Let This Be Our Communion: Another Deadly Knee On A Black Man's Neck
In a haunting, ghastly reprise, Thursday saw the funeral of D’Vontaye Mitchell, a black man in mental distress killed by four security guards outside a Milwaukee hotel - one of the sites for next week's GOP convention, yet. Like George Floyd, witness video shows Mitchell face down and gasping for air as he begs, "Please, please...." His wife: "They treated him like he was worthless, an animal." Singer Tom Prasada-Rao in $20 Bill, his searing lament for Floyd: "Oh brother, I never knew you/ Now I never will."
D’Vontaye Mitchell, a 43-year-old father of two, was killed June 30th outside Milwaukee's Hyatt Regency Hotel as he was held down by four security personnel who'd dragged him out after he entered the women's bathroom. Hotel footage reportedly shows Mitchell frantically running from something or someone unknown to hide in the bathroom; confronted by the guards, he had his hands up. During the assault outside, video shows him pinioned on the ground being beaten with batons as he grunted, struggled to breathe, and begged them to stop; at one point, a guard turns to the passerby filming and snarls, "This is what happens when you go into the ladies room." Mitchell's "last words on this earth," noted civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, were "please, please, please, please, please, please," followed by "I'm sorry" two times, "I can't breathe," and "Please help me." "How many more, America?" asked Crump. "How many more Black men have to say ‘I can’t breathe?’"
"To see them beat him over and over and over..." said Mitchell's wife DeAsia Harmon of the pitiless encounter. "They could have stopped at any time." At a press conference, she stood with Mitchell's family, including their 8-year-old daughter, Michell's former girlfriend Luella Jackson, and her and Mitchell's six-year-old son. "Our children deserve justice for their father," said Harmon. "They took everything from them... We stand together on this." Until this week, no one had been charged in connection with Mitchell's death despite a preliminary finding from the county medical examiner's office his cause of death was homicide; the four guards had been put on leave, and police had declined to release video of the encounter. "I just want justice for my son, and I want it now," said Mitchell's mother Brenda Giles, who insisted the death won't be "swept under the rug." "Give us those videos. Y’all know what went on inside the hotel. Y’all saw it, but we can’t see it. Make that make sense."
This week, ten days after his death and amidst angry protests, changes came in quick succession. The guards were finally fired by Aimbridge Hospitality, which runs the hotel, hours after the Hyatt demanded they be fired and face criminal charges. And Thursday, Milwaukee police referred four charges of felony murder to the D.A.'s office. Still, no arrests have been made, purportedly awaiting final autopsy results - a lapse blasted as "appalling" by attorney Will Sulton, representing the family along with Crump and B'Ivory Lamarr. Sulton noted the charges came only after community calls for accountability - "It was onlookers and family gathering evidence (which) led us here" - in the killing of a distressed, unarmed man "trying to run for his life." Sulton added there's footage of the guards denying they struck Mitchell, "even though that's all on camera - you see them punching, kicking, hitting him with a baton...It is just outrageous." See below. Warning: Like all that have come before, gruesome.
Death of Black man outside Milwaukee hotel is being reviewed as a homicidewww.youtube.com
For many, Mitchell's killing bitterly echoed that of George Floyd, likewise dead from a heedless white man's knee on his neck, in the harsh light of day, for all to witness. At the time, the sight hollowed out Tom Prasada-Rao, a beloved songwriter, "pillar of grace and talent" and "musician's musician" who died June 19 at his home in Silver Spring, Md of cancer at 66. Born in Ethiopia of Indian descent, Prasada-Rao performed for decades in multiple bands - the Dreamsicles, the Sherpas, Fox Run Five - usually in an Indian kurta , or tunic. But he was perhaps best known for, and most fond of, $20 Bill, the simple, mournful benediction for George Floyd he wrote in late May 2020 after, ravaged by chemotherapy for Stage IV cancer, he'd sat on his sofa and watched news coverage of the swirling protests. He was exhausted; the protests "broke his heart," and the lyrics "just came tumbling out of me." He recorded it on the couch, his voice soft, raspy, subdued, apologizing he was "not at my best."
"Some people die for honor/Some people die for love/ Some people die while singing/to the heavens above," he sang. "Some people die believing/in the cross on Calvary Hill/And some people die/in the blink of an eye/for a $20 dollar bill." Noting, "Oh brother, I never knew you/Now I never will," he promises, "I'll remember you still." "Let this be our communion/Time to break the bread/Do this in remembrance/Just like the good book said/," he sings. "Sometimes the wine is a sacrament/Sometimes the blood is just spill/Sometimes the law is the devil's last straw/A future unfulfilled....For a 20 dollar bill." He falls silent, then whispers, "Rest in peace." Ever "the grand collaborator - he never met a stranger" - he posted the chords, inviting others to cover it. Over 100 did; his favorite was by Karl Werne. Then, and at a recent celebration of his life, family and dear friends thanked him for giving "voice to the anguish of the moment" and helping them heal. To make beauty out of such savagery, said one, "is an exultation of the best in us."
$20 Bill (for George Floyd)www.youtube.com
For D’Vontaye Mitchell's family and friends, it is too soon for healing. At his funeral Thursday at Milwaukee's Holy Redeemer Church of God in Christ, they remembered how Mitchell loved to dance, rap, cook and help others even as they vowed, per his mother Brenda, "We going to fight." Reading from Psalms, she said they "shouldn't worry about the injustice that's been done to D’Vontaye, because they will get their just due...God is going to make sure it comes to pass." Rev. Al Sharpton also called on a higher power for justice against those who in 2024 still think of black men as "the least of us" thanks to a long, ugly history in America, from slavery to George Floyd, that made it so. "We want the people in this town and others (to know that) who you consider the least, God consider the most," he said. “You never thought folk like us would be coming to stand up for D’Vontaye. But you will be held accountable when you put your hands on us."
Benjamin Crump and several others noted the irony of Mitchell being killed outside one of three main venues for next week's Republican convention where, "Y'all got a crowd coming to town to talk about making America great again." Improbably, he argued justice should be part of the narrative: "We got two justice systems in America - one for Black America and one for white America." For proof, he called out Mitchell's name, then many others - George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, etc. "We going to help you D'Vontaye," Crump said, brandishing a metal baton he said was used to beat Mitchell, then naming each member of his family. "When they hit him, punch him, and beat him, it was like they were beating us all." He again cited Mitchell's final words - "Please, six times, while gasping for breath" - to "Please help me." "How many more?" he asked the mourners angrily, rhetorically. "After the video of George Floyd, you say, 'My God, not again. You'd think we would have learned our lesson."
'Climate Caught in Crossfire' as NATO Emissions Surged Last Year
The militaries of North Atlantic Treaty Organization member countries emitted an estimated 233 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2023, a sharp uptick that exacerbates climate breakdown and serves only to enrich weapons manufacturers, according to a briefing issued Monday by the Transnational Institute, a research and advocacy organization, and several other nonprofits.
The 32 national militaries together emitted more carbon than the country of Colombia, which has a population of about 52 million people, the briefing says. NATO countries' military spending increased from about $1.21 trillion in 2022 to $1.34 trillion in 2023, thanks in part to the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine. TNI used a spend-emission conversion factor to estimate the carbon cost of the spending.
The briefing's authors warn that NATO's spending targets must be abandoned or its emissions will continue to rise significantly in the next few years—despite a pledge to reduce emissions by 45% by 2030. Member countries have pledged to spend at least 2% of gross domestic product on defense, and many have have already met or surpassed the target.
The authors note that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change determined that all sectors of the economy need to reduce emissions by 43% by 2030 from 2019 levels to keep global warming at or below the Paris agreement's 1.5°C target.
"By 2030, we have to make a radical cut in emissions," Nick Buxton, TNI's communications manager, toldThe Guardian. "But the biggest investment we're making worldwide, and in particularly NATO, is in military spending, which isn't just not addressing the problem, but actually worsening the problem."
If NATO members increase their spending to 2% of GDP in the next five years, they will divert an estimated additional US$2.57 trillion away from climate spending. This would be enough to pay for climate adaptation costs for all low- and middle-income countries for seven years. pic.twitter.com/7KJkqutYXS
— Transnational Institute (@TNInstitute) July 9, 2024
The United States accounts for more than two-thirds of NATO countries' military spending and one-third of the world's, which also surged in 2023. U.S. military spending increased by 24% from 2022 to 2023, and some leading Republicans in Congress have recently called for large increases.
A 2022 report from the Conflict and Environment Observatory, a research and advocacy group, estimated that military emissions accounted for 5.5% of all global carbon emissions. Estimates are difficult because lack of transparent reporting practices by many militaries, experts say.
The new briefing suggests that military spending could be diverted to climate finance for developing countries, which have been the subject of intense international negotiations in recent years, with rich countries slow to provide funding even as they spend profligately on their militaries, critics have argued.
"The climate is caught in the crossfire of war," TNI said on social media. "We need peaceful solutions to conflicts if we are to defend our world. There is no secure nation on an unsafe planet."
The "only winners" from NATO's spending policy are weapons manufacturers, says the briefing, which states that backlogs of weapons orders at the 10 largest arms companies based in NATO member countries went up by an average of 13% in 2023.
Source: Transnational Institute
Current orders will lock in emissions for decades, as military systems are normally used for 30 or 40 years, the briefing warns. For example, Lockheed Martin, a major defense manufacturer, has said that NATO countries will by 2030 fly 600 of its F-35 jets, which use 5,600 liters of oil an hour, even more than the F-16 jets they're replacing, the briefing says.
"The legacy of this increased arms trade will be an ever more militarized world at a time of climate breakdown," the authors wrote. "This military expenditure will fuel wars and conflict that will compound the impact on those made vulnerable by climate change."
Progressive International Applauds Kenyans for Rising Up to Defeat IMF Austerity Bill
Progressive International on Thursday applauded the people of Kenya for taking to the streets en masse to defeat an International Monetary Fund-backed legislative package that would have hiked taxes on ordinary citizens as part of an effort to repay the government's powerful creditors.
"Pushed through at the behest of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the U.S. State Department, the bill would impose severe austerity measures and crippling taxes on Kenya's working people, who are already strained by Kenya's legacy of colonial underdevelopment," Progressive International said in a statement.
"The Progressive International stands firmly with the people of Kenya," the organization added. "They refuse to become another laboratory for neoliberalism—impoverished, beaten, or killed for the benefit of foreign corporations and their lackeys in the Kenyan government."
The Kenyan government's proposal, welcomed by the IMF as necessary for "debt sustainability," triggered massive youth-led protests in the nation's capital last week as thousands of citizens already immiserated by sky-high living costs flooded the streets to express outrage at the U.N. financial institution and their government for fueling the crisis.
The government crackdown was swift and deadly, with police using tear gas and live ammunition to beat back demonstrators calling for the withdrawal of the proposed bill and the resignation of President William Ruto, who took office in 2022.
Protesters achieved one of their objectives Wednesday when Ruto announced he would not sign the tax legislation, just days after he
ordered the country's military to help suppress the demonstrations.
"Listening keenly to the people of Kenya who have said loudly that they want nothing to do with this finance bill, I concede, and therefore, I will not sign the 2024 finance bill, and it shall subsequently be withdrawn," Ruto said in an address to the nation, which spends more than a quarter of its revenue on debt interest payments.
"The protesters we have been speaking to are still very angry, still very frustrated, they hold the president responsible for the deaths of those young Kenyans across the country."
As The Associated Pressreported, the withdrawn measure would have "raised taxes and fees on a range of daily items and services, from egg imports to bank transfers."
Kenya's public debt currently stands at $80 billion, around $3.5 billion of which is owed to the IMF—an explicit target of protesters' ire.
"Kenya is not IMF's lab rat," declared one demonstrator's sign.
The IMF said in a brief statement Wednesday that it was "deeply concerned" about the "tragic events" in Kenya and claimed its "main goal in supporting Kenya is to help it overcome the difficult economic challenges it faces and improve its economic prospects and the wellbeing of its people."
“Kenya is not IMF’s lab rat”
“I was in my healing era” pic.twitter.com/xLt2GG51hf
— Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo) June 20, 2024
As Bloomberg's David Herbling wrote over the weekend, Ruto "has spent his first two years in office ramming through a slew of unpopular taxes—on everything from gasoline to wheelchair tires, bread to sanitary pads—thrilling international investors and the IMF, which has long urged Kenya to double its revenue collections to address its heavy debt burden."
Ruto's withdrawal of the tax-hike bill appeared unlikely to fully quell mass discontent over the president's IMF-aligned economic policies as protests continued on Thursday.
"The protests today are not as big as they were two days ago but they are still no less intense where they are happening," Al Jazeera's Zein Basravi reported from Nairobi. "If President Ruto, protesters say, had signed off on killing the tax bill 72 hours ago, a week ago, these protests might not be happening. But the decision he made, the concession, has come too little too late, and it has not gone far enough, and it has come at the cost of too many young lives."
"The protesters we have been speaking to are still very angry, still very frustrated, they hold the president responsible for the deaths of those young Kenyans across the country, 23 killed," Basravi added. "And they hold Parliament responsible for not standing stronger, standing firmer, against the president as they feel he was overreaching his position."
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said in a statement Wednesday that it is "crucial to recognize that the International Monetary Fund's austerity conditions have contributed to the economic hardships facing Kenyan citizens."
"These measures often disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations and can exacerbate social unrest," continued Omar, who chairs the U.S.-Africa Policy Working Group. "It is imperative that protesters remain peaceful as they continue to demand change. I stand in solidarity with the people in the wake of both state violence and IMF-imposed austerity measures."
"The Kenyan government must immediately disclose the location and condition of all those who have been taken into custody or disappeared, cease the use of excessive force, respect the right to peacefully protest, and continue to engage in meaningful dialogue to address the legitimate concerns of its citizens," Omar said.
Teamsters President Urged to Cancel Republican Convention Speech
Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien is facing mounting internal pressure to cancel his planned speech to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week, with the union's vice president at large accusing the labor leader of kowtowing to a viciously anti-worker party and a GOP presidential hopeful whose first four years in the White House were marked by open attacks on the labor movement.
John Palmer, the Teamsters' vice president at large, wrote in an op-ed in New Politics earlier this week that O'Brien's scheduled appearance at Donald Trump's invitation "only normalizes and makes the most anti-union party and president I've seen in my lifetime seem palatable."
"Does O'Brien intend to remind the anti-union delegates that labor unions exist to ensure that workers—regardless of their race, sex, gender, gender identity, or religion—equally enjoy the security and fairness that a written labor agreement provides?" Palmer asked. "Is he going to state the obvious fact that unions' ability to achieve these goals is being stripped away by the current overzealous Supreme Court? The majority of these justices have been appointed by the same Republicans who will be at this convention."
Palmer, who urged union members to demand that O'Brien cancel his planned convention appearance, isn't the only Teamsters official who has publicly raised concerns over what one commentator described as O'Brien's "Trumpian tilt."
"We will not allow the working-class labor movement to be destroyed by a scab masquerading as a pro-union advocate after doing everything in his power to destroy the very fabric of unions," James Curbeam, national chairman of the Teamsters National Black Caucus, wrote in a letter to Teamsters members after O'Brien announced a meeting with Trump earlier this year.
O'Brien has also met with President Joe Biden.
During his first term in the White House, Trump moved aggressively to gut worker protections and stacked federal courts and key agencies with anti-union officials. Trump's two labor secretaries, Alexander Acosta and Eugene Scalia, were both hostile to organized labor.
The Republican Party more broadly has long worked in concert with its corporate allies to weaken organized labor through so-called right-to-work laws and other means—a decadeslong effort that has had devastating material consequences for workers across the country.
Capital & Mainreported Friday that Republicans' upcoming convention in Milwaukee has shined a spotlight on the Wisconsin GOP's "anti-union agenda." Former Gov. Scott Walker, a notorious enemy of organized labor, is a delegate to the Republican National Convention.
"We will not allow the working-class labor movement to be destroyed by a scab masquerading as a pro-union advocate after doing everything in his power to destroy the very fabric of unions."
O'Brien is scheduled to address the convention in a primetime address Monday night. A Teamsters spokeswoman told The New York Times earlier this week that O'Brien "looks forward to addressing a crowd that hasn't traditionally been open to union voices."
"But that is what democracy is all about," she added.
The Guardian's Michael Sainato noted Friday that O'Brien's appearance in Milwaukee will be the first time a Teamsters president has ever spoken at the Republican convention.
"In January 2024, the Teamsters PAC donated $45,000 to both the Democratic and Republican national committees, marking its first large donation to the Republican Party in years," Sainato wrote.
The American Prospect's Harold Meyerson wrote Thursday that "it's always possible that O'Brien may use his allotted speaking time to ask the Republicans to adopt the pro-union initiatives that Democrats support and that Republican members of Congress have to a person opposed, like the PRO Act, which would enable workers to unionize without fear of being fired, or raising the national minimum wage from its current $7.25."
"If O'Brien really wants to do the nation a service, he might speak forcefully against Trump's commitment to deporting undocumented immigrants," Meyerson added. "In my years covering labor, I've met a number of Teamsters who are themselves undocumented—the very workers and their families whom Trump has continually vowed to arrest, lock up, and deport. It's atop Trump's to-do list. It's hard to see how this would be good for the Teamsters."
O'Brien's conciliatory posture toward Trump and the Republican Party stands in sharp contrast with the approach taken by United Auto Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain, who has called Trump a "scab" and a pawn of the billionaire class of which he is a part.
The UAW endorsed Biden—the first sitting U.S. president to join striking workers on a picket line—in January, but the union is now grappling with mounting calls for the incumbent to end his reelection campaign following his disastrous debate performance against Trump last month.
Reutersreported Friday that Fain "met with the union's executive board late on Thursday to discuss his deep concerns with President Joe Biden's ability to defeat Donald Trump in the November election."
"Fain called together top officials at the nearly 400,000-member union to discuss concerns and what the union's options are," the news agency reported, citing unnamed sources. "The union is considering its next steps."
'Historic Victory': Ecuadorian Judge Rules Pollution Violates River's Rights
Environmentalists around the world this week cheered what they called a "historic" ruling by an Ecuadorian court that human-caused pollution violates the rights of a river running through the capital city of Quito.
Responding to an application for a protective action filed by the Kitu Kara Indigenous people, a Quito judge on Friday found that municipal authorities are responsible for violating the Machángara River's rights and ordered officials to devise a decontamination plan.
The city of Quito said it will appeal the ruling. Mayor Pabel Muñoz said last week that an approved cleanup plan for the Machángara, which includes new water treatment plants, would cost $900 million and take 17 years to complete, according toLa Hora.
An editorial in El Comercio called the ruling a "significant step forward in defending the rights of nature" and "a milestone in the fight for environmental preservation in Ecuador."
"The recognition of the Machángara River as an entity with its own rights goes beyond considering it a mere natural resource," the editorial asserted. "This progress means that the river now has legal protection, and the authorities have an obligation to ensure its health and well-being."
Kitu Kara organizer Darío Iza said in a statement that "this is historic because the river runs right through Quito, and because of its influence, people live very close to it."
Quito must now implement a comprehensive wastewater treatment plan to reduce the discharge of pollutants into the river, restore riverbanks, and replant vegetation in degraded areas. The city of more than 2 million inhabitants has long used the Machángara—whose source is high in the Andes Mountains—as a dump, a problem exacerbated by a lack of adequate wastewater treatment infrastructure.
"It is alarming what happens with the Machángara because it should be full not of bacteria and chemicals, but of animal and plant life."
"The river carries away tons of garbage that comes down from gullies and hillsides," Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature said on social media. "This decision represents a breakthrough in the protection and decontamination of one of the most vulnerable rivers in the country."
Experts have likened the section of the Machángara running through Quito to a sewer in a Paris-sized city. The river is contaminated with heavy metals, fats, detergents, oils, bacteria, fecal matter, and a wide array of chemical pollutants.
"It is alarming what happens with the Machángara because it should be full not of bacteria and chemicals, but of animal and plant life," Blanca Ríos, an ecologist who has studied the river for 20 years, toldPrimicias on Tuesday.
Ecuador—one of the world's most biodiverse nations—is one of just a handful of countries to enshrine rights of nature in its constitution. Previous court rulings, including a 2021 decision against mining in the Amazon Rainforest and an earlier block on dumping in the Vilcabamba River, have upheld this right.
Entire Families Among Dozens of Bodies Recovered After Israel's Gaza City Onslaught
Gaza's Civil Defense reported Friday that the Israel Defense Forces left the bodies of at least 60 Palestinians in their wake after withdrawing from Gaza City's Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, where victims of the IDF's recent onslaught were found in rubble, on streets, and "burned inside their homes."
Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for Civil Defense in Gaza, told the Associated Press that "entire families" appeared to have been killed by artillery fire and airstrikes in the enclave's largest city, which was almost entirely destroyed in the first months of Israel's bombardment late last year but where many people had returned to their homes among the ruins.
Al Jazeera journalist Mohammad Alsaafin noted on social media that Patient's Friends Hospital had repaired damage from Israel's bombardment and had restarted its operations just two weeks before the IDF ordered an evacuation of several Gaza City neighborhoods ahead of its attacks on the city.
"It's been destroyed again," he said.
"At least 60 bodies were counted," Basal said of the Tal al-Hawa area. "Some bodies were buried on the spot. Others were taken to nearby hospitals. Many bodies are still under the rubble. The Israeli forces are stationed nearby and the rescue efforts are interrupted regularly."
He added, "Most of those killed are families, women, and children. Some bodies were eaten by dogs."
Fares Afaneh, an emergency official in northern Gaza, toldAl Jazeera that most of the bodies found in Tal al-Hawa were "decomposed due to the inability of ambulance crews to reach [them earlier]."
Rescue workers recovered the victims a day after at least 60 bodies were found throughout the city's Shuja'iyyah neighborhood, with many more believed to be under the rubble.
British union leader Howard Beckett said Western politicians including U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer—two of Israel's top supporters—are unlikely to speak out about the Gaza City communities that have been "obliterated" this week.
"They have given support for this racist genocide," said Beckett. "Arms embargo now."
Basal told the AP that many of those killed had left shelters in parts of the city that were under evacuation orders from Israel.
Staffers at al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza told humanitarian group ActionAid that they were treating an influx of patients from Gaza City "despite experiencing a critical lack of vital medical supplies, equipment, and fuel, which has forced them to postpone scheduled surgeries and rely on small generators to keep the facility running."
"The World Health Organization sent a small quantity of fuel a month ago which was sufficient [to keep the hospital running for one week only]," said Dr. Mohammed Salha, acting director of the hospital. "Now it has been more than a month that we haven't received fuel to operate the hospital... We hope that our partners from the World Health Organization and the United Nations organizations will [be able to] quickly supply the hospital with the fuel necessary for operation and provide the hospital with medical supplies and medicines so that we can keep providing our services to injured people."
"We do not know how long the [Israeli forces] will remain in Gaza City and the number of casualties we will receive at al-Awda Hospital," he added.
As Common Dreamsreported on Tuesday, hospitals in Gaza City were forced to shut down this week as the IDF launched an offensive there, and medical staff transported sick and injured people to already overcrowded medical centers in northern Gaza.
"Hospitals in Gaza are facing overwhelming demand, as they scramble to treat people wounded in Israeli attacks—many of whom have catastrophic and life-changing injuries—as well as ever-growing numbers of patients who are dangerously sick after months of living in inhumane, overcrowded, and unsanitary conditions without enough to eat," said Riham Jafari, advocacy and communications coordinator at ActionAid Palestine. "At the same time, they are facing desperate shortages of vital medicines, equipment, and fuel, as well as food and water. More aid must be allowed into Gaza immediately so that hospital staff can continue their vital, life-saving work, and there must be a permanent cease-fire, now."
The casualties from the attacks on Gaza City were discovered as a senior Hamas official on Friday told Reuters that Israel is "stalling and wasting time" as the two sides work with mediators from the U.S. and Egypt to secure a cease-fire deal.
"Israel hasn't given a clear stance over [the] Hamas proposal," the official told Reuters, referring to a plan for a phased-in cease-fire with written guarantees from Israel that it will end the IDF's attacks in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Hamas has made demands that contradicted the current cease-fire framework, but did not specify what the demands were. Israeli officials also told Reuters on Thursday that "Netanyahu insists that Israel remains" along the Gaza-Egypt border.
'Fragile Political Moment' Is No Time to Silence Concerns Over Biden, Progressives Say
"The greatest consequence of this event may turn out to be fence-sitting Democratic electeds using it as an excuse to avoid a decision on Biden," said one observer.
Progressives on Sunday pushed back against calls from "top Democratic sources," via CBS News, who said the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump demanded that those pushing to replace President Joe Biden in the presidential race "stand down."
Sources within the Democratic Party, said CBS News correspondent Robert Costa, "believe that those Democrats who have concerns about President Biden are now standing down politically [and] will back President Biden because of this fragile political moment."
"All of that talk about the debate faded almost instantly" after one person was killed and a bullet grazed Trump's right ear at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, according to Costa.
Biden and his allies have vehemently pushed back against calls for him to step aside from lawmakers and commentators following the first presidential debate in which he struggled to deliver a coherent message about his plans for a second term and the threat posed by Trump.
Trump has led Biden in polls for months, and the debate late last month led to calls from Democrats including Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont and 19 House members for Biden to allow another Democrat—such as Vice President Kamala Harris or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—to run in his place.
"The greatest consequence of this event may turn out to be fence-sitting Dem electeds using it as an excuse to avoid a decision on Biden," said author and podcast host Max Fisher. "Probably the single best thing that could happen to Trump just happened."
Progressive organizer and former U.S. House candidate Aaron Regunberg said he was not convinced that Trump's chances of winning the election would necessarily be "massively helped by having a registered Republican almost shoot him," referring to suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks.
The rally shooting, however—now indelibly associated with an image of Trump raising his fist before being whisked off stage by Secret Service agents—will likely emphasize the former president's claims to "strength and toughness," said Regunberg. "Democrats desperately need a nominee who can similarly demonstrate strength."
With Republican allies of Trump increasingly embracing "violent, authoritarian rhetoric," he added, it is "more urgent—not less—for Democrats to have a real conversation about whether our current nominee is on course to hand Trump a governing trifecta."
With Trump allies including Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) openly accusing Biden of fanning the flames that led to the shooting by speaking out against the former president's anti-democratic agenda, progressive political commentary magazine Current Affairs said the assassination attempt may have "emboldened Trump and his base while Biden remains historically unpopular."
Progressive commentators including Mehdi Hasan applauded Democratic elected officials for displaying "what normal people say and do at times like this" in contrast with Trump and other Republicans' response to violence directed at Democrats such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) husband Paul Pelosi in 2022.
Last year, Trump drew laughter at an event where he asked a crowd of supporters, "How's [Pelosi's] husband doing by the way? Does anyone know?" His son, Donald Trump Jr., spread conspiracy theories about the attack just days after it happened, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was among those who mocked Pelosi shortly after he was injured.
But critics cautioned Biden and the Democrats not to conflate a cruel response to the violence directed at Trump with legitimate attacks on the former president's authoritarian aspirations.
In the eyes of some voters, said University of Washington professor Sasha Senderovich, "The candidate who has to prove he's not senile every day is now running against a fucking superhero whom one is no longer allowed to call fascist because 'inflammatory rhetoric.'"
Financial Times columnist Edward Luce warned that "almost any criticism of Trump is already being spun by MAGA as an incitement to assassinate him. This is an Orwellian attempt to silence what remains of the effort to stop him from regaining power."
Progressives Condemn GOP Attempts to Blame Biden for Trump Rally Shooting
"This stuff is basically cooked up in a lab to incite further violence," said one critic of comments made by Sen. J.D. Vance, Rep. Mike Collins, and other allies of Trump.
As federal law enforcement officials launched a full investigation into the shooting at presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, journalists and political observers expressed fear that the act of violence would ramp up political division and turmoil in the United States ahead of the November elections.
Boston Globe reporter James Pindell was among the journalists at the rally who shared that Trump supporters "turned on the media"—a frequent target of Trump during his presidency—after the shooting.
"The crowd was angry," he wrote. "Middle fingers were everywhere. They asked the press if they were happy and blamed the media. 'You did this,' they said to reporters."
Allies of Trump including Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), and former White House adviser Stephen Miller immediately placed blame with President Joe Biden, claiming the attack was the result of warnings that electing the former president to a second term would threaten democracy.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) denounced Collins' claim that Biden "sent the orders," calling it "a continuation of the bullshit rhetoric that drives political violence."
"A likely assassination attempt and gun violence on Trump is awful on many levels," said Pocan. "Adding jet fuel to the political climate is unbecoming of a member of Congress."
Trump, who spread baseless lies that the 2020 election was rigged against him and urged his supporters to riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 as Congress was certifying the results, has said he would act as a dictator on "day one" of his potential presidency.
Dozens of people who worked in his administration helped to write Project 2025, a far-right political agenda aimed at consolidating power with the president and dismantling parts of the federal government, and he has named political opponents he aims to prosecute and pledged to deploy the military to stop political protests.
"One response to Trump's attempted shooting (apparently by a registered Republican) we must NOT take is to stop framing the existential nature of this election," said political organizer Aaron Regunberg. "The problem isn't Democrats saying Trump is attacking our democracy—the problem is that he's attacking our democracy."
One audience member was killed and two were seriously injured after the gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, fired several shots from a rooftop near Butler Farm Show, where the rally was held.
Trump was escorted off the stage after a bullet "pierced the upper part of his right ear," The New York Timesreported. The Secret Service reported that Crooks had been killed after firing his weapon, and that officials found an AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle near his body.
Authorities did not identify a motive for the shooting.
Crooks was registered as a Republican in his hometown; records also showed that someone named Thomas Crooks donated $15 to a liberal voter turnout campaign called the Progressive Turnout Project in January 2021.
"This remains an active and ongoing investigation," said the FBI in a statement Sunday, as law enforcement agents closed down all roads leading to the home of the suspect's family in Bethel Park in the Pittsburgh area.
David Hogg, who survived the 2018 Parkland, Florida school shooting and co-founded March for Our Lives, said the gunman's ability to fire at the president and kill an audience member while in the presence of Secret Service agents and police is the latest proof that people across the U.S. are vulnerable to gun violence due to a lack of strict gun control laws, which Republican lawmakers have long refused to pass.
"What happened today is unacceptable and what happens every day to kids who aren't the president and don't survive isn't either," said Hogg. "It's insane we have such a major problem with gun violence in America that no one—not even a presidential candidate—is safe."
Trump Bloodied But 'Fine' After Assassination Attempt
"Political violence is absolutely unacceptable," said Sen. Bernie Sanders after the shooting in which one campaign attendee was killed and the alleged gunman was shot and killed by law enforcement.
This remains a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
Update (9:45 pm):
President Joe Biden spoke on Saturday evening about the shooting at former President Donald Trump's campaign rally, saying the attack, like all political violence, was "sick" and "one of the reasons we have to unite this country."
"We cannot condone this," said Biden. "The bottom line is, the Trump rally was a rally that should have been able to be conducted peacefully without any problem... Everybody must condemn it."
When asked if he believed the shooting was an assassination attempt, Biden said, "I have an opinion, but I don't have any facts."
Associated Press reporter Seung Min Kim said on social media on Saturday night that law enforcement agents had recovered "an AR-style rifle" at the scene. Later police identified the gunman killed at the scene as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Cooks, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, a town about 35 miles from where the events in Butler took place.
Earlier:
Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was reportedly in "fine" condition after being wounded in an apparent assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania on Saturday.
The former president appeared to be bleeding from near his ear as he was hurried off stage after a series of pops that sounded like gunshots were heard at the event. The Secret Service then brought him to his motorcade.
A spokesperson for Trump, Steven Cheung, said in a statement that the former president was being examined at a local medical facility.
Richard Goldinger, district attorney for Butler County, Pennsylvania, told the Associated Press that the suspected gunman was dead and that at least one rallygoer had been killed.
The apparent shooting happened just minutes into the campaign event, where Trump had been talking about border crossings and immigration just before the shots rang out.
President Joe Biden was briefed on the incident at about 7:15 pm.
Police cordoned off a section of the bleachers at the rally after the apparent shooting, and the New York Times reported that the Secret Service began "kicking out the press and declaring it a crime scene."
Shortly after the incident, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle issued statements condemning the apparent act of violence against a presidential candidate.
"Violence has NO place in our democracy," said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a surrogate of the Biden campaign. "My thoughts are with President Trump and everyone impacted at the rally today."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called the attack "absolutely unacceptable."
"I am absolutely appalled by the gunshots fired at Donald Trump," said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). "Violence is never acceptable in our democracy. I pray he was not seriously hurt and for our deeply divided nation."
Federal agencies including the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives were mobilizing Saturday evening to assist the Secret Service in responding to the incident.