In his stirring eulogy at the funeral service for Congressmember John Lewis, President Barack Obama said expanded voting rights would be the greatest way to honor the civil rights icon’s legacy. In a speech that condemned the status of American democracy without ever naming the sitting president, Obama called for election day to be declared a national holiday, full Congressional representation for Washington, D.C.

As mourners gathered at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to honor the life of Georgia Congressmember John Lewis, among those who spoke was civil rights icon Rev. James Lawson, who helped to train John Lewis in nonviolence when Lewis was a student in Nashville. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once described Rev. Lawson as “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world.” Lawson invoked John Lewis’s life as a call to action.

As family, friends and dignitaries paid their final respects at the Atlanta funeral of John Lewis, the civil rights leader and 17-term Georgia Congressmember was remembered as a singular force for equality and justice. The funeral took place at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, once led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., where senior pastor Rev.

Noam Chomsky says Israel’s planned annexation of the occupied West Bank “basically formalizes” what has already been official policy over the last half-century, from both left-wing and right-wing parties in Israel. He compares Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to anti-immigrant policies in the United States, and says the main goal of annexation is to take over as much territory while excluding its Palestinian inhabitants.