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.