Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We begin with the last of the Republican presidential candidates debate,

which was on a lesser-known network News Nation,

and featured the final four Christy DeSantis Haley and Ramoswamy challenging Trump,

who was not on the debate stage and is way ahead in the polls.

Joining us to discuss a ritual in our democratic process that avoided discussing the endangered

state of our democracy is Aaron Rupar, who until recently was the Associate Editor for

Politics and Policy at Vox and is now an independent journalist covering US politics and media.

He's the author of Public Notice at Aaron Rupar.substack.com, where his latest articles include

The Last GOP debate features the saddest final forever. They're competing for a participation

trophy. Then we'll go to Israel to speak with Haggai Matar, an award-winning Israeli journalist and political activist.

He's the executive director of 972 magazine.

We'll discuss his article at the news statesman.

There is little tolerance in Israel for dissenting feelings and how anti-war left-wing

activists in Israel are being silenced and threatened while right-wing thugs and religious

nationalists are protected and encouraged by the government and police.

Then finally we will look into growing tensions on the border between Venezuela and Guyana,

as Venezuela's President Maduro makes claims on his neighboring country threatening to annex an

oil and mineral-rich chunk of Guyana.

Joining us from Venezuela is Phil Gunson, the Andes Project Senior Analyst with the International Crisis Group,

who conducts advocacy on political issues in the Andes region, focusing primarily on the

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