Texas Weekly Online

Menu
Menu
Facebook Twitter Youtube

Author:

Dem Rep. Al Green, booted from Trump’s address to Congress, doubles down on impeachment

Dem Rep. Al Green, booted from Trump’s address to Congress, doubles down on impeachment

Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas doubled down on impeaching President Donald Trump following his disruption and removal from the president’s address to Congress on Tuesday night. Green, a longtime critic of Trump, told reporters after being removed that he was working on articles of impeachment against the president and defended his outburst at the start of Trump’s speech. “This president is unfit,” Green said. “He should not hold the office.” Green said it was worth being removed from the joint session of Congress to make his point, which he said was to object to Trump saying he had a “mandate.” SOCIAL MEDIA ERUPTS AFTER HOUSE DEM AL GREEN INTERRUPTED TRUMP’S ADDRESS: ‘EMBARRASSING THEMSELVES’ “I was making it clear to the president that he has no mandate to cut Medicaid,” Green said, referring to the health care program used by 80 million Americans. “I have people who are very fearful. These are poor people, and they have only Medicaid in their lives when it comes to their health care.” “But it’s worth it to let people know that there are some of us who are going to stand up against this president’s desire to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security,” he said. Green’s outburst saw the congressman wave his walking cane as he stood up and shouted at the president. Republicans drowned him out with chants of “USA! USA!” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., issued a warning for order, banging the gavel and saying, “Take your seat, sir!” When Green remained standing, Johnson ordered the Sergeants-at-Arms to restore order by removing the long-serving congressman from the chamber. TOP 5 MOMENTS FROM TRUMP’S ADDRESS TO JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS When reporters asked Green if shouting during Trump’s speech was the best way to get his point across, the congressman did not waver. “It is the best way to get that across to a person who uses his incivility, who uses his incivility against our civility,” Green said of Trump. “He is a person who has consistently used incivility against civility.” Johnson said afterward that Green should be censured by the House – among the more severe reprimands his colleagues could mete out. “He’s made history in a terrible way,” Johnson told reporters after the session. “If they want to make a 77-year-old heckling congressman the face of their resistance, if that’s the Democrat Party, so be it,” Johnson said. “But we will not tolerate it on the House floor.” Green told reporters that he is “willing to suffer whatever punishment is available to me.” “I didn’t say to anyone, don’t punish me,” Green said. “I’ve said, I’ll accept the punishment.” The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Conservatives erupt with praise on social media after Trump’s speech to Congress: ‘Run through a wall’

Conservatives erupt with praise on social media after Trump’s speech to Congress: ‘Run through a wall’

Reactions from conservatives on social media poured in after President Donald Trump spoke for about two hours in his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night. After Trump’s speech lasted 1 hour and 39 minutes, conservatives took to social media to praise the president and criticize the Democratic response, including Democratic Rep. Al Green’s removal from the room for interrupting Trump’s address.  “Peak Trump,” former Trump campaign senior adviser Tim Murtaugh posted on X. “That’s what that was.” “Who else feels like they could run through a wall for America after that,” Trump administration senior advisor for the U.S. Agency for Global Media Kari Lake posted on X.  ‘HE’S BACK’: TRUMP’S JOINT ADDRESS TO CONGRESS TO BE BLANKETED WITH 6-FIGURE AD BUY TOUTING TAX PLAN “The President took a victory lap tonight — and he deserves to,” Trump Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins posted on X. “He’s completely right that the first month of his Presidency was more consequential than most four-year Presidencies.” “But don’t miss the important thing: this wasn’t a look back. It was a look forward. What the President did tonight was extend the promise he’s made from day one: that America will come first. He’s done it — he’s lived it — and he’s going to keep doing it.” TRUMP SET TO CONTINUE UNPRECEDENTED LEVEL OF ACTIONS, ADDRESS CONGRESS IN 7TH WEEK BACK IN OFFICE “Lost count around 90 standing ovations tonight,” GOP Rep. Nancy Mace posted on X. “The best President in American history.” “This is a fabulous speech!” Conservative commentator Mark Levin posted on X. “After four years of weakness, strength is back in the White House and President Trump is already delivering on his promise of a safe and prosperous nation for the American people,” GOP Rep. Derek Schmidt said in a statement after Trump’s speech. Many Republicans praised the speech while at the same time pointing out the Democrats who refused to stand at various points, including moments that were seemingly nonpartisan, including for a 13-year-old cancer survivor named DJ Daniel who dreamed of being a police officer.  “An inspiring, emotional address from @realDonaldTrump!!” GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno posted on X. “But crazed partisan Dems refused to applaud even a brave young man like DJ. Appalling!” “Democrats refused to stand or clap for a little boy fighting cancer,” conservative influencer account LibsofTikTok posted on X. “Truly sick people.” “Most people watching that speech will be at a loss of what they were supposed to disagree with, and wonder why Democrats were so glum and disagreeable,” National Review’s Rich Lowry posted on X. The speech was panned by many Democrats, including members of Congress who jeered Trump for most of the night, and several Democrats walked out before it was done. “In just half an hour, he spewed ignorance on everything from diversity, immigration and trans kids to DOGE cuts and the cost of eggs. I heard enough, so I left. His words do nothing to help the people in my district—there’s real work to be done,” Dem. Rep. LaMonica McIver said in a release.

Bernie Sanders seethes US has become ‘oligarchic society’ following Trump speech

Bernie Sanders seethes US has become ‘oligarchic society’ following Trump speech

Democrat Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said the U.S. has become an “oligarchic society” while responding to President Donald Trump’s address to a joint Congress Tuesday evening.  “The Trump administration is not hiding it,” Sanders said in a streamed response to Trump’s address Tuesday. “The Trump administration is a government of the billionaire class by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class. Notwithstanding some of their rhetoric, this is a government that could care less about ordinary Americans and the working families of our country. My friends, we are no longer moving toward oligarchy. We are living in an oligarchic society.”   Trump’s speech late Tuesday evening marked the first time he addressed a joint session of Congress since his return to the Oval Office in January. Trump celebrated his administration’s breakneck pace of executive orders, securing the nation’s southern border, as well as his tariff plan during his speech.  “To my fellow citizens, America is back,” Trump declared at the start of his speech after thanking the members of Congress and first lady Melania Trump.  SEN. BERNIE SANDERS SAYS TRUMP’S SPEECH WAS ‘NOT MUCH,’ SAYS HIS SPEECH WILL ‘BE BETTER’ “Six weeks ago, I stood beneath the dome of this Capitol and proclaimed the dawn of the golden Age of America,” he said. “From that moment on, it has been nothing but swift and unrelenting action to usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country. We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years. And we are just getting started.”  Sanders argued in his response speech that Trump delivered a handful of “lies.” EX-MSNBC HOST KNOCKS NY TIMES FOR NOT REPRESENTING ‘THE LEFT,’ CALLS FOR PRO-BERNIE SANDERS VOICES IN MEDIA “Trump has claimed that millions of undocumented people voted and do vote in American elections — a lie,” Sanders said. “Trump has claimed that climate change is a hoax originating in China — a lie. Trump has claimed that Ukraine started the horrific war with Russia — a lie. And tonight, just tonight, Trump claimed that millions of dead people between the ages of 100 and 360, we’re collecting Social Security checks. And that is an outrageous lie intended to lay the groundwork for cuts to Social Security and dismantling the most successful and popular government program in history.”  The Vermont senator also railed against the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, which is led by Elon Musk, and its work going through various federal agencies to stamp out overspending, fraud and mismanagement.  BERNIE SANDERS REJECTS JAMES CARVILLE’S CALLS FOR DEMOCRATS TO ‘PLAY DEAD’ “For the past several weeks, he and his good friend Elon Musk, who was up there in the audience tonight, have been throwing hundreds of thousands of federal employees off their jobs,” Sanders said. “Now, I know some of you are saying, ‘well, that’s too bad, you know, but that’s the federal government.’” “But I want you to think about this,” he added. “Think about it for a moment. If Musk and his friends can arbitrarily throw federal workers out on the street today, what do you think that Musk and his fellow billionaires will be doing tomorrow, when artificial intelligence and robotics explode in this country? Do you think they’ll give a damn about you and your families? No, they will treat you exactly the way they’re treating federal employees today/” 

Oscar win brings hope to Palestinians in Masafer Yatta

Oscar win brings hope to Palestinians in Masafer Yatta

Just last week, Israeli troops tore down a Palestinian family’s shed in Masafer Yatta, a remote, hilly corner at the southern edge of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It was the latest instance of destruction targeting a collection of hamlets whose population is threatened with expulsion. Over the weekend, Masafer Yatta residents cheered the Oscar win of a documentary, No Other Land, which depicts life in the beleaguered community, and hoped it would bring them some help. No Other Land follows Palestinian activist Basel Adra, as he risks arrest to document the destruction of Masafer Yatta West Bank, joined by his co-director, Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham. The joint Palestinian-Israeli production has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024. Five years in the making, it gained greater resonance amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as well as increasing raids in the West Bank that have caused the displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians. Advertisement In al-Tuwaneh, one of the hamlets that make up Masafer Yatta, Salem Adra said his family stayed up all night for the Oscar ceremony. They watched as his older brother, Basel, the film’s co-director, came on stage to accept the award for the best documentary. “It was such a huge surprise, such joy,” he said. Salem said he hoped the Oscar win “opens the world’s eyes to what’s happening here in Masafer Yatta”. “It’s a win for all of Palestine and for everyone who lives in Masafer Yatta,” he said. Since the film was first released, he said, threats and pressure against his family have increased. Their car has been stoned by the settlers. After the movie won an award at the Berlin International Film Festival a year ago, the military returned over and over to the family, and once detained his father, searching his phone and asking: “Why are you filming?” The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. Israel said the Bedouin did not have permanent structures in the area. But families say they have lived and herded their sheep and goats across the area long before Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war. After a 20-year legal battle by residents, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld the expulsion order in 2022. But about 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, as Israeli troops regularly demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards. Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time. Advertisement In his acceptance speech on Sunday night, Basel called on the world “to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people”. He said he hoped his newborn daughter would “not have to live the same life I am living now … Always feeling settler violence, home demolitions and forceful displacement.” Adblock test (Why?)

Can Trump legally force US universities to silence protests?

Can Trump legally force US universities to silence protests?

United States President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to target US universities that are hubs of student protests, from even before his election in November. Since he was sworn in on January 20, he has taken steps to back his plans, including executive orders. On Monday, he launched a new tirade, threatening to halt federal funding for schools, colleges, and universities if they allow “illegal protests”. Trump took to his Truth Social platform to deliver his newest threat, one that includes a promise to imprison “agitators”. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested,” Trump wrote. But who is he targeting, what has Trump done so far, can he compel universities to act against student protesters, and how might higher education institutions respond? Who are the intended targets? US Ambassador to the UN Elise Stefanik shared Trump’s remarks in a post on X, saying “antisemitism and anti-Israel hate will not be tolerated on American campuses”, confirming that pro-Palestinian protesters and speech critical of Israel are the targets of the president’s threat. Under President @realDonaldTrump, colleges and universities will be held accountable. Antisemitism and anti-Israel hate will not be tolerated on American campuses. Promises made, promises kept. @POTUS @realDonaldTrump @WhiteHouse pic.twitter.com/h9nq1gVJRO — Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) March 4, 2025 Advertisement Trump’s announcement comes after he signed a series of executive orders in January targeting alleged anti-Semitism on campuses. In one directive, he pledged to deport foreign university students and staff involved in pro-Palestinian protests as part of the crackdown. He also created a task force through the Attorney General’s office devoted to combating alleged anti-Semitic speech, investigating universities that do not do enough to crack down on such speech. The orders and threats come months after huge pro-Palestine, student-led protests swept the country last spring as Israel’s genocide raged in Gaza. Students demanded an end to Israel’s military offensive, an end to US support for Israel, and for their universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel. Columbia University was widely seen as the epicentre of the protests, which resulted in mass arrests and student suspensions, ending in the resignation of the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, several months later. The demonstrations also spread to other universities including Harvard, Yale, and the University of California. Can Trump legally compel universities to stop protests? “It’s complicated,” said Jenin Younis, a civil liberties and free speech lawyer. “It’s hard to say that the tweet itself is unlawful, since it alone isn’t enforceable,” Younis told Al Jazeera of Trump’s latest post threatening funding. “So, it depends how the administration executes this particular threat, and it has not yet given details.” Advertisement Radhika Sainath, a senior lawyer at Palestine Legal, a US-based nonprofit, said the executive orders aren’t binding rules for universities to follow. “This executive order sets up a framework to encourage – but not require – schools to spy on and report their non-citizen students and staff,” Sainath told Al Jazeera. “As far as we can tell, these will be non-binding guidelines with no enforcement power or pressure.” Still, Trump’s directives are extremely concerning, experts said. “The strength of these orders lies in their chilling effect,” Younes said, adding they are clearly intended to silence First Amendment-protected speech. Fearing consequences, some universities may voluntarily clamp down on speech they believe will subject them to funding cuts, she said, and pressure students and professors alike into silence. Universities received $60bn in funding for research and development in 2023, constituting 55 percent of their total budget for science and engineering research. According to Sainath, this is the “most significant escalation in McCarthyite tactics from the Executive Branch regarding Palestine since October 7, [2023]”. Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, director of research for Israel-Palestine at the nonprofit DAWN, says Trump’s threats are a “twisted new form of transnational repression”. “Restricting free speech and expression by cutting state funds, or more accurately, creating a chilling effect by threatening to do so, is a hallmark of autocratic takeovers,” Omer-Man told Al Jazeera, adding that in his view, such tactics can be “as effective as outlawing unpopular political views outright”. Advertisement Were universities targeted under Biden’s administration? Yes. Universities that witnessed pro-Palestine protests across the country were also targeted in multiple ways under former US President Joe Biden, who was critical of the student encampments. University heads had tried, and largely failed, to quell the demonstrations, which often saw the police intervening violently, with videos emerging from different states showing hundreds of students and even faculty members being arrested. In Columbia University, several deans resigned, as well as Shafik, who stepped down as president after she was summoned to a congressional committee over allegations the university had failed to protect students and staff from rising anti-Semitism. After the questioning, Shafik allowed police into campus to arrest the students and was faced with angry calls to resign. Trump now appears to be doubling down on targeting universities and students. He is “escalating the crackdown” on the Palestine movement and attempting to undermine the students’ and staff’s constitutional rights to speak out and organise, Sainath said. Will the threats work? Not on protesters, according to the experts. Omer-Man said the unprecedented support for Palestine on US campuses was “so powerful precisely because students and faculty already faced consequences for speaking out against Israeli apartheid and stood up anyway”. Students have continued to speak up for Palestine ever since Trump unveiled his executive orders. Advertisement Universities, though, are under pressure. This week, Columbia University was forced to reiterate its commitment to “combating antiSemitism” after Trump’s administration said it could pull more than $50m in contracts between the university and the federal government. A statement by federal agencies cited the school’s “ongoing inaction in the face of relentless harassment of Jewish students”. However, Omer-Man said young Americans have “never been dissuaded by violent attempts to bury the nation’s conscience”. Sainath agreed. “Students – and faculty – are

Zambia government’s neglect exposing more children to lead poison, HRW says

Zambia government’s neglect exposing more children to lead poison, HRW says

Report says more than 95 percent of children in the central town of Kabwe had elevated levels of lead in their blood. The failure of Zambia’s government to intervene against “blatant violations” of environmental laws is worsening the exposure of a high number of children to severe health risks, mostly lead poisoning, at a shuttered mining site in the country’s central region, warns a new report. The Human Rights Watch report published on Wednesday said Zambia is allowing South African, Chinese and domestic mining companies to continue to operate in the lead-contaminated town of Kabwe, where residents are already reeling from decades of toxic lead exposure. Kabwe, about 150km (95 miles) north of capital Lusaka, is one of the world’s most polluted places after decades of lead and zinc mining. “Companies are profiting in Kabwe from mining, removing, and processing lead waste at the expense of children’s health,” HRW’s children’s rights director Juliane Kippenberg said, adding that more than 95 percent of children in the area had elevated blood lead levels. Kabwe’s mine was shut in 1994, yet the government is still “facilitating hazardous mining and processing” in the area by a subsidiary of the multinational mining company Anglo American, HRW said in its 67-page report, leaving an estimated 6.4 million tonnes of uncovered lead waste in dumps. Advertisement Nearly 200,000 people, many of them women and children, have been exposed to the contamination, the rights group said, urging the government to revoke the permits of mining companies and clean up the pollution hazard. The government of Zambia has yet to respond to the report. Highly sought for industry, lead is nevertheless a particularly toxic metal that can cause severe health problems including brain damage and death, particularly in children, according to the World Health Organization. More than 95 percent of children living near the Kabwe mine had elevated blood lead levels with about half requiring urgent treatment, the HRW report said. The concentration of lead in the soil had reached 60,000mg per kg (0.95oz per lb), according to the report, 300 times the threshold considered a hazard by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. In 2022, a UN expert listed Kabwe as being among so-called “sacrifice zones” where pollution and resultant health issues were the norm for nearby communities. “The Zambian government should be protecting people from highly hazardous activities, not enabling them,” said Kippenberg. Adblock test (Why?)