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Alex Jones on Infowars
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Cosmic Jokesters Buy Cesspool of Hatemongering Psycopath Who Is Not Taking It Well

Oh sweet justice. We salute the supremely ironic sale of Alex Jones' vicious Infowars - now bankrupt thanks to the $1.4 billion he owes Sandy Hook families for claiming the massacre of their children was a hoax - to the satirical wise-acres of The Onion, working with those families. Aptly,The Onion's most iconic headline is on gun violence - "'No Way To Prevent This’, Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens"; it has run 37 times. They call their new buy "probably one of the better jokes we’ve ever told."

Surely there could be no riper moment for such schadenfreude than in these surreal times, when a sexual-assaulting Fox host may be running the Defense Department, a child-trafficking clown could be A.G., a road-kill-eating anti-vaxer might be making our health decisions, and the timeless question will resonate ever more deeply: Is this (mostly terrifying, occasionally uproarious) story real, or from The Onion? Of course the loopy meltdowns and fever dreams and new world order conspiracies of Jones' venomous show always seemed too weird to be real. Fake moon landing! Machete race war! Sex with goblins! Illuminati linked to Hillary and Lady Gaga! Often sobbing, he ripped off his shirt - Watch this! - screamed 1776 WILL COMMENCE AGAIN IF YOU TRY TO TAKE OUR FIREARMS, ranted the lining in juice boxes was making our children gay and the Pentagon-tested gay bomb on Eye-raq and our troops was doing it to adults and PUTTING CHEMICALS IN THE WATER TURNS THE FRIGGIN' FROGS GAY. "I'M SICK OF BEING SOCIAL ENGINEERED!" he shrieked. "ITS NOT FUNNY." No, it's not.

It was also not funny when he claimed America's bloody, ceaseless shootings - Gabbie Giffords, Boston Marathon et a l- were staged propaganda using "crisis actors" in order to wrest Americans' guns from their cold dead hands. Most grotesquely, he repeatedly claimed 2012's grisly murder of 20 first-graders, along with six educators, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax, as were all those small bodies mutilated beyond recognition and the grieving, ravaged families who had to endure them. Faced with those impossible losses as well as Jones' lies and threats from his followers, the Sandy Hook families sued him, for years keeping up a legal fight for "true accountability," aka "an end to Infowars and an end to Jones' ability to spread lies, pain and fear." Under relentless pressure - and after eventually acknowledging the shooting was real - he offered them more and more money if they'd let him stay on the air spewing vitriol; they rejected each offer because not doing so "would have put other families in harm’s way."

This fall, after the families won a $1.4 billion defamation judgment against Jones' "willful and malicious" actions, a U.S. bankruptcy judge finally ordered Infowars and its assets be sold off at auction, from its Austin studio, equipment, trademarks, video archive to its snake-oil nutritional supplement store. Last week, The Onion announced its parent company Global Tetrahedron was the winning bidder; they plan to relaunch a parody version of the site in January, thus seizing a fetid platform for hateful, right-wing skulduggery and turning it into its own mordant, smart-mouthed, big-hearted soapbox. In an "especially sweet bit of justice," they worked with Sandy Hook's non-profit Everytown for Gun Safety, which will contribute gun violence prevention stories to the site. "We thought it would be hilarious if we bought this thing," they said of a choice to leave Jones "unpunished for what he's done to these families, or we could make a dumb, stupid website, and we decided to do the second thing. We hope (the) families will be able to marvel at the cosmic joke we'll soon make of InfoWars."

It's a sublimely bonkers pairing for "America’s Finest News Source," which boasts of "rising from its humble beginnings in 1756" to grow into "the single most powerful organization in human history," with "a daily readership of 4.3 trillion people" supporting "over 350,000 journalism jobs in its news bureaus and labor camps around the world." Its headlines, often witlessly taken at face value, are its macabre crown jewels: "Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex," "Trump Boys Have Slap Fight Over Who Gets To Run Foreign Policy Meetings," "RFK Jr. Vows To Ban Soaps That Smell So Good You Eat A Little," followed by "RFK Jr. Performs "Self-Surgery To Extract Big Mac," which he ate on Trump's plane. They also offered civic lessons for Democrats from the last sorry election: "Lock in John Legend’s endorsement earlier," "Try to not already hold the presidency when a thing happens that voters dislike, "Appeal to other demographics beyond the Cheney family," "One more fundraising text would’ve done the job," and the reminder, "The soul of America is a black expanse."

They offer books - "Our Dumb Country" - and many videos: "Expert Explains Why Essentially You're Fucked," "U.S. Deploys Socially Awkward Men Along Border to Deter Migrants," "Neo-Nazi Pulls Off Surprise Victory In Longheld KKK District," "Conservative Man Proudly Frightened of Everything," from cartoons to Chinese babies to big coastal cities to languages that aren't English." There's even a horoscope - for Scorpios, "Stop avoiding conflict just because you're afraid of killing again" - and FAQs. "How can I bring The Onion to my event? The writers and editors are available for speaking engagements at universities, conferences and meet-ups for disgraced veterinarians." "What if I want to sue The Onion? Please do not do that." "Where can I find The Onion? The Onionis all around you." Given the nation's bloody history - at least 125 people a day killed by guns, twice as many wounded - their famous "No Way To Prevent This" headline was published "entirely too often," including the day after the Uvalde shooting, when its entire front page was plastered with reprints of 21 earlier iterations.

The gun-obsessed Jones was a frequent target. For the resolute, grieving families of Sandy Hook, his downfall is "the justice we have long awaited and fought for," said Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting. The families' attorney Chris Mattei called them "heroes" intent on bringing down Jones, "the perpetrator of the worst defamation in American history." John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown, praised their new partnership, including a multi-year advertising agreement. "It made all the sense in the world," he said, citing their access to gun violence research and data. He also nailed "really the bottom line here, and that is poetic justice." Having resumed his rabid show from a new studio and on X, Jones has reacted as gracefully as you'd expect, raging the sale is "a total attack on free speech," the auction was "rigged" with "money that isn't real," he's working with "good guy bidders" to keep him on the air, and with the inexplicable arrival of Elon Musk on the scene, "If you want a fight, you got one. "Trump is pissed," he snarled. "The cavalry is here."

Thursday, in a new legal wrangle, federal bankruptcy judge Christopher Lopez ordered a hearing to review the sale after a lawyer for the only other bidder alleged "fraud and impermissible collusion" in the auction. The bidder, First United American Companies, runs Jones' snake-oil business; their lawyer said their bid was higher, and auction trustee Christopher Murray violated earlier court-ordered rules by skipping an optional final round of bids. Calling the allegations "baseless" and "bullying from a disappointed bidder," he acknowledged their bid was higher: $3.5 million to The Onion's $1.75 million. But The Onion offered incentives by Sandy Hook families to forego up to 100% of the proceeds, enabling other Jones creditors to recover far more than under First United’s larger, but smaller-minded bid. "The sale is currently underway, pending standard processes," insisted Onion CEO Ben Collins, who used to write for NBC about paranoid quacks like Jones. "The idea he was just going to walk away (without) doing this sort of thing is funny in itself." Along with cash, he added, "We also accept Bitcoin."

In a Monday "editorial" about buying Infowars, Global Tetrahedron's "CEO" Bryce P. Tetraeder celebrated their "new addition" to the Global "family" whose members, like all families, are "abstract nodes (of) interchangeable assets for their patriarch to absorb and discard according to the opaque whims of the market." Buying Infowars was "an easy decision," he said, with its "true unicorn" mix of "delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks (to) make life both scarier and longer," and "a well-deserved victory for multinational elites." On Bluesky, Collins noted real media had requested interviews with "Tetraeder," who alas was "on his superyacht (to) do a quality control check at one of our 43,000 global puppy mills.” But The Onion is still churning out news. On Tuesday, it reported, "Trump Locks Bathroom Door So Elon Musk Can't Follow Him In" after "an audibly frustrated Trump" earlier stood up from the toilet to throw Musk out. "Bad Elon," he said. "Now, go to your kennel and lie down." Later, Trump reportedly sent Musk "to be neutered after he got out of his crate and impregnated dozens of female aides."

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Scientists measure the world's largest coral
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World's Largest Coral Found in Pacific, Unharmed by Planetary Heating

Scientists announced on Thursday their discovery of the largest coral ever documented off the coast of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific Ocean and celebrated the fact that the massive underwater ecosystem appears to be unharmed by planetary heating—but said the discovery underscores the need to urgently protect marine environments.

Scientists and filmmakers from National Geographic's Pristine Seas research program, which aims to push governments to protect the oceans, visited a remote site near the Solomon Islands in mid-October, and initially thought the large object just below the ocean's surface was part of a shipwreck.

Cinematographer Manu San Félix dove into the water to examine the object and found that it was actually a huge network of coral polyps.

The coral was found to be 34 meters (111 feet) wide and more than five meters (16 feet) high—larger than a blue whale and big enough to be viewed from space.

The mega coral, or pavona clavus, is thought to be about 300 years old, and scientists said it could provide insight into historical conditions in the world's oceans.

"Protecting the reef cannot make the water cooler, cannot prevent the warming of the ocean. We need to fix that, we need to reduce carbon emissions."

Enric Sala of the Pristine Seas project compared the discovery to "a big patch of old growth forest," telling New Scientist that the coral, which is not showing signs of the bleaching observed in a growing number of reefs around the world, is providing shelter and sustenance to fish, shrimp, worms, and crabs.

"Large adult coral colonies like this contribute significantly to the recovery of coral reef ecosystems due to their high reproductive potential," Eric Brown, a coral scientist toldEuronews. "While the nearby shallow reefs were degraded due to warmer seas, witnessing this large healthy coral oasis in slightly deeper waters is a beacon of hope."

But Sala told Euronews that the coral is not necessarily "safe from global warming and other human threats."

Record-breaking ocean temperatures have caused coral bleaching events across the planet over the past two years, impacting biodiversity in the world's oceans as well as increasing the risk of sea-level rise and impacting tourism industries in coastal areas.

Sala said the discovery should push governments to protect more of the world's oceans. About 8.4% of the Earth's ocean is under a marine protected area (MPA) designation, and the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction treaty was finalized in 2023, pledging to protect the biodiversity of the oceans.

Establishing more MPAs alongside climate action, Sala said, will help shield coral like the one found near the Solomon Islands from pollution and the effects of planetary heating.

"Protecting the reef cannot make the water cooler, cannot prevent the warming of the ocean," Sala told New Scientist. "We need to fix that, we need to reduce carbon emissions. But MPAs can help us buy time by making the reefs more resilient."

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trump in a crypto bar
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After $16 Billion Election, Nonprofit Tracking Money in Politics Lays Off 1/3 of Staff

Journalists and other critics of how money influences U.S. politics expressed alarm and disappointment in response to Friday reporting that shortly after the nation's latest election, the research nonprofit OpenSecrets had to lay off a third of its staff.

Citing a current staffer, Politico's Daniel Lippman revealed that OpenSecrets "laid off 10 employees yesterday due to financial difficulties" and "much of the research team were among the casualties, which constituted around a third of the group's total headcount."

According to the Politico Playbook newsletter:

Executive director Hilary Braseth wrote in an email to supporters that "OpenSecrets remains committed to its mission—serving as the trusted authority on money in American politics—but our task has become more difficult as groups have opted to fund a partisan outcome rather than nonpartisan democratic infrastructure."

She said in a subsequent email to Playbook that the layoffs were "a necessary first step to make our organization sustainable," and that she had "no doubt that our team will continue to produce the high-quality data that the public has come to rely on."

With a mission "to serve as the trusted authority on money in American politics," OpenSecrets envisions a country in which citizens "use data on money in politics to create a more vibrant, representative, and responsive democracy."

In response to the layoffs, numerous reporters took to social media on Friday to share how they—like Common Dreams—have used what National Public Radio media correspondent David Folkenflik calledthat "an invaluable resource for many a journalist and researcher—utterly nonpartisan but a source for transparency about money in politics now under financial threat."

"Terrible news!" declaredNerdWallet data journalist Joe Yerardi. "The folks at OpenSecrets have helped me so many times on stories. The [organization] does such vital work."

Other reactions included:

  • Wall Street Journal reporter Maggie Severns: "OpenSecrets is an important resource on money in politics, this is terrible to see."
  • Politico deputy national editor Zach Montellaro: "This stinks—OpenSecrets is a great resource for campaign finance data and following the money."
  • Digiday senior reporter Marty Swant: "Sad news for a critical team that helps shed light on dark money in politics."
  • McClatchy and Miami Herald investigative reporter Ben Wieder: "This is such sad news. OpenSecrets is such an important resource for journalists and anyone who cares about money in politics."
  • The New Republic breaking news writer Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling: "This is an absolutely devastating development on the precipice of the next administration."

Republican President-elect Donald Trump—known for "outright scandals and blatant corruption" during his first term—defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris on Election Day earlier this week, . The GOP also seized control of the U.S. Senate and is on track to win a majority in the House of Representatives.

In a Tuesday analysis, OpenSecrets' Albert Serna Jr. and Anna Massoglia detailed how about $16 billion "went to influence federal elections and another $4.6 billion was raised by state candidates, party committees, and ballot measure committees for 2023 and 2024 elections."

The pair also highlighted Tuesday that this cycle "has broken the record for outside spending," with about $4.5 billion from independent groups such as super political action committees; dark money accounted for over $1 billion in total contributions to organizations like super PACs; top donors had outsize influence; and donations to support or defeat various ballot measures have also set "several records."

Jimmy Cloutier, a former OpenSecrets reporting fellow now at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, said Friday in response to the layoffs that "I'm devastated for my former colleagues—and shocked that this news comes just days after the most expensive election in U.S. history."

Investigative journalist Dave Levinthal, who also previously worked for the organization, said that "this is heartbreaking news, not just for us OpenSecrets alums, but anyone who cares about genuinely nonpartisan research and reporting plus political/governmental transparency."

Healthcare Across Borders executive director Jodi Jacobson said Friday that "this is unacceptable and unconscionable and shows how perverse our funding streams are. We can sink over a billion into a political campaign but not fund one of the most critical tools of accountability at a time when we need it most?"

Some responded to the layoff news with calls for donations to OpenSecrets. Filmmaker Adam McKay declared: "Legacy news media has all but blacked out money's outsized control of [government] so this is one of the few places to find out who is bribing your candidate or [representative]. Donate if you can ASAP."

Issue One research director Michael Beckels said: "Care about being able to follow the money in politics? Today would be a good day to donate—or become a monthly donor—OpenSecretsDC, one of the best groups around for understanding the flow of money in state and federal elections."

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Donald Trump and Elon Musk
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Watchdog Aims to Track Army of 'Self-Enriching Grifters' Slated to Join Trump's Cabinet

As U.S. President-elect Donald Trump continues to select Cabinet picks for his second administration—and at least one is facing headwinds to confirmation despite a Republican-controlled Senate—the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen Tuesday unveiled a new resource to keep tabs on potential conflicts of interest among Trump's appointees.

"Like the first Trump administration, this administration appears ready to staff critical government posts with as many corporate lackeys and self-enriching grifters as they can hire," said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen.

The group's other co-president, Robert Weissman, said that"Donald Trump may have run for office pretending he was going to advocate for regular people, but his appointments show in reality he’s planning to govern, again, on behalf of the corporate class."

"The man who once said he was going to drain the swamp is instead flooding it," Weissman added.

Trump has already chosen many of the individuals he would like to serve in his Cabinet and other senior positions. On Tuesday he picked Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician and TV personality known as Dr. Oz, to helm the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Other high profile picks include nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a once prominent environmental lawyer who has spread false claims about vaccines—to head the Department of Health and Human Services, and selecting prominent Trump donor and the world's richest man Elon Musk to oversee a yet-to-be-created government agency devoted to slashing government spending and federal regulation. Musk will oversee that agency, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, with biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy.

Public Citizen's tracker so far details information for nine appointees, a list that "includes both Cabinet-level positions and other political appointments, many of which do not require Senate confirmation," according to a statement from the group. The tracker will be updated regularly and includes where the individual worked previously and former clients and/or business interests.

Sean Duffy, Trump's pick for transportation secretary, previously worked for the lobbying firm BGR Group, according to the tracker, where he lobbied on behalf coalition that included multiple airlines.

The group also details the past work of Susie Wiles, Trump's selection for chief of staff. Wiles has been a registered lobbyist on behalf of dozens of clients, including a tobacco company "that sought to block federal health restrictions on its candy-flavored cigars" and on behalf of a mining company "that wants to eliminate federal opposition to its plan to dig a massive mine in a pristine watershed," according to additional information on Wiles provided by Public Citizen that is linked in the tracker.

"As chief of staff, she'll be in a position to influence permits, approvals, and contracts that her former lobbying clients paid her to lobby for," according to the tracker.

The tracker notes that Musk's former clients and business interests include "himself" and the companies he owns, several of which are currently under federal probe. According to a longer briefing on Musk by Public Citizen, at least three of the entrepreneur's companies are currently under scrutiny for alleged misconduct by at least nine federal agencies. According to a pre-election breakdown by The New York Times, Musk's companies were "promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts last year with 17 federal agencies." Both the probes and the contracts underscore Musk's exposure to a federal government that he is slated to play a key role in.

Musk has framed his quest to curb government regulation as existential. "Unless Trump wins and we get rid of the mountain of smothering regulations (that have nothing to do with safety!), humanity will never reach Mars," he wrote on X in early October.

After Trump's victory earlier this month, legendary consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who founded Public Citizen but hasn't been formally involved with the group for decades, warned of Musk's influence.

"Get ready this January for chaos, revenge, greed, rampant abuses of power, and the unbridled control of corrupt plutocrats and oligarchs," Nader wrote. "With Elon Musk in the lead."

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Business people having hybrid meeting in office
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US Labor Board Bans Captive Audience Meetings to Ensure 'Truly Free' Worker Choice

In a decision that advocates say will likely be reversed during the second administration of Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday ruled that employers cannot force workers to attend anti-union speeches.

The NLRB's 3-1 decision in Amazon.com Services, LLCmeans that workers will no longer have to take part in so-called "captive audience meetings," which employers often use as a union-busting tool and a form of coercion. The agency explained that such meetings violate Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act "because they have a reasonable tendency to interfere with and coerce employees."

"However, the board made clear that an employer may lawfully hold meetings with workers to express its views on unionization so long as workers are provided reasonable advance notice of: the subject of any such meeting, that attendance is voluntary with no adverse consequences for failure to attend, and that no attendance records of the meeting will be kept," the NLRB added.

NLRB Chairperson Lauren McFerran, a Democrat, said in a statement that "ensuring that workers can make a truly free choice about whether they want union representation is one of the fundamental goals of the National Labor Relations Act."

"Captive audience meetings—which give employers near-unfettered freedom to force their message about unionization on workers under threat of discipline or discharge—undermine this important goal," McFerran added. "Today's decision better protects workers' freedom to make their own choices in exercising their rights under the act, while ensuring that employers can convey their views about unionization in a noncoercive manner."

In April 2022, the NLRB's general counsel office issued a memo asserting that captive audience meetings are illegal. At least 11 states have banned such meetings. Other states are in various stages of considering or enacting bans or restrictions on them.

Workers' rights advocates hailed Wednesday's decision, although labor journalist Hamilton Nolan quipped on social media that employees should "enjoy this brief shining period before the Trump NLRB reverses this decision."

However, More Perfect Union producer Jordan Zakarin argued that Democrats can protect this "monumental win for labor" for "the next few years" if "they finally confirm" President Joe Biden's nomination of Joshua Ditelberg—a Republican lawyer who has represented companies including Amazon, Airbnb, and UnitedHealth—to fill the fifth NLRB seat.

According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)—a Washington, D.C.-based, pro-union think tank—U.S. employers spend an estimated $433 million per year on union-busting consultants.

"This reality makes it harder for workers to fight for their collective bargaining rights because they do not know the extent of their companies' investments in union-busting, a figure that could empower them at the negotiating table when employers claim they can't afford to increase pay and benefits," EPI said last year.

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Van Hollen
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Van Hollen Backs Sanders Resolutions to Block US Arms Sales to Israel

Support for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' resolutions that would block U.S. weapons sales to Israel continued to grow on Monday, with Sen. Chris Van Hollen releasing a letter to colleagues urging them to join him in trying to pass the measures later this week.

Sanders (I-Vt.)—backed by Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii)—introduced the joint resolutions of disapproval (JRDs) in September and announced last week that he would bring them to the floor for a vote.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) endorsed the JRDs last week, citing the failure of U.S. President Joe Biden's administration "to follow U.S. law and to suspend arms shipments" after warning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government last month that it could be cut off from American weapons absent serious action to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip.

Van Hollen (D-Md.) followed suit Monday, unveiling his letter and saying in a statement that "U.S. taxpayer-funded assistance should not come in the form of a blank check—even to our closest partners. We need assurances that U.S. interests, values, and priorities will be respected by foreign governments that receive American support. That principle should apply universally, including to the Netanyahu government."

"We've seen Prime Minister Netanyahu repeatedly violate the terms of American security assistance, disregard U.S. priorities, and ignore our requests, only to be rewarded by President Biden."

"But even as the United States has provided billions of dollars of American taxpayer-financed bombs and other offensive weapons systems, we've seen Prime Minister Netanyahu repeatedly violate the terms of American security assistance, disregard U.S. priorities, and ignore our requests, only to be rewarded by President Biden," he continued. "That pattern undermines the credibility of the United States and should not persist."

Van Hollen highlighted that he has "repeatedly supported Israel's right to defend itself and end Hamas' control of Gaza" since the Palestinian group's October 7, 2023 attack—which includes his vote for an April aid package—but also argued that "a just war must be waged justly."

"That's why recipients of U.S. weapons must comply with American laws and policies. Recipients of security assistance must facilitate and not arbitrarily restrict the delivery of humanitarian assistance into war zones where U.S. weapons are being used, and American-supplied weapons must be used in accordance with international humanitarian law. The Netanyahu government is violating both of these requirements in Gaza," he explained. "It is also rejecting a host of other priorities advanced by the United States, yet President Biden has failed to hold Netanyahu accountable—ignoring U.S. law and undercutting his own stated policies as well as America's interests and values."

"Doing so undermines American global leadership and is a disservice to the American people, the people of Israel, and people throughout the Middle East," the senator warned. "That is why I have repeatedly stated that the United States should pause the delivery of offensive weapons to the Netanyahu government until it complies with U.S. law and policy and until we can advance the security interests, priorities, and values of the American people."

While stressing his support for "the transfer of defensive systems, like the Iron Dome," and his opposition to an arms embargo, which many rights groups have called for, Van Hollen concluded that he will vote for the JRDs this week because "a partnership must be a two-way street, not a one-way blank check."

The JRDs would have to pass both the Democrat-controlled Senate and the Republican-held House of Representatives to reach Biden's desk. They would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override presidential vetoes. The push to pass the resolutions comes as lawmakers prepare for the GOP to control Congress and the White House next year following the elections earlier this month.

"The United States government must stop blatantly violating the law with regard to arms sales to Israel," Sanders wrote in The Washington Post on Monday. "The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act are very clear: The United States cannot provide weapons to any country that violates internationally recognized human rights. Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act is also explicit: No U.S. assistance may be provided to any country that 'prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.'"

The resolutions are also backed by over 100 organizations, including the Center for Civilians in Conflict and Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), which led a letter to senators last month.

Hassan El-Tayyab, legislative director for Middle East policy, described the upcoming vote as "historic," tellingAl Jazeera on Monday, "Just the fact that this is happening is already sending that political signal that it's not business as usual."

"There is no military solution to the conflict in Gaza—only a diplomatic one that addresses root causes of violence," El-Tayyab said as the death toll in the Palestinian enclave neared 44,000.

"Instead of sending more weapons, Congress and the administration should leverage military aid with Bibi [Netanyahu] and the Knesset to finally get them to accept a cease-fire deal in Gaza and Lebanon," he added. "And that, I think, is a far better strategy to secure Israel's defense and protect Palestinian human rights."

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