theintercept--2020-01-25--As the Lebanon Uprising Hits 100-Day Mark, Protesters Allege Torture by Security Forces

Samer Mazeh had just left a protest on the Ring Bridge in central Beirut on the night of November 14 .
Suddenly , they were swarmed by a small group of unidentified men .
Within earshot of the packed bars on the popular Gemmayzeh Street , one of the men tried to arrest Mazeh as Basal demanded to know who they were .
Minutes later , an army vehicle arrived and a man claiming to be a military intelligence officer jumped out .
“ The officer was forcefully raising my arms above my head , ” Basal told The Intercept @ @ @ @ @ @ @ motorcycle and hit me in the back.
” Basal continued , “ I felt a pop in my back.
” The two were arrested and taken to a military facility where they were held overnight .
At the protest , the pair said they were chanting and banging on pots and pans .
During their interrogation , though , Basal said the authorities accused them of throwing rocks at security forces .
Basal and Mazeh are two of at least 450 individuals who have been detained by the Lebanese Armed Forces and Internal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since a national uprising began on October 17 , according to human rights organizations and volunteer lawyers who have taken up their cases .
In at least eight cases , according to Amnesty International , detainees have alleged torture .
The allegations have been little remarked upon by the international press .
With renewed unrest in Lebanon after the announcement of a new government , abuses by security forces are again coming to the fore .
On Thursday , Amnesty International urged the incoming government to immediately rein in security forces amid a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tactics carried out by the army , in particular , stand to weaken the institution ’ s standing in Lebanon as a steadying influence within the country ’ s chaotic politics .
That role has garnered the military $ 1.7 billion in aid from the U.S. over the past decade — aid that could come under scrutiny as torture allegations surface and are corroborated .
Basal told The Intercept that he was among the tortured .
He suffered a broken rib and said authorities mock-executed him during interrogation proceedings .
“ They would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we felt air as if we ’ re in an open space , ” Basal recalled to The Intercept , adding that he and Mazeh were blindfolded .
“ Suddenly , someone comes over and tells us to kneel , pushing us to the floor … reloads a Kalashnikov over our heads , waits a bit , then takes us back inside.
” Basal is one of three detainees who shared their stories with The Intercept .
Their accounts were corroborated by medical reports , their lawyers , and accounts from fellow detainees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and police had earned plaudits from the international community throughout the nationwide protest movement for apparent restraint in their handling of the millions-strong demonstrations .
In the first days of the uprising , a number of videos showing protesters embracing army officers went viral on social media .
The army , arguably the nation ’ s most respected institution for its role as a stabilizing force since the end of the Lebanese civil war , has largely preserved its reputation as a result .
“ At first , there was a decision by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to use excessive force , ” said Halim Shebaya , a Lebanese political analyst .
Shebaya characterized the security forces ’ response into two phases : before and after October 29 , the day Prime Minister Saad Hariri ’ s government resigned .
After the resignation , pressure on the army from Lebanon ’ s political classes grew .
Political leaders wanted the army to end the disruptions caused by the protests by , for instance , stopping demonstrators ’ attempts to block roads .
Security agencies , including the army , said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demonstrate if they remained restricted to “ public squares and sidewalks.
” The directive was followed by a worsening crackdown in the waning weeks of 2019 , with several dozen more arrested and hundreds wounded in clashes between security forces and protesters .
Government allies have defended the army ’ s response , referencing the state-sponsored suppression of protests across the region in Iran and Iraq in recent months , where authorities have deployed overwhelming and often deadly force .
In Iraq , where national protests began on October 1 , at least @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wounded in clashes with security forces .
In Iran , human rights organizations are still tallying the dead .
Thus far , four people have died in Lebanon .
The detentions of protesters in Lebanon , however , have gone largely unreported outside of local media .
Protesters have described to rights organizations experiences similar to that of Basel : being dragged from the street , attacked by military officials , and beaten and interrogated in secret detention centers in Beirut and across the country .
The arrests typically take place just on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frame from local television cameras , said Nermine Sibai , a lawyer with the legal advocacy group Legal Agenda , which has handled a number of the detainee cases .
“ They ’ re taken at the hands of military intelligence … and we no longer know their whereabouts , ” said Sibai .
“ There has been no transparency whatsoever in their interactions with us ” — referring to lawyers .
Sibai drew an unfavorable comparison between recent protests with Lebanon ’ s 2015 protests , over the country ’ s garbage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not play a role .
In 2019 , Sibai said the military has been involved from the beginning in a way in which it plays a primary role in countering protests .
“ These arrests are illegal , ” said Sibai .
Several detained protesters alleged that the army tortured them during and after demonstrations in connection with their protest activity .
On a recent evening , in downtown Beirut ’ s Martyrs ’ Square — the epicenter of the protest movement — Khaldoun Jaber sat near a dimly lit wall splattered with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ On November 13 , he attended a protest in the Beirut suburb of Baabda on the main road leading to the presidential palace .
The protest had been hastily organized after President Michel Aoun , in a television interview , harshly criticized the demonstrations .
After several hours of leading protesters in chants against Aoun , Jaber said two men in civilian clothing approached him and asked to speak away from the crowd .
“ Suddenly , I was swept onto the ground and dragged towards other security forces , where some 30 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told The Intercept .
He said they were “ men in civilian clothing with vests saying they ’ re from military intelligence and the Republican Guard.
” Jaber and other detainees were taken to a military hospital , where they were given medical clearance to go to a military-run detention facility .
Jaber said he was held in solitary confinement , unable to speak to a lawyer or notify his family and friends of his whereabouts .
“ Nobody knew where I was for 18 hours , ” he said .
As he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grilled Jaber , demanding to know if any embassies were paying him to protest .
As they grew frustrated , Jaber said he was pressured emotionally and psychologically through a number of techniques he identified as torture .
Jaber was repeatedly hit across his back and ribs with a stick .
Jaber , who has an ear piercing , was also asked if he was gay and linked to the Lebanese band Mashrou ’ Leila , which made global headlines last July after the Maronite Church accused them of blasphemy .
“ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out one of my molars and blood came out of my mouth , ” said Jaber .
In another incident , Bachir Nakhal was eating with friends at Riad al-Solh Square until he heard a commotion at a police barricade nearby .
“ I took my phone to film what was happening , and I saw the people running towards us , ” said Nakhal , who added that riot police were attacking and chasing the demonstrators .
He stopped filming as an officer approached him with a raised baton .
Nakhal was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a few of them surrounded me and started beating me.
” Officers dragged him by his scarf over the barricade , where he was handcuffed with a dozen other protesters .
He was punched in the face and began to spit blood .
A riot police officer caressed his head telling Nakhal to call him “ master.
” Nakhal said he and the other detained protesters were denied medical treatment and spent the night in a military detention center .
As the detentions increase , an ad hoc group of lawyers across the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Dubbed the Lawyers ’ Committee to Defend Protesters in Lebanon , they have helped guarantee medical examinations and appeals , and even provided legal advice for workers arbitrarily fired for taking part in the protests .
The team ’ s Facebook page operates a hotline for free legal advice and queries ; it is filled with updates on court cases , detentions , and other affairs related to protesters and security officials across the country .
The lawyers are being increasingly stymied because of the growing involvement of the military in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who is part of the lawyers ’ group .
Military agencies , Sibai added , have “ not been cooperative at all.
” The Lebanese Armed Forces did not respond to The Intercept ’ s request for comment .
The accusations made against the Lebanese Armed Forces come at an acutely tense time in Lebanon , which is suffering its worst economic crisis since 1990 , the end of the 15-year Lebanese civil war .
Protesters have taken to the streets en masse in recent months to demand an end to the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their anger at endemic corruption by elites over decades that have taken the economy to the brink of collapse .
Hariri ’ s resignation left a political vacuum that the establishment jostled to fill .
Hassan Diab , a little-known professor and former education minister , in December won the support of a simple parliamentary majority to attempt to form a government .
In the background , Washington has firmed up its support for the Lebanese army .
Last month , the Trump administration quietly released congressionally approved aid to the Lebanese Armed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weeks .
After the new government was recently announced , the U.S. again withheld aid because of the government ’ s links to Hezbollah , the Shia militant group and political party backed by the U.S. ’ s archrival Iran .
Since 2010 , Washington has provided the army with $ 1.7 billion in security aid .
The funding is primarily geared toward the purchase of arms back from U.S. manufacturers and training of high-ranking Lebanese officers .
It also ebbs and flows , skewing heavily toward U.S. interests in 2014 and 2015 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ significantly to back the campaign against the Islamic State .
Washington has viewed the funding and training as crucial to the Lebanese army ’ s ability to act as the country ’ s only credible counterweight to Hezbollah in the messy nexus of Lebanon ’ s sectarian power structure .
A State Department official would not comment directly on the allegations against the Lebanese Armed Forces , saying only that the “ United States remains committed to strengthening the capacity of the Lebanese Armed Forces.
” When asked how the Trump administration squared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ detainees , the official added : “ This administration continually reviews and thoroughly evaluates the effectiveness of all United States foreign assistance to ensure that funds go toward activities that further U.S. foreign policy and national security interests , and do not directly or indirectly benefit our adversaries.
” Sen. Chris Murphy , D-Conn. , a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations , made a surprise trip to Beirut in November to meet with Lebanese Army Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun , retired Lebanese officers , and American diplomats .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , was to highlight the White House ’ s withholding of the crucial security aid , comparing it to the Ukrainian military aid held up by the Trump administration last summer that ultimately resulted in the impeachment of the president .
When approached by The Intercept , Murphy ’ s office would not comment on the allegations against the Lebanese Armed Forces .
It ’ s not only the security forces and army ’ s use of excessive force on protesters that has bewildered supporters of the uprising ; it ’ s what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward protesters ’ safety — the acquiescence , both passive and active , toward political violence aimed at the demonstrators .
In several instances , partisans from Hezbollah and Amal , a smaller Shia party , attacked protesters in Beirut with sticks and rocks .
But unlike in the cases of protesters beaten and arrested for filming or leading chants , the army and police did not arrest , or even confront , the attackers .
In one instance , when political partisans attacked protesters and burned down their tents , Legal Agenda @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were given orders to allow the incident to take place before ushering the partisans out of downtown Beirut .
Nakhal , the protester who was beaten for filming , remains optimistic despite the army ’ s actions .
He said his experience has not deterred him ; rather , he has returned almost daily to Martyrs ’ Square to protest .
The 23-year-old engineering graduate has been unemployed for two years , unable to find a job in a contracting economy .
His struggles mirror those of many young people in Lebanon , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as of 2018 , at 37 percent .
“ This pressure has been building up for so long , ” said Nakhal .
Lebanese people , he said , have typically been afraid to confront their government .
“ The barrier of fear has been taken down .
”

Ali Basal and Samer Mazeh had just left a protest on the Ring Bridge in central Beirut on the night of November 14. Suddenly, they were swarmed by a small group of unidentified men. Within earshot of the packed bars on the popular Gemmayzeh Street, one of the men tried to arrest Mazeh as Basal demanded to know who they were. Minutes later, an army vehicle arrived and a man claiming to be a military intelligence officer jumped out.
“The officer was forcefully raising my arms above my head,” Basal told The Intercept, “and another came on a motorcycle and hit me in the back.” Basal continued, “I felt a pop in my back.”
The two were arrested and taken to a military facility where they were held overnight. At the protest, the pair said they were chanting and banging on pots and pans. During their interrogation, though, Basal said the authorities accused them of throwing rocks at security forces.
Basal and Mazeh are two of at least 450 individuals who have been detained by the Lebanese Armed Forces and Internal Security Forces, the national police, since a national uprising began on October 17, according to human rights organizations and volunteer lawyers who have taken up their cases. In at least eight cases, according to Amnesty International, detainees have alleged torture. The allegations have been little remarked upon by the international press.
“Suddenly, someone comes over and tells us to kneel, pushing us to the floor, reloads a Kalashnikov over our heads, waits a bit, then takes us back inside.”
With renewed unrest in Lebanon after the announcement of a new government, abuses by security forces are again coming to the fore. On Thursday, Amnesty International urged the incoming government to immediately rein in security forces amid a harsh crackdown on protesters.
The harsh tactics carried out by the army, in particular, stand to weaken the institution’s standing in Lebanon as a steadying influence within the country’s chaotic politics. That role has garnered the military $1.7 billion in aid from the U.S. over the past decade — aid that could come under scrutiny as torture allegations surface and are corroborated.
Basal told The Intercept that he was among the tortured. He suffered a broken rib and said authorities mock-executed him during interrogation proceedings.
“They would take us outside of the building; we felt air as if we’re in an open space,” Basal recalled to The Intercept, adding that he and Mazeh were blindfolded. “Suddenly, someone comes over and tells us to kneel, pushing us to the floor … reloads a Kalashnikov over our heads, waits a bit, then takes us back inside.”
Basal is one of three detainees who shared their stories with The Intercept. Their accounts were corroborated by medical reports, their lawyers, and accounts from fellow detainees arrested with them.
“No Transparency”
Protesters wave Lebanese national flags near a giant sign of a fist with the slogan “revolution” on it in Arabic in Martyrs’ Square, Beirut, during continuing anti-government protests on Nov. 10. 2019. Photo: Amir Makar/AFP via Getty Images
The Lebanese army and police had earned plaudits from the international community throughout the nationwide protest movement for apparent restraint in their handling of the millions-strong demonstrations. In the first days of the uprising, a number of videos showing protesters embracing army officers went viral on social media. The army, arguably the nation’s most respected institution for its role as a stabilizing force since the end of the Lebanese civil war, has largely preserved its reputation as a result.
“At first, there was a decision by the army and internal security forces not to use excessive force,” said Halim Shebaya, a Lebanese political analyst. Shebaya characterized the security forces’ response into two phases: before and after October 29, the day Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s government resigned.
After the resignation, pressure on the army from Lebanon’s political classes grew. Political leaders wanted the army to end the disruptions caused by the protests by, for instance, stopping demonstrators’ attempts to block roads. Security agencies, including the army, said protesters would be given their right to demonstrate if they remained restricted to “public squares and sidewalks.” The directive was followed by a worsening crackdown in the waning weeks of 2019, with several dozen more arrested and hundreds wounded in clashes between security forces and protesters.
Government allies have defended the army’s response, referencing the state-sponsored suppression of protests across the region in Iran and Iraq in recent months, where authorities have deployed overwhelming and often deadly force. In Iraq, where national protests began on October 1, at least 600 people have been killed and thousands wounded in clashes with security forces. In Iran, human rights organizations are still tallying the dead. Thus far, four people have died in Lebanon.
The detentions of protesters in Lebanon, however, have gone largely unreported outside of local media. Protesters have described to rights organizations experiences similar to that of Basel: being dragged from the street, attacked by military officials, and beaten and interrogated in secret detention centers in Beirut and across the country.
The arrests typically take place just on the outskirts of protests and out of frame from local television cameras, said Nermine Sibai, a lawyer with the legal advocacy group Legal Agenda, which has handled a number of the detainee cases.
“They’re taken at the hands of military intelligence … and we no longer know their whereabouts,” said Sibai. “There has been no transparency whatsoever in their interactions with us” — referring to lawyers.
Sibai drew an unfavorable comparison between recent protests with Lebanon’s 2015 protests, over the country’s garbage crisis, when the military largely did not play a role. In 2019, Sibai said the military has been involved from the beginning in a way in which it plays a primary role in countering protests. “These arrests are illegal,” said Sibai.
Several detained protesters alleged that the army tortured them during and after demonstrations in connection with their protest activity.
Accounts of Torture
On a recent evening, in downtown Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square — the epicenter of the protest movement — Khaldoun Jaber sat near a dimly lit wall splattered with revolutionary graffiti and recounted his experience. On November 13, he attended a protest in the Beirut suburb of Baabda on the main road leading to the presidential palace. The protest had been hastily organized after President Michel Aoun, in a television interview, harshly criticized the demonstrations. After several hours of leading protesters in chants against Aoun, Jaber said two men in civilian clothing approached him and asked to speak away from the crowd.
“The torture and beating ended when I spat out one of my molars and blood came out of my mouth.”
“Suddenly, I was swept onto the ground and dragged towards other security forces, where some 30 people began beating me,” Jaber told The Intercept. He said they were “men in civilian clothing with vests saying they’re from military intelligence and the Republican Guard.”
Jaber and other detainees were taken to a military hospital, where they were given medical clearance to go to a military-run detention facility. Jaber said he was held in solitary confinement, unable to speak to a lawyer or notify his family and friends of his whereabouts. “Nobody knew where I was for 18 hours,” he said.
As he was interrogated the following day, officers grilled Jaber, demanding to know if any embassies were paying him to protest. As they grew frustrated, Jaber said he was pressured emotionally and psychologically through a number of techniques he identified as torture. Jaber was repeatedly hit across his back and ribs with a stick. Jaber, who has an ear piercing, was also asked if he was gay and linked to the Lebanese band Mashrou’ Leila, which made global headlines last July after the Maronite Church accused them of blasphemy. “The torture and beating ended when I spat out one of my molars and blood came out of my mouth,” said Jaber.
Left/Top: Khaldoun Jaber at Martyrs' Square in Beirut on Dec. 7, 2019. Right/Bottom: Bachir Nakhal in Beirut on Dec. 3, 2019. Photos: Hassan Chamoun for The Intercept; Daniel Medina for The Intercept
In another incident, Bachir Nakhal was eating with friends at Riad al-Solh Square until he heard a commotion at a police barricade nearby. “I took my phone to film what was happening, and I saw the people running towards us,” said Nakhal, who added that riot police were attacking and chasing the demonstrators.
He stopped filming as an officer approached him with a raised baton. Nakhal was hit on the back “and then a few of them surrounded me and started beating me.” Officers dragged him by his scarf over the barricade, where he was handcuffed with a dozen other protesters. He was punched in the face and began to spit blood. A riot police officer caressed his head telling Nakhal to call him “master.” Nakhal said he and the other detained protesters were denied medical treatment and spent the night in a military detention center.
As the detentions increase, an ad hoc group of lawyers across the country have taken on detainees’ cases. Dubbed the Lawyers’ Committee to Defend Protesters in Lebanon, they have helped guarantee medical examinations and appeals, and even provided legal advice for workers arbitrarily fired for taking part in the protests. The team’s Facebook page operates a hotline for free legal advice and queries; it is filled with updates on court cases, detentions, and other affairs related to protesters and security officials across the country.
The lawyers are being increasingly stymied because of the growing involvement of the military in the policing of protests, said Sibai, who is part of the lawyers’ group. Military agencies, Sibai added, have “not been cooperative at all.”
The Lebanese Armed Forces did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.
Army’s Washington Support
Lebanese army soldiers clash with supporters of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri on Dec. 19, 2019. Photo: Marwan Naamani/picture-alliance/dpa/AP
The accusations made against the Lebanese Armed Forces come at an acutely tense time in Lebanon, which is suffering its worst economic crisis since 1990, the end of the 15-year Lebanese civil war. Protesters have taken to the streets en masse in recent months to demand an end to the country’s sectarian political system and express their anger at endemic corruption by elites over decades that have taken the economy to the brink of collapse.
Hariri’s resignation left a political vacuum that the establishment jostled to fill. Hassan Diab, a little-known professor and former education minister, in December won the support of a simple parliamentary majority to attempt to form a government. In the background, Washington has firmed up its support for the Lebanese army. Last month, the Trump administration quietly released congressionally approved aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces after inexplicably holding it for several weeks. After the new government was recently announced, the U.S. again withheld aid because of the government’s links to Hezbollah, the Shia militant group and political party backed by the U.S.’s archrival Iran.
Since 2010, Washington has provided the army with $1.7 billion in security aid. The funding is primarily geared toward the purchase of arms back from U.S. manufacturers and training of high-ranking Lebanese officers. It also ebbs and flows, skewing heavily toward U.S. interests in 2014 and 2015, for example, when funding climbed significantly to back the campaign against the Islamic State. Washington has viewed the funding and training as crucial to the Lebanese army’s ability to act as the country’s only credible counterweight to Hezbollah in the messy nexus of Lebanon’s sectarian power structure.
A State Department official would not comment directly on the allegations against the Lebanese Armed Forces, saying only that the “United States remains committed to strengthening the capacity of the Lebanese Armed Forces.” When asked how the Trump administration squared taxpayer funding with the alleged mistreatment of detainees, the official added: “This administration continually reviews and thoroughly evaluates the effectiveness of all United States foreign assistance to ensure that funds go toward activities that further U.S. foreign policy and national security interests, and do not directly or indirectly benefit our adversaries.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, made a surprise trip to Beirut in November to meet with Lebanese Army Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun, retired Lebanese officers, and American diplomats. The purpose of his trip, he said, was to highlight the White House’s withholding of the crucial security aid, comparing it to the Ukrainian military aid held up by the Trump administration last summer that ultimately resulted in the impeachment of the president.
When approached by The Intercept, Murphy’s office would not comment on the allegations against the Lebanese Armed Forces.
“This pressure has been building up for so long. The barrier of fear has been taken down.”
It’s not only the security forces and army’s use of excessive force on protesters that has bewildered supporters of the uprising; it’s what they say is the authorities’ ambivalence toward protesters’ safety — the acquiescence, both passive and active, toward political violence aimed at the demonstrators. In several instances, partisans from Hezbollah and Amal, a smaller Shia party, attacked protesters in Beirut with sticks and rocks. But unlike in the cases of protesters beaten and arrested for filming or leading chants, the army and police did not arrest, or even confront, the attackers.
In one instance, when political partisans attacked protesters and burned down their tents, Legal Agenda claimed that security forces and the army were given orders to allow the incident to take place before ushering the partisans out of downtown Beirut.
Nakhal, the protester who was beaten for filming, remains optimistic despite the army’s actions. He said his experience has not deterred him; rather, he has returned almost daily to Martyrs’ Square to protest. The 23-year-old engineering graduate has been unemployed for two years, unable to find a job in a contracting economy. His struggles mirror those of many young people in Lebanon, where the youth unemployment rates stands, as of 2018, at 37 percent.
“This pressure has been building up for so long,” said Nakhal. Lebanese people, he said, have typically been afraid to confront their government. “The barrier of fear has been taken down.”


theintercept--2020-01-25--Joe Biden Lied About His Record on Social Security

The value of such a revision is clear : Austerity is no longer a politically viable platform for Democrats to take in the primary .
His defense of his record has included multiple television interviews , public comments , and even an ad attacking Sen. Bernie Sanders for “ dishonest smears ” challenging him on Social Security .
In the ad , Biden makes a sweeping claim : “ I ’ ve been fighting to protect — and expand — Social Security for my whole career .
Any suggestion otherwise is just flat-out wrong.
” At Vice ’ s Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , when pressed on his proposal to freeze Social Security payments by moderator Antonia Hylton , he simply lied : “ I didn ’ t propose a freeze.
” Over the past few weeks , former Vice President Joe Biden has been making an effort to recast his record on Social Security as one of a champion who defended the program from assaults , rather than one who consistently argued that it ought to be cut .
And the staff director for Bowles-Simpson ?
Bruce Reed .
“ Our team was led by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there wouldn ’ t be a Simpson-Bowles Report without Bruce , ” Bowles later wrote .
The chairs of the commission recommended reducing Social Security benefits for the top half of earners , cutting the amount the benefit grew relative to inflation and raising the retirement age to 69 .
Progressives skewered it , with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noting that “ it raises the Social Security retirement age because life expectancy has risen — completely ignoring the fact that life expectancy has only gone up for the well-off and well-educated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the people who need the program most.
” The cuts came closest to happening amid talks between the Obama administration and congressional Republicans aimed at hammering out a so-called grand bargain .
The most prominent vehicle for those negotiations was known as the Bowles-Simpson Commission , a bipartisan panel charged with making recommendations to Congress on how to reduce the federal debt .
It was chaired by Alan Simpson , a former Republican senator from Wyoming , and Erskine Bowles , a former Democratic senator from North Carolina .
Andrew Bates , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as president , Biden would push to expand Social Security .
“ As President , Joe Biden would expand Social Security benefits — paid for with new taxes on the wealthiest Americans .
And as Senator Sanders himself said in 2015 : ‘ Joe Biden is a man who has devoted his entire life to public service and to the wellbeing of working families and the middle class , ’ ” Bates said .
Reed , a longtime Biden aide , played a central role in advocating cuts to the New Deal-era program @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Council , as the top staffer for a controversial commission dedicated to slashing the deficit , and then as Biden ’ s chief of staff during the Obama administration .
In Washington , D.C. , he would be the last high-level staffer a campaign would bring aboard if it was genuinely intent on expanding , not cutting , Social Security .
In fact , Biden has argued for cuts or freezes to Social Security throughout much of his career .
Earlier in January , The Intercept wrote about several instances in which Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ course of his career .
Biden , when he acknowledges his past support for cuts , portrays the advocacy as deep in the past .
But a close inspection finds reams of more recent evidence of Biden ’ s support for cuts — including in Biden ’ s recent recounting of a conversation he had with China ’ s president , Xi Jinping , and in his choice of Bruce Reed , a longtime deficit hawk , as a senior policy adviser in his current presidential campaign .
“ Simpson-Bowles is terrible , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I know , inside the Beltway Simpson and Bowles have become sacred figures .
But the people doing that elevation are the same people who told us that Paul Ryan was the answer to our fiscal prayers.
” The commission failed to secure the supermajority needed for its recommendations to move on to Congress , but the administration was far from done try to implement them .
After finishing with the commission , Reed was brought on as Vice President Biden ’ s chief of staff , to continue to work on a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Responsible Federal Budget , a Washington group dedicated to cutting Social Security and other entitlement programs , celebrated the appointment .
We can ’ t think of a better person for the job , ” CRFP said in a statement .
“ We hope Bruce will be able to leverage his expertise in this new position , and that his appointment portends positive steps from policymakers in the Administration in tackling our rising deficits and debt.
” At the time , the Fiscal Times wrote , “ The recent appointment of Bruce Reed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform , as Vice President Biden ’ s Chief of Staff is the latest signal that the administration plans to endorse many of the Commission ’ s recommendations .
Since one target for deficit reduction appears to be Social Security and social insurance programs more generally , it ’ s essential to understand the important role that social insurance plays in the economy.
” National Journal reported that Reed helped Biden shape his approach to the debt-reduction commission , “ often sitting right behind the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Reed , National Journal noted , had sided with a cadre of other Obama administration advisers to “ back cuts to Medicare and Social Security despite pushback from some Democrats who opposed touching entitlements.
” Reed was not some entry-level staffer .
By that point , he had been a top domestic policy adviser in the Clinton administration , where he had championed the reform of welfare and otherwise advocated for slashing government spending .
He was also co-founder of the Democratic Leadership Council , which represented the pro-business wing of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The DLC was the only influential Democratic institution to lobby not only for cutting Social Security benefits , but also supported the push for privatization of Social Security .
In the 1990s , DLC began calling for “ limited privatization ” of the program that would allow individuals to invest part of their benefits in the stock market .
“ Personal accounts would refashion Social Security from a system of wealth transfer into one that also promotes individual wealth creation and broader ownership , ” the DLC argued , encouraging the Clinton administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In 1998 , a plan to embrace the grand bargain came close to fruition .
In secret negotiations between House Speaker Newt Gingrich , Rep. Bill Archer , R-Texas , and President Bill Clinton , a proposal was hatched to reduce Social Security benefits and embrace partial privatization in exchange for Gingrich to drop his demand for new tax cuts .
That plan came perilously close to being implemented , but was blown up by Gingrich ’ s drive to impeach Clinton rather than cut a deal .
After Reed left the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the organization continued to lobby for cuts to Social Security and a hike in the retirement age .
The DLC submitted comments to the Bowles-Simpson panel suggesting that Social Security consider an approach that included “ offering ways to mix part-time and online work with partial Social Security benefits after age 67 and into the eighth decade of life.
” Reed has remained in Biden ’ s inner circle .
The campaign paid him more than $ 35,000 for “ policy consulting ” last year .
As Politico reported , Reed routinely travels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the former vice president ’ s chief policy adviser on the road .
of the Obama-era bargain talks , in the wake of Bowles-Simpson , became the so-called Biden Committee , a series of negotiations over deficit reduction chaired by Biden , staffed by Reed , and joined by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor ; Sen. Jon Kyl , R-Ariz. , Sen. Chris Van Hollen , D-Md .
; and others .
Biden , in talks that were covered closely in Bob Woodward ’ s book “ The Price of Politics , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the table but couldn ’ t get to a yes because Republicans refused to agree to any tax cuts .
( Fly-on-the-wall books on the later years of the Obama administration lack the drama of Trump-era tell-alls . )
In the summer of 2011 , the talks evolved into the Super Committee , made up of six Democrats and six Republicans from the House and Senate , charged with coming up trillions in budget cuts .
Woodward obtained a copy of the administration ’ s recommendations to that committee , and it largely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden Committee talks and included significant cuts to Social Security .
But then came Occupy Wall Street .
By the fall , coverage was dominated by protests that began in New York City around the slogan “ We are the 99 percent , ” calling attention to vast wealth inequality and the country ’ s superrich in a way that hadn ’ t happened since the days of the robber barons .
The movement spread to cities and towns across the country , with encampments springing up in downtowns in every region .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ announced a new $ 5 monthly fee for debit cards , it faced so much backlash that it backed down and rescinded the fee .
In early November , a group of protesters set out from New York to Washington , calling themselves Occupy the Highway and aiming to hit the capital on November 22 , the day the Super Committee was due to issue its legislation , which was designed to glide through Congress .
On November 21 , the Super Committee collapsed , lacking the votes to get the legislation out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Committee Fail = Occupy Wall Street Win , ” celebrated Michael Glazer , an organizer of Occupy the Highway , in a statement that day .
“ The so-called Super Committee was a failure from the beginning .
No one has the courage to stand up inside our corrupt political system and fight for regular Americans .
So , we will continue to take a stand outside the system.
” The willingness of that faction of protesters to even acknowledge the Super Committee was controversial inside Occupy , which considered direct interaction with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ corrupting at worst .
But as Glazer emphasized , Occupy had blown up the committee from the outside by changing the political terrain .
Concerns over the deficit and a preference for austerity were replaced by a conversation about economic inequality , one that would ultimately boost the Sanders campaign in 2015 and put an end , for the time being , to Democratic attempts to cut the deficit by trimming entitlement programs .
( It wasn ’ t completely dead : An ad Biden released this week includes footage of Biden telling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debate , that he is committed to protecting Social Security .
The Obama administration ’ s 2013 budget included Social Security cuts regardless .
By 2015 , those cuts were out . )
But even while the logic of the party changed , deficit scolding had become such a firm element of Biden ’ s brand that he had a hard time letting go .
In 2018 , at a speech at the Brookings Institute , Biden again returned to Social Security , criticizing then-House Speaker Paul Ryan ’ s recent tax cut @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Security and Medicare .
At a speech in July 2018 , Biden again addressed Social Security and Medicare , relaying an anecdote in which Chinese leader Xi Jinping asked him if China ’ s investments in U.S. debt were safe and specifically if the United States planned to do something about the cost of entitlement programs — Social Security and Medicare — which Xi saw in conflict with meeting U.S. obligations to China .
“ I said don ’ t buy any more of our T-bills , ” Biden whispered , as he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ audience believe that he ’ s letting them in on something secret or saying something verboten .
“ ‘ I hope you ’ re able to do something about your entitlement problem , ’ ” Biden said Xi told him .
“ And I said , ‘ With regard to our entitlement problem , Mr. President , ours is a political problem , and it ’ s soluble , but my god , your problem , your one-child policy has produced a circumstance that by 2022 , you ’ ll have more people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s a story Biden has been telling versions of since 2011 , and it has consistently cast entitlements as a problem to be solved .
Biden ’ s reference to “ our entitlement problem ” as “ a political problem ” that is “ soluble ” suggests that his view of the programs hadn ’ t evolved over the past 40 years , though his official position in his 2020 campaign is the opposite , that benefits should be expanded , not shrunken .
Biden steadily ratcheted up his revision of his record @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Black Forum in Iowa on Monday , he was pressed on Social Security .
“ Do you think though that it ’ s fair for voters to question your commitment to Social Security when in the past you proposed a freeze to it ?
” he was asked by Vice moderator Hylton .

Over the past few weeks, former Vice President Joe Biden has been making an effort to recast his record on Social Security as one of a champion who defended the program from assaults, rather than one who consistently argued that it ought to be cut.
The value of such a revision is clear: Austerity is no longer a politically viable platform for Democrats to take in the primary. His defense of his record has included multiple television interviews, public comments, and even an ad attacking Sen. Bernie Sanders for “dishonest smears” challenging him on Social Security. In the ad, Biden makes a sweeping claim: “I’ve been fighting to protect — and expand — Social Security for my whole career. Any suggestion otherwise is just flat-out wrong.” At Vice’s Black and Brown Forum in Iowa this week, when pressed on his proposal to freeze Social Security payments by moderator Antonia Hylton, he simply lied: “I didn’t propose a freeze.”
In fact, Biden has argued for cuts or freezes to Social Security throughout much of his career. Earlier in January, The Intercept wrote about several instances in which Biden advocated for cutting Social Security over the course of his career. Biden, when he acknowledges his past support for cuts, portrays the advocacy as deep in the past. But a close inspection finds reams of more recent evidence of Biden’s support for cuts — including in Biden’s recent recounting of a conversation he had with China’s president, Xi Jinping, and in his choice of Bruce Reed, a longtime deficit hawk, as a senior policy adviser in his current presidential campaign.
Reed, a longtime Biden aide, played a central role in advocating cuts to the New Deal-era program as a co-founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, as the top staffer for a controversial commission dedicated to slashing the deficit, and then as Biden’s chief of staff during the Obama administration. In Washington, D.C., he would be the last high-level staffer a campaign would bring aboard if it was genuinely intent on expanding, not cutting, Social Security.
Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for Biden, said that, as president, Biden would push to expand Social Security. “As President, Joe Biden would expand Social Security benefits — paid for with new taxes on the wealthiest Americans. And as Senator Sanders himself said in 2015: ‘Joe Biden is a man who has devoted his entire life to public service and to the wellbeing of working families and the middle class,’” Bates said.
The cuts came closest to happening amid talks between the Obama administration and congressional Republicans aimed at hammering out a so-called grand bargain. The most prominent vehicle for those negotiations was known as the Bowles-Simpson Commission, a bipartisan panel charged with making recommendations to Congress on how to reduce the federal debt. It was chaired by Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, and Erskine Bowles, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina.
And the staff director for Bowles-Simpson? Bruce Reed. “Our team was led by Bruce Reed, and believe me, there wouldn’t be a Simpson-Bowles Report without Bruce,” Bowles later wrote. The chairs of the commission recommended reducing Social Security benefits for the top half of earners, cutting the amount the benefit grew relative to inflation and raising the retirement age to 69. Progressives skewered it, with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noting that “it raises the Social Security retirement age because life expectancy has risen — completely ignoring the fact that life expectancy has only gone up for the well-off and well-educated, while stagnating or even declining among the people who need the program most.”
“Simpson-Bowles is terrible,” he concluded. “Yes, I know, inside the Beltway Simpson and Bowles have become sacred figures. But the people doing that elevation are the same people who told us that Paul Ryan was the answer to our fiscal prayers.”
The commission failed to secure the supermajority needed for its recommendations to move on to Congress, but the administration was far from done try to implement them. After finishing with the commission, Reed was brought on as Vice President Biden’s chief of staff, to continue to work on a grand bargain. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a Washington group dedicated to cutting Social Security and other entitlement programs, celebrated the appointment. We can’t think of a better person for the job,” CRFP said in a statement. “We hope Bruce will be able to leverage his expertise in this new position, and that his appointment portends positive steps from policymakers in the Administration in tackling our rising deficits and debt.”
At the time, the Fiscal Times wrote, “The recent appointment of Bruce Reed, the Executive Director of President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, as Vice President Biden’s Chief of Staff is the latest signal that the administration plans to endorse many of the Commission’s recommendations. Since one target for deficit reduction appears to be Social Security and social insurance programs more generally, it’s essential to understand the important role that social insurance plays in the economy.”
National Journal reported that Reed helped Biden shape his approach to the debt-reduction commission, “often sitting right behind the vice president in meetings with Republican leaders.” Reed, National Journal noted, had sided with a cadre of other Obama administration advisers to “back cuts to Medicare and Social Security despite pushback from some Democrats who opposed touching entitlements.”
Reed was not some entry-level staffer. By that point, he had been a top domestic policy adviser in the Clinton administration, where he had championed the reform of welfare and otherwise advocated for slashing government spending. He was also co-founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, which represented the pro-business wing of the party that rose in the 1980s.
The DLC was the only influential Democratic institution to lobby not only for cutting Social Security benefits, but also supported the push for privatization of Social Security. In the 1990s, DLC began calling for “limited privatization” of the program that would allow individuals to invest part of their benefits in the stock market. “Personal accounts would refashion Social Security from a system of wealth transfer into one that also promotes individual wealth creation and broader ownership,” the DLC argued, encouraging the Clinton administration to embrace a grand bargain with Republicans.
In 1998, a plan to embrace the grand bargain came close to fruition. In secret negotiations between House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas, and President Bill Clinton, a proposal was hatched to reduce Social Security benefits and embrace partial privatization in exchange for Gingrich to drop his demand for new tax cuts. That plan came perilously close to being implemented, but was blown up by Gingrich’s drive to impeach Clinton rather than cut a deal.
After Reed left the DLC and joined the debt commission, the organization continued to lobby for cuts to Social Security and a hike in the retirement age. The DLC submitted comments to the Bowles-Simpson panel suggesting that Social Security consider an approach that included “offering ways to mix part-time and online work with partial Social Security benefits after age 67 and into the eighth decade of life.”
Reed has remained in Biden’s inner circle. The campaign paid him more than $35,000 for “policy consulting” last year. As Politico reported, Reed routinely travels with Biden, continuing to serve as the former vice president’s chief policy adviser on the road.
The next phase of the Obama-era bargain talks, in the wake of Bowles-Simpson, became the so-called Biden Committee, a series of negotiations over deficit reduction chaired by Biden, staffed by Reed, and joined by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor; Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; and others. Biden, in talks that were covered closely in Bob Woodward’s book “The Price of Politics,” put Social Security and other cuts on the table but couldn’t get to a yes because Republicans refused to agree to any tax cuts. (Fly-on-the-wall books on the later years of the Obama administration lack the drama of Trump-era tell-alls.)
In the summer of 2011, the talks evolved into the Super Committee, made up of six Democrats and six Republicans from the House and Senate, charged with coming up trillions in budget cuts. Woodward obtained a copy of the administration’s recommendations to that committee, and it largely mirrored what was on offer during the Biden Committee talks and included significant cuts to Social Security.
But then came Occupy Wall Street. By the fall, coverage was dominated by protests that began in New York City around the slogan “We are the 99 percent,” calling attention to vast wealth inequality and the country’s superrich in a way that hadn’t happened since the days of the robber barons. The movement spread to cities and towns across the country, with encampments springing up in downtowns in every region. That fall, after Bank of America announced a new $5 monthly fee for debit cards, it faced so much backlash that it backed down and rescinded the fee.
In early November, a group of protesters set out from New York to Washington, calling themselves Occupy the Highway and aiming to hit the capital on November 22, the day the Super Committee was due to issue its legislation, which was designed to glide through Congress.
On November 21, the Super Committee collapsed, lacking the votes to get the legislation out of its own committee. “Super Committee Fail = Occupy Wall Street Win,” celebrated Michael Glazer, an organizer of Occupy the Highway, in a statement that day. “The so-called Super Committee was a failure from the beginning. No one has the courage to stand up inside our corrupt political system and fight for regular Americans. So, we will continue to take a stand outside the system.”
The willingness of that faction of protesters to even acknowledge the Super Committee was controversial inside Occupy, which considered direct interaction with the political system futile at best and corrupting at worst. But as Glazer emphasized, Occupy had blown up the committee from the outside by changing the political terrain. Concerns over the deficit and a preference for austerity were replaced by a conversation about economic inequality, one that would ultimately boost the Sanders campaign in 2015 and put an end, for the time being, to Democratic attempts to cut the deficit by trimming entitlement programs. (It wasn’t completely dead: An ad Biden released this week includes footage of Biden telling Paul Ryan, at a vice presidential debate, that he is committed to protecting Social Security. The Obama administration’s 2013 budget included Social Security cuts regardless. By 2015, those cuts were out.)
But even while the logic of the party changed, deficit scolding had become such a firm element of Biden’s brand that he had a hard time letting go. In 2018, at a speech at the Brookings Institute, Biden again returned to Social Security, criticizing then-House Speaker Paul Ryan’s recent tax cut but agreeing with his focus on Social Security and Medicare.
At a speech in July 2018, Biden again addressed Social Security and Medicare, relaying an anecdote in which Chinese leader Xi Jinping asked him if China’s investments in U.S. debt were safe and specifically if the United States planned to do something about the cost of entitlement programs — Social Security and Medicare — which Xi saw in conflict with meeting U.S. obligations to China. “I said don’t buy any more of our T-bills,” Biden whispered, as he does when he’s letting the audience believe that he’s letting them in on something secret or saying something verboten.
“‘I hope you’re able to do something about your entitlement problem,’” Biden said Xi told him. “And I said, ‘With regard to our entitlement problem, Mr. President, ours is a political problem, and it’s soluble, but my god, your problem, your one-child policy has produced a circumstance that by 2022, you’ll have more people retired than working.’”
It’s a story Biden has been telling versions of since 2011, and it has consistently cast entitlements as a problem to be solved. Biden’s reference to “our entitlement problem” as “a political problem” that is “soluble” suggests that his view of the programs hadn’t evolved over the past 40 years, though his official position in his 2020 campaign is the opposite, that benefits should be expanded, not shrunken.
This past week, Biden steadily ratcheted up his revision of his record. At Vice News’s Brown and Black Forum in Iowa on Monday, he was pressed on Social Security. “Do you think though that it’s fair for voters to question your commitment to Social Security when in the past you proposed a freeze to it?” he was asked by Vice moderator Hylton.
“No, I didn’t propose a freeze,” he said.
“You did,” she corrected.
Biden blatantly lied about Social Security at Iowa's Black & Brown Forum this week: Q: "Do you think it's fair though for voters to question your commitment to Social Security when in the past you've proposed a freeze to it?" Biden: "No, I didn't propose a freeze." "You did." pic.twitter.com/DBzauK2n53 — Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) January 24, 2020
On Tuesday, he released an ad attacking Sanders for what he called “dishonest smears.”
I've been fighting to protect — and expand — Social Security for my whole career. Any suggestion otherwise is just flat-out wrong. pic.twitter.com/KWIIJgFqGk — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 22, 2020
The hit prompted a response from Sanders, who posted a short ad showing Biden boasting of his willingness to cut Social Security on the Senate floor. The Sanders ad has been viewed some 4 million times, to Biden’s less than a million:
Let’s be honest, Joe. One of us fought for decades to cut Social Security, and one of us didn’t. But don’t take it from me. Take it from you. pic.twitter.com/qh7qb1Hmcl — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 22, 2020
On Wednesday, Biden joined the crew at MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and was asked about the Social Security flare-up. “I have 100 percent ratings from the groups that rate Social Security [votes], those who support Social Security,” Biden said.
The claim was in line with, but more specific than, his earlier assertion of “I’ve been fighting to protect — and expand — Social Security for my whole career.”
It’s also not true. A review of media reports from the 1990s shows that groups dedicated to protecting Social Security, including the AARP, saw Biden’s votes and advocacy as a betrayal. Ahead of the critical vote on the Balanced Budget Amendment in 1995, the Delaware News Journal carried a story that was headlined: “Biden gets blasted on budget bill: Seniors head list of groups pressing him to reconsider.”
Image: Delaware News Journal
The story began: “Angry lobbying groups for senior citizens, children and families, and congressional watchdogs united Friday to denounce Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. for his support of the GOP’s balanced budget amendment.”
The article noted that Biden himself had previously warned that “Seniors are going to pay a big price” thanks to the amendment. An AARP representative is quoted saying that Biden “can’t have it both ways” and that the bill “is nothing more than a raid on Social Security’s trust fund.”
Another News Journal article from the time reported that the “defections” of Biden and another Democratic senator “were a serious blow to opponents of the legislation, said David Certner, an official of the American Association of Retired People, which fears that the amendment will erode Social Security benefits.”
There were a number of groups scoring votes on legislation around Social Security at the time — meaning that they gave ratings to legislators based on their votes — including the NAACP, Americans for Democratic Action, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and the National Council of Senior Citizens. Biden did not get 100 percent scores from any of those groups because of his votes to undermine Social Security.
The amendment passed the House and fell one vote short in the Senate, the Constitution just barely dodging the bullet. Ultimately, the focus on the measure’s impact on Social Security, according to the New York Times, swayed enough Democrats to stop it. In the House, then-Rep. Sanders had zeroed in on the amendment’s effect on Social Security. “The balanced budget amendment will be a disaster for working people, for elderly people, for low-income people,” he said on the House floor. “It will mean, in my view, the destruction of the Social Security system as we know it.”
Sanders was asked on Friday if he would apologize to Biden for criticizing him on Social Security, as he had apologized for a surrogate’s op-ed that argued Biden had a corruption problem. “No,” Sanders said. “There are ways to raise money in order to protect the working families of this country. Cutting Social Security ain’t one of ’em.”