Obama had run as a kind of anti-war candidate in his fairytale 2008 campaign, and when it turned out that he was a hard-bitten pragmatist, in this and other areas, many of his supporters were surprised. Instead, it is control by domination and surveillance. This new kind of American war is revealing that the most elemental face of war is not death. The US’s conflicts abroad remain brutal and deadly, but what’s frightening about them is not just the violence they inflict. The very idea of more humane war may seem a contradiction in terms. Yet, at the same time, the US’s military operations have become more expansive in scope and perpetual in time by virtue of these very facts. Absolutely and relatively, fewer captives are mistreated and fewer civilians die than in the past. Countries like the US have agreed to obey those obligations, however permissively they interpret them and inadequately apply them in the field. Today, there are more and more legal obligations to make war more humane – meaning, above all, the aim of minimising collateral harm. It was the moment of greatest moral clarity about war during a presidency that did more than any other to bring its endless and humane American form fully into being.įor all its routine violence, the American way of war is more and more defined by a near complete immunity from harm for the American side and unprecedented care when it comes to killing people on the other. Obama himself had been more reflective at the event, engaging with her criticisms, which led to even deeper self-criticism of his own. The Washington Post later dismissed her as a “heckler”. She was swiftly ejected by military police and the Secret Service. During his speech, Benjamin interrupted the president to criticise him for not having closed Guantánamo Bay and for pursuing military solutions over diplomatic ones. It said the "family glitch" affects some 5 million people and "has made it impossible for many families to use the premium tax credit to purchase an affordable, high-quality Marketplace plan.O n, the peace activist Medea Benjamin attended a speech by President Barack Obama at Fort McNair in Washington DC, where he defended his administration’s use of armed drones in counter-terrorism. The White House said the proposed adjustment to the Affordable Care Act, put forward in a rule by the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service that must be finalized, would save hundreds of dollars a month for hundreds of thousands of families. "They did go take a look at the Oval Office and take a walk around, and I know they enjoyed spending time together," she said.
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White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said Obama and Biden had an expansive conversation and a walk. Their families became close and Obama spoke at the funeral of Biden's son, Beau. Obama and Biden became friends during Obama's time in office, meeting for lunch weekly. you can have an impact on millions of lives," Obama said. "But what the Affordable Care Act shows is that if you are driven by the core idea that, together, we can improve the lives of this generation and the next, and if you're persistent.
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Obamacare was the former president's top legislative accomplishment, and Republicans have repeatedly tried and failed to repeal it. As a result, Democrats risk losing control of at least one, if not both, chambers of Congress in November, which would bring Biden's legislative agenda to a halt.īiden unveiled a measure to fix an element of the healthcare law known as the "family glitch" that left family members of those with access to employer-provided health plans ineligible for certain subsidies, and he signed an executive order directing federal agencies to do all they could to expand healthcare coverage.īefore signing and as he finished his remarks, he quipped: "Barack, I'm going to remind you: it's a hot mic."įocusing on healthcare has helped Democrats politically in the past. While Obama remains a popular figure, Biden faces moribund public approval ratings thanks in part to high inflation and the lingering COVID-19 pandemic.
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“The Affordable Care Act has been called a lot of things but Obamacare is the most fitting," Biden said. big deal," Obama said to hoots of laughter from the crowd, referencing an off-color Biden remark picked up by a hot mic when the law was signed.īiden, who hosted Obama for lunch, joked that the two men did not know who should sit where when they dined, and lauded Obama for his leadership on the healthcare law. "If you can get millions of people health coverage and better protection, it is, to quote a famous American, a pretty. Obama jokingly referred to Biden as "vice president" before correcting himself, inspiring a salute from Biden, then offered broad praise of the Affordable Care Act, whose passage he described as a "high point" of his time in office.