Politics and Current
Biden’s world reacts to Morehouse’s response, signaling that the president may raise his concerns in the speech
“What he has done and will continue to do leading up to the speech is to listen very carefully to all the concerns that are raised and make sure that he raises them in the speech or separately and beyond the speech,” said Stephen Benjamin, senior adviser to President Biden and director of the Office of Engagement Public White House. He added: “The war is clearly a very important topic of dialogue… across the country. This is maybe most evident on college campuses now.
Because Morehouse President David A. Thomas announced President Biden as keynote speaker at the all-male college’s a hundred and fortieth commencement on May 19, many students, faculty and alumni expressed opposition to the Biden administration’s policy of supporting Israel’s military operation in Gaza against Hamas, a U.S.-designated organization terrorist attack that killed over 34,000 Palestinians.
Outrage at the war and Biden’s role in it was expressed at a campus town hall between Morehouse students and President Thomas, and a letter was circulated amongst Morehouse graduates calling the president’s invitation “a moral disaster and an embarrassment to the university.” “
“The president is also concerned about civilian casualties, the Palestinian people and their safety,” added Richmond, who noted that the president has “criticized” the way Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is conducting the ground operation in Gaza and has “dedicated significant resources” to Palestinians in Gaza.
A former Biden White House adviser said the president will “continue efforts” for a “long-lasting peace and two-state solution” between Israel and Palestine.
Despite the Biden administration’s actions and campaigns to bring a few peaceful resolution in the Middle East, some alumni see the president’s visit as a direct conflict with the legacy of Morehouse’s most enlightened alumnus: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Dr. King was famous not only for his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement, but also for risking his reputation (and) relationships to speak out against the Vietnam War at the end of his life,” said Edward Mitchell, Morehouse alumnus and deputy director nationally at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). “The legacy of speaking out against an unjust war is one that students across the country are living today.”
Mitchell, who signed the letter sent to Morehouse graduates, said that while he understands why the university would normally welcome the president of the United States to deliver the commencement address, the timing is “horrible.”
“When I was at Morehouse, there was no way they would have invited George W. Bush to speak after Hurricane Katrina or at the height of the Iraq War,” he explained. “So why is this acceptable?”
Mitchell said the Biden administration is “living in an alternate reality if it thinks it can speak out” at Morehouse and is “not facing serious criticism from young black men who overwhelmingly oppose the genocide ongoing in Gaza.”
He said that until Biden stops “enabling an unjust, genocidal war,” Morehouse “is not the place he should be,” adding: “His presence is an actual distraction from what ought to be a student- and parent-centered celebration, without the specter of protest or disruption.”
He added: “I know students are angry and frustrated and may decide that speaking up is more important than a peaceful ceremony. The decision is theirs alone.”
Controversy aside, Benjamin and Richmond, two of the most distinguished Black men advising Biden in the White House and on the campaign, say the president selected to attend Morehouse’s graduation ceremony to honor HBCUs’ wealthy history in developing Black male leaders.
“When a president agrees to speak at a school, he is recognizing the value of the school, the value of the students, and in Morehouse’s case, the impact and legacy that the school has had on the history of this country,” said Richmond, an authority on former U.S. congressman from New Orleans, Louisiana.
“Whether it’s being a teacher, an engineer, a lawyer, a doctor, or being Secretary of Homeland Security like Jeh Johnson. At school, we educate people who change communities and the world.”
When President Biden delivers his speech on the Morehouse campus in the heart of Atlanta, he’ll develop into the second sitting U.S. president to accomplish that. The first was President Barack Obama, the country’s first black commander-in-chief, for whom Biden was his vice president.
“I think it raises the profile of Morehouse again,” Richmond said of President Biden’s upcoming visit.
While some critics dismissed the president’s Morehouse speech as a campaign stoppage intended to shore up Black voters in the battleground, Biden officials rejected that suggestion. Instead, they argue that the president has a real relationship with the campus and understands its legacy.
“He considers Dr. King his personal hero … and his bust is only on display with a few other people in the Oval Office,” said Benjamin, who also noted that “several” Morehouse graduates work in the White House executive office, in the one in the West Wing. He added: “He considers the Morehouse connection to be genuine.”
Richmond, who remembers talking about Morehouse with Biden during his 2020 campaign, said the Biden-Harris administration “respects” Morehouse and the larger Atlanta University Center, which incorporates Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University and Morris Brown. Richmond said that’s why the president delivered one among “his most important civil rights and voting rights speeches” on campus in 2022, and why Vice President Kamala Harris last yr invited Morehouse to her “Fighting for Our Freedoms” campus tour.
A Biden campaign official said the president saw the inaugural address as a chance to remind 2024 graduates of “all the things he accomplished specifically for the Black community” because “(they) were involved” in the last presidential election.
“It’s more about making sure they understand the impact that they have had, that they will have and that we need,” Richmond noted, “and not necessarily in a political context, but in a community context, a national context.”
Benjamin said President Biden’s upcoming address to a whole lot of Black male graduates will give attention to students and their families.
“When the president speaks, it will be a memory for a lifetime,” he said. “I have the impression that he will talk about what unites us rather than what divides us.”
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The Secretary of Defense Pete HegeSeth on Monday ordered the military lively service to lose 20% of 4 -star general officers, when the Trump administration moves forward with deep cuts, which he thinks will promote performance, but critics that worry may cause more politicized strength.
HegeSeth also told the National Guard to lose 20% of his highest positions and recommend the military to reduce an extra 10% of his general and flagship officers of their forces, which can include one star or official with an equivalent rank of navy.
The cuts are at the top of over half a dozen of the best general officers that President Donald Trump or HegeSeth released from January, including the chairman of the joint heads of the staff, Gen. CQ Brown Jr. They also released only two women serving as 4 -star officers, in addition to a disproportionate variety of other older officers.
In earlier rounds of shooting, HegeSth said that the eliminations were “a reflection of the president who wants the right people around him to perform the approach to national security that we want to take.”
As the head of the Pentagon, HegeSeth advertised his efforts to upload any programming or leadership, which support diversity in ranks, tried to end members of transgender services and commenced sweeping changes to implement a uniform fitness standard for the fight position.
In the note announcing the cuts on Monday, HegSeth said that they might remove “unnecessary forces to optimize and improve leadership.” He said that the goal was to free the army from “unnecessary bureaucratic layers.”
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass. Marine, who served in Iraq and is now in the Armed Service Committee, said he perceived HegeSetha as trying to politicize the army.
“He creates a formal framework to slow down all generals who disagree with him – and president,” said Multon AP in Capitol.
He said that actually every organization can search for performance, but HegeSeth has been clearly clearly expressing its program. “He wrote a book about it. He wants to politicize the army,” said Multon. “So it’s hard to see these cuts in any other context.”
Multon warned against the fall of the soldiers. “It is necessary for our soldiers to understand that they receive constitutional orders, not political orders,” he said, “otherwise you have no democracy, otherwise you have an army that works well for one or another political party.”
Adding to the confusion in the Pentagon, HegeSeth in recent weeks I actually have released or moved many close advisersstrongly narrowing his inner circle. He also handled questions from each Democrats and Republicans about coping with sensitive information and the use of applications for sending signal messages.
There are about 800 general officers in the army, but only 44 of them are 4 -star general or flag officials. The army has the largest variety of general officers, from 219, including eight 4 -star generals.
The variety of positions of the general officer in the army is set by law. Congress members didn’t receive a notification upfront, which they might normally receive in cuts, but in the afternoon they received a “very short warning”, according to a congress worker, which spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that weren’t made public.
The cuts were first reported by CNN.
The Pentagon is under pressure to reduce expenses and staff as a part of wider cuts of the federal government pushed by the Department of the Government of Trump and Ally Elon Musk.
HegeSeth last week ordered a sweeping transformation Army to “build a slim, more deadly force”, including connecting or closing the headquarters, shedding outdated vehicles and aircraft, cutting up to 1,000 employees of the headquarters in the Pentagon and transfer of staff to units in the field.
Also last week, the army confirmed that it could be Military Parade for Trump’s birthday In June, as a part of the celebration of the 250th birthday of the service. Officials say it would cost tens of tens of millions of dollars.
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Associated Press Writers Lisa Mascaro and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
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The city of Decatur in Metro Atlanta unanimously approved the creation of a compensation task group.
According to Decatur City Commission adopted a resolution On May 5, the 11-person task group will publish a report in three years, including recommendations regarding policy for black city residents.
The message appears a yr after the city leaders signed a contract with Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights to “discover the heritage of racial damage” in Decatur. The alliance managed research work in the field of compensation, organizing community meetings and listening sessions about how racial injustice has financially and systematically hurt these residents.
Their research described the role of decatur in slavery and segregation, in addition to red and real estate against the black community. Decatur also showed many monuments of the confederation, especially one earlier in the court of Dekalb.
The city not only recognized its oppressive tactics towards its black inhabitants, but additionally apologized for the actions that suppressed their progress.
“The city of Decatur formally recognizes its earlier role in the systemic oppression of people of African origin through enslavement, trafficking in human beings, conviction, discriminatory zones and development, underestimation in African -American communities, school segregation, racist police operation, destruction of African American estate, business and institutions and erosion and erosion and erosion and erosion, population, population population, population, population, population, population and culture – we read in resolution.
The city goals to designate 11 members, with the help of Beacon Hill Black Alliance, in the next 60 days. They will bring a various specialist knowledge group, and members consist of historians, legal experts and youth supporters. Over the next three years, the Task group will develop records regarding the loss of black land and real estate, being attentive to economic resettlement, while interviewing the descendants of those to which these oppressive tactics affected.
City officials added: “The city is expanding the full and public apology to the black residents of Decatur – Past and Present – and their descendants for its role in consolidating discrimination, pressure, subordination and the resulting damage, drawing on the principles rooted in the white supremacy system.”
The Compensation Task Group may even propose the commemorative projects sponsored by the city, economic tools and other investment strategies and community initiatives to treatment its racist past. This move will happen from other communities, even in the Atlanta Metro, which introduced initiatives regarding the repair of black residents. In the neighboring Fulton, his task group will resume the meeting this yr.
While the plan appears amongst the domestic shuffle of anti-dei attributable to the Trump administration, local leaders remain involved in the same efforts of the judiciary that began before taking office by Trump.
(Tagstranslate) compensation Task group
Politics and Current
Social media reacts to a series of funny faces of George W. Bush during the inauguration of Trump, when Barack Obama jokes that “he could barely behave
Former President Barack Obama jokingly told the reporter that former President George W. Bush “barely” behaved during the inauguration of President Donald Trump on Monday.
When there have been presidents and other noteworthy VIP guests waited for the USA ceremony to sit in the US Capitol, a member of the staff asked 78-year-old Bush if he “behaved” and 63-year-old Obama at the back to answer on behalf of Bush with “No”.
A brief, viral clip shows briefly looking around the Capitol and smiling at the members of the audience during the inauguration, which the viewers considered funny.
When Obama left the American Capitol Rotunda after the ceremony, the same post reporter quickly asked Obama if Bush behaved and Obama replied: “barely” during a smile.
The viewers had a day in the field with many Bush faces. One person joked: “Bro was beyond his mind”
The secular behavior of former presidents was, unlike incorrect boos imposed on Obama by Trump’s supporters watching the ceremony from the rally at the Capital One Arena in the center of Washington. Bill and Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Trump Mike Pence was also not spared heavy Boos.
The first lady Michelle Obama was noticeably missing amongst the chosen group of former residents of the White House, who confirmed that she wouldn’t participate on the days before the inauguration.
About her absence, unidentified source he said People: “There is no exaggeration of her feelings about (Trump). She is not one of the plasters on a pleasant face and she pretended that the Michelle protocol does nothing, because she is expected, protocol or its tradition.”
The source said that Michelle “no longer feels the need to be public” and added that the verbal attacks of Trump on Obama and his offensive rhetoric addressed to colourful people could even be a factor wherein she decided to skip.
In addition to Michelle, every living former president and the first lady was present, including former President Joe Biden and his wife Dr. Jill Biden, George W. Bush and Laura Bush, in addition to Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s swearing in the US Capitol for the first time in 40 years, the presidential inauguration took place, ignoring the customary configuration outside the Capitol, wherein 1000’s normally observe from the national shopping mall.
Officials stated that the polar vortex, which brought dangerously low temperatures to the part of the eastern coast, was the most important reason why the ceremony was moved inside.
The last time the inauguration was moved in the room, when former President Ronald Reagan was sworn in for his second term in 1985.
(Tagstranslate) Barack Obama
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