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For Immediate Release
April, 19 2018, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Email:,Emma.Lydon@mail.house.gov
Congresswoman Lee Statement on End of Castro Leadership in Cuba
Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), a co-founder of the Cuba Working Group, released the following statement on the change in leadership in Cuba:
"For the first time in nearly six decades, the world will know Cuba without a Castro at the helm. For the United States, this is an opportunity for improving our relationship with our neighbor just 90 miles off the Florida coast - a chance we cannot afford to let slip through our grasp.
WASHINGTON
Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), a co-founder of the Cuba Working Group, released the following statement on the change in leadership in Cuba:
"For the first time in nearly six decades, the world will know Cuba without a Castro at the helm. For the United States, this is an opportunity for improving our relationship with our neighbor just 90 miles off the Florida coast - a chance we cannot afford to let slip through our grasp.
"Should the United States fail to build on this change, other nations will continue to fill the void, curbing market access for U.S. farmers and businesses, handicapping our national security, and limiting access by the Cuban people to important elements of the United States' economy, culture, values, and democratic ideals. While President Obama made immeasurable strides towards repairing and normalizing U.S.-Cuba relations, President Trump has prioritized rolling back our progress. We must act quickly to end the travel ban and the embargo and repair this relationship before the window of opportunity closes.
"For years, efforts to improve relations between our two nations have been an Executive Branch-led endeavor. If Congress is serious about repairing U.S.-Cuban ties and improving the well-being of the Cuban people, we must take action to reset relations and ensure the next 60 years are not filled with the same outdated, unproductive, and shortsighted rhetoric and policies of generations past."
Congresswoman Barbara Lee, a Democrat, represents the 13th District in California.
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Condemnation of Israel's Starvation and Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza Intensifies—Even From Within
"A sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population," said one progressive Israeli lawmaker.
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International outrage over Israel's intensified Gaza onslaught is mounting along with the death toll from airstrikes and forced starvation as a trio of Western leaders threatened "concrete actions" if the genocidal assault and siege on the Palestinian enclave don't stop—and as even prominent Israeli voices denounced their country's actions.
On Monday, the leaders of France, the United Kingdom, and Canada issued a rare joint statement strongly opposing the expansion of Israel's latest offensive, dubbed Operation Gideon's Chariots, which aims to conquer and indefinitely occupy all of Gaza and ethnically cleanse much of its population, possibly to make way for Jewish recolonization as advocated by many right-wing Israelis.
"Yesterday's announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is wholly inadequate," the statement asserted. "We call on the Israeli government to stop its military operations in Gaza and immediately allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza."
Five truckloads of humanitarian aid entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing on Monday, The Times of Israelreported. Israeli authorities gave the United Nations permission for about 100 more aid trucks to enter Gaza on Tuesday. This is a mere fraction of the at least 500-600 daily trucks needed to fulfill Gaza's tremendous humanitarian needs.
"Yesterday's announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is wholly inadequate."
"The Israeli government's denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching international humanitarian law," the leaders added. "We condemn the abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli government, threatening that, in their despair at the destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate. Permanent forced displacement is a breach of international humanitarian law."
Numerous Israeli officials have endorsed the forced starvation of Palestinians as a means to coerce them into leaving parts of Gaza. After calling for the "total annihilation" of Gaza earlier this month, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sought to soothe those who decried his government's decision to allow a trickle of aid into the strip by assuring them Monday that "we're destroying Gaza."
The three leaders' statement stresses that "we will not stand by" while the government of fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "pursues these egregious actions."
"If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response," the leaders warned.
Shifting to the illegally occupied West Bank—where Israel is pushing ahead with a major land grab and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and civilian settler-colonists are killing, wounding, and forcibly displacing Palestinians—the joint statement added: "We oppose any attempt to expand settlements in the West Bank. Israel must halt settlements which are illegal and undermine the viability of a Palestinian state and the security of both Israelis and Palestinians."
"We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions," the leaders vowed.
"Further action" was afoot Tuesday as the U.K. announced it is suspending negotiations with Israel on a free trade agreement, explaining that "it is not possible to advance discussions on a new, upgraded FTA with a Netanyahu government that is pursuing egregious policies in the West Bank and Gaza."
U.K. Minister for the Middle East Hamish Falconer reiterated the "government's opposition to the wholly disproportionate escalation of military activity in Gaza and emphasize that the 11-week block on aid to Gaza has been cruel and indefensible."
The U.K. also announced sanctions targeting three far-right Israeli extremists, including settler leader Daniella Weiss, as well as three illegal settlement outposts and two groups "that have supported, incited, and promoted violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank."
The British move stands in stark contrast with the Trump administration's reversal of sanctions imposed on a handful of Israeli settlers during the tenure of former President Joe Biden. Both Trump and Biden have lavished Israel with billions of dollars in armed aid and staunch diplomatic support. Trump has proposed a U.S. takeover of Gaza and the transformation of the razed strip into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
Netanyahu hit back at France, the U.K., and Canada on Tuesday, accusing the allies of "offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 while inviting more such atrocities."
More than 1,100 Israelis and others were killed and over 250 people taken hostage by Hamas-led militants on October 7, 2023. An unknown number of Israelis were also killed by so-called "friendly fire" and under the Hannibal Directive, which authorizes lethal force against IDF soldiers in order to prevent them from being taken prisoner by enemy forces.
Also on Tuesday, former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin urged Western governments to "economically and strategically isolate" Israel over Operation Gideon's Chariots.
"After the reoccupation of Gaza, the second step will be deportation," de Villepin said. "The political objective of Benjamin Netanyahu and his government is the deportation of the population of Gaza, which is the hallmark of ethnic cleansing."
De Villepin said that "there are three things that must be done immediately," including the suspension of the European Union's trade and cooperation agreement with Israel, an arms embargo, and referral of Israeli officials to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
"If you want to stop what is happening today, you must make it clear to Israel that there will be a before and an after," de Villepin added.
The Hague-based ICC has already issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including extermination and forced starvation. Israel is also facing a genocide case before the International Court of Justice.
The E.U.—which is Israel's largest trading partner— said Tuesday that it would review the wide-ranging trade and cooperation pact, citing a provision stating that relations "shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles."
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said she would push for more punitive measures, including "sanctions against individual Israeli ministers."
"Israeli forces have begun a full-scale invasion to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians from Gaza."
In the United States, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress,
said Monday on social media that "Israeli forces have begun a full-scale invasion to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians from Gaza."
"War criminal Netanyahu announced plans to forcibly expel the entire population and permanently occupy the land," she added. "This is the final stage of their genocide. World leaders must impose sanctions and a full arms embargo."
More Israelis are also condemning their country's actions in Gaza. On Monday, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem accused Israel of "carrying out a deliberate, systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip" in a
social media post showing that hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in recent days.
Overall, more than 53,500 Palestinians have been killed and over 121,000 others have been wounded by Israeli forces since October 2023, with at least 14,000 others missing and believed dead and buried beneath rubble, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Millions more have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened by Israel's assault and siege.
Israeli Army Radio correspondent Doron Kadosh said Monday that Israel's planned location of humanitarian aid distribution centers suggests a more sinister motive:
The idea... is that anyone who comes from the north of the Gaza Strip to the dividing center will not be able to return north of the Netzarim corridor, but will be forced to stay south of the Netzarim corridor. This will be a "one-way ticket," and it will effectively force the Gazan population to come south of the Netzarim axis if they want to receive food. In this way, Israel intends to expedite and promote the evacuation of the Gazan population from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south. In this way, Israel believes, it will be possible to completely empty the northern Gaza Strip of its population.
"Despite dozens of evacuation notices, there always remained in the northern Gaza Strip a hard core of 200-300 thousand Gazans who refused to leave the south of the Netzarim axis," Kadosh added. "This time, Israel believes, it is a plan that will leave the Gazans no choice—and will force them to evacuate south."
Progressive Israeli lawmaker Yair Golan—a decorated general who once served as deputy IDF chief of staff—faced sharp rebuke Tuesday after calling for the ouster of Netanyahu's "vengeful, unintelligent, and immoral" government.
During an interview with public broadcaster Kan, Golan said that Israel is "on the path to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa once was, if it does not return to acting like a sane country."
"A sane state does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not set goals for itself like the expulsion of a population," Golan asserted.
Netanyahu responded by calling IDF troops "the most moral in the world."
"Golan and his friends on the radical left are echoing the most despicable antisemitic blood libels against IDF soldiers and the state of Israel," the prime minister added.
Meanwhile, United Nations experts warned that Israel's forced starvation—which has already killed at least scores of Gazans, mostly children and the elderly—could kill as many as 14,000 infants in the next two days unless the amount of aid entering the strip increases dramatically.
"We are witnessing, in real time, the deliberate starvation of a civilian population as a method of warfare," Human Rights Watch
said Monday. "Over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza are living in famine."
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Columbia President Greeted With Chants of 'Free Mahmoud!' During Graduation Speech
"You arrested us!" graduates shouted at one point in acting president Claire Shipman's address.
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Columbia University administrators seemed intent on proceeding with an undergraduate commencement ceremony Tuesday as though the Ivy League school hasn't been at the center of student-led anti-genocide protests and government efforts to crack down on free speech for more than a year—but graduating students ensured the school's treatment of student organizers was front-and-center.
As acting president Claire Shipman approached the podium to address students at Columbia College's graduation, she was immediately met with loud booing.
She addressed the response, saying she knows many students feel "some amount of frustration" with her and the administration—but many of the graduates appeared uninterested in hearing from the university leader less than two weeks after she authorized the New York Police Department to enter the campus and arrest dozens of student protesters for occupying the university library in solidarity with Palestinians.
The Trump administration announced shortly after the arrests that they were reviewing the visa status of the student protesters—their latest escalation against pro-Palestinian organizers at the school.
"You arrested us!" graduates shouted at one point in Shipman's address, as she congratulated the Class of 2025 for making it "through one of the most rigorous schools in the world."
Mahmoud Khalil, the 2024 graduate who helped lead negotiations with administrators last year regarding divestment from Israel's military operation in Gaza, was also top-of-mind for many students who started chanting, "Free Mahmoud!" early in Shipman's speech.
"The work of your generation will be to shape these interesting times," Shipman said as the chants rang out.
More than two months after immigration agents arrested Khalil outside his on-campus apartment, he remains in detention in a Louisiana Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility. University trustees allegedly gave Khalil's name to the Trump administration ahead of his detention and the Trump administration's revocation of his green card, and administrators did not provide him with protection earlier this year when he told them he feared being swept up in the White House's plans to crack down on free speech.
The Trump administration is pushing to deport Khalil, claiming the pro-Palestinian views he expressed at student protests are detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests. Khalil was one of thousands of U.S. college students who took part in protests calling for schools to divest from companies that benefit from Israel's assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians in 19 months and has included a blockade on humanitarian aid, pushing the civilian population toward famine.
Since stepping in as acting president in March, Shipman has met with faculty that object to Columbia's capitulation to the Trump administration; mentioned the names of Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, another student who was marked for deportation but subsequently freed; and started a website for students who fear deportation.
But students' response on Tuesday suggested they've taken more notice of Shipman's summoning of the NYPD earlier this month and the school's agreement to the Trump administration's demands aimed at rooting out what the White House claims is "antisemitism"—including imposing a ban on masks, appointing an administrator to oversee Middle Eastern and Palestinian studies, and hiring dozens of "special officers" authorized to swiftly remove students from campus.
Students erupted in jeers and laughs when Shipman praised the Class of 2025 for being "curious, determined, and open-minded," and again chanted, "Free Mahmoud!" at another point in the speech.
A larger commencement ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday. Columbia University Apartheid Divest called on members of the school community to attend a protest action coinciding with the graduation.
"No commencement as usual under genocide," read a social media post announcing the protest.
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Trump Tells Republicans: 'Don't Fuck Around With Medicaid.' He Should Read Their Bill
"With a floor vote on the horizon, will House Republicans fuck around with Medicaid to give tax breaks to their billionaire buddies?" asked one progressive campaigner. "Or will they finally listen?"
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U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly used a closed-door meeting with House Republicans Tuesday to instruct them not to "fuck around with Medicaid" as the party rushes ahead with legislation that proposes the largest Medicaid cuts in American history.
Trump's remarks indicate he's either unaware of the specifics of the "big, beautiful bill" that he has championed or doesn't mind the unprecedented Medicaid cuts that are currently in the text—but doesn't want them to go any further.
Republican hardliners are actively pushing to cut the key healthcare program even more aggressively, including by moving up the start date for work requirements and slashing federal payments to states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
"Don't fuck around with Medicaid," Trump said during the private meeting with House Republicans, Politico reported, citing two unnamed GOP lawmakers.
"Working people have been speaking out and urging their members of Congress not to 'fuck around with Medicaid' for months now."
In its current form, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates, the House GOP reconciliation bill would slash Medicaid by more than $600 billion over the next decade and remove at least 10 million people from the program—likely with deadly consequences. (KFF, a health policy research group, provides a detailed summary of the bill's Medicaid provisions here.)
The legislation also includes nearly $4 trillion in tax cuts that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans.
Kobie Christian, a spokesperson for the Unrig Our Economy coalition, said in response to Trump's private comments that "working people have been speaking out and urging their members of Congress not to 'fuck around with Medicaid' for months now."
"With a floor vote on the horizon, will House Republicans fuck around with Medicaid to give tax breaks to their billionaire buddies?" Or will they finally listen?" Christian asked. "All eyes are on them this week."
Trump's meeting with House Republicans came hours before the chamber's GOP-controlled rules panel is set to convene for a dead-of-night hearing on the reconciliation package.
The 1 am ET meeting was scheduled shortly after Republicans on the House Budget Committee cut a deal to deepen the legislation's cuts to Medicaid and other programs.
According to a new CBO analysis, the House Republican measure would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by more than a third by 2034.
"This would rip food assistance away from millions of people, including households with children as young as 7 years old," said Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress.
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