Conflicting reports on Biden’s decision to stay in the 2024 race – National & International News – FRI 19Jul2024

Conflicting reports on Biden’s decision to stay in the 2024 race.

Security software update causes global IT outage affecting millions.

UN court: Israel illegally occupying Palestinian, imposing apartheid.

NATIONAL NEWS

Conflicting reports on Biden’s decision to stay in the 2024 race

The number of Congressional Democrats calling on Biden to end his re-election campaign is continuing grow. As of now, more than 30 lawmakers in both the House and Senate have publicly called on Biden to step aside. More are likely to go public in the coming days. 

Yesterday, there were reports that the likelihood of him dropping out is growing, and even some predictions that it could happen as soon as this weekend. These reports mostly cited anonymous sources close to Biden and the campaign. A report today indicated that even some members of Biden’s family, who have largely pushed for him to stay in the race, are now facing the political realities and thinking of ways to stage manage his withdrawal.

It should be noted that Biden campaign spokespeople have not only denied these reports but have forcefully stated Biden’s intention to stay in the race. Biden himself was recently diagnosed with COVID and is in isolation at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Biden “angry” and “betrayed”

Reports citing sources close to the President describe him as feeling “angry” and “betrayed” by his comrades in Washington. Some close Biden allies are indignant at the way Democrats are going about their pressure campaign. One ally is quoted as saying, “There was a much more dignified way to do this if this is what they wanted. This is no way to treat a public servant who has done a lot for this country.”

It seems that for the last three weeks that Democratic leaders have hoped in vain that Biden would choose himself to take the “more dignified” way out, but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

In fact, the DNC tried to move up the timeline for the virtual roll call. Had they succeeded, Biden would have been officially nominated, weeks before the Democratic National Convention, leaving Democrats no choice but to accept him as the nominee. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries apparently had to intervene to prevent this fait accompli.

Biden’s defiance has apparently forced those who believe he should step down for his own sake and for the sake of the party and the country to take more drastic measures. This includes the increasing number of leaks and even a television ad calling on Biden to step down.

Reality checks

One source described Biden as “seething” at Nancy Pelosi in particular. The former Democratic House Leader reportedly had a recent phone conversation with Biden and made a point of sharing polls that showed that Biden would not only lose to Trump, but would also drag down Democratic Congressional candidates with him.

According to four sources familiar with the conversation, Biden was defiant, saying he’d seen polling that said otherwise. Pelosi then asked for Biden’s longtime advisor Mike Donilon to join the call so they could review the data together. Many Democrats believe that Biden’s increasingly tight circle of family members and advisors (of whom Donilon is one) are encouraging him to ignore unfavorable polling.

The call with Pelosi followed a one-on-one meeting between Biden and Sen. Schumer on Saturday. According to reports, Schumer was equally blunt about how discouraging the polls were. 

Security software update causes global IT outage affecting millions

Last night, the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike uploaded a faulty update that caused millions of Windows machines worldwide to malfunction, entering what’s known as a “blue screen of death” loop. The malfunction mainly affected larger companies and institutions that use Crowdstrike to prevent cyber attacks. Most home computers were not affected because most private individuals are more likely to use Norton or McAfee anti-virus protection that Crowdstrike.

However, the faulty update did cause massive disruption to vital services including banking, travel, healthcare. In the US alone, more that 2,500 flights were canceled and over 8,000 were delayed. Over a dozen major hospital systems throughout the country were also impacted, forcing many to cancel elective and non-emergency procedures. The outage also hit the banking system hard both in the US and globally. Many customers in the US and all over the world were unable to make credit card transactions, send or receive funds or access their bank accounts.

Most of the impacted systems have recovered but the heads of many of the major affected institutions and companies say it may take days for their systems to be fully operational.

Crowdstrike, Microsoft and various tech experts have emphasized that this was not a malicious cyber attack, simply the result of a glitchy update. However, today’s events have highlighted how vulnerable many key systems are due to relative homogeneity among systems used in various sectors and an overreliance on vendors that have captured the lion’s share of particular tech markets. 

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

UN court rules Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land illegal, calls for dismantling of settlements

The International Court of Justice, the top UN court, ruled today that Israel’s 57-year occupation of Palestinian territories in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza is illegal. For the first time, the court also found that Israel’s restrictions on Palestinians in the occupied territories constituted “systemic discrimination based on, inter alia, race, religion or ethnic origin,” amounting to apartheid.

The court called for Israel to dismantle the 160 Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. These settlements house some 700,000 Israeli Jews. It also called on all UN member states to refrain from offering any aid to Israel that could allow it to continue or  exacerbate its violations of international law.

Earlier this year, Israel’s government authorized the building of some 3,400 new homes in the West Bank, exclusively for Jews. This is one of Israel’s largest landgrabs in decades, following months of increasing violence in the West Bank against Palestinians. Since October 7, Israel’s military has deputized armed illegal settlers and allowed them to carry out deadly raids against Palestinian homes, as well as demolishing many Palestinian villages. Unlawful evictions of Palestinian families from occupied East Jerusalem have also recently accelerated.

Israel has a history of disregarding rulings from the ICJ, including orders from the court just recently that Israel must end its military assault on Rafah. In 2004, the court ruled that a separation barrier that Israel was building between the West Bank and Israel proper was illegal, and ordered the wall to be dismantled (an order the court reiterated today). Israel continued building the wall and it still stands today.

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