"No Kings is a non-violent movement that continues to rise stronger, and we’re uniting once again to remind the world: America has No Kings and the power belongs to the people."
"A child in Gaza shouldn't have to die for a sip of water," said one Palestinian American critic. "Families are starving, fleeing under bombs, with nowhere safe to go. Humanity is failing them."
By Brett Wilkins
Israeli occupation forces killed scores more Palestinians in Gaza on Tuesday, including 13 people who starved to death and at least 11 others—including seven children—massacred while collecting water in a so-called "safe zone."
The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) said that at least 89 Gazans were killed in Israeli attacks throughout the embattled strip since dawn Tuesday, including 42 in Gaza City, where Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops are pushing ahead with Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian exclave.
At least 11 Palestinians, including nine children, were killed in an IDF airstrike as they gathered water in al-Mawasi, an area where Israeli authorities encouraged people to flee ahead of the invasion of northern Gaza.
Earlier on Tuesday, the IDF's spokesperson for Arab media issued an advisory stating, "To all residents of the Gaza Strip, in preparation for the expansion of fighting into Gaza City, we remind you that the al-Mawasi area will witness the provision of better humanitarian services, particularly those related to healthcare, water, and food."
Responding to the massacre, Palestinian American journalist Alexandra Halaby wrote on X: "A child in Gaza shouldn't have to die for a sip of water. Families are starving, fleeing under bombs, with nowhere safe to go. Humanity is failing them. Demand a ceasefire. Demand aid. Demand justice."
Assal Rad, a media critic and scholar of Middle East history, posted a graphic photo of some of the slain children on X, quipping, "More Israeli 'self-defense' today in Gaza."
Also on Tuesday, GHM said it registered 13 deaths, including three children, due to starvation and malnutrition over the past 24 hours. That brings the total number of deaths from the Gaza famine caused by Israel to at least 361—130 of them children.
All told, Israel's 697-day annihilation and siege of Gaza have killed at least 63,633 Palestinians—most of them women and children—while wounding more than 160,900 others and leaving thousands more missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Experts say the actual number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces is likely far higher than the official GHM figures.
Israel's conduct in the war and Israeli leaders' statements of intent to destroy Gaza and its people are the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case. On Monday, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) joined the growing number of groups and individuals calling Israel's war on Gaza a genocide.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are also fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued arrest warrants accusing the pair of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
Two more Palestinian journalists were also killed by Israel forces on Tuesday. Eman Al-Zamli was reportedly killed by IDF drone fire while fetching drinking water near the Hamad City neighborhood, north of Khan Younis. Rasmi Salem of the Manara Media Company was killed in an IDF strike on Abu al-Amin Street near al-Jalaa Square in Gaza City.
According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), United Nations experts, and Gaza officials, between 210 and 275 Palestinian media workers have been killed by IDF bombs and bullets since October 2023.
On Sunday, dozens of Lebanese journalists and others rallied in Beirut's Martyrs' Square for a sit-in protest to express solidarity with Palestinian colleagues killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
"Journalists are being killed in Gaza because they show the world what they see with their own eyes," Walid Kilani, Hamas' media official in Lebanon, told the demonstrators, according toL'Orient Today.
The Beirut rally followed a Saturday silent protest march for slain Palestinian journalists held in the Swedish cities of Stockholm and Göteborg, and an open call by more than 200 advocacy groups, media outlets, and journalists for Israel to let foreign reporters into Gaza.
"At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, there will soon be no one left to keep you informed," said RSF.
"If we make one wrong decision as the parents of a critically ill child, that could be the end of it," said one Louisiana mother about the added paperwork burdens being imposed by the GOP's budget law.
By Brad Reed
Several reports published on Tuesday highlighted the negative impacts that are expected from Medicaid cuts included in the Republicans' budget law.
The Medicaid cuts, which passed this past summer as part of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, are estimated to total $1 trillion over the next decade and are projected to kick more than 10 million Americans off their health insurance. However, the cuts are also expected to have several other knock-on effects that could negatively impact the entire American healthcare system.
Rhian Lubin, a reporter for The Independent, recently traveled to Louisiana, where she met a 28-year-old mother named Hannah McDaniel who relies on Medicaid to pay for treatment for her two-year-old son, Myles, who suffers from an incurable heart defect.
As McDaniel explained to Lubin, she is already inundated with paperwork required to keep Medicaid paying for Myles' lifesaving care, and she fears that the new work requirements added by Republicans will only add to the burden and increase the risk that her son's care will be cut off.
"If we make one wrong decision as the parents of a critically ill child, that could be the end of it," said McDaniel, who added that when the GOP passed its budget package it felt like "the government had signed Myles' death warrant."
Lubin wrote that these cuts will make it especially hard for patients who live in rural communities, where local hospitals have for years been under financial strain and are in greater danger of closing thanks to the GOP's budget.
"Any cuts to that program are going to trickle down and impact children, whether that's pediatric practices who depend on Medicaid to be able to stay open or children’s hospitals," West Virginia pediatrician Lisa Costello told Lubin.
The impact of these cuts is projected to be felt nationwide, as The Idaho Statesmanreported that nursing homes and hospice care facilities in the Gem State are also bracing for a catastrophic loss of funding.
The report highlighted Table Rock Senior Living at Park Place, an assisted living facility in the city of Nampa, which will see a cut in its reimbursement rates paid out by Idaho's Department of Health and Welfare in response to the GOP's Medicaid cuts. Gary Connell, who runs Table Rock Senior Living, told The Idaho Statesman that such cuts are "going to cause a lot of havoc" at both his facility and senior residences across the state.
Expected cuts to Medicaid reimbursement rates in the state are likely to force more facilities to decline Medicaid recipients as patients, which would in turn place higher burdens on emergency rooms.
"We're going to see serious access issues now, and then, what’s going to happen? They're going to go to the hospital emergency room," Democratic Idaho state Sen. Melissa Wintrow told The Idaho Statesman. "We can't refuse people at the hospital emergency room, and that's a higher cost of care, which means the legislature is going to take it on the chin in the end."
Over in North Carolina, local public radio station WHQRreported that dentists in the state are similarly fearful of lower reimbursement rates that would force them to cut off Medicaid recipients from care.
Before the GOP passed its budget law, North Carolina lawmakers were actually considering a bill that would have boosted the reimbursement rate from 35% to 46%. But with less money projected to come in from the federal government over the next decade, they abandoned the effort.
Dr. Robert Stowe, a dentist based in Winston-Salem, said that the North Carolina state legislature's current plan to slash reimbursement rates by an additional 3% this year would likely be a tipping point for many healthcare providers.
"You got a system that the reimbursement is so low now that you have providers who are seeing Medicaid dental patients that they're taking a loss on already," he explained to WHQR. "Then you're going to cut that fee by 3%—it's just untenable."
Finally, Ohio Capital Journalreported that the Medicaid cuts could come at great expense for many low-income Ohio military veterans who rely on the program.
According to the report, roughly 10% of US veterans use Medicaid for services for which they aren't eligible to receive through the US Department of Veterans Affairs, including some mental health treatment.
Dr. Forrest Faison, the former surgeon general of the United States Navy, told Ohio Capital Journal that many veterans who depend on Medicaid "because of job issues, disability, PTSD" may fall through the cracks due to the Medicaid cuts. He also emphasized that the cuts could fall particularly hard on Medicaid recipients in rural Ohio.
"A lot of these veterans, especially in Ohio, live in rural areas," he said, "where even if you've got some benefits, you may not have the services available."
"We do not live in a system that is broken. We live in a system that is functioning exactly as it is intended," said Graham Platner, running for US Senate. "We live in a system that has been built by the political class to enrich and support billionaires on the backs of working people."
By Jon Queally
Sen. Bernie Sanders headlined a Labor Day rally in downtown Portland, Maine on Monday as part of his ongoing "Fighting Oligarchy" tour, where he joined hands in solidarity with the two candidates—Troy Jackson and Graham Platner—both of whom embrace the Vermont independent's democratic socialist message and a critique that argues concentrated wealth and power have corrupted both major political parties at the expense of working people.
Platner, an oysterman from the small coastal town of Sullivan seeking to win the Democratic primary in order to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins in 2026, launched his campaign last month by stating flatly that "the oligarchy is the enemy."
During his remarks Monday at the Cross Insurance Arena, Platner brought the crowd of over 6,500 people to their feet multiple times by blasting the ruling class and lamenting the struggle of too many Maine families.
"Politicians have made a series of decisions over the last 40 years that have resulted in the world that we see today. Their choices have left many of us with very little while, very few accrue vast amounts of wealth," he declared. "In 1990, there were less than 100 billionaires in the United States—today there are over 800. I ask you: when you look around, do you see a community and a state that is eight times wealthier than it was in 1990?"
Sanders rally with Graham Platner and Troy Jackson
"Much of the world that we have today is the specific result of policy choices made by establishment politicians. And the shameful truth of all of this is the blame cannot simply be left at the feet of one political party," said Platner. "We have two parties that want the votes of working people, but neither has done anything lately to earn it. No one is owed allegiance. Support must be earned and that will never happen as long as Democrats are part of the same corporate apparatus that the Republicans are."
Platner's bid against Collins, who has held the seat in the US Senate since 1997, is seen by some political observers as a long shot, but Platner was emphatic that voters in Maine are no longer fooled by what he described as her political "charade" in which she postures as a moderate while backing President Donald Trump's far-right, pro-corporate agenda.
"No one cares that you pretend to be remorseful as you sell out to lobbyists," Planter said of Collins. "No one cares while you sell out to corporations and no one cares while you sell out to a president who are all engineering the greatest redistribution of wealth,—from the working class to the ruling class—in American history."
"Symbolic opposition does not reopen hospitals," he continued, referencing the destruction repercussions of Collins' support for the GOP megabill earlier this year that will strip hundreds of billions from Medicaid. "Weak condemnations do not bring back Roe v. Wade. Sellling out the same working class voters who've delivered mandate for change after mandate for change is not forgivable. A performative politics that enables the destruction of our way of life is disqualifying for the role of United States Senator."
Platner drove home his message that the ruling class, both in Maine and nationwide, is at the heart of the struggles and challenged the idea that voters don't understand the term "oligarchy"—something that segments of the Democratic Party establishment have argued as Sanders toured the country this summer with his message.
"I keep getting told that voters don't know what that word means," said Platner. "But from the standing ovation, I assume everybody knows what it means because we know what's happening when we're getting robbed blind. But let's be clear, we do not live in a system that is broken. We live in a system that is functioning exactly as it is intended. We live in a system that has been built by the political class to enrich and support billionaires on the backs of working people."
The state of Maine, he declared amid a standing ovation, "deserves better than Susan Collins and Maine deserves an alternative who is not at risk of being mistaken as being beholden to the same status quo that she is. I am running because it is time for change."
Planter vowed to "beat back fascism," called for defense of democracy, and said people must embrace a notion of freedom that goes beyond a "romantic freedom"—one that recognizes the affordability crisis that makes life so difficult for working people.
What people need, he said, is a "freedom to not be condemned to scraps and to struggle, but to live with the dignity and fulfillment that gives us the society we deserve. Where instead of dreaming of a life where we can get by, we can afford a life that allows us to dream."
Following Platner, Troy Jackson, a seventh-generation logger from northern Maine who turned to politics on a working-class platform and rose to become president of the State Senate, is among those seeking to become the next governor of Maine when Gov. Janet Mills, also a Democrat, leaves office next year.
"I'm running because it's time to put power back in the hands of the people," said Jackson, after recounting his days in the woods, struggling to provide for his family while the wealthy owners of the logging companies grew ever richer and ever greedier.
"I'm running for governor because the American dream of putting down roots and owning a home and being able to provide for your family with a good-paying job is moving way out of reach," said Jackson. "I am running for the people who worked their entire lives and still can't afford to retire because the economic system in this country is rigged against them. And I'm running for all the workers who've been told to do or go home who've been told that they're replaceable and that their lives are disposable."
Like Platner, Jackson railed against the "status quo" and while he credited Democrats in the state for doing many important things over recent years, also admitted the party had fallen "woefully short" on many issues.
During his speech to conclude the rally, Sanders said this year's Labor Day comes at a perilous time in US history, with Trump's authoritarianism coinciding—and not coincidentally—with obscene levels of economic and political inequality.
Sanders said that the hundreds of thousands of people he has now spoken to as part of the "Fighting Oligarchy" tour have made it clear to him that there is a shared set of beliefs that can overturn the assault on democracy and working people that Trump is now leading.
"We have been to 15 states—and now I can say from Maine to California and a lot of states in between. And we've talked to over 300,000 people," said Sanders. "And what I can tell you without any fear of contradiction is the American people do not want an oligarchic form of government."
"They do not want to live under a kleptocracy where a president gets rich by being president and they sure as hell a sick and tired of the ongoing war of the rich against the working class of this country," he continued. "This is an unprecedented and, in fact, dangerous moment in American history and we have got to respond in an unprecedented way. And the way we respond is to build the kind of strong, progressive grassroots movement, the likes of which this country has never seen."
Echoing Platner, Sanders said that simply denouncing and confronting the Republicans will not be enough to turn the tide.
"What we need to do—which the Democratic Party, the leadership does not do—is have a vision of where we want this country to be," said Sanders.
"What I am begging of you is don't think small, think big," he continued, championing Medicare for All, robust support for public education, an end to disastrous US foreign policy—including support for the Israeli assault on Gaza, an expansion of Social Security, and serious efforts to curb rising food costs and the housing crisis that is crushing working people from coast to coast.
"Brothers and sisters, we got to be thinking outside the box in this state. We got to elect Graham and we got to elect Troy and other good people, but they can't do it alone," said Sanders.
The trick of the ruling class, he told the crowd, is "they basically try to say that ordinary people are powerless."
"What they're saying is they have all the money, they have all of the power, you got nothing. And they can do anything they want and you can't stop them," Sanders continued. "Well, I think we've got some news for them. Not only can we stop them, not only will we stop them, but for the future of this country and in fact the world, we must, must stop them today."
"On Labor Day—when we thank the unions for all they have done for the working class of this country—we understand and remember what a union is," he concluded. "A union is the understanding that one person cannot do it alone. That we all have got to come together to fight with and for each other. And what the union movement is about is solidarity forever."
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Chair Martin’s decision to withdraw his resolution and create a task force to continue the conversation within the party was a recognition of the reality that the status quo has become unacceptable and untenable.
Karim Muammer, who suffers from many serious conditions such as severe malnutrition, liver enlargement, bone softening, kidney leakage, and severe chest infections, continues to receive treatment at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis under limited circumstances, on August 21, 2025 in Gaza.
(Photo by Abdallah F.s. Alattar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Even in the face of American intransigence, the world can act—and the US government will stand naked and alone in its criminal complicity with Israel.
By Jeffrey D. Sachs,Sybil Fares
Israel, with US complicity, is committing genocide in Gaza through the mass starvation of the population as well as direct mass murders and the physical destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure. Israel does the dirty work. The US Government funds it and provides diplomatic cover through its UN veto. Palantir, through “Lavendar,” provides the AI for efficient mass murder. Microsoft, through Azure cloud services, and Google and Amazon, through the “Nimbus” initiative, supply core tech infrastructure for the Israeli army.
This marks 21st-century war crimes as an Israel-US public-private partnership. Israel’s mass starvation of the people of Gaza has been confirmed by the United Nations, Amnesty International, The Red Cross, Save the Children, and many others. The Norwegian Refugee Council, along with 100 organizations, has been calling for an end to Israel’s weaponization of food relief. This is the first time that mass starvation has been officially confirmed in the Middle East.
The scale of the starvation is staggering. Israel is systematically depriving food to more than 2 million people. Over half a million Palestinians face catastrophic hunger and at least 132,000 children aged under five are at risk of death from acute malnutrition. The scale of the horror is thoroughly documented by Haaretz in a recent article entitled “Starvation is Everywhere.” Those who are able to somehow access food distribution sites are routinely fired on by the Israeli army.
Israel has crossed the clear line into the darkest crimes—starving civilians to death and shooting them as they line up, emaciated, for food. There is no further line to cross, nor time to lose.
As a former US ambassador to Israel has recently explained, the intention to starve the population has been present from the start. Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu recently declared, “there is no nation that feeds its enemies.” Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently stated, “whoever doesn't evacuate, don't let them. No water, no electricity; they can die of hunger or surrender. This is what we want."
Yet despite these glaring declarations of genocide, US representatives at the UN repeatedly deny the facts and cover for Israel’s war crimes. The US alone vetoed Palestine’s admission to the UN in 2024. The US now denies visas to Palestinian leaders to come to the UN in September, yet another violation of international law.
The US has used its power and especially its veto in the UN Security Council to abet Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians and to block even the most basic humanitarian responses. The world is aghast but seems paralyzed before the Israel-US murder machine. Yet the world can act, even in the face of US intransigence. The US will stand naked and alone in its criminal complicity with Israel.
Let’s be clear. The overwhelming voice of humanity is on the side of the people of Palestine. Last December, 172 countries, with more than 90 percent of the world population, voted to support Palestine’s right to self-determination. Israel and the US were essentially isolated in their opposition. Similar overwhelming majorities are repeatedly expressed on behalf of Palestine and against the actions of Israel.
Israel’s thuggish government now counts solely on US support, but even that may not be there for long. Despite Trump’s intransigence and US government attempts to stifle pro-Palestinian voices, 58% of Americans want the UN to recognize the State of Palestine, compared to only 33% who do not. Moreover, 60% of Americans oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Here are practical steps that the world can take.
First, Türkiye has set the correct course by ending all economic, trade, shipping, and air links with Israel. Israel is currently a rogue state, and Türkiye is right to treat it as such until Israeli-created mass starvation ends, and a State of Palestine is admitted to the UN as the 194th member, with the borders of June 4, 1967. Other states should immediately follow Türkiye’s lead.
Second, all UN member states that have not yet done so should recognize the State of Palestine. So far, 147 countries recognize Palestine. Dozens more should do so at the UN Summit on Palestine on September 22, even over the vociferous objections of the United States government.
Third, the Arab signatories to the Abraham Accords, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and the UAE, should suspend their diplomatic relations with Israel until the Gaza siege ends and the State of Palestine is admitted to the UN.
Fourth, the UN General Assembly, by a vote of two-thirds present and voting, should suspend Israel from the UN General Assembly until it lifts its murderous siege on Gaza, based on the precedent of suspending South Africa during its Apartheid regime. The US has no veto in the UN General Assembly.
Fifth, UN member states should stop the export of all technology services that support the war, until the siege of Gaza ends and Palestine’s membership in the UN is adopted by the UN Security Council. Consumer companies such as Amazon and Microsoft that persist in aiding the Israel Defence Forces in the context of a genocide should face the wrath of consumers worldwide.
Sixth, the UN General Assembly should dispatch a UN Protection Force to Gaza and the West Bank. Typically, it would be the UN Security Council that mandates a protection force, but in this case, the US will block the Security Council with its veto. There is another way.
Under the "Uniting for Peace" mechanism, when the Security Council is deadlocked, the authority to act passes to the General Assembly. After a Security Council session and the almost inevitable US veto, the issue would be brought before the UNGA in a resumed 10th emergency special session on the Israel-Palestine conflict. There, the General Assembly can, by a two-thirds majority not subject to US veto, authorize a protection force in response to an urgent request from the State of Palestine. There is a precedent: in 1956, the General Assembly authorized the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) to enter Egypt and protect it from the ongoing invasion by Israel, France, and the United Kingdom.
At the invitation of Palestine, the protection force would enter Gaza to secure emergency humanitarian aid for the starving population. If Israel were to attack the UN protection force, the force would be authorized to defend itself and the Gazans. Whether Israel and the US would dare to fight a UNGA-mandated force protecting the starving Gazans remains to be seen.
Israel has crossed the clear line into the darkest crimes—starving civilians to death and shooting them as they line up, emaciated, for food. There is no further line to cross, nor time to lose. The family of nations is being tested and summoned to action as it has not been in decades.
Draining the swamp means ending corporate socialism, dismantling the apparatus that rewards big corporate contributions and empowers lobbyists arguing for big business over the interests of working people. Can either major party say they are doing that?
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