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Biden Backers Chant 'Four More Years' as Protesters Demand Gaza Cease-Fire
"Biden and every American politician who continues to support arming Israel as it kills more and more Palestinians in Gaza every day do not deserve a moment of peace in their public lives," said one critic.
Jan 08, 2024
Demonstrators demanding a cease-fire in the U.S.-backed Israeli war on the Gaza Strip were drowned out by supporters of President Joe Biden chanting "four more years" in Charleston, South Carolina on Monday.
A few audience members disrupted Biden—who is seeking reelection this year—as he addressed a crowd at Mother Emanuel AME Church, where a white supremacist gunman killed nine Black worshippers in 2015.
"If you really care about the lives lost here, then you should honor the lives lost and call for a cease-fire in Palestine," shouted one protester, who was then joined by others in chanting, "Cease-fire now!"
As the cease-fire supporters were escorted out of the church, much louder chants of "four more years" broke out.
Biden has affirmed his "unwavering" support as Israel has waged war on Gaza since the Hamas-led attack of October 7. He asked Congress for a $14.3 billion package on top of the $3.8 billion in military aid that the U.S. gives Israel annually and his administration twice bypassed congressional oversight to approve recent arms sales to the country.
Appearing caught off-guard by Monday's disruption, Biden eventually quieted the crowd with raised hands and repeated "thank you’s.
"Look folks," the president said, "I understand their passion, and I've been quietly working with the Israeli government to get them to reduce and significantly get out of Gaza, using all that I can to do that. But I understand the passion."
In response to footage of the event, IfNotNow, an American Jewish group organizing to end U.S. support for Israel's apartheid system, said: "Biden was shaken. He's starting to understand the reality: His war on Gaza is horrifically unpopular, and people are fed up."
Noting that the disruption in South Carolina came after New York City demonstrators on Monday morning shut down the Holland Tunnel and three major Manhattan bridges, IfNotNow added: "Young people are furious. We will not allow Biden and the U.S. to continue to support the starvation and slaughter of Gaza."
Also welcoming the protest in Charleston, Naftali Ehrenkranz of Justice Democrats said: "Hell yeah. Biden and every American politician who continues to support arming Israel as it kills more and more Palestinians in Gaza every day do not deserve a moment of peace in their public lives. Cease-fire now."
Some Biden backers criticized the protesters for "targeting" the president on "hallowed ground," provoking responses that highlighted recent actions by Israeli forces in Gaza—from killing thousands of kids to bombing places of worship—as well as the history of this church, which was co-founded by Denmark Vesey, who was executed for planning a slave revolt.
"To dilute the history of Black churches as if they aren't the epicenter of civil rights organizing is more than a little harmful. It's downright disingenuous," argued writer and audio producer B.A. Parker. "And if young folk are protesting in a church as a call to action, then maybe they should be heard instead of 'collected.'"
Writer Todd Dillard declared on social media, "I need Democrats to understand that when a protestor shouts '20,000 dead Palestinians; their blood is on your hands' responding with 'FOUR MORE YEARS FOUR MORE YEARS FOUR MORE YEARS' is the grimmest, darkest thing imaginable."
As of Monday, Israeli bombings and raids in Gaza have killed over 23,000 Palestinians and injured nearly 59,000 more. A growing number of legal scholars and world leaders have accused Israel of genocide, including at the International Court of Justice.
"The Democrats rushing to Biden's defense should realize that chanting 'four more years' in response to a protest objecting to the U.S. government's support of a genocide in Gaza is not doing anything to improve the president's standing as his poll numbers continue to drop," saidIn These Times senior editor Miles Kampf-Lassin.
As The New York Times reported Monday:
Voters broadly disapprove of Mr. Biden's handling of the war, and it has become a major political vulnerability for him.
The protest on Monday, though brief, was a stark reminder that Mr. Biden will not be able to escape the subject as he seeks reelection. Protesters calling for a cease-fire interrupted at least two of his speeches late last year, one in Minnesota and one in Illinois. More than 500 appointees and employees in the federal government signed a letter calling for a cease-fire in November, staff members held a vigil outside the White House in December, and two officials have resigned in protest of his policies on Israel and Gaza.
"I imagine there will be even larger protests like this at Biden's campaign events in swing states like Michigan and Georgia," predicted Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid.
Palestinian American political analyst Yousef Munayyer agreed, saying that this is "probably gonna be the norm for every public event on the campaign trail."
Biden is under mounting pressure from not only the public but also progressives in Congress, with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) warning in a Friday interview with Common Dreams that calling for a cease-fire in Gaza "is going to be a dividing issue for the Democratic Party for the future, like the Iraq War was... And I think the window is rapidly closing to be on the right side of history."
Referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Center for International Policy's Matt Duss told MSNBC's Chris Hayes that "Biden has essentially outsourced decision-making for an extremely consequential war... to one of the most dangerous, right-wing authoritarian leaders in the world—and I do use that term advisedly."
"The outrage at President Biden's handling of this war and his continuing unconditional support for this massacre that we've been seeing over the past three months is really off the charts," Duss added, warning that the issue could impact the November presidential election.
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Judge's Ruling on Gun Serial Numbers Highlights 'Deadly' Impact of Right-Wing Supreme Court
"The Supreme Court's Second Amendment jurisprudence has grown so radical that it now shields criminals trying to conceal their involvement in a violent crime," said one observer.
Oct 14, 2022
Legal experts said Friday that a federal judge's ruling in West Virginia illustrates the danger posed by the U.S. Supreme Court's right wing majority, which ruled this year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that restrictions on firearms must fall within the so-called "historical tradition" of gun laws.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin, who was appointed to the Southern District of West Virginia by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, ruled against a federal law prohibiting people from possessing firearms with serial numbers that have been "altered, obliterated, or removed."
"Serial numbers were largely unknown to the Framers, Goodwin wrote. And so the Second Amendment confers a right to remove them from modern weapons."
Serial numbers have been required for guns since the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and are intended to prevent the illegal sale of guns and to allowing law enforcement to trace firearms.
But basing his ruling on the majority Supreme Court opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas in June, Goodwin said Wednesday that requiring serial numbers is not part of the "historical tradition of firearm regulation" and therefore runs afoul of the Second Amendment.
In his majority opinion in Bruen, which overturned New York's state law restricting the concealed carry of firearms in public, Thomas wrote that for a gun control law to stand, the federal, state, or local government "must affirmatively prove that its firearm regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms."
Goodwin's opinion, said Demand Justice, which advocates for Supreme Court reform, demonstrates the far-reaching impact the Bruen ruling could have on gun laws across the country.
"That radical ruling is impacting measures as basic as a requirement that guns have serial numbers," said the group.
\u201cYou may remember that in June the Supreme Court announced a decision dramatically limiting states' ability to protect people from gun violence. \n\nNow, that radical ruling is impacting measures as basic as a requirement that guns have serial numbers. \n\nhttps://t.co/5dZmjHEFL7\u201d— Demand Justice (@Demand Justice) 1665758004
The case heard by Goodwin originated with a traffic stop in Charleston, West Virginia during which police found a gun with the serial number removed. The driver, Randy Price, had also been convicted of a felony.
Price argued in court that he had a constitutional right to have the firearm, while lawyers for the federal government said the law regarding serial numbers was a "commercial regulation" that did not violate the Second Amendment.
On Thursday, Slate journalist Mark Joseph Stern wrote that while Goodwin's ruling "might sound bizarre... his analysis closely follows Thomas' test" that requires the government to prove a gun regulation had a historical "analogue" in 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified, or 1868, when it was imposed throughout the U.S.:
The only remaining question is whether the government could find an analogous regulation from 1791 or 1868 that restricted the possession of guns with an altered serial number. It could not, for a fairly obvious reason: Serial numbers only became common following the mass production of firearms, which took off in the decades after the Civil War.
[...]
Serial numbers were largely unknown to the Framers, Goodwin wrote. And so the Second Amendment confers a right to remove them from modern weapons.
When Bruen was handed down in June, Stern called the ruling "a revolution in Second Amendment law" which would ultimately go "so, so far beyond concealed carry."
Goodwin noted in his opinion on Wednesday that firearms that can't be traced using a serial number "are likely to be used in violent crime and therefore a prohibition on their possession is desirable," but said that argument "is the exact type of means-end reasoning the Supreme Court has forbidden me from considering."
Stern suggested that parts of Goodwin's opinion read "as if the judge is desperate to show readers just how dangerous and radical [the Bruen] ruling is."
According to the Supreme Court, Stern wrote, "all that counts is that serial number laws arose over the last century, so they are too modern to comport with the Second Amendment. Goodwin made this point over and over again; it almost sounded like he was quietly protesting the extreme and dangerous results demanded by the Bruen test."
"His decision thus doubled as a warning," he added. "The Supreme Court's Second Amendment jurisprudence has grown so radical that it now shields criminals trying to conceal their involvement in a violent crime."
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For Nine Souls in Charleston, One Year Later
We live on. Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, we live on. We live on in the memories of those we leave behind. We live on in words, in gestures, in glances, in anything that changes the heart of another person forever. We live on in loved ones and in strangers, in the people we've touched and the people they touch in turn. Each passes a tiny piece of us down the ancient chain of human life.
Sometimes we live on without even knowing it.
We live on. Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, we live on. We live on in the memories of those we leave behind. We live on in words, in gestures, in glances, in anything that changes the heart of another person forever. We live on in loved ones and in strangers, in the people we've touched and the people they touch in turn. Each passes a tiny piece of us down the ancient chain of human life.
Sometimes we live on without even knowing it.
Jun 17, 2016
We live on. Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, we live on. We live on in the memories of those we leave behind. We live on in words, in gestures, in glances, in anything that changes the heart of another person forever. We live on in loved ones and in strangers, in the people we've touched and the people they touch in turn. Each passes a tiny piece of us down the ancient chain of human life.
Sometimes, we live on without even knowing it.
So let's start by remembering each of them by name, the nine kind souls who welcomed a stranger into their midst on June 17, 2015 at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.:
* Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd did Bible study and was a manager for the Charleston County Public Library system.
* Susie Jackson did Bible study and sang in the choir.
* Ethel Lee Lance was the church sexton.
* Depayne Middleton-Doctor was a pastor. He was also an administrator and admissions coordinator at Southern Wesleyan University.
* Clementa C. Pinckney was the church's pastor and a state senator.
* Tywanza Sanders did Bible study.
* Daniel Simmons was a pastor, there at "Mother Emanuel" and at Greater Zion AME Church in Awendaw, S.C.
* Sharonda Coleman-Singleton was a pastor, a speech therapist and a track coach.
* Myra Thompson taught Bible study.
I won't name the young man who killed them. I won't name him because I support the "no notoriety" campaign, and because he was nothing more than the instrument of larger forces. "Like a dog on a chain," says the Bob Dylan song about Medgar Evers' killer, "he ain't got no name."
This week we mourn another gun tragedy, the worst mass shooting in recent American history. It happened at a club called Pulse in Orlando, Fla. There, too, the killer was driven by fanaticism and hatred, this time against LGBT people.
After Newtown, after Charleston, after Orlando, our politicians still haven't summoned the courage to ban assault weapons or to regulate guns the way we regulate cars. So Americans keep killing and dying in numbers that are unheard of in other countries.
You left us too soon, you nine souls of Charleston, so you probably didn't see this coming: Donald Trump is the Republican candidate for president of the United States.
Trump delivered a speech this week that should chill all reasonable people to the bone. He's prepared to punish all of our nation's Muslims for the actions of one deluded killer. New Jersey Governor and Trump supporter Chris Christie upped the ante, threatening to bomb a foreign country for the crime of one sick individual born in Queens, N.Y.
Hate can't conquer hate. Even a fool knows that. But then, some people don't want to know.
The Orlando murderer used his religion the same way the Charleston murderer used his whiteness: as a mask for bloodlust. They're all the same inside, these killers. They may ascribe their deeds to religion, or race, or a totalitarian social ideal. But their real creed is narcissistic hate. They sacrifice strangers on the altar of their own reflections.
If I could talk to the nine sweet souls of Charleston, here's what I'd tell them: We've had some serious talks since you've been gone. We've been talking about the black lives lost, about slow deaths from inequality and sudden deaths from an officer's gun. We've been talking about old folks in need and children gone too soon.
We haven't always agreed. One of our politicians said this to a Black Lives Matter activist: "I don't believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate."
I disagree. I still think the deepest change begins in the heart. But at least we're talking. The young people did that.
If I could talk to the nine sweet souls of Charleston, here's what I'd tell them: We may not have worked it all out yet, but we've learned a little since you left us. We've learned that economic justice and social justice must go hand in hand, or there's no justice at all.
You were studying when you died, so I thought you'd be glad to hear we've learned something.
I was standing by an abandoned church in my hometown—it's a dying manufacturing town—a while back, and for some reason, the old hymn came to me: "Before this time another year, I may be gone."
You didn't know the moment of your passing. None of us do. Each heartbeat could be our last. The rhythm of those beats is our lifeline, our pulse. When it ends, we end. Everything we've done, for good or bad, is what lives on. I hope Trump and Christie understand that. I believe that you did.
A year has passed. If I could talk to you I'd tell you we haven't forgotten you. "Though lovers be lost," wrote Dylan Thomas, "love shall not."
Cynthia Hurd. Susie Jackson. Ethel Lee Lance. Depayne Middle-Doctor. Clementa Pinckney. Tywanza Sanders. Daniel Simmons. Sharonda Singleton. Myra Thompson.
Remember them by name. They live on.
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