Workers advocate for $20 an hour minimum wage. November 1, 2022. Photo by Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.

In September 2023, California passed a law to bring fast food workers’ minimum wage up from $16 to $20 an hour. A flurry of reports predictably followed from the likes of The Wall Street Journal, Employment Policies Institute, and the Hoover Institution claiming that restaurants and other businesses were already laying off workers based on the new law.

President-elect Donald Trump got his name splashed in news headlines all around the world last week. The reason is both humorous and worrisome. In one Truth Social ‘Christmas Message,’ he threatened the peace in three countries in one paragraph:

Americans were recently treated to the official results of the U.S. House’s ethics investigation of Matt Gaetz. The concluding paragraph of the 37 page report says it all:

The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress.

AMY GOODMAN: So, he already talked about the relevance of the concentration camps and World War II to what is happening today in Gaza.

In northern Gaza, the director of the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital says five medical workers were among 50 people killed in Israeli strikes near the hospital. Israeli forces have since stormed the hospital and forced out 350 people at gunpoint, including about 75 remaining patients. Parts of the hospital were seen in flames. Kamal Adwan was one of the only medical facilities still operating in northern Gaza. The five medical workers killed were pediatrician Dr.

We can’t “save” a democracy we’ve already lost. (See yesterday’s post.) The real question is: can we regain it?

At exactly 1 p.m. on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s military leadership issued an order that unleashed one of the most intense bombing campaigns in contemporary warfare.

Effective immediately, the order granted mid-ranking Israeli officers the authority to strike thousands of militants and military sites that had never been a priority in previous wars in Gaza. Officers could now pursue not only the senior Hamas commanders, arms depots and rocket launchers that were the focus of earlier campaigns, but also the lowest-ranking fighters.

After a 15-year career in the Foreign Service, Michael Casey resigned from the State Department in July over U.S. policy on Gaza and is now speaking out publicly for the first time. He was deputy political counselor at the United States Office for Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem for four years before he left. Casey says he resigned after “getting no action from Washington” for his recommendations on humanitarian actions for Palestinians and toward a workable two-state solution. “We don’t believe Palestinian sources of information,” Casey says about U.S. policymakers.

Quick summary:

• Twelve GOP-led states may reject $1.14 billion in federal funding from the Summer EBT program, risking hunger for nearly 10 million children.

• The Summer EBT program provides $120 per eligible child to buy food during summer months when school meal programs are unavailable.

• States like Tennessee, Texas, and Florida face criticism for refusing the funds despite widespread food insecurity and economic need.

New York Times building. Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

A key source named by The New York Times as an expert helping to verify the authenticity of internal Hamas documents in a major report in October told Drop Site News he had raised concerns about the veracity of the documents in his interviews with the Times. Israel provided the paper with alleged Hamas meeting minutes as part of its campaign to directly link Iran to the planning of the October 7 attacks.

Two paramedics who arrived to assist at Kamal Adwan Hospital yesterday were injured by Israeli forces / Hussam Abu Safiya

Since the beginning of October, all three remaining hospitals in northern Gaza have endured relentless military attacks by Israel. Only three healthcare facilities in northern Gaza remain “minimally functional,” according to the World Health Organization, including the Indonesian, Al-Awda, and Kamal Adwan Hospitals.

After Luigi Mangione was charged with murder for the killing of UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson, many offered condolences to Thompson’s loved ones while also expressing outrage over the state of healthcare in the United States with more than 100 million people now facing medical debt.

Israel is continuing to bomb Syria a week after longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Israeli forces have launched over 800 strikes on Syria over the past week. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has approved a plan to expand illegal settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. “Israel is setting new precedents in the Middle East,” says Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara.

A man carries the body of a child who was rescued from the rubble toward a Health Ministry vehicle following Israeli bombardment on a four-story house in the north of Gaza City on Oct. 26, 2024. Photo: Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP via Getty Images

TUCKED INTO A $895 billion Pentagon bill making its way through Congress is a little-noticed provision to further conceal the death toll in Gaza — the latest effort by U.S. policymakers to cast doubt on casualty figures reported by Palestinian health officials. 

Imagine for a moment that a magnitude 8 earthquake occurred somewhere in the world, and the Western corporate media refused to use the word “earthquake” in reporting it, instead talking ambiguously of a “tectonic incident” that had caused buildings to collapse and people to die.

About 13 million people live in high educations “deserts,” according to the American Council on Education. (Photo/Pexels.com)

Although she won a scholarship to Mississippi State University, two hours’ drive away, Shamya Jones couldn’t get there because she had a new baby and no car.

So she enrolled instead at a local community college, then transferred to the four-year campus closest to her home in the rural Mississippi Delta – Delta State University.

This article appeared in the Nov/Dec 2024 edition of Public Citizen News. Download the full edition here.

An epic political battle over taxes is just around the corner. By the end of 2025, many of the budget-busting tax giveaways to the ultra-wealthy that passed as part of the 2017 Trump tax cuts will expire.

For those of you criticizing President Joe Biden for pardoning his son, SHUT THE HELL UP!

If I were in the same position as President Biden, I would certainly do the same thing for my son—AND SO WOULD ANY OF YOU! SO, SHUT THE HELL UP!

Thus far, there hasn’t been a single admirable or even minimally fit Trump Cabinet nominee –but even among the clowns, buffoons and conspiracy theorists who are likely to dominate the upcoming administration, four stand out: Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. 

Palestinians gather to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza on December 1, 2024.

 (Photo: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Elon Musk and his son are seen in the U.S. Capitol after a meeting with Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) on December 5, 2024. 

(Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

Sofia Orr was the second person to refuse military service since October 7, 2024.,(Oren Ziv / +972 Magazine)

Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israeli society has been caught up in a nationalist frenzy. The massacre of October 7 strengthened already powerful far-right currents and pushed many of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s erstwhile critics to rally around the flag. An overwhelming majority of Israelis stand behind the war, even after the International Court of Justice formally raised the accusation of genocide.

On Friday Sept. 27, 2024, the residents of Asheville, North Carolina, awoke to the devastation of a once-in-a-thousand-year storm. We awoke to houses destroyed, massive downed trees blocking roads, and debris everywhere. We texted our loved ones to make sure they were OK and anxiously waited for responses. After the initial shock, it soon sunk in that we would not return to our normal lives for a long time. 

I don’t recall the year (think it was 2008?), but I remember well Louise and I meeting Ben Wikler over snacks and drinks at a small party at John Nichols’ home in Madison, Wisconsin. As we left, Louise remarked to me, “That kid’s going places. Keep an eye on him!”

Ben has more than fulfilled her prediction, leading Wisconsin Democrats to victory after victory; this weekend he announced he’s running for head of the DNC. This is a truly big deal.

What better way to celebrate losing the November 5th election than by continuing to ignore the will of the American people who oppose Israel’s war on Gaza. Nothing says to the public “we hear you” better than the Democratic Party announcing that “we’re going to kill even more children in Palestine now with your/our American tax dollars.”

Constructing the Statue of Liberty, assembling it piece by piece, 1886

Friends,

This morning it was announced that it appears the final count may now be in — and Trump has FAILED to win a majority of the popular vote. His final total, as of now, will be under 50% — or 49.83%.

This was no landslide. It was the smallest percentage of a popular vote victory in a Presidential election since Richard Nixon in 1968.

Here’s how little we lost by:

Since winning the election, President-elect Donald Trump has seized headlines with a series of alarming appointments for his incoming administration. Many lack the basic qualifications for their respective posts; nearly all can be fairly characterized as MAGA loyalists.

A Texas National Guard soldier puts up additional razor wire at the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, on Jan. 31, 2024. Photo: John Moore/Getty Images

DONALD TRUMP CAMPAIGNED on the promise of mass deportations, and on Monday, he said that his administration would use the U.S. military to carry out this expulsion of millions of people, many of whom have lived in America for years or even decades.

The U.S. military historically has not conducted immigration enforcement and does not normally conduct law enforcement functions.

Ask voters to verify basic facts related to major political issues, and the results are depressing.