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

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

We begin with Wednesday's testimony from the head of the FBI about the increased threat

of domestic terrorism as a result of the war in Gaza that was overshadowed by idiotic

QAnon accusations from Congressional Igoramus's Marjorie Chalegreen and Clay Higgins.

Joining us is Thomas McItis, a professor of history at DePaul University, who has taught

counterterrorism courses for the past 13 years at venues around the world as part of the U.S.

Department of Defense Counterterrorism Fellowship Program.

He is the author of six books, including New terrorism, myths and reality, violent extremists,

understanding the domestic and international terrorist threat and the challenges of counterinsurgency.

We'll discuss his article at the Hill, defeating Hamas is the easy part.

Lasting Peace is the critical goal.

Then we'll look into the divisions among Democratic voters

over support for Israel and support for Palestinian rights, following a heated demonstration

at DNC headquarters, and assess the likely impact of Apex's $100 million investment in running

candidates against members of the squad in next year's

primaries. Joining us is Alexander Semen, a politics writer at Slate, who has previously

written for Mother Jones, the New Republic and the American prospect. We will discuss

his latest article at Slate. The squad is about to fight for its political life.

Then finally we'll get an appraisal of Wednesday's meeting between Briden and Xi and speak with Michael Swain, a senior research fellow and former director of the Quincy Institute's

East Asia Program and one of the most prominent American scholars of Chinese security studies.

Previously he worked for nearly 20 years as a senior fellow at the Kaniy Endowment for

...