A career State Department official resigned from her post on Tuesday, saying she could no longer work for the Biden administration after it released a report concluding that Israel was not preventing the flow of aid to Gaza.
Stacy Gilbert, who served as a senior civilian-military advisor to the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), sent an email to staff saying she was resigning because she felt the State Department had made the wrong assessment, The Washington Post reported, citing officials who read the note.
The report was filed in response to President Joe Biden issuing a national security memorandum (NSM-20) in early February on whether the administration finds credible Israel’s assurances that its use of US weapons do not violate either American or international law.
The report said there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel on several occasions had used American-supplied weapons “inconsistent” with international humanitarian law, but said it could not make a definitive assessment - enough to prevent the suspension of arms transfers.
How can anyone say that we should vote for this administration in the fall? Its own staff are abandoning it!
It’s one thing for me to observe the machine from outside and say “gee, idk about this one, it looks to be going down the wrong path…” it’s entirely another for tactical and practical staff to come leaping out of various hatches and run the other way shouting “it’s ontologically evil!”
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Dang it’s crazy that you live in a place with only two options. Here in America there’s third parties and even if they’re not enumerated on the ballot you can just write in whoever you want.
There’s a viable third party running in America? One that gets more than a token share of votes?
Wowie! I live here and I didn’t even know that! Thanks, sport, I’ll definitely vote for them if they have a chance to win!
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People have been voting third party and writing in candidates in America for centuries. It’s nothing new.
The two major parties have the candidates they have because those people represent the interests of their constituency, petit bourgeois and regional bourgeois on the republican side and national bourgeois and upwardly mobile members of the management class on the democrat side.
If all you will accept is a win, I can’t help you. We are going to lose no matter if we get Biden or trump. The easiest way to register our desire for something else and the only one that can’t be manipulated, deepfaked, diverted or twisted is to have our votes counted for a party and candidate that represents our values and politics.
Even though that candidate and party might not win, our support gives them real material gains through debate and media appearances, ballot line presence, funding and of course grassroots public awareness.
If we only want one of the two major parties to change their tune, a third party vote tells them what they need to do to get yours, what parties platform they need to move towards.
For me, that party is the party for socialism and liberation. They’re running Claudia de la Cruz for president.
If this feels theoretical to you, consider Perot ‘92. He was considered a spoiler for bush at the time but studies have since shown that he siphoned slightly more votes from Clinton. NAFTA wouldn’t have been zombie legislation ready to be replaced from the day it took effect if it werent for Perot.
There are other examples of third parties having serious effects on the platforms of the two major parties but Perot ‘92 is one of my favorites because of how recent it was.
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I just suggested Claudia de la Cruz, the candidate running under the party for socialism and liberation.
I also said that if all you will accept is a win that I can’t help you. De la Cruz is electable if you vote for her, but she falls far outside what you outlined.
Is a win all you will accept?
Voting is when you get to choose your opponent. Would you rather oppose the Democrats, who are clearly at least somewhat divided on the subject of Palestine, or the Republicans, whose only division is between “Bomb them” and “Nuke them”?
You’re not endorsing a government by voting for it. You’re just arranging the playing field in the way that is most tactically advantageous to you.
I’m not voting for either. The party for socialism and liberation has a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to weapons shipments to israel among many other positions I align with.
My support for this party gives them material benefits and makes my position clear in no uncertain terms that the platforms of both democrats and republicans are unacceptable.
Doesn’t work that way sweetie, fptp means if you don’t vote for one of the two major parties, then you’re essentially voting for their opponents.
If you usually vote democrats, and don’t do it this time, you’re voting for republican by weakening the democrats.
If it worked like that then my third party vote would both count as a vote against trump and as a vote against Biden and they would cancel out.
Of course, it doesn’t work like that because when votes are tallied my third party vote doesn’t get put in either major parties’ total.
I haven’t voted for a democrat in sixteen years.
If you aren’t a regular voter for either the 2 primary parties, then I’m sorry to say your vote literally doesn’t matter.
How can my vote not matter when it’s counted?
I get how for certain seats like senators whose power isn’t proportional to the population they represent my vote may have more or less power than someone from a less or more populous state, but within my own district how does my vote not matter because I haven’t been voting for major parties?
Well we’re talking about the presidential election here, but out of curiosity - Has your party won anything inside or outside of your district in the 16 years you’ve been voting for them?
I’ve voted for lots of candidates with different party affiliations and plenty have won, yes.
Some at the local level were democrat affiliated, but none at the state or higher level and as you said, we’re talking about the presidential race here, so it didn’t seem like a misleading claim.
Do you think winning the seat is all that matters or is there space for base building, policy injection or other electoral strategies in your assessment?
So… better vote for a group who is passionately wrong than on a team that to some extend has integrity
I’m voting party for socialism and liberation this November. Passionate integrity!
Oh i see…