Entirely Inedible: On Glitches and Losses and Lies
Apologies for re-visiting GOP lowlifes and their yammering Mad Emperor, but damn things are getting weird out there. Having ended his trial not with a bang but a craven whine - so much for "absolutely" testifying: "I tell the truth" - Trump gave a daft, dark speech at the NRA convention, calling Biden "a Manchurian candidate," vowing to roll back all gun control, pondering a third term and slamming the country as a “cesspool of ruin." Then a long glitch turned him bizarrely silent. It was blissful.
In brief: To the cretins of a sick, corrupt, fast-diminishing NRA gathered in Dallas to endorse him, the tinpot babbled and spewed his usual ugly gibberish. Biden is "a threat to democracy" who'd get the electric chair if a Republican, he's fighting "hateful communists and criminals," Alvin Bragg is "Soros-backed," not even Lincoln did more for "the black individual in this country than Donald J. Trump," he won 31 golf championships or 29, he's just like his friggin' "genius" uncle at MIT, he's "a better physical specimen" than Obama, he's started an imaginary "Gun Owners For Trump" to stop "the violent migrant crime wave (Biden) has unleashed on our country" though violent crime has fallen sharply, and gun owners, of which he's clearly not one, are "under seesh, we're under seesh but they didn't move us an inch" so on Day One "we'll roll back every gun control measure."
Then came what was widely billed a McConnell-like, 35-second "freeze" but in fact more resembled a system glitch - in his brain, his reading of the room or the teleprompter. He was in the middle of his 6th-grade report - "The Texas spirit of proud independence was forged by cowboys and cattle hands, ranchers and rangers...Many came here with nothing but the boots on their feet, the clothes on their back, the gun in their saddle. Together they helped make America into the single greatest nation in the history of the world" - when he fell silent. For a long time. So did the room. He shook his head, furrowed his brow, stared. An ad popped up for a gold IRA: "Text TRUMP." Finally, QAnon/Nazi music swelled and he came back to awful life: "But now, we are a nation in declined. We are a failing nation." Cue inflation, collapsing banks, drugs, crime, dirty airports, other "horror" by "these tyrants and villains."
When news came of his "Milli Vanilli-type" malfunction, he shrieked, "Donald Trump doesn’t freeze!" He cited a "record crowd of very enthusiastic patriots" and a standard pause before "the musical interlude" and besides Biden "freezes all the time," also he didn't fall when his podium once almost tipped over and he can drink a glass of water! Observers noted it was like "Amateur City for a live performance": At his rallies there's "cheering MAGA morons," this time "just the abyss" of a dark room and NRA stage, like a sit-com before they add the laugh track. His team miscalculated, the crowd missed their cue, he has a memorized shtick he's too dumb to tweak, and he couldn't understand why nobody was cheering. Besides, one summarized, "Never, ever trust anything when it comes to Trump. His very existence is a criminal fraud, foully perpetrated to the detriment of the universe."
Donald Trump Rejects Claims He 'Froze' During Rallywww.youtube.com
Meanwhile, the universe is diminished by each of his repulsive followers in the news. "Sam Alito is a fascist insurrectionist," notes Noah Berlatsky in a piece subtitled, "Stop with the appeasement, you quisling motherfuckers." "He displayed a symbol of support for fascist insurrection shortly after an attempted fascist insurrection. The obvious conclusion would be that (Alito) supports fascist insurrection. He told us who he is. We should believe him." Ditto Rudy Giuliani, now cringingly hawking coffee to pay his legal bills, and Greg Abbott, who with no legal or moral justification pardoned Daniel Perry, serving 25 years for murdering a BLM protester - a pardon, writes Will Bunch, proving the law only applies if an undemocratic few in power say it does, and "a gross injustice in a former Confederate state that (reeks) of the bad old days (when) white men lynched Emmett Till and laughed at justice."
Thus, the "inverted reality" embraced by VP-hopefuls dutifully echoing the Big Lie. "Once one of the two major governing parties no longer believes elections are binding," notes Rachel Maddow, "in many important ways, the democracy ship has sailed." Along with Christina 'Election Integrity' Bobb's creepy mugshot, we have Marco Rubio, the latest to fudge on accepting election results, arguing it's Democrats who questionGOP wins (and pay people $10 to vote). He also says Dems are the extremists on abortion and he supports protecting "all unborn human life," though when it comes to the lives of what he claims are up to 30 million migrants - "We don't even know who these people are" - the son of immigrants says, "This is not immigration...This is an invasion of the country." Add another sad bootlicker inexplicably in thrall to the guy who praises "the late, great Hannibal Lecter," though it turns out it's not reciprocal.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter DECLINES Trump's V.P. Offerwww.youtube.com
And that guy just keeps losing. New earnings filings show Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, reported a net loss of $327.6 million, with revenue of just $770,500, in its first fiscal quarter since debuting as a public company on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Also, his campaign to get back the job he so disastrously failed to do isn't doing well in the Saying the Quiet Part Aloud Dept. After eloquently suggesting he might limit access to contraception - "We're looking at that, and I'm going to have a policy on that very shortly...You will find it, I think, very smart" - he abruptly backtracked - "Things really do have a lot to do with the states, and some states are gonna have different policies" - almost like he has no idea what he's talking about. Same with a slipshod video he posted to celebrate his upcoming victory, that touted "A UNIFIED REICH," which quickly went missing.
And there's his trial, nearing its ignoble end. Despite 10 contempt findings, he isn't in jail, but not much else went well. His D-list, red-tie, Hell's Angels! posse - "circling (him) like the cold fragments of a destroyed planet" - was widely mocked, witnesses gave damning testimony, after insisting he'd testify he chickened out, and after claiming MAGA warriors would storm the barricades if he was prosecuted, nobody came. So he made them up: "Thousands of people were turned away, it is an armed camp to keep people away, it looks like Fort Knox." This is complete and utter bullshit," said one observer. Others: "There is virtually complete freedom of movement around the courthouse," "Nothing is happening," "There is a mouse pissing on a ball of cotton in China - that’s how quiet it is out here." Later, he bleated Judge Merchan should dismiss the case: "The right thing to do is to END THIS SCAM NOW AND FOREVERMORE." Yes. Please.
'Wake-Up Call for the World': Millions Impacted by Extreme Floods in Brazil
Experts emphasized the escalating risks of climate-related disasters and their disproportionate impacts on low-income people on Monday following flooding in Brazil that has killed at least 150 people and displaced more than 600,000.
The floods that hit over recent days and weeks have knocked out bridges and the main airport in Porto Alegre, a port city in southern Brazil. More than 460 of the 497 municipalities in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sol have been affected, with more than 2 million people impacted, according to provisional government data.
"The situation is catastrophic," said Rachel Soeiro, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical coordinator in Brazil, who visited the area by helicopter. "We were able to view the towns from above and noticed that in some cases we couldn't even see the roofs of houses.”
More than two feet of rain has fallen so far this month, according Brazil's national weather service, inundating large areas.
"Whole towns and large, urban city centers are in some cases almost completely underwater," the BBCreported on Saturday.
We joined an emergency services helicopter rescuing people from Brazil's floods. The rescues themselves are fraught with risks. More than half a million people are displaced.
Watch on @BBCNews at 6 today (on at 1705) or catch up on the News at One.
Whole cities are destroyed👇 pic.twitter.com/hxZYSVDDmz
— Ione Wells (@ionewells) May 19, 2024
Experts connected the extreme rainfall to climate change, which increases the likelihood of such weather events. Incidents of extreme flooding have increased "sharply" across the planet in the last two decades, according to a study in Nature Water released last year.
"In many ways, this is not a disaster of Brazil’s making. The whole planet is experiencing increasingly rapid climate changes due largely to the greenhouse gases produced by a handful of wealthy nations," Cristiane Fontes (Krika), executive director of World Resources Institute (WRI) Brasil, wrote in a commentary earlier this month in which she called the situation a "wake-up call for the world."
In recent weeks, flooding has also hit China, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia, and WRI's staff in Kenya are dealing with dam breaches from heavy rains, Fontes noted.
A Brazilian expert indicated that the flooding, catastrophic as it has been, should not come as a surprise.
"People on the streets here in Brazil, they've attributed this change to global climate change driven by the increase of fossil fuels," Paulo Artaxo, a physics professor at the University of Sao Paulo, and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He explained that was in line with IPCC projections showing that southern Brazil would face more extreme rainfall due to tropical and polar currents.
In Brazil, as elsewhere, climate impacts are not evenly distributed. MSF relief efforts are focused on the most vulnerable, including Indigenous communities, one of which had been isolated by rising waters and without help for 10 days before being reached by the humanitarian group.
"Assisting those who are most vulnerable is one of our main concerns in such situations," Soeiro said. "These people were already facing difficult situations before the flooding. But their needs have risen further and access to them has become more difficult."
Some wealthy people in Porto Alegre have choices such as escaping to a second home, but in "rundown towns" on the city's periphery, low-income people have no such options, according to CNN.
Brazilian left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pledged to provide relief money to families that lost their homes. Brazil is one of most unequal countries in the world, according to World Bank data.
FTC Chair Lina Khan Should Take Jim Cramer's 'Unhinged' Obsession as 'Badge of Honor'
The American Economic Liberties Project on Monday called outCNBC's Jim Cramer for at least dozens of "hostile" televised attacks on Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and her "historic pro-working families record."
The left-leaning group has been compiling Cramer's "most egregious on-air outbursts" over Khan since early last year and its tracker now features more than 30 clips from "Mad Money" and "Squawk on the Street."
When President Joe Biden nominated Khan to lead the FTC in 2021, she was an associate professor of law at Columbia Law School who had previously worked for the Open Markets Institute, the office of former Commissioner Rohit Chopra, and the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law.
As the clips collected by the project show, Cramer has described Khan as an "empty suit," "stupid," and a "total hack." The ex-hedge fund manager has also compared the agency leader's views to those of Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx, and Don Quixote.
Cramer has called out specific FTC actions under Khan—repeatedly blasting a lawsuit against Amazon, a company founded by one of the richest persons on the planet—and broadly accused the "rogue" agency of "torturing all the companies that America likes."
When one of Cramer's colleagues pointed out last October that he has taken "every opportunity to just come back to Khan," he responded, "No, I've missed opportunities and I regret that."
The tracker page states that "if Cramer was accurately reporting what the FTC is doing, he would see that Chair Khan is pursuing a pro-business, pro-innovation, and pro-worker agenda. And he is capable of it: he did, for example, proclaim the FTC's case against Kroger-Albertsons to be strong."
Noting Cramer's praise for Jonathan Kanter, an assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice whom the host has called a "heavyweight" and "rigorous thinker," the page adds that "he is so blinded by his obsession of Chair Khan that he sometimes even rails against her for suits brought by the DOJ and forgets to give the Antitrust Division credit for its work."
American Economic Liberties Project spokesperson Jimmy Wyderko said in a statement Monday that "Jim Cramer's anger over the FTC's enforcement record has turned into a full-blown obsession, launching nearly weekly barbs at Chair Khan with the zeal of a carnival barker defending his turf."
"This has manifested on national cable news through a series of unhinged, incoherent, and often inaccurate rants from Jim Cramer attacking the FTC for standing up to big corporations and delivering kitchen table wins to working families," he continued.
"Given Jim Cramer's role as mouthpiece and cheerleader for monopolists across the economy, Chair Khan should consider his harassment a badge of honor," Wyderko added. "We hope to see Jim Cramer get over his fixation syndrome, which is evidently even starting to frustrate his colleagues, as soon as he is able."
'Crucial': FCC Proposes Forcing Disclosure of AI Use in Political Ads
Amid the U.S. political primary season and mounting fears of how artificial intelligence can be abused to influence elections, the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday unveiled a proposal to force the disclosure of AI use in campaign advertising.
"As artificial intelligence tools become more accessible, the commission wants to make sure consumers are fully informed when the technology is used," said FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement. "Today, I've shared with my colleagues a proposal that makes clear consumers have a right to know when AI tools are being used in the political ads they see, and I hope they swiftly act on this issue."
Rosenworcel's office explained that the proposal aims to increase transparency by:
- Seeking comment on whether to require an on-air disclosure and written disclosure in broadcasters' political files when there is AI-generated content in political ads;
- Proposing to apply the disclosure rules to both candidate and issue advertisements;
- Requesting comment on a specific definition of AI-generated content; and
- Proposing to apply the disclosure requirements to broadcasters and entities that engage in origination programming, including cable operators, satellite TV and radio providers, and section 325(c) permittees.
The FCC earlier this year took action regarding AI use in robocalls—following a recording that mimicked U.S. President Joe Biden's voice just before the New Hampshire primary—but the agency lacks the authority to regulate internet or social media ads.
While Rosenworcel's Wednesday announcement is just a step toward new restrictions, it was lauded by advocacy groups.
"Americans expect and deserve to know whether the content they see on our public airwaves is real or AI-generated content—especially as the technology is increasingly being used to mislead voters," said Ishan Mehta, Common Cause's Media and Democracy Program director, in a statement. "This rulemaking is welcome news as the use of deceptive AI and deepfakes threaten our democracy and is already being used to erode trust in our institutions and our elections."
"We have seen the impact of AI in politics in the form of primary ads using AI voices and images, and in robocalls during the primary in New Hampshire," he continued, commending the commission and its chair. "It is imperative that regulations around political advertising keep pace with the onward march of new and evolving technologies."
Congress and the Federal Election Commission should "follow the FCC's lead and take proactive steps to protect our democracy from very serious threats posed by AI," Mehta argued, noting Common Cause's comments calling on the FEC "to amend its regulation on 'fraudulent misrepresentation' to include 'deliberately false artificial intelligence-generated content in campaign ads or other communications.'"
"The FCC is modeling how federal regulators should be proactively addressing the threats that deepfakes and artificial intelligence pose to election integrity."
Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, similarly thanked the FCC for its step and called on others to do more.
"With deepfake technology fast evolving, the 2024 election is virtually certain to see a wave of political deepfakes that confuse and defraud voters, swing elections, and sow chaos if governmental authorities fail to act. That's why the FCC action is so important," he said. "As the proposal is honed and finalized, the FCC should require advertisers to disclose the use of AI in the ads themselves, not just require a note to files maintained by broadcasters.
"Prominent, real-time disclosure is the essential standard to protect voters from being deceived and defrauded," Weissman asserted. "The FCC action is especially crucial because absent a new rule from the FCC, broadcasters believe under existing law they are unable to refuse political ads or demand alterations or disclosures."
He also said that "the FCC is modeling how federal regulators should be proactively addressing the threats that deepfakes and artificial intelligence pose to election integrity. We need the Federal Election Commission—and Congress—to follow the FCC's lead and take aggressive, proactive action. No one wins with deepfake chaos, and we don't need to sit back and let it happen."
The FEC chair said in January that the agency was expected to act on AI rules by early summer. Critics including Weissman suggested that was far too slow. The Public Citizen leader said at the time that "the FEC's slow-walking of the political deepfake issue threatens our democracy."
Nevada Coalition Submits 200K+ Signatures for Abortion Rights Ballot Measure
An amendment to enshrine abortion rights in Nevada's Constitution moved one step closer to appearing on this November's ballot Monday as reproductive rights defenders submitted nearly twice the number of required signatures to state election officials.
Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom, the coalition spearheading the ballot measure, said it submitted more than 200,000 signatures from every county in the state—where abortion is legal up to 24 weeks of pregnancy—supporting the Nevada Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment. Proposed 2024 Nevada ballot questions need 102,362 verified signatures to qualify; campaigners generally aim to collect double the required number of signatures, as many are disqualified for various reasons.
"This is a true testament to the volunteers, supporters, and coalition partners who recognize the importance of codifying abortion rights into our state constitution," Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom said on social media. "We're officially one step closer."
"The number of signatures gathered in just over three months shows how deeply Nevadans believe in abortion rights and its importance to this moment in our nation's history."
Speaking to supporters outside the Clark County Courthouse in Las Vegas on Monday, Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom president Lindsey Harmon said that "the majority of Nevadans agree that the government should stay out of their personal and private decisions... about our bodies, our lives, and our futures."
"The number of signatures gathered in just over three months shows how deeply Nevadans believe in abortion rights and its importance to this moment in our nation's history," Harmon added.
Nevada constitutional amendments must be approved by voters twice. If the proposed abortion rights amendment qualifies for the ballot and is approved by voters this November, it will appear again on the 2026 statewide ballot.
Last November, Carson City District Court Judge James Russell sided with right-wing advocacy groups who argued that the proposed amendment violates Nevada law by covering more than one subject. After Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom subsequently narrowed the proposal's focus, Russell ruled the coalition could proceed with signature gathering. In April, the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the proposed ballot measure's original language.
Four states—Florida, Kansas, Maryland, and New York—have abortion rights measures on November's ballot, while Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, and Nevada have proposed such initiatives.
Since the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court voided half a century of federal abortion rights nearly two years ago in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, seven states have let voters weigh in on the issue. People in all seven states—including conservative Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana—have voted to either protect and expand abortion rights or defeat measures seeking to restrict access to the procedure.
Meanwhile, 14 states have enacted total abortion bans, while 27 have legislated restrictions on the procedure based on duration of pregnancy,
according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Experts Say Israeli Apartheid—Not Palestinian Statehood—Is the Real 'Gift to Hamas'
As Israel and its international supporters seethe over Wednesday's announcement that three European countries will recognize Palestinian statehood, Palestine advocates refuted claims that such recognition is a "gift to Hamas" by arguing Israel's slaughter in Gaza, settler-colonization of the West Bank, and apartheid and other oppression in the illegally occupied territories are a recruitment boon for the militant resistance group.
In a joint statement, Ireland, Norway, and Spain said they will formally recognize the state of Palestine on May 28, which will bring the total number of nations that have done so to 145. Almost all of the Global South recognizes Palestine, while just a relative handful of so-called developed nations do—including Sweden, Iceland, and most of Eastern Europe. The United States has actively discouraged countries from recognizing Palestinian statehood and United Nations membership.
"Hamas feeds off of Palestinian hopelessness. Israel's denial of Palestinian rights has functioned as a Hamas recruitment program."
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded to Wednesday's announcement by threatening "severe consequences" for the three countries. Katz—a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud party—called recognition of Palestine "an injustice to the memory of the victims of October 7, a blow to efforts to return the 128 hostages, and a boost to Hamas and Iran's jihadists."
The claim that recognition is a "reward" or "gift" to Hamas—whose fighters led the attack on Israel that left more than 1,100 people dead and over 240 others in captivity—reverberated from social media to the halls of the U.S. Congress in the wake of the three countries' announcement. However, some experts weighed in on the policies and practices that they believe are driving young Palestinians to embrace violent resistance.
"Those claiming this 'rewards Hamas' have it exactly backward,"
said Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and former chief foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.). "Hamas feeds off of Palestinian hopelessness. Israel's denial of Palestinian rights has functioned as a Hamas recruitment program. Diplomatic recognition offers a credible alternative nonviolent path to liberation."
U.S. political commentator Krystal Ball
said on social media that "those saying Palestinian statehood is a 'gift to Hamas,' please take note that what has actually bolstered Hamas is Israel's genocidal slaughter which has allowed Hamas to recruit thousands of new members."
Israel also actively propped up Hamas for years, viewing it as a means of countering and weakening the largely toothless Palestinian National Authority and its leader, President Mahmoud Abbas.
The New York Timesreported in December that Israeli security forces helped Qatari officials deliver suitcases stuffed full of millions of dollars in cash to Hamas,which has governed Gaza for nearly two decades and is considered a terrorist group by Israel and the U.S.
According to the
Times, Israel allowed billions of dollars to flow from the Qatari government into Hamas' coffers, to be spent on government salaries, infrastructure, and humanitarian endeavors. This allowed Hamas to divert funds previously budgeted for those purposes into armed resistance. The payments continued as late as 2021.
Israeli leaders and their U.S. backers similarly claimed that any cease-fire in Gaza would be a "gift to Hamas" that would allow it to regroup and rearm. As the human toll of Israel's assault—more than 126,000 Palestinians killed, maimed, or missing; nearly 2 million forcibly displaced Gazans; widespread starvation; and lifelong trauma—mount, so too do motivations for Palestinians to join Hamas and other militant groups.
"Killing terrorists too often breeds more terrorism. This is an inescapable lesson of both America's decadeslong 'War on Terror' and Israel's ceaseless struggle against Hamas, Hezbollah, and other violent insurgencies," Matthew Levinger, a professor of international relations at George Washington University,
wrote earlier this year for Just Security.
So does killing civilians. As U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has
acknowledged: "In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population. And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat."
Police Make First Arrest for Assault on Pro-Palestine Protesters at UCLA
The arrest followed a CNN investigation that documented the hourslong attack and identified key perpetrators from the pro-Israel mob.
University of California, Los Angeles police on Thursday made their first arrest in the case of a violent mob attack on protestors at a peaceful pro-Palestine encampment at the university on April 30 and May 1.
The police charged Edan On, an 18-year-old high school senior, with felony assault for attacking at least one person with a wooden pole. He was remanded to a Los Angeles jail, where he's being held on a $30,000 bond, according toThe Guardian. On was first identified for his role in the mob attack, led by so-called counterprotestors, in a CNNinvestigation published May 16.
"Video shows On joining the counterprotesters while waving a long white pole," CNN reported. "At one point, he strikes a pro-Palestinian protester with the pole, and appears to continue to strike him even when he was down, as fellow counterprotesters piled on."
"The footage appears to show Edan On, in the white hoodie, and others striking at a pro-Palestinian protester on the ground," CNN reported. (Source: CNN/Key News Network)
The pro-Israel mob caused more than 25 protestors to be sent to the hospital with "fractures, severe lacerations, and chemical-induced injuries," and more than 150 were assaulted with bear and pepper spray, CNN reported.
Thistle Boosinger, a 23-year-old member of the encampment, had her hand smashed. "My bone is broken totally in half below my knuckle… [which is] shattered into a bunch of pieces and jumbled up," she told CNN. In another incident during the attack, a fourth-year UCLA student suffered two head injuries in a matter of minutes. After being hit in the forehead with a traffic cone, he was hit in the back of the head with a wooden plank, video shows.
The CNN investigation identified some of the other assailants and documented the violence from the attack, which lasted for seven hours. Videos captured not just violence but also hateful rhetoric. An unidentified person in a hoodie, who like On attacked a pro-Palestine protester with a pole at one point, yelled, "You guys are about to get fucked up," and "Fuck you, fucking terrorists," as well as, "The score is 30,000"—a reference to the death toll in Gaza.
The mob also shouted "Second Nakba!" at the protestors, referring to the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homeland in the late 1940s, according to a Los Angeles Times reporter.
On's mother, who had previously described UCLA student protesters as "human animals," bragged about his role in the attack on social media, even circling an image of him. "Edan went to bully the Palestinian students in the tents at UCLA and played the song that they played to the Nukhba terrorists in prison!" she wrote in Hebrew, CNN reported. When the outlet sought an interview with On, his mother claimed that he was in Israel and planned to join the Israel Defense Forces.
"Video footage shows that some counterprotesters instigated the fighting," CNN reported. "Then police did little as a large group of counterprotesters calmly walked away, leaving behind bloody, bruised students and other protesters."
The hands-off approach was criticized in light of the heavy-handed tactics that police have used against campus protesters across the country, in spite of the fact that the protests have been overwhelmingly nonviolent. More than 800 UCLA faculty and staff signed a letter calling for university Chancellor Gene Block to resign—and to adhere to students' demands to divest from military weapons production companies and supporting systems—but the academic senate narrowly voted not to censure him.
News of On's arrest followed other events Thursday related to pro-Palestine activism at UCLA. Block testified before the Republican-led U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, some of whose members grilled him for being inattentive to antisemitism on campus. Taking an opposing position, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) asked why no one had been held to account for the mob attack, the Los Angeles Times reported.
As Block was testifying, student activists took the opportunity to form a new encampment, amassing a group of about 300 people in an academic hall at one point, but the group had to move twice and they were removed by police in riot gear relatively quickly, according toThe New York Times. This may have marked a new approach to protests by the Block administration.
Block told the House committee on Thursday that "with the benefit of hindsight, we should have been prepared to immediately remove the encampment if and when the safety of our community was put at risk."
US, EU Urged to 'Use Their Leverage' to Force Israeli Compliance With ICJ Order
"Governments should use their leverage—including arms embargoes and targeted sanctions—to press Israel to comply," said Human Rights Watch's Israel and Palestine director.
While welcoming Friday's International Court of Justice order for Israel to "immediately halt" its Rafah offensive, human rights defenders around the world stressed the need for a Gaza-wide cease-fire and for the international community to use tools including sanctions and arms embargoes to compel Israeli compliance.
The United Nations' top court ruled 13-2 that Israel must address the "humanitarian catastrophe" it created in Rafah by stopping its assault on the city and "other actions which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part"—language drawn from the legal definition of genocide under Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The order did not call for a cease-fire throughout Gaza as sought by South Africa, which has filed multiple emergency requests at the ICJ since launching a wider genocide case against Israel backed by more than 30 nations.
As the death toll from Israel's 231-day assault on Gaza approaches 36,000 Palestinians, with more than 80,000 others wounded, at least 11,000 people missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble, nearly 9 in 10 Gazans forcibly displaced, and widespread starvation taking a deadly toll on some of the most vulnerable people in the besieged enclave, Palestine advocates underscored the imperative of a cease-fire and Israeli compliance with the ICJ order.
"Israel's relentless bombardment of Gaza has killed or injured 5% of the entire population—mostly women and children—and pushed the rest to the brink of famine," U.K.-based Oxfam International said in a statement following the ICJ decision. "The Israeli government must immediately comply with the court's ruling and halt its brutal offensive on Rafah and the rest of Gaza."
Human Rights Watch Israel and Palestine director Omar Shakir said on social media that "governments should use their leverage—including arms embargoes and targeted sanctions—to press Israel to comply."
Matt Carthy, a Sinn Féin member of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish legislature, called the ICJ order "a welcome development that stands as an example of the international legal system and multilateralism working as intended."
"But if we are to see this order enforced and any relief delivered to the Palestinian people of Gaza then we must see the groundswell of global support for a cease-fire matched with meaningful diplomatic and economic sanctions against Israel until they are brought into compliance with international humanitarian law," Carthy stressed.
"Too many world leaders, including within the European Union, have to date failed to show a willingness to hold Israel to account—where Europe refuses to act, Ireland must follow South Africa's example and become leaders," he added, noting Ireland's official support for South Africa's case.
Josep Borrell, the E.U.'s foreign policy chief, expressed the dilemma faced by the 27-nation bloc: "What is going to be the answer to the ruling of the International Court of Justice that has been issued today, what is going to be our position? We will have to choose between our support to international institutions of the rule of law or our support to Israel."
Many observers called on the United States—which provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, as well as diplomatic cover in the form of U.N. Security Council vetoes and genocide denial—to press Israel to abide by the ICJ's binding order.
"While the Biden administration stands alone in continuing to offer full support for Israel's genocide in Gaza, the international community is increasingly pushing back against the slaughter, forced starvation, and ethnic cleansing Israel's far-right government is inflicting on the Palestinian people," Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement.
"Israel is clearly attempting to make Gaza uninhabitable. It must be stopped from completing this monstrous goal," Awad added. "President [Joe] Biden must honor this important ruling by immediately ending all military assistance to Israel's genocide."
Progressive U.S. lawmakers echoed these sentiments.
"Either you trust international law enforcement and courts or you don't, but the international court has ordered [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to stop his invasion of Rafah in Gaza," Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said on social media. "Do nations follow norms and standards, or not? And can leaders like Netanyahu be convicted of war crimes if he ignores them?"
Numerous key stakeholders in the ICJ case also weighed in on Friday's ruling.
South Africa hailed what Foreign Ministry Director-General Zane Dangor called the "groundbreaking" order.
Hamas official Basem Naim urged the international community to "immediately implement this demand by the World Court into practical measures" to compel Israeli compliance.
Israeli officials, however, said they had no intention of complying with the order. The National Security Council and Foreign Ministry issued a joint statement blasting what the agencies called the "false, outrageous, and morally repugnant" genocide charges against Israel. Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir took to social media to post a quote from David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli prime minister, who said that "our future does not depend on what the Gentiles will say, but on what the Jews will do."
Referring to the Palestinians, Ben-Gurion also presciently noted that "a people which fights against the usurpation of its land will not tire so easily," and Rafah's defenders continued fighting Friday as Israeli forces escalated their assault on the city. More than 900,000 people—many of them refugees from other parts of the embattled Gaza Strip—have recently fled Rafah, according to United Nations agencies and the U.S. government.
Friday's order comes days after International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan announced he is seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Deif.
Southeast Abortion Clinic Wait Times Soared After Florida Ban
Before the ban, the average Florida resident lived 20 miles from a clinic and would need to wait five days to access an abortion; after the ban, the driving distance jumped to 590 miles and the wait time to almost 14 days.
Wait times have increased at 30% of the abortion clinics in the states closest to Florida its draconian six-week abortion ban went into effect on May 1.
The data comes from a survey carried out by Middlebury University economics professor Caitlin Myers and her undergraduate students, which was reported by The Washington Post on Friday.
"Distance and wait times are up... but telehealth is helping meet demand," Myers wrote on social media, summarizing her findings.
Suspecting that the U.S. Supreme Court would overturnRoe v. Wade in the summer of 2022, Myers began to survey abortion clinics about their wait times starting in March of that year. In her new survey tracking the impact of the Florida ban, Myers and her students called 130 clinics in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. They made their first round of calls last month before Florida's ban went into effect, and the next round on May 13.
Before the ban, the average Florida resident lived 20 miles from a clinic and would need to wait five days to access an abortion. After the ban, the driving distance increased by nearly 30 times to 590 miles and the wait time expanded to almost 14 days.
The Post also conducted its own analysis and found that the ban has forced around 7 million reproductive-age women in Florida and nearby states to travel farther if they need an abortion after six weeks, with the average woman now needing to drive for over seven more hours than before. The paper also found that the ban impacted a larger proportion of Black and low-income women when compared with national demographics.
Further, the Post spoke to clinic workers who detailed some of the individual stories behind the data.
Fort Lauderdale clinic director Eileen Diamond recounted the story of one woman who had traveled from Houston to Florida in search of an abortion, only learning after an 18-hour drive that Florida had passed its six-week ban. The woman, who was nine-weeks pregnant, then had to drive at least another 12 hours to Virginia and another 17 home.
"This woman was desperate," Diamond told the Post. "She had used everything she had to come to us."
Sometimes, different state restrictions can interact to make life even more difficult for those in need of abortion care. North Carolina, the closest state to Florida where abortion is legal after six weeks, requires patients to wait 72 hours between an initial consultation with a physician and the actual procedure, which puts up additional barriers for out-of-state patients. As the Post explained:
One Florida patient recently traveled 23 hours on a Greyhound bus for a consultation appointment at A Woman's Choice in Charlotte, according to Lakeynn Huffman, the clinic manager—returning home that night because she could not find childcare to cover the full 72 hours she had to wait between appointments.
The woman made the same trip two days later, Huffman said—traveling for a total of 92 hours to get an abortion.
While Florida's ban has put an additional burden on neighboring clinics, the rush has been less dramatic than after Texas passed its six-week ban in 2021. Myers explained that this is because more women are accessing abortion pills in the mail via telemedicine consultations.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments last month in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a case brought by right-wing anti-abortion activists that seeks to restrict access to the widely used abortion pill mifepristone. The court is expected to issue a final ruling in June.
"Telehealth is really a game changer for abortion access," Myers told the Post. "But it might be a fragile one."