Ungaggable: Costumed Clowns and Lickspittle Surrogates 'R Us
This week saw a seedy, craven parade of MAGA stooges trooping into court to pay fealty to their two-bit mob-boss on trial for cooking the books to hide hush money payments to a porn star so he could get elected to a job he was stupefyingly unfit for, and still is. Then "God's most pathetic Republicans" - from Mike Handmaid’s Tale to the Beetlejuice Lady - brazenly violated his gag order for him to declare the rule of law "a sham." Nope, nothing to see here.
The GOP, of course, is already a toxic mix of idiocy, rancor and racism we always think can't go any lower until they inevitably do. This week, Florida's Ron DeFascist signed a bill deleting the term "climate change" from state laws in the witless name of owning "radical green zealots"; the action forbids any consideration of potential climate effects of greenhouse gas emissions from energy policy in the rapidly sinking state, weakens regulation of fossil fuel pipelines, and thank God "keeps windmills off our beaches." And in law-and-order Texas, his feral colleague Greg Abbott just pardoned racist groomer Daniel Perry after serving just one year of a 25-year sentence for murdering BLM protester and Air Force veteran Garrett Foster in 2020. Abbott, who notably refused to recommend a posthumous pardon for George Floyd for a 2004 drug arrest - years before he was choked to death by police - touted Texas' "‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney,'" confirming, one critic said, "There are two classes of people in this state, where some lives matter and some lives do not."
But Republicans sank still lower this week with the servile pilgrimage of multiple MAGA sycophants to the crime-and-bird-shit-stained altar of their ugly shell of a tinpot dictator, now charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up cheating on his wife when she was home with their infant son and then persistently lying about it. As further illustration of how deeply into ethical loathsomeness the GOP has sunk, these are the same goons who, after he admitted to his pussy-grabbing exploits on the "Access Hollywood" tape, at least had the good grace to scurry to distance themselves while making fake horrified noises. Now, at the mercy of an unshackled, sputtering bully vowing revenge on any turncoats - and their own unfathomable slavish devotion to him - such moral niceties seem quaint. And so they flocked there, cartoon villains in their goofy, unctuous, matching red ties and navy suits - they got the memo! - to kneel before their preposterous monarch. After weeks alone in court - not even grim Melania - he was jubilant. "I do have a lot of surrogates," he beamed when asked, "and they are speaking very beautifully."
Thus summoning the queasy spectacle of the "family-values" party rushing to defend a serial sexual predator banging a porn star, the appearance of the feckless likes of J.D. Vance, Byron Donalds, Doug Burgum, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tommy 'Dumb As A Rock' Tuberville - the Republicans aren't sending their best, or are they? - was widely mocked as a "demeaning," "ridiculous," "embarrassing," “both thuggish and pathetic," "utterly humiliating" act of obeisance by MAGA plus-ones eager to drop their day jobs to win tawdry Brownie points. Serving as ignorant "Mouths of Sauron," they stayed in court for 45 minutes, came out to a press conference and violated Trump's gag order for him: The trial is a sham, a scam, a witch hunt, a Biden show trial (albeit put in motion by juries of regular Americans) and the judge and his family are crooks. Burgum: "The American people have already acquitted (Trump)." Donalds: "There's nothing wrong here, there's nothing that's been done poorly by (Trump), the only thing being done wrong is by this judge." Tuberville, saying the quiet part out loud (see dumb): "We're here to overcome this gag order."
Still, it got weirder. According to Trump's gag order, everything his lackeys did was likely illegal. It forbids him, not just to say what they said, but to direct "others to make public statements" about attorneys, court staff, their family members, the proceedings. Which presumably includes, as several journalists reported, Trump sitting in court editing speeches for his lap-dogs to repeat to the press. The most "gob-smacking" part: The arrival of "shiny-eyed Christian nationalist" and second-in-line to the presidency Mike Johnson with an "all-out assault (on) the federal and state legal systems foundational to the U.S. government." Johnson called the court "corrupt," attacked Judge Merchan's daughter - "Among the atrocities is (her) making millions of dollars fundraising for Democrats" (who's Ginni Thomas?) - said "these are politically motivated trials" and declared Trump "innocent." Jamie Raskin: "I don’t find anything unusual about a fundamentalist theocrat who thinks the Bible is the supreme law of the land attending the legal proceedings of an adjudicated sexual assailant and world-class fraudster for (covering up) payments to conceal (an) adulterous affair. Do you?"
Because the GOP is shameless and irony is dead, the next day Johnson - the Congressional architect of the effort to overturn the 2020 election who's already said it's his "duty" to do it again if needed, a position deemed on "the far-right fringes of American legal thought" - turned up at a House "Back the Blue” event to proclaim, "We've got to make crimes criminal again" and promote a California sheriff, Oath Keeper and Jan. 6 fan-boy who decries "the sick and twisted progressive social experiment." Because Trump, the House also voted to delay their “urgent” hearing to hold A.G. Merrick Garland in contempt for the imaginary crime of refusing to hand over information they already have - specifically, the audio of Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur, though they have the transcript. Ranking Dem Jerry Nadler blasted the "political theater" of Gym Jordan et al who've spent $20 million to investigate conspiracy theories that have "delivered Exactly Nothing" while delaying House business to attend the trial of a madman who just praised "the late, great Hannibal Lecter" and "defend (him) against frankly indefensible acts."
Despite Laura Ingraham's pan of the courtroom - "The air is musty, the floors are old, the benches are hard oak" - a "new band of jesters" arrived Thursday to attend/hold court briefly and attack everyone. This time it was far-right cranks Lauren Boebert, who missed court for her miscreant son facing 22 charges including a felony and multiple misdemeanor property thefts but found time to come trash Judge Merchan's daughter - "millions and millions of dollars" - and Matt Gaetz, who once sought a pardon from Trump while under now-renewed investigation for sex-trafficking a teen girl and said the D.A. made up "the Mr. Potato Head of crimes” against Trump. If irony hadn't died, we'd say Gaetz looked just like Mr. Potato Head - sorry, Potato - when he echoed the Proud Boys ina selfie with other toadies that read, "Standing back and standing by, Mr. President," earning a sublime "Bootlicker" troll: "Not all heroes wear capes." The final cringe: Boebert, her cohort gone, shrieking into the mike, "What is the crime?!" as people yell "Beetlejuice!" at her. "They may have gagged (Trump)," she wrote later. "They didn't gag me. They cant gag me. i have no gag reflex. I am ungaggable."
Later, once the bootlickers returned to D.C., the House held their let's-do-something-to-Merrick-Garland hearing. It did not go well. It went so unwell it may have proved, per one sage, "This country has been stuck in Junior High since 2015." It may have also proved, for the first time, Klan Mom MTG correct when she recently whined, "(Americans) are looking at Republicans in Washington and laughing at us. They think we are a complete joke." Alas, in more (dead) irony, she confirmed it when she and Jasmine Crockett, who's way above her pay grade, got into it after Marge lobbed a "fake eyelashes" barb at her so low Jamie Raskin retorted, "That’s beneath even you, Ms. Greene." So it went. Jeers, yelps, havoc. AOC deemed MTG's puerile rants "absolutely unacceptable" with, "Oh, girl. Baby girl." Crockett asked to clarify the rules if, say, she dissed someone's "bleach blonde, bad-built, butch body." Comer, befuddled: "Uhh, what now?" Raskin face-palmed. After a brief recess, Boebert took the floor: "I just want to apologize to the American people. When things get (so) heated, unfortunately it’s an embarrassment on our body as a whole." Wait. Boebert as the adult in the room? When pigs fly. Nothing to see here.
Cable News Refused to Report Trump's Bombshell Quid Pro Quo Offer to Big Oil Execs
Major cable news networks Fox News Channel, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC all failed to cover former President Donald Trump's promise to Big Oil executives that he would reverse President Joe Biden's climate regulations if they donated $1 billion to his campaign, according to an analysis published by Media Matters for America late Tuesday.
When the news first broke, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch wrote, "You won't read a more important story today." Yet, in the four days after the story broke, it only received 48 minutes of cable airtime—all on MSNBC.
"The most under-covered Trump story is his complete selling-out of the American people on issues they care about most," Jesse Lee, a former Biden communications adviser, posted on social media in response to the report. "If gas prices go up soon, these same networks that ignored Trump's $1 billion oil bribe will cover it constantly—and crucify Biden."
"He is basically saying he's going to destroy the planet that our children... are growing up on just if these guys will write him a check."
The story of Trump's quid pro quo offer to fossil fuel executives was first reported by The Washington Post on May 9. It detailed a dinner the former president hosted at Mar-a-Lago in April attended by leaders of oil and gas firms including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum. During the dinner, Trump told the executives that a $1 billion donation would be a "deal" for the industry "because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him."
To assess how cable covered—or didn't cover—the story, Media Matters for America looked at the transcripts from May 9 to May 12 for CNN; Fox News Channel; MSNBC; ABC's "Good Morning America," "World News Tonight," and "This Week;" CBS' "Mornings," "Evening News," and "Face the Nation;" and NBC's "Today," "Nightly News," and "Meet the Press." They searched the transcripts for the words "Trump," "former president," or "Mar-a-Lago" close to the words "oil," "donor," "executive," "billion," "industry," "fossil," or "fuel," as well as any version of the words "environment" or "CEO."
Only the MSNBC transcripts turned up any results. These included:
- Just over 18 minutes—or nearly 40% of the total—on "Velshi" on May 11, featuring interviews with climate activist Bill McKibben, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington president Noah Bookbinder, and The Atlantic's David A. Graham.
- A discussion on the May 9 edition of "Alex Wagner Tonight" between host Wagner and guests former Obama Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes and former Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
- An interview on the May 10 edition of "All in With Chris Hayes" with New York Times climate reporter Lisa Friedman.
- An exchange on the May 11 edition of "Alex Witt Reports" between host Witt and New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker.
- An interview on the May 12 edition of "Ayman" with Princeton University sociology professor Kim Lane Scheppele and New York Times columnist and analyst Michelle Goldberg.
- Mentions on "The ReidOut" and "The Weekend."
Several of the MSNBC interviews did highlight the importance of the story—which has prompted an investigation by a top House Democrat.
McKibben told Ali Velshi that "in a very real sense this is the most important climate election ever."
Others focused on the blatant corruption of the exchange. Graham noted that it was particularly brazen.
"He is making it clear what the quid pro quo is without any kind of pretense. It's just right here, 'You give me money; I'll do what you want me to do,'" Graham told Velshi.
Rhodes called it "basic pay-to-play corruption," adding, "He is basically saying he's going to destroy the planet that our children... are growing up on just if these guys will write him a check."
There were also comments on what the news said about the fossil fuel executives themselves.
"These are the same executives who, in the wake of January 6, said, 'We're not going to support people who undermined our democracy,'" Bookbinder pointed out. "And there they are, these couple of years later, meeting with Donald Trump, courting his support, hearing his offer—his demands—that they give a billion dollars to his campaign."
Baker told Witt: "I think it's going to confirm for a lot of people who are already suspicious of the fossil fuel industry that they have, over the years, bought off Washington writ large. That's been a longtime conviction on the part of people who think that the energy industry has too much power."
"It's going to cause a lot of cynicism, obviously, especially if Donald Trump were to win and then to try to roll back some of these climate initiatives," Baker continued. "People will make the assumption—and it will have some obvious evidence to back it up—that he is doing so in exchange for large contributions from an industry that's affected by it."
They will, that is, if they caught the 48 minutes of reporting the story received.
Trump-Appointed Judge Halts Biden Rule Capping Credit Card Fees
A Trump-appointed judge on Friday delivered a win for big banks when he granted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce a temporary injunction halting a Biden administration rule that would cap credit card fees at $8.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule, which would have gone into effect May 14, could save U.S. consumers more than $10 billion each year. The decision to pause its implementation, issued by U.S. District of the Northern District of Texas Judge Mark Pittman, will cost ordinary Americans around $27 million each day it is in effect.
"In their latest in a stack of lawsuits designed to pad record corporate profits at the expense of everyone else, the U.S. Chamber got its way for now—ensuring families get price-gouged a little longer with credit card late fees as high as $41," Liz Zelnick, the director of the Economic Security and Corporate Power Program at Accountable.US, said in a statement.
"It's time the U.S. Chamber stops clogging the courts with baseless lawsuits designed to enrich corporate CEOs on the backs of working families—and it's time the judiciary stops legitimizing venue shopping from big industry."
The CFPB issued the rule on March 5 as part of the Biden administration's commitment to crack down on "junk fees." However, the Chamber of Commerce and other banking trade associations—including the American Bankers Association and the Consumer Bankers Association—quickly sued to block it. The executives of Bank of America, Capital One, Citibank, and JPMorgan Chase sit on the boards of the groups behind the suit, according toThe Washington Post.
"Banks make billions in profits charging excessive late fees," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on social media Saturday in response to the ruling. "Now a single Trump-appointed judge sided with bank lobbyists to block the Biden administration's new rule capping these junk fees."
Accountable.US also criticized the fact that the suit was before Pittman at all, arguing that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed the suit in Texas federal court so that it would end up under the jurisdiction of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has 19 Republican-appointed justices out of a total of 26. The chamber has filed nearly two-thirds of its lawsuits since 2017 with courts covered by the 5th Circuit.
"The U.S. Chamber and the big banks they represent have corrupted our judicial system by venue shopping in courtrooms of least resistance, going out of their way to avoid having their lawsuit heard by a fair and neutral federal judge," Zelnick said. "It's time the U.S. Chamber stops clogging the courts with baseless lawsuits designed to enrich corporate CEOs on the backs of working families—and it's time the judiciary stops legitimizing venue shopping from big industry."
The 5th Circuit's treatment of the case has also come under fire, as Trump-appointed Judge Don Willett has not recused himself despite the fact that he owns tens of thousands of dollars in Citigroup shares. While Willett has argued that Citigroup is not a party to the case, it belongs to trade groups that are, and any ruling on credit card fees would significantly impact the bank. Collectively, all the judges on the 5th Circuit have invested as much as $745,000 in credit card or credit issuing companies, according to the most recent publicly available information.
Donald Sherman, Gabe Lezra, and Linnaea Honl-Stuenkel of Citizens for Ethics in Washington wrote: "Judge Willett's refusal to recuse, and the lack of transparency about the rationale, reinforces the need for more judicial ethics reform to ensure that everyday Americans and government agencies have a level playing field when they go into court against corporate interests."
'Jews for Jamaal' and Squad Push Back Against AIPAC Attack on Bowman
As the leading U.S. pro-Israel lobby's political action committee unleashes a nearly $2 million ad blitz targeting Congressman Jamaal Bowman, Jewish allies of the New York Democrat—who is an outspoken critic of what he and many experts call Israel's genocide in Gaza—on Thursday joined progressive lawmakers in condemning right-wing efforts to defeat pro-Palestine incumbents.
United Democracy Project (UDP), the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) super PAC, has booked $1.9 million in television ads to influence the outcome of the Democratic primary in New York's 16th Congressional District, according to Wednesday reporting by Sludge's David Moore.
"This new ad spending in New York shows once and for all that my opponent, George Latimer, is bankrolled by a right-wing super PAC that has received over $40 million from Republican megadonors who want to defend Republican insurrectionists, overturn voting rights, and ban abortion nationwide," Bowman said in a statement.
"Democrats across New York deserve better, and will reject these attempts to buy our elections and undermine our democracy," he added.
Jews for Jamaal, a pro-Bowman coalition spearheaded by the group Jews for Racial & Economic Justice Action, said in a statement that "we recognize this media blitz for what it is: a desperate move by powerful interests to silence the district's first Black representative in history."
"UDP is overwhelmingly spending its millions in Democratic primaries, mostly against Black and brown Democratic incumbents who speak out against war and for the human rights of Palestinians," the coalition continued. "This massive amount of spending distorts the political landscape, drowning out the needs and voices of everyday constituents with the interests of a few wealthy donors."
"It undermines the very foundation of our democracy, which must be built on the principles of transparency, accountability, and genuine representation," Jews for Jamaal added.
As more and more Democrats speak out against Israel's assault on Gaza—which according to Palestinian health officials has killed, maimed, or left missing more than 125,000 people—and violent repression by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, AIPAC has lashed out at even the mildest criticism of Israeli government policies and practices, which many experts around the world call genocidal.
Last November, Slate's Alex Sammon reported that UDP was set to spend approximately $100 million in a bid to unseat both pro-Palestine congressional progressives and more moderate Democratic candidates who the powerful lobby group believes don't sufficiently support Israel. Sammon said that Bowman, along with fellow "Squad" members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), and Summer Lee (D-Pa.) are among UDP's top targets.
Some of those lawmakers also rallied to Bowman's defense on Thursday.
"It's our duty to fight back," Lee said on social media. "As somebody who knows these folks intimately, I can speak to the damage UDP causes not just to the candidates they target and smear, but to the communities attached to us and democracy itself."
The congresswoman—who won her primary last month—continued:
Their campaign against me in 2022 was steeped in dog whistles and disinformation. Their most shameful million-dollar attack against me was just unsubtly implying I was a [former U.S. President Donald] Trump supporter... in mailers where my skin was oddly shadowed or darker. For three weeks, they plastered the airwaves and mailboxes in wall-to-wall attacks that overwhelmed our midsized media market. Cable and broadcast, digital and streaming... even children's programming on YouTube was targeted.
Omar asserted on social media that "a people-powered movement will always be stronger than special interest groups."
"We got your back, Jamaal Bowman," she added.
Bush said that Latimer "is being used as a Trojan Horse for far-right billionaires and anti-abortion extremists."
"But from the Bronx to St. Louis, we won't let them win," she vowed.
Bowman, in turn, posted in support of Bush, whom he pledged to defend against "Republican billionaires... coming for her."
Last month, another coalition—the youth-led Protect Our Power campaign—was launched in support of progressive congressional incumbents under attack by AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups.
"The only thing that beats organized money is organized people," the young organizers said at the time. "Fortunately, that's what we know how to do best."
'Which Side Are You On?' Mountain Valley Pipeline Foes Block Road to Fracking Project
Decrying both the environmental harms and the U.S. fossil fuel industry's support of Israel's assault on Palestinian rights, a pipeline opponent on Thursday morning locked themself to two barrels in the middle of a road on Poor Mountain in Roanoke County, Virginia, blocking access to the Mountain Valley Pipeline easement.
The campaigner, who was supported by other demonstrators in the road, was identified by Appalachians Against Pipelines as Mullein. The protest took place close to where environmental protectors spent more than two and a half years holding the Yellow Finch Tree Sit protest, stopping the destruction of the last remaining trees in the MVP's path.
Mullein said they were driven to block the road by "the interlocking systems of colonization and capitalism," in light of Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, for which MVP would provide support.
"Today, as I sit in the road on so-called Poor Mountain, it is the day after Nakba Day," said Mullein, referring to the anniversary of more than 700,000 Palestinians' forced displacement when Israel declared statehood. "Today, through this ongoing genocide, Palestinians have been resisting colonization for over 76 years. MVP claims that this pipeline would supply fracked gas to various U.S. military locations including the Pentagon and the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, which is operated by BAE systems, a weapons company supplying weapons to 'Israel' during their genocidal campaign."
"The destruction of land and lifeways is interconnected, from Turtle Island to Palestine," said Mullein, using the Indigenous name for North America. "As a settler here, these systems have disconnected me from land, from others, from myself.
Appalachians Against Pipelines reported that the blockade went on for seven hours. Mullein was arrested and charged with two misdemeanors, with their bail set at $2,000.
The protest comes a week ahead of a deadline for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to grant MVP permission to place the pipeline in service, despite a recent citation by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality for over a dozen violations. The fracked gas pipeline would stretch across at least 300 miles of the Appalachian region, and has been opposed by local and national environmental justice groups.
"I'm sitting locked to two barrels today because I see no choice but to rebel against these systems in any small way I can," said Mullein. "To choose to fight on the side of the mountains, the rivers, the critters, and the people. Against the extraction, empires, and all death-making institutions. Which side are you on?"
'Dark Times': Israeli Historian Ilan Pappé Detained, Interrogated by FBI
In what one observer called "a whole new level of insanity and paranoia," renowned Israeli historian and professor Ilan Pappé—a staunch critic of Zionism—was detained and interrogated this week by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents as he entered the United States at Detroit's airport.
In a Wednesday Facebook post, Pappé said that he was questioned by FBI agents for two hours after arriving at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport on Monday.
He wrote:
The two-men team were not abusive or rude, I should say, but their questions were really out of the world! Am I a Hamas supporter? Do I regard the Israeli actions in Gaza a genocide? What is the solution to the "conflict" (seriously this what they asked!) Who are my Arab and Muslim friends in America... What kind of relationship [do] I have with them?
"They had [a] long phone conversation with someone, the Israelis?" he added, "and after copying everything on my phone allowed me to enter."
"I know many of you have fared far worse," Pappé wrote, referring to Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British Palestinian plastic surgeon and rector of Glasgow University in Scotland who last month was denied entry to Germany—and by extension all 29 Schengen Area nations—before the ban was overturned earlier this week.
"The good news is—actions like this by the USA or European countries taken under pressure from the pro-Israeli lobby or Israel itself smell of sheer panic and desperation in reaction to Israel's becoming very soon a pariah state, with all the implications of such a status," he added.
Pappé's treatment sparked outrage among Palestine defenders.
"The detention and interrogation of internationally renowned Israeli anti-Zionist historian Ilan Pappé at Detroit airport by the FBI is latest in the long list of episodes of intimidation and bullying across the West to defend the indefensible—the Israeli genocide of Palestinians," University of California, Berkeley history professor Ussama Makdisi said on social media Wednesday.
Entrepreneur and geopolitical commentator Arnaud Bertrand said, "We've reached a whole new level of insanity and paranoia."
Pappé, 69, is a scholar of Palestinian history at the University of Exeter in England. He's published over 20 books including The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, an examination of the Nakba expulsion of more than 750,000 Arabs from Palestine by Zionist militants—who sometimes massacred Palestinians to sow terror among them—during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in the late 1940s.
He has also been a leading Israeli critic of Israel's ongoing assault on Gaza, which according to Palestinian officials has killed, maimed, or left missing more than 125,000 people since the October 7 attacks. During a Wednesday interview with Al Jazeera marking the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, Pappé asserted that Israel's current onslaught is "even worse" than the 1948-49 ethnic cleansing in many ways.
"What we see now are massacres which are part of the genocidal impulse, namely to kill people in order to downsize the number of people living in Gaza," he said. "Ethnic cleansing is a terrible crime against humanity but genocide is even worse."
Pappé's latest title, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic, details "how pro-Israel lobbying groups influence the Middle East policies of Britain, the U.S., and others."
Reacting to the author's detention, ACLU human rights lawyer and New York University professor Jamil Dakwar said, "One wonders if this 'VIP welcome' related to his anti-genocide activism and his new book."
Morehouse Students Show Solidarity With Gaza During Biden Commencement Speech
"It is my stance as a Morehouse man, nay as a human being, to call for an immediate and permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip," said valedictorian DeAngelo Fletcher.
Advisers for U.S. President Biden reportedly saw Morehouse College, a historically Black men's college in Atlanta where he gave the commencement address Sunday, as a school where the president was unlikely to face protests over his continued support for Israel's assault on Gaza, which has been the subject of mass demonstrations led by students at universities across the country over the past month.
But students and faculty made clear at the ceremony that many of them, like others in higher education, are intent on sending Biden a strong message of disapproval over his Israel policy.
A number of faculty members and students wore keffiyehs, the traditional scarves worn in parts of the Middle East including Palestine, and by some supporters of Palestinian rights to show solidarity with civilians in Gaza. Others displayed the Palestinian flag on their graduation gowns.
ABC News White House correspondent Selina Wang reported that while most of the alumni present at the graduation stood up when Biden was introduced, all but a few of the students remained seated.
The war in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians since October while receiving billions of dollars in military aid from the Biden administration, was directly mentioned by valedictorian DeAngelo Fletcher, who had placed a Palestinian flag motif on his graduation cap.
"It is my stance as a Morehouse man, nay, as a human being, to call for an immediate and permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip," said Fletcher as Biden sat behind him and applauded. "From the comfort of our homes, we watch an unprecedented number of civilians mourn the loss of men, women, and children, while calling for the release of all hostages."
Some students and faculty turned their backs when the president gave his address, in which he said he supports "peaceful, non-violent protest." Other students walked out of the ceremony, but Biden's speech was not disrupted like the last time he addressed a group of college students at George Mason University, when protesters interrupted him 10 times.
Biden has been rebuked by First Amendment advocates for suggesting the Palestinian solidarity and anti-war protests that have spread across college campuses in recent weeks are inherently antisemitic, and for failing to speak out against aggressive police responses to protests at schools including Emory University, Columbia University, and University of Texas at Austin.
"It's a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. That's why I've called for an immediate cease-fire, an immediate cease-fire to stop the fighting. Bring the hostages home," said the president, adding that he is "working around the clock" to secure a two-state solution in the Middle East and to ensure aid is allowed into Gaza, where key border crossings are now closed by Israel.
Middle Eastern policy expert Assal Rad said Biden's call for a cease-fire seven months into Israel's escalation amounts to "nonsense," considering his administration's veto of several cease-fire resolutions at the U.N. Security Council and the $17 billion military aid package Biden signed in April for Israel.
A majority of Americans disapprove of Israel's assault on Gaza, and Black voters, a key constituency who supported Biden in 2020, are no exception.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found last month that 68% of Black Americans wanted the U.S. to demand an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and 59% said conditions must be applied to U.S. military aid to Israel to ensure the Middle Eastern country is using U.S. weapons for "legitimate self-defense and in a way that is consistent with human rights standards."
While 66% of Black Americans overall said their feelings toward Biden had not changed due to his Israel policy, those under age 30 were more likely to say their views on the president had become more negative since October.
Iranian President Missing After Helicopter Crash
President Ebrahim Raisi had been traveling in Iran's mountainous East Azerbaijan province.
This is a developing story... Check back for possible updates...
Update (3:30 pm ET):
Iranian state TV reported that Raisi's helicopter had been found. There was no update on the condition of those aboard.
Earlier:
Dozens of search teams were deployed to Iran's mountainous East Azerbaijan province on Sunday to search for a helicopter that had been carrying the country's president, Ebrahim Raisi, as well as Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, after the aircraft reportedly experienced a "hard landing."
State news agency IRNA and Iran's mission to the United Nations reported that inclement weather, including rain and fog, had prevented the teams from finding the crash site after almost five hours of searching.
The helicopter had also been carrying East Azerbaijan province Gov. Malek Rahmati and Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, representative of the Iranian supreme leader to East Azerbaijan. Raisi had been in the province on an official visit to inaugurate a dam on the Iran-Azerbaijan border.
The term "crash" was used by one government official speaking to an Iranian newspaper, but details of the severity of the hard landing are not yet known.
The incident comes just over a month after Iran launched a drone-and-missile attack against Israel in retaliation for Israel's deadly bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria.
Raisi, who was elected in 2021, has been sanctioned by the U.S. for his role in executing thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the Iran-Iraq War.
In the event of the president's death, power would be transferred to the first vice president, the conservative Mohammad Mokhber. An election would then be called within six months.
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said "chaotic times in Iran" may be ahead if elections are called.
"And that's not even taking into account if credible evidence emerges that there was foul play involved in the crash," said Parsi.
"The population has by and large lost faith in the idea that change can come through the ballot box," said Parsi. "Real alternatives to Iran's hardliners have simply not been allowed to stand for office in the in the last few elections. At the same time, those alternatives have in the eyes of the majority of the population lost credibility anyways, due to the failure to deliver change."
Solidarity Marches Held Across Globe to Demand Cease-Fire in Gaza
Organizers held rallies in the U.S., Europe, and Asia to mark Nakba Day and condemn Israel's bombing and starvation of Palestinian civilians.
As one United Nations official on Saturday said that "brand new words" are needed to adequately describe the devastation Israel has wrought across Gaza in its U.S.-backed military assault, tens of thousands of people across the globe marched in solidarity with Palestinians to demand an end to the "ongoing Nakba."
The marches were held to honor Nakba Day, which was marked on May 15—the 76th anniversary of the mass displacement of 700,000 Palestinians who were forced from their homes when Israel declared statehood in 1948. The protesters demanded a cease-fire in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed at least 35,456 people since October, the majority of them women and children.
Protesters in London carried signs reading, "Solidarity is a verb," and "The Nakba never ended" as they marched through Whitehall, close to the home and office of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, who covered the first months of Israel's bombardment and evacuated Gaza in January, joined the marchers and told the crowd that mass protests around the world have given Palestinians hope.
"I didn't believe that I would stay alive to stand here in London today in front of the people, who saw me there under the bombing," said Azaiza. "Occupation is using all the weapons against us, the bombs, the killing, the starvation, the apartheid in the West Bank, and now killing the people and forcing them to leave their lands... I did my best to show you, and I believe you will do more, we all together will do more to stop this genocide."
In Dublin, Ireland, where politicians have harshly criticized Israel and its supporters for the assault on Gaza and the near-total blockade on humanitarian aid that has pushed parts of the enclave into famine, more than 100 civil society groups supported a march organized by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Irish Palestinian Zak Hania, a researcher and translator who was trapped in Gaza until earlier this month when he was finally granted permission by Egyptian and Israeli authorities to leave, thanked the crowd for choosing "to stand with justice and to stand with an oppressed people."
"I am proud to be an Irish Palestinian," said Hania. "I am proud to see all of you. It is part of my healing... We inherited a dream from our parents. We are trying for all our lives to fulfill our dreams and our parents' dreams. My parents are dead, but I will work to fulfill their dreams. Their dream is to have a free Palestine."
Other protests included a rally outside the German embassy in Bangkok, a march of about 400 people in Washington, D.C., and a demonstration in Brooklyn where police violently arrested at least 34 people, according to The New York Times.
Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, told the Times she witnessed "police indiscriminately grabbing people off the street and the sidewalk. They were grabbing people at random."
Independent journalists posted videos on social media of police officers punching and kicking protesters.
The latest show of global outrage toward the Israeli government and the Western leaders who have supported its assault on Gaza came as U.N. humanitarian aid officer Yasmina Guerda told U.N. News about her latest deployment to Rafah, where 900,000 people have now been forced to flee following Israel's incursion in the city.
"We would need to invent brand new words to adequately describe the situation that Palestinians in Gaza find themselves in today," said Guerda. "No matter where you look, no matter where you go, there's destruction, there's devastation, there's loss. There's a lack of everything. There's pain. There's just incredible suffering. People are living on top of the rubble and the waste that used to be their lives. They're hungry. Everything has become absolutely unaffordable. I heard the other day that some eggs were being sold for $3 each, which is unthinkable for someone who has no salary and has lost all access to their bank accounts."
"Access to clean water is a daily battle," she added. "Many people haven't been able to change clothes in seven months because they just had to flee with whatever they were wearing. They were given 10 minutes notice and they had to run away. Many have been displaced six, seven, eight times, or more."
The daily reality described by Guerda is continuing to unfold as the Israeli forces have prevented 3,000 aid trucks from entering Gaza in the past two weeks, according to the Government Media Office in the enclave. The closure of the Rafah and Karem Abu Salem crossings for the past 13 days, since Israel launched its new offensive in Rafah, has also prevented nearly 700 injured and sick people from leaving Gaza for treatment.
"This constitutes a clear danger in light of the collapse of the health system," said the office.
On Sunday, U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned that the blockade on aid is leading to "apocalyptic" consequences, with the famine that has taken hold in parts of northern Gaza close to spreading across the enclave.
"If fuel runs out, aid doesn't get to the people where they need it, that famine, which we have talked about for so long, and which is looming, will not be looming any more," said Griffiths. "It will be present."