Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "This is CNN?" -- one of his two comics that went up last night.
Over the past few months, a string of Republican resignations and an expulsion have continued to shrink the party's historically tight majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, leaving Speaker Mike Johnson with the wiggle room of one Republican vote on party line issues.
The Biden administration announced a new rule to protect LGBTQ+ youth in foster care, creating a system of designated placements for LGBTQ+ children as well as taking steps to address harassment and abuse against LGBTQ+ foster kids no matter where they’re placed.
To become a designated placement for LGBTQ+ youth, a care provider would have to receive training on the needs of LGBTQ+ youth, help the children get access to age-appropriate resources for their health, and “commit to establishing an environment that supports the child’s LGBTQI+ status or identity,” according to a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) release.
“Every child deserves a safe and loving home,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “When any child comes into government care, they should have supports and services that meet their specific needs. By addressing the needs of LGBTQI+ children, this rule brings us one step closer to ensuring that all children have the opportunity to thrive.”
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
I didn't rush to screaming the t-word (that carries the death penalty) or rush to judgement. I did not label it an insurrection at the start. I said it was a rebellion for sure but that further evidence would be required to call it an insurrection. I think Congress did a horrible job in their impeachment. They were too worried about selling and marketing and not at all bothered by the actual laws -- some of which they didn't even cite -- that Donald Trump broke. It was not until the cases in various states resulted in prosecutors making arguments and presenting evidence that I was comfortable using the term insurrection.
Protesters: “Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you! Let the students go! Let the students go! We hear you! We love you and support you! Free, free Palestine!”
During the raid on the Columbia campus, the New York police also broke up the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, which had inspired similar encampments across the country. Columbia President Minouche Shafik has asked the NYPD to “retain a presence on campus through at least May 17, 2024” — two days after graduation. On Tuesday, faculty at Barnard College, which is part of Columbia, overwhelmingly passed a vote of no confidence for President Laura Rosenbury.
In California, pro-Israel counterprotesters armed with sticks and metal rods attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment on the campus of UCLA shortly after UCLA’s chancellor ruled the encampment was unlawful. Pro-Israel counterprotesters launched fireworks at the encampment, which they tried to tear down.
In Richmond, Virginia, police deployed pepper spray on student protesters at Virginia Commonwealth University. At least 13 arrests were reported.
In Louisiana, a police SWAT team raided an encampment at Tulane University early this morning, arresting at least 14 students. The raid came hours after the school suspended five students and the school’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society.
In Missouri, a history professor was hospitalized Saturday after police violently threw him to the pavement. Steve Tamari, who teaches at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, was filming a protest at Washington University on his phone when he was attacked. His wife, Sandra Tamari, who is Palestinian American, was arrested during the same protest.
Meanwhile, at Brown University, student protesters have voluntarily ended their encampment after school officials agreed to hold a vote on divesting from Israel.
On Tuesday, the United Nations criticized the police crackdown on student protests. This is Marta Hurtado, spokesperson for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Marta Hurtado: “We are troubled by a series of heavy-handed steps taken to disperse and dismantle protests across university campuses in the United States of America. Freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly are fundamental to society, particularly when there is a sharp disagreement on major issues, as there are in relation to the conflict in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. And it’s Juan we’re going to turn to next.
The massive police raid on Columbia University last night came 56 years to the day after a similar raid by police quashing an occupation, or attempting to, of Hamilton Hall by students protesting racism and the Vietnam War. A week into the historic 1968 student strike, on April 30th, New York City police stormed the campus. Hundreds of students were injured, 700 arrested. The campus newspaper the Columbia Spectator’s headline read, in part, “Violent Solution Follows Failure at Negotiations.”
Juan, you were there. Juan González, you were a leader of the Columbia revolt. You were one of the founders of the New York chapter of Young Lords. Yesterday we played archival clips of you and the other students taking over Hamilton Hall. What were your thoughts as you watched what happened with the student takeover and then the police raid?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Amy, I think the similarities are really amazing in terms of the persistence of these students, the issues around which they were fighting, this opposition to a genocidal war occurring in Gaza.
And, you know, I was struck especially by the stands of these university presidents, not only at Columbia and Barnard, but also across the country. You know, the great Chris Hedges, I think, said it best, when he talked recently about the moral bankruptcy of these presidents of these universities who are condemning disruptions of the business as usual at the universities, while every single president of an American university has been silent about the massive destruction of universities in Gaza and of high schools and schools in Gaza by the Israeli army. They are silent about what is occurring in education in another country, another part of the world, financed by the United States.
So, I think that the importance to me in terms of the similarities are the students understand that at times you must disrupt business as usual to focus the attention of the public on a glaring injustice. And I think that’s exactly what they’ve been able to do. The entire country today knows what divestment means, what divestment means from the Israeli government and the Israeli military, whereas, before, this issue was on the margins of political debate. No commencement in America will occur in the next month where the war in Gaza is not a burning issue, either outside with the protesters or inside in the speeches and presentations. So I think that the students have managed to focus the entire attention of the country on an unjust war.
I don’t see how President Shafik survives. Many of these presidents across the country are going to be known not for whatever they accomplished previously, but they are going to be known throughout the rest of their lives as being the people who brought the police in to crush students who were maintaining a moral position of opposition to genocide.
So, I think the students are going to carry — those who were arrested are going to carry this badge of courage, as opposed to this profile of cowardice of the university presidents that dare to try to suspend or expel them. And the students’ lives have been changed forever — and, I think, for the best — in terms of the importance of dissent and opposition to injustice.
AMY GOODMAN: Juan, I wanted to go back to 1968, the student strike, students occupying five buildings, including the president’s office in Low Library, barricading themselves inside for days, students protesting Columbia’s ties to military research and plans to build a university gymnasium in a public park in Harlem. They called it Gym — G-Y-M — Crow. I want to go to a clip of you from the Pacifica Radio Archives, then a Columbia student, speaking right — it was before the raid, during the strike.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Now we want to go into the dorms with all of you, with some of you who may not — who may not agree with a lot of what we’ve been saying here, who have questions, who support us, who want to know more. Let’s go to the dorms. Let’s talk quietly, in small groups. We’ll be there, and everyone in Livingston — in Livingston lobby, in Furnald lobby, in Carman lobby. We’ll be there, and we’ll talk about the issues involved, and we’ll talk about where this country is going and where this university is going and what it’s doing in the society and what we would like it to do and what we would — and how we would like to exchange with you our ideas over it. Come join us now.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that is Democracy Now! co-host Juan González when he was a student at Columbia University in 1968. It was before the police raid. Juan, tell us what happened after the police raid of Hamilton Hall, as they did last night of Hamilton Hall, 700 arrests. In fact, Juan, you only recently graduated from Columbia. This is the 56th anniversary. What was it, 50 years later, a dean at Columbia said, “Please, we need you as a graduate”?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: No, actually, it was 30 years later they gave me my degree, because I was a senior then. I was supposed to graduate that year. And, you know, amazingly, being suspended from college is not a big deal. You know, it only delays your career a little bit, and I think you gain more sometimes if you were suspended for the right reason. So I don’t think that that’s a big issue.
But I want to raise something else about these protests that I think people — I’ve seen little attention to. Back in the '60s, most of the student protests were led either by Black students who were in Black student organizations or white students. I was one of the few Latinos at Columbia at the time. And today, these student protests are multiracial and largely led by Palestinian and Muslim and Arab students. This is a marked change in the actual composition of the American university that we're seeing in terms of the leadership of these movements. And I think the willingness of these administrations to crack down so fiercely against this protest is, to some degree, they find it easier to crack down on Black and Brown and multiracial students than they did back then, when it was largely a white student population. And they always figured out a way to rescind the suspensions or get the students their degrees, because they saw them as part of them. Now, I think, they’re seeing these student protests as part of the other, and they are much more willing to crack down than they have been in the past. And I think it’s important to raise that and to understand what is going on in terms of the changing demographics of the American college student population.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Juan, thanks so much for being with us today and co-hosting. Juan González, student leader of the 1968 Columbia revolt, one of the leading journalists today in the United States.
Coming up, it’s May Day. We go to the University of Southern California, what is the labor union and worker movement, how it links to Gaza solidarity. Back in 20 seconds.
It began with ear-piercing screams of wailing babies loudly emitting from speakers.
Counter-protesters tearing down the barricades. Laser pointers flashing into the encampment. People in masks waving strobe lights.
Tear gas. Pepper spray. Violent beatings.
Fireworks sparked at the border of the encampment, raining down on tents and the individuals inside.
At around 5 p.m. yesterday, Chancellor Gene Block sent an email to the UCLA student body claiming that security presence in the area had been increased. That was not visible in the midst of escalating violence. And even with the security present, there was no mediation far into the night.
UC President Michael Drake expressed support for Block’s decision to declare the encampment “unlawful” Tuesday evening, adding that action was needed when the safety of students was being threatened. And yet, in spite of official statements from the university and the UC, we witness little being done on the university’s part to ensure the protection of students who exercise their rights.
The grassy expanse of the University of Queensland’s Great Court has long been the center of student life at the Australian state’s biggest university.
Now it’s a gathering point for rival camps pitched around 100 meters (328 feet) from each other – one populated by supporters of the Students for Palestine UQ, and another smaller cluster of tents with the Israeli flag among others strung between trees.
These camps are among protest sites at seven universities around Australia – from Melbourne and Sydney in the country’s southeast, to Adelaide in its center, and Perth along the western coast.
Mary Osako, vice chancellor of UCLA Strategic Communications, released a statement at 12:40 a.m. acknowledging the violence, adding that the fire department and medical personnel were involved.
“We are sickened by this senseless violence and it must end,” Osako said.
This came after a source in the encampment told the Daily Bruin that at least five protestors have been injured.
But for hours, UCLA administration stood by and watched as the violence escalated. LAPD did not arrive on the scene until slightly after 1 a.m. – once Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass sent them in for assistance at Block’s request.
Daily Bruin reporters on the scene were slapped and indirectly sprayed with irritants. Despite also being students, they were offered no protection.
The world is watching. As helicopters fly over Royce Hall, we have a question.
Will someone have to die on our campus tonight for you to intervene, Gene Block?
The blood would be on your hands.
- After several hours of standoff, police have moved in on the UCLA campus to clear a pro-Palestine encampment.
- Officers in riot gear have used flashbangs, removed barricades and arrested a number of protesters.
- Protesters have chanted slogans such as “This is a peaceful protest” and “Shame on you” as police advanced.
- A few dozen protesters remain currently at the campus, out of an initial 400, a witness has told Al Jazeera.
Follow our live coverage of the protests here.
Today marks a week since pro-Palestine protesters first began a sit-in in McCosh courtyard, citing an array of demands, including that the University divest its endowment from companies with ties to Israel. Fifteen students — two on April 25, when tents were briefly set up in McCosh courtyard, and 13 on Monday during a short occupation of Clio Hall — have been arrested and barred from campus. The University has since condemned the Clio Hall occupation and publicly reiterated its position on time, place, and manner restrictions on student speech, but has not commented on the demands since the sit-in’s beginning.
Since Monday, conflicting accounts have emerged of interactions between protesters and staff in Clio. Vice President for Campus Life W. Rochelle Calhoun called the treatment of staff “abusive” in a campus message on Tuesday, while Prof. Ruha Benjamin, who was present in the building as a faculty observer, said that students were calm and polite. Students also continued to react to these events, with over a number of cultural and affinity groups signing on to a letter speaking out against the University’s response to the sit-in.
On Wednesday, protesters on Cannon Green were briefly joined
by a May Day march led by Resistencia en Acción NJ, a local migrant
justice organization. The night ended with a film screening.
While encampments at Columbia, Yale, and Brown have been cleared, protests at other campuses have continued to escalate. Police in riot gear arrested
90 people at Dartmouth on Wednesday night and Thursday morning,
including two student reporters from The Dartmouth. The situation at the
University of California-Los Angeles continues to develop after police breached a pro-Palestine encampment early Thursday morning.
The journalists’ death toll in Gaza is without precedent. At least 109 journalists and media workers have been killed in the Gaza war since 7 October: 102 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese, according to IFJ data. It is one of the deadliest conflicts ever for the media and yet, there is another critical casualty: press freedom.
Since the Israeli government blocked civilian access to the Gaza Strip on 7 October, following the attack by Hamas, only Palestinian journalists based in the enclave and, to a very limited extent, international media crews embedded with the Israeli military under controlled conditions, have been able to report on the ground. The IFJ has several times called on Israel to let foreign press enter Gaza, and stop hindering journalists' work and the public’s right to freedom of expression.
“It is a matter of global public interest that not only local but also international journalists bear witness and document the ongoing war in Gaza. Prolonging the ban on entering the enclave is denying the world a true picture of events in Gaza and it deliberately infringes freedom of the press. This is why on World Press Freedom Day, we call upon Israel to stop targeting journalists and infringing press freedom – actions that are unfitting of a democracy," said IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger.
Despite suffering terrible losses or being injured themselves, local journalists have become the world’s eyes and ears and the sole source of information from Gaza to the world.
The IFJ and its affiliate the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate (PJS) have worked closely to raise solidarity funds to provide emergency support to Gaza’s journalists through the IFJ Safety Fund with the outstanding solidarity of journalists’ unions.
Next joint efforts will be focusing on rebuilding the media landscape in Gaza. Thanks to the support of the IFJ’s Canadian affiliate Unifor and the Norwegian Union of Journalists, solidarity newsrooms will be established in the enclave.
The PJS, which has a branch in Gaza, will clear safety concerns with the Israeli military to ensure that everyone allowed in the IFJ-PJS solidarity newsrooms is a professional journalist to avoid targeting by the IDF.
As the war drags on, more funds are needed for rebuilding Gaza’s media landscape and supporting the work of Palestinian journalists, such as the IFJ-PJS newsrooms project. All donations count and can be made here.
On World Press Freedom Day, the IFJ restates its calls for the urgent adoption of a binding international instrumentthat will strengthen press freedom by forcing governments to investigate and respond to attacks against the media.
IFJ president Dominique Pradalié said: “Since the adoption of the Windhoek Declaration in 1991, little has been done to better safeguard journalists in international law or conventions. The freedom and security that journalists require to do their jobs is absent in many parts of the world. Today, Israel appears determined to silence Gaza’s journalists, including targeting them. Crimes against journalists must not go unpunished. We urge governments across the world to publicly acknowledge their support for a binding international instrument that protects journalists. By adopting such a Convention against impunity, the United Nations General Assembly will assert unequivocally that massacres against journalists, such as the one ongoing in Gaza, will not be repeated”.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 209 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "At least 34,596 Palestinians have been killed and 77,816 injured since Israel's war on Gaza began on October 7, health authorities in the enclave said. In the past 24 hours, 28 people were killed and 51 injured, the ministry added." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:
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