Archiv: Biden Administration 2021-2025


01.11.2025 - 15:18 [ Bloomberg.com ]

American ‘Oligarchy’ Decried by Biden Gained $1.5 Trillion in His Term

(January 16, 2025)

The very richest Americans are among the biggest winners from President Joe Biden’s time in office, despite his farewell address warning of an “oligarchy” and a “tech industrial complex” that threaten US democracy.

The 100 wealthiest Americans got more than $1.5 trillion richer over the last four years, with tech tycoons including Elon Musk, Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg leading the way, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The top 0.1% gained more than $6 trillion, Federal Reserve estimates through September show.

19.10.2025 - 13:27 [ Tagesschau.de ]

Experte zu Gaza-Abkommen „Es ist elementar, dass Trump am Ball bleibt“

(October 13, 2025)

tagesschau.de: Ist es denkbar, dass Israel die Kampfaktivitäten wieder aufnimmt? Beispielsweise dann, wenn die Waffen jetzt doch nicht so abgegeben werden, wie ursprünglich seitens der Hamas zugesagt.

Busse: Ich sehe ein Risiko, dass dieser Krieg wieder fortgesetzt werden könnte durch Israel. Und ich glaube, dass Teile dieses Plans von Trump auch so formuliert worden sind, dass man dafür, wenn man das möchte, einen Vorwand finden kann.

15.09.2025 - 17:51 [ Umair Malik / Twitter ]

this is the biggest blunder in American history. Mark my words

(December 9, 2023)

30.08.2025 - 17:54 [ Umair Malik / Twitter ]

this is the biggest blunder in American history. Mark my words

(December 9, 2023)

26.08.2025 - 19:43 [ Human Rights Watch ]

Gaza: US Forces Can Be Liable for Assisting Israeli War Crimes

“The direct US participation in military operations with Israeli forces means that as a matter of international law, the United States has been and currently is a party to the armed conflict in Gaza,” said Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “US military and intelligence personnel and contractors assisting Israeli forces who commit war crimes may at some point find themselves facing criminal prosecution for atrocities in Gaza.”

Under international humanitarian law, the ongoing hostilities between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza is a non-international armed conflict. International law does not set out specific criteria for determining when a country assisting another country in a non-international armed conflict itself becomes a party to that conflict, though direct participation in combat operations is a clear example.

14.08.2025 - 18:38 [ abna24.com ]

US President: Netanyahu used US bombing of Berlin as justification for Gaza genocide

(January 18, 2025)

Biden said that Netanyahu responded to his concerns by saying “You killed thousands of innocent civilians because you had to in order to win the war.”

This was not the first time the massacres against civilians in the Second World War were used to justify Israeli atrocities in Palestine.

Back in December 2023, pro-Israel American Senator Lindsey Graham also responded to criticisms of Israel‘s killing of Palestinian civilians by saying “Did the American people worry about how many people were dying to destroy Tokyo or Berlin?”

04.08.2025 - 14:25 [ Le Monde ]

Israel-Gaza: The International Criminal Court in turmoil

This has been the darkest year for the International Criminal Court (ICC) since it opened its doors in The Hague in 2002. Never before had the institution faced such strong headwinds. The US imposed sanctions on four judges and the chief prosecutor, the British national Karim Khan, while threats, intrigue, and pressure from Washington mounted on state parties. The objective: to annul and prevent any arrest warrants against Israelis, including those targeting Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, issued on November 21, 2024, and to close the ongoing investigation into crimes committed on Palestinian territory.

04.08.2025 - 14:22 [ Palestine Chronicle ]

‘Black Year for ICC’ – Le Monde Reveals Unprecedented Pressures on High Court‘

(August 2, 2025)

British lawyer Andrew Cayley, who was tasked with leading the ICC’s file on Palestine (ICC-01/18), said the months he spent working on the case in The Hague were the most difficult of his life.

“I went through the worst months of my life in The Hague,” Cayley told Le Monde.

He described receiving direct threats, including being told he was “an enemy of Israel” and warned to “watch his back.” He resigned in March 2024.

Le Monde also cited a July 17, 2024, intelligence memo from Dutch authorities warning that the ICC had become a “prime target for espionage and subversive influence” by states whose officials were at risk of prosecution.

11.07.2025 - 19:17 [ CNN ]

State Department is firing more than 1,300 staff on Friday

The State Department has begun firing more than 1,300 people as part of a dramatic overhaul of the agency, according to a State Department official.

The firings will affect 1,107 civil service and 246 foreign service officers, an internal notice seen by CNN said. It comes as the State Department implements a drastic reorganization as part of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to shrink the federal government.

15.06.2025 - 19:13 [ Arms Control Association ]

Saudi Push for Enrichment Raises Concerns

(November 2023)

The Wall Street Journal reported in September that Netanyahu directed Israeli officials to work with the United States on an agreement that includes Saudi enrichment, but such a deal still would face criticism in Israel. (…)

Given Saudi Arabia’s public threats to develop nuclear weapons, it may be challenging for the Biden administration to gain support for any agreement that allows uranium enrichment, particularly if the kingdom does not have an additional protocol to its comprehensive safeguards agreement in place. Additional protocols to safeguards agreements were developed in the 1990s when it became clear from the cases of Iraq and North Korea that a comprehensive safeguard agreement alone was insufficient to prevent proliferation. An additional protocol gives the IAEA more access and information about a country’s nuclear activities.

25.05.2025 - 17:59 [ New York Times ]

New Gaza Aid Plan, Bypassing U.N. and Billed as Neutral, Originated in Israel

The New York Times found that the broad contours of the plan were first discussed in late 2023, at private meetings of like-minded officials, military officers and business people with close ties to the Israeli government.

The group called itself the Mikveh Yisrael Forum, after a college where members convened in December 2023. Its leading figures gradually settled on the idea of hiring private contractors to distribute food in Gaza, circumventing the United Nations.

25.05.2025 - 17:49 [ Washington Post ]

Sweeping overhaul of Gaza aid raises questions of morality and workability

The planning documents anticipated public skepticism and preemptively prepared talking points in case the GHF encountered allegations likening its food distribution hubs and residential compounds to “‘concentration camps’ with biometrics” or comparing the organization to Blackwater, a former U.S. mercenary firm implicated in violence against civilians in Iraq.

(…)

In mid-2024, Israeli officials shared their plans with a group of private-sector American consultants led by Phil Reilly, a retired CIA paramilitary officer and former agency station chief in Afghanistan. Reilly’s group, said five of the Israeli and American individuals, took over the planning and determined that a new company led by Reilly, named Safe Reach Solutions, would be the future subcontractor that would provide security and logistics for the hubs.

20.03.2025 - 11:31 [ theMedialine.org ]

Hostage Families Outraged by Alleged Leak From Prime Minister’s Office

(November 4, 2024)

During that period, the US, Qatar, and Egypt were mediating talks between Israel and Hamas, seeking a framework for a ceasefire and a potential hostage release. Both sides ultimately accused the other of obstructing progress. Hostage families, frustrated by the lack of movement, joined journalists in a petition to lift the gag order on Feldstein’s case.

14.03.2025 - 08:42 [ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) / Büro des Hohen Kommissars für Menschenrechte ]

“More than a human can bear”: Israel‘s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since October 2023

“The evidence collected by the Commission reveals a deplorable increase in sexual and gender-based violence,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission. “There is no escape from the conclusion that Israel has employed sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians to terrorise them and perpetuate a system of oppression that undermines their right to self-determination.”

The release of the report was accompanied by two days of public hearings held in Geneva on 11-12 March, during which the Commission heard from victims and witnesses of sexual and reproductive violence and medical personnel who assisted them, as well as representatives from civil society, academics, lawyers and medical experts.

The report found that sexual and gender-based violence – which has risen in frequency and severity – is being perpetrated across the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a strategy of war for Israel to dominate and destroy the Palestinian people.

Specific forms of sexual and gender-based violence – such as forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment including threats of rape, as well as sexual assault – comprise part of the Israeli Security Forces’ standard operating procedures toward Palestinians.

Other forms of sexual and gender-based violence, including rape and violence to the genitals, were committed either under explicit orders or with implicit encouragement by Israel’s top civilian and military leadership, the report said.

14.03.2025 - 08:33 [ Washington Post ]

U.N. report accuses Israel of sexual violence, ‘genocidal acts’ in Gaza

A U.N. report released Thursday accused Israel of carrying out “systematic” gender-based violence during its 17-month war in the Gaza Strip, including by shelling fertility clinics and hospital maternity wards, causing maternal deaths by blocking aid deliveries, and subjecting male and female detainees to sexual humiliation or abuse.

The 49-page report, by a U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry, said that “Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention.”

13.03.2025 - 09:24 [ NBC News / Youtube ]

Full speech: Sen. Schumer calls for new elections in Israel

(14.03.2024)

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., delivered an address on the Senate floor to call for a two-state solution amid the conflict in Gaza and new elections in Israel.

06.03.2025 - 05:24 [ Washington Post ]

U.S. concerned about Ukraine strikes on Russian nuclear radar stations

(May 29, 2024)

The drone that targeted the radar station near Orsk, in Russia’s Orenburg region along Kazakhstan’s northern border, traveled more than 1,100 miles, making it one of the deepest attempted strikes into Russian territory. The Ukrainian official declined to say whether the strike, on May 26, caused any damage.

02.03.2025 - 22:14 [ Washington Post ]

Trump and the end of the geopolitical ‘West’

Trump and Vance may delight in shocking Europe, but their counterparts across the pond are coming to terms with the collapse of a united West. “Trump’s rhetoric melds with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s,” wrote Le Monde columnist Alain Frachon. “In less than two weeks, concessions to Moscow have piled up. Even if they had already been in the pipeline since Joe Biden’s administration: No Ukraine in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); no NATO forces to monitor a possible ceasefire; necessary territorial concessions from Kyiv.”

07.02.2025 - 00:51 [ Junge Welt ]

Entlassung von Bundesbediensteten: Richter bremst Trump

Washington. US-Präsident Donald Trumps Plan, im großen Stil Bundesbedienstete zur Kündigung zu drängen, stößt auf juristischen Widerstand. Ein Bundesrichter hat am Donnerstag vorerst eine Frist ausgesetzt, nach der sich Bundesbedienstete bis Donnerstag entscheiden mussten, ob sie das Angebot der Regierung annehmen, wie mehrere US-Medien übereinstimmend berichteten. Der Richter setzte demnach eine neue Anhörung für Montag an.

04.02.2025 - 17:56 [ Daniel Neun / Radio Utopie ]

U.S.-Imperium will „globale Koalition“ für Terrorkrieg 2.0 und bastelt an „Nachrüstung“ der Kriegsvollmacht aus 2001

(September 2, 2014)

Auf dem Gipfel des Nordatlantikpakts in Wales wird es weniger um Russland als um die Frage gehen, mit welcher schwachsinnigen Ausrede nun die N.A.T.O. den am 4. Oktober 2001 ausgerufenen „kollektiven Verteidigungsfall“ aufrechterhalten will.

Eine Option: Noch mehr Eroberungen islamischer Staaten, wegen dem „Islamischen Staat“.

04.02.2025 - 17:24 [ Associated Press ]

Regime change in Syria has Iraqi factions backtracking on push for US withdrawal

(January 31, 2025)

The U.S. and Iraq announced an agreement last year to wind down the military mission in Iraq of an American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group by September 2025, with U.S. forces departing some bases where they have stationed troops during a two-decade-long military presence in the country. (…)

But the fall of Assad in a lightning offensive led by Sunni Islamist rebels in December led some to reassess that stance, including members of the Coordination Framework, a coalition of mainly Shiite, Iran-allied political parties that brought current Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani to power in late 2022.

01.02.2025 - 19:32 [ Common Dreams ]

Biden‘s Enduring Legacy: Awful. No Worse

If ever there was a searing, sanctimonious self-immolation in presidential politics, this was it and the costs are incalculable. The damage will reverberate for decades and might never be recovered.

It will be all but impossible for the Democratic Party to accept responsibility for the catastrophe it has inflicted on America, through its head, Joe Biden, and the complicity of all of the party’s upper echelon. It will, thus, ensure that nothing will change. We desperately need a new party that reflects the interest and needs of the American people, and not those of the party’s corporate owners. Change cannot come too soon.

25.01.2025 - 05:37 [ PBS.org ]

In an interview, Putin echoes Trump’s claim that conflict in Ukraine could have been avoided had he been in office

In an interview with Russian state television, Putin praised Trump as a “clever and pragmatic man” who is focused on U.S. interests.

“We always had a business-like, pragmatic but also trusting relationship with the current U.S. president,” Putin said. “I couldn’t disagree with him that if he had been president, if they hadn’t stolen victory from him in 2020, the crisis that emerged in Ukraine in 2022 could have been avoided.”

22.01.2025 - 20:02 [ Cato Institute ]

The Imperial Presidency and the War on Terror

(March/​April 2006)

Since the start of the war on terror, the Bush administration has singlemindedly advanced the view that, in time of war, the president is the law, and no statute, no constitutional barrier, no coordinate branch of the U.S. government can stand in the president’s way when, by his lights, he is acting to preserve national security. Bush administration officials have argued

– that the president has the inherent constitutional authority to designate American citizens suspected of terrorist activity as “enemy combatants,” strip them of any constitutional protection, and hold them for the duration of the war on terror;
– that the president has the power to ignore validly enacted statutes prohibiting war crimes if he believes those statutes impede his prosecution of the war on terror; and
– that the president has the power to launch invasions of other countries at his discretion, without so much as a by-yourleave to Congress.

In a 1977 interview with David Frost, Richard Nixon described his view of the president’s national security authority: “Well, when the President does it, that means it is not illegal.” In the arguments it has advanced, both publicly and privately, for untrammeled executive power, the Bush administration comes perilously close to that view.

21.01.2025 - 19:53 [ White House ]

RESTORING FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND ENDING FEDERAL CENSORSHIP

Section 1. Purpose. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, an amendment essential to the success of our Republic, enshrines the right of the American people to speak freely in the public square without Government interference. Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve. Under the guise of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation,” the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate. Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.

Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to: (a) secure the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech;

(b) ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen;

(c) ensure that no taxpayer resources are used to engage in or facilitate any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen; and

(d) identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to censorship of protected speech.

Sec. 3. Ending Censorship of Protected Speech. (a) No Federal department, agency, entity, officer, employee, or agent may act or use any Federal resources in a manner contrary to section 2 of this order.

(b) The Attorney General, in consultation with the heads of executive departments and agencies, shall investigate the activities of the Federal Government over the last 4 years that are inconsistent with the purposes and policies of this order and prepare a report to be submitted to the President, through the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, with recommendations for appropriate remedial actions to be taken based on the findings of the report.

21.01.2025 - 19:50 [ Associated Press ]

Trump orders government not to infringe on Americans’ speech, calls for censorship investigation

It’s not yet clear how the order could affect the work that several U.S. agencies do to track false claims that pose threats to election security, including the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA.

20.01.2025 - 15:27 [ CNN ]

Biden issues preemptive pardons for Milley, Fauci and Jan. 6 committee members

Fauci served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infection Disease for decades, including during the outbreak of Covid in Trump’s first presidency, and Milley served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trump’s first term and has warned Trump is a fascist.

19.01.2025 - 09:16 [ Khaleej Times ]

Gaza death toll climbs to nearly 47,000 on eve of ceasefire

Israel‘s military offensive on the Gaza Strip has killed at least 46,899 Palestinians and injured 110,725 since October 7, 2023, the Palestinian enclave‘s health ministry said in an update on Saturday.

23 Palestinians were killed and 83 were injured over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said.

18.01.2025 - 15:12 [ Common Dreams ]

No, Biden Wasn’t Unable to Stop the Gaza War—He Was in on It

The truth of the matter is that every day for the past year, Biden could have secured a cease-fire by using America’s vast leverage, and every day for the past year, from all the evidence we have today, Biden chose not to.

18.01.2025 - 14:35 [ Anadolu ]

Despite truce deal, Israel kills 88 more Gazans as death toll nears 47,000

(January 17, 2025)

Despite a cease-fire agreement, Israeli attacks killed at least 88 more Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall death toll since October 2023 to 46,876, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Friday.

18.01.2025 - 05:02 [ CBC.ca ]

Hope fades into anguish as deadly airstrikes hit Gaza after ceasefire news

Abdel Aal, who lost two children to airstrikes in the 15-month war, said he is not hopeful for an end to the killings in Gaza.

„The Palestinian people have not been able to take delight even just for a moment in the past 75 years while the death and destruction has taken place in these countries,“ he said.

There was no comment from the Israeli military on the latest strikes.

18.01.2025 - 03:55 [ Anadolu ]

Israel has killed over 117 Palestinians since announcement of cease-fire deal on Wednesday: Civil Defense

Israeli airstrikes have killed 117 Palestinians since the announcement of a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, according to an official tally on Friday.

According to Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for Gaza‘s Civil Defense service, the latest attacks include 32 women and 30 children.

16.01.2025 - 19:48 [ Propublica.org ]

A Year of Empty Threats and a “Smokescreen” Policy: How the State Department Let Israel Get Away With Horrors in Gaza

In early November, a small group of senior U.S. human rights diplomats met with a top official in President Joe Biden’s State Department to make one final, emphatic plea: We must keep our word….