In part 2, Richard Silverstein, analyst and author of the Israeli security state blog Tikun Olam, breaks down the Biden administration’s explicit support for Israel’s war crimes in Lebanon and efforts to eliminate Hezbollah. Unlawful U.S. approval for Israel’s extrajudicial killings of Iranian IRGC leader in Lebanon and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil propelled Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on Israel, which inconveniently degraded Israeli military assets. Will Israel now strike Iran’s nuclear facilities?

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza continues unabated and has been expanded to a second front in Lebanon. American writer Richard Silverstein, author of Tikun Olam, a blog reporting on the Israeli security state, describes how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is weaponizing national grief over the attacks of October 7 to legitimize its murderous regional project. He reports on IDF general Giora Eiland’s blueprint to eliminate Palestinians from the north of Gaza and ultimately build illegal Israeli settlements. 

Jim Thomas says profit driven generative biology, Big Tech integration of artificial intelligence with synthetic biology, raises serious challenges for global oversight of biotechnology and governments need to separate hype from reality at the upcoming 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP16). Produced by GPEnewsdocs.

The Biden administration has been pursuing a reckless policy in the Middle East in which Israel’s massacres in Gaza and now in Lebanon are unconditionally supported with deliveries of 2,000 lb bunker-busting bombs and diplomatic cover. Col. Larry Wilkerson, who served as former Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, discusses Iran’s policy of strategic patience in which a response to Israel’s extra-judicial killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, as well as a fatal strike on Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, possibly came too late according to Iran’s hardliners. 

The “US Government” has made an ad about the 2024 election, and it’s surprisingly honest and informative (biting political satire).

Given voters’ concerns over rising food and housing costs, Kamala Harris has pledged to combat price gouging if elected president, though she has yet to clearly lay out the hallmarks of the rest of her economic policy. In part 2, Bob Pollin, economist and advisor to U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Pramila Jayapal on Medicare For All, explains the meaning of price gouging and delves into the causes of inflation during the COVID pandemic. 

The issue of banning (or not banning) fracking has been at the forefront of the 2024 presidential debates between former President Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Fracking, a technique that involves horizontal drilling to extract gas and oil from shale rock, risks methane leaks and other environmental hazards. Professor Bob Pollin, economist and Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), lays out the elements of a Global Green New Deal to avert climate catastrophe and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Can we frack and still reach this goal? 

The First Amendment guarantees religious freedom and the separation of Church and State, basic tenets of American democracy which conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation is intent on undermining. Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, describes how the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 would upend military protocols to eliminate civilian oversight. He believes a dystopian future in which the rights of racialized and marginalized groups are denied would be in store under a second Trump presidency.