb.
He also said "Lincoln Riley" instead of Laken Riley so the transcript is wrong.
So what.