Hello and welcome to background briefing, available 24-7 at background briefing.org. I'm Ian Masters,

and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with more civilian deaths in Gaza as Israeli ground forces move into the north

and destroy tunnels in a campaign that may be over much sooner than the months that Netanyahu

recently announced. Joining us to discuss the war's impact on domestic politics is M.J. Rosenberg, who worked on Capitol Hill for various Democratic members of the House and Senate for 20 years.

Previously, he served as the Director of Policy Analysis for the Israel Policy Forum and was an editor of Near East Report, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, APAC's bi-weekly publication on Middle East policy.

He currently blogs at MJX-847.substack.com, where his latest posts include, for Dems, the politics of Gaza are awful, and APEC goes to town.

Then we'll examine the role of the Council for National Policy founded by right-wing

fundamentalists and oil barons, which was key to electing Trump, and has backed Mike Johnson,

the new house speaker with fossil fuel money.

Joining us is Anne Nelson, an author and lecture in the fields of international affairs, media and human rights.

As a journalist, she covered the conflicts in El Salvador and Guatemala and won the Livingston Prize for Best International Reporting from the Philippines.

She served as the director of the Committee to Protect

Journalists and was the director of the International Program at the Columbia School of Journalism

where she created the first curriculum in human rights reporting. Her books include Red

Orchestra, the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends who resisted Hitler and Suzanne's

children, a daring rescue in Nazi Paris.

Her latest book is Shadow Network, Media, Money and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right,

now out in an updated paperback version, and we'll discuss her article at The Washington

Spectator, how Christian Nationalists, Big Oil and the Big Lie seized the Speaker's gavel.

And before we begin, Background Briefing's mission of building a reality-based community in

Post-Truth America is taking on a new urgency now that we have a fundamentalist Christian

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