‘A War Criminal Admitting to His Crimes’: Netanyahu Says He Ordered Military to Seize 70% of Gaza

By | |
Leave a comment
TOPSHOT-ISRAEL-US-IRAN-WAR-NETANYAHU

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a press conference in Jerusalem on March 19, 2026.

 (Photo by Ronen Zvulun/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

The head of a pro-Israel lobbying group called it “a blatant violation of the ceasefire and clear undermining of any plan for post-conflict Gaza.”

Stephen Prager

May 28, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)

As Israel expands its control over the Gaza Strip in violation of last year’s ceasefire agreement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he had ordered the military to take over even more territory.

During a conference at the Ein Prat pre-military academy in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, the prime minister acknowledged that Israel has gradually expanded its control over Gaza since the ceasefire agreement was implemented in October.

RECOMMENDED…

Palestinians return to their homes in Gaza as ceasefire takes effect

‘War Crimes of Wanton Destruction’: Amnesty Condemns Israeli Attacks on Gaza High-Rise Buildings

Protest For Gaza at CNN bureau in Washington, D.C.

‘How to Sell a Genocide’: Media Critic’s Book Details Biased Coverage of Israeli Assault on Gaza

“We are now in 60% of the Gaza Strip, more or less. We were at 50%; now we’ve moved to 60%,” he told the crowd.

“My directive,” he continued, “is to move to—”

Members of the audience then interrupted with shouts of “100! 100!”

“Wait, let’s go in order,” Netanyahu responded. “First 70%. Let’s start with that.”

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has said Israel’s expansion of control in Gaza and construction of fortified military sites “directly contradicts the requirements of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement” and is creating conditions of “de facto annexation.”

That agreement required Israeli forces to withdraw behind a so-called “yellow line” that left the military occupying about 53% of the country. Even that occupation was meant to be temporary, with later stages of the agreement involving a full pullout of Israeli troops as Hamas and other militant groups in the strip disarm.

But in recent months, the opposite has happened. The Israel Defense Forces have gradually pushed the yellow line deeper into Palestinian territory to the point where it encompasses more than 60% of the coastal strip, leaving Palestinians near the yellow line to wake up and learn they are in an “open-fire zone” where they can be shot on sight.

According to data from the United Nations Human Rights Office shared with Reuters on Wednesday, 152 Palestinians—comprising 102 men, 15 women, and 35 children—had been killed near the boundary during the ceasefire period up to February 5, which the office’s head said raises “serious concerns that the Israeli army is shooting at and killing ⁠presumed civilians simply on the basis of their proximity to the so-called yellow line.”

Netanyahu’s remark follows Israel’s orders on Wednesday for more than 200,000 residents of southern Lebanon to forcibly evacuate north of the Zahrani River despite an ongoing ceasefire that began last month.

Israel has systematically razed villages across southern Lebanon since the beginning of March, gradually pushing northward to the point where it now effectively controls about a fifth of the country’s territory.

Those ordered to flee their homes on Wednesday joined more than 1 million Lebanese already forcibly displaced by Israel’s forced expulsion orders and bombardments. More than 3,200 Lebanese have been killed, including hundreds of women and children.

Israel’s far-right settler movement—represented in the Netanyahu government by figures like Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—speaks openly about ethnically cleansing Gaza and Lebanon of their residents to make way for permanent Israeli settlers, in a similar fashion to the intensifying annexation of the West Bank.

On Wednesday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israel was pushing for the mass “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from Gaza and said the government would implement a plan for it “at the right time and in the right manner.”

Human rights groups have said that the creation of unlivable conditions in Gaza to push its residents to leave would amount to the war crime of forced transfer.

Itay Epshtain, an Israeli expert in international law and the law of armed conflict, said Katz had “publicly committed himself to the mass deportation of Palestinians from Gaza” and that “members of Israel’s government openly endorsed conduct in gross and systemic breach of peremptory norms of international law.”

Netanyahu, meanwhile, has previously expressed sympathy for the idea of “Greater Israel,” which involves the expansion of the nation’s borders to conquer all or part of current-day Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia in accordance with Biblical descriptions.

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity during Israel’s genocidal military campaign in Gaza, and is reportedly taking actions against Smotrich and Ben-Gvir as well.

Dylan Williams, the vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, said that Netanyahu’s pledge on Thursday to further expand Israel’s territorial control in Gaza was “a war criminal admitting to his crimes.”

Ilan Goldberg, the senior vice president of the pro-Israel lobbying group JStreet, said plans to expand were “a blatant violation of the ceasefire and clear undermining of any plan for post-conflict Gaza.”

“Yes, Hamas needs to disarm,” he said. “But Israel cannot be launching plans to retake all of Gaza.”

Owen Jones, a British journalist, lamented the lack of coverage of the slow-motion ethnic cleansing in the Western press.

“Israel doesn’t try to hide its crimes. It broadcasts them to the world, knowing it has impunity,” he said on Thursday. “Netanyahu boasts of annexing Gaza. Yesterday, his defense minister said the plan was to remove Gaza’s population. No front page headlines. No Western denunciations.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Stephen Prager

Stephen Prager is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

Report Highlights ‘Uniquely Poor Performance’ of US For-Profit Health System Compared to Other Nations

By | |
Leave a comment
Sen. Bernie Sanders Reintroduces The "Medicare For All Act"

Members of National Nurses United rally with lawmakers to show their support for the Medicare For All Act in Upper Senate Park on Capitol Hill on April 29, 2025 in Washington, DC. 

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)=

“We know what high-performing health systems look like—other countries have them and are building them. It’s high time the US did better.”

Julia Conley

May 28, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)

An annual analysis that examines healthcare systems across nearly two dozen wealthy countries around the world once again highlighted the United States’ “uniquely poor performance relative to its peers,” with this year’s US Health Care from a Global Perspective report focusing on “insurance coverage and access to care, affordability of care, delivery of care, and equity of health outcomes.”

As advocates for expanding the US Medicare system to the entire population have long warned, the country’s for-profit healthcare system—which ties the ability to get care to one’s employment and allows insurance companies to boost profits by denying care to patients—“The US, on average, has the poorest health outcomes of any high-income country,” the Commonwealth Fund’s report reads.

RECOMMENDED…

Remote medical clinic

900 Health Facilities Shutting Down or at Risk of Collapse as Trump-GOP Cuts ‘Ripple Across the Country’

US-STOCKS-MARKETS-NYSE

‘Biggest Wealth Divide in Modern History’: Graphic Shows Shocking Reality of US Economy

The report examines the US system compared with other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Japan, and Mexico.

It finds that the US spent 18% of its gross domestic product on healthcare in 2024—nearly twice the OECD average.

Life expectancy in the US reached an all-time high in 2024, but was still among the shortest when compared to the 19 other countries, nearly five years shorter than Japan, Spain, and Switzerland, and longer than the average lifespan in Turkey and Mexico.

While the US and Mexico also both rank high on the list in terms of preventable deaths, the latter nation announced last month that it would soon be joining every other country included in the analysis by shifting to a universal, government-run healthcare system.

In the United States, the for-profit health sector—which spent a record $877.69 million on lobbying last year—contributes to the high number of avoidable deaths, which stands at 312 per 100,000 people. About 27 million Americans are still uninsured, more than 16 years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, and the Republican Party’s refusal to continue ACA subsidies last year as well as its $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade, according to Thursday’s report, are “projected to increase the number of uninsured Americans by an additional 17 million by 2034, potentially leading to more than 50,000 additional preventable deaths annually.”

“By contrast, Mexico’s recently established Universal Health Service will provide all residents with access to free care at any public health institute, starting in 2027,” the report states. “The US is one of the only countries to have enacted policies that reduce coverage.”

High out-of-pocket costs may also contribute to poor outcomes and the high number of preventable deaths in the US, the Commonwealth Fund suggests. Americans spend $400 per person, per year, on out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs, while people in France spend $100.

“The US is one of the only countries to have enacted policies that reduce coverage.”

“In the US, where approximately 8% of the population is uninsured and one-quarter has coverage that comes with high out-of-pocket costs or deductibles, people are far more likely to forgo needed care because of costs than people in peer countries,” reads the report. “This can mean not filling prescriptions, not obtaining diagnostic tests, treatment, or follow-up care, or being unable to adhere to clinician-recommended care plans.”

The report also identifies the US as a country that lags behind its peers in producing new doctors, contributing to a crisis in primary care, with the US having the fewest number of primary care providers per 1,000 people. The country also has the “highest medical tuition fees of any country in our analysis,” said the Commonwealth Fund.

The organization also found that in 2023, the US had nearly 19 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births, representing a decline for the country that has long had “among the highest rates of maternal deaths related to complications of pregnancy and childbirth.”

“By contrast, in 11 of the 18 countries we studied there were less than five maternal deaths per 100,000 live births,” reads the report, which also notes that in the US, maternal mortality is “exceptionally high” among Black women, at 50 deaths per 100,000 live births.

“This far exceeds national maternal mortality in any of the other countries,” the report states. “Inequities in access to care and patients’ care experiences—often rooted in discrimination and clinician bias—may be prime contributing factors.”

Dr. Joseph Betancourt, president of the Commonwealth Fund, noted that “the US has long prided itself on having the best healthcare in the world, but the population benefits from this excellence unevenly, and it remains largely out of reach for many Americans.”

“We spend more than any other nation on healthcare, so our poorer health outcomes aren’t due to a lack of resources—it is about how we choose to use them,” said Betancourt. “We know what high-performing health systems look like—other countries have them and are building them. It’s high time the US did better.”

“Other countries have shown that alternatives work. What’s striking isn’t the absence of solutions; it’s our reluctance to implement them.”

The report does not explicitly call on the US to shift to a universal, government-funded healthcare system, but studies have shown that expanding Medicare to the entire US population, as lawmakers including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have consistently demanded, would address many of the problems listed in the report.

Studies by the Congressional Budget Office and Yale University have shown that Medicare for All would save an estimated $650 billion and prevent 68,000 avoidable deaths each year.

The policy, which has been proposed in Congress numerous times, is also broadly popular; 65% of US voters—including 78% of Democrats, 71% of Independents, and 49% of Republicans—support creating a national, government-run healthcare program, according to a Data for Progress poll last year.

Despite this, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers continue to insist the proposal is unpopular and too expensive, with Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-8), who is running against vehement Medicare for All advocate Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic US Senate primary, insisting recently that “the support for a true single-payer system isn’t there yet.”

Reginald Williams II, senior vice president at Commonwealth Fund, emphasized that it is “not inevitable” that “Americans pay more for healthcare and get less in return.”

“It’s the result of different choices,” he said. “Other countries have shown that alternatives work. What’s striking isn’t the absence of solutions; it’s our reluctance to implement them. The failure of the US health system is not a failure of ideas. It’s a failure of will to act on them.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Julia Conley

Julia Conley is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

‘Logical Conclusion’ of Citizens United as Delaware Judge Lets Corporations Vote in Local Elections

By | |
Leave a comment
Rally Held Marking 5th Anniversary Of Citzens United Decision Aims To Draw Attention To Corporate Money In Politics

Protesters rally against corporate personhood and money in politics in Washington, DC on January 21, 2015.

 (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Delaware is home to more corporations than people. Human people, that is, as under longstanding state law and the US Supreme Court’s infamous 2010 ruling, corporations are people, too.

Brett Wilkins

May 27, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)

A judge in Delaware—a state with more registered business entities than people—ruled Monday in favor of a small town that allows corporations to vote in local elections.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz ruled that the town of Fenwick Island, population 400, did not violate the state Constitution by permitting business entities—which make up 12% of the town’s “population”—to vote in municipal elections, as case plaintiff the ACLU of Delaware had claimed.

RECOMMENDED…

Rally Held Marking 5th Anniversary Of Citzens United Decision Aims To Draw Attention To Corporate Money In Politics

‘Big News’: Hawaii Targets Citizens United With Law Clarifying Corporations Are Not People

Creep State posters of Musk and Gates.

‘The Creep State Is Watching’: Guerilla Art Project Takes on Big Tech’s Power Grab​

“What is a ‘person?’ When one cuts to the heart of this case, that is the question,” Karsnitz wrote to open his 20-page ruling.

https://embed.bsky.app/embed/did:plc:pmve46444ieqvq7sqvqqdlfd/app.bsky.feed.post/3mmuettpiy223?id=7214338337364621&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.commondreams.org%252Fnews%252Fcorporations-can-vote-in-delaware&colorMode=system

“According to the law, a person is anyone or anything that can initiate and be subject to legal proceedings. By this conception, any adult, corporation, or institution is a person, but a minor is not a person, a fetus is not a person, and a humanoid robot… is not a person,” the ruling continues. “This highlights that legal personhood is dependent solely on legal recognition.”

The judge noted that in 2008, the Delaware General Assembly amended Fenwick Island’s charter “to expand its voter registration rolls to allow individuals to cast votes on behalf of trusts, limited liability companies, partnerships, and corporations that own property in Fenwick.”

“Today, the overwhelming majority of legal entity property owners in Fenwick registered to vote, and on whose behalf votes are cast, are trusts,” Karsnitz added.

“I appreciate that Plaintiff may disagree with Delaware’s policy of authorizing certain municipalities to allow voting on behalf of entity property owners,” the judge wrote.

“Visions of faceless large corporations, or even HAL, controlling a small town are frightening and the stuff of science fiction,” he continued,“ referring to the malevolent artificial intelligence-powered computer in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film version of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. ”However, Plaintiff has not demonstrated that this policy violates the principle of one person/entity/one vote.“

“Plaintiff points to no other persuasive independent authority than the Elections Clause of the Delaware Constitution itself,” Karsnitz concluded. “And matters of policy are appropriately left to legislative bodies, not the courts.”

Fenwick Island Mayor Natalie Magdeburger told Reuters earlier this year that “a property owner who pays taxes and is subject to our ordinances should have a say in who represents them on our Town Council.”

Meanwhile, the ACLU of Delaware contends that “with over 2 million business entities incorporated in Delaware–roughly double the amount of actual people living in the state–the people of Delaware risk having their voices drowned out when towns like Fenwick Island allow corporate voting.”

Karsnitz’s ruling does not mention Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the 2010 US Supreme Court decision affirming that political spending by corporations, nonprofit organizations, labor unions, and other groups is a form of free speech protected by the 1st Amendment that government cannot restrict. The decision ushered in the era of super PACs—which can raise unlimited amounts of money to spend on campaigns—and secret spending on elections with so-called “dark money.”

While Delaware’s corporate personhood laws long predate Citizens United, numerous critics of Monday’s ruling referred to the case, including the progressive legal advocacy group Demand Justice.

X post: https://x.com/WeDemandJustice/status/2059724133584224332?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2059724133584224332%7Ctwgr%5E4e92816ecff2b8c3f0d430bec9992f6f3d6f4f27%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fcorporations-can-vote-in-delaware

“Corporations aren’t people,” the group asserted on X. “They don’t have kids in local schools, they don’t drink the water, they can’t be jailed for crimes, and they shouldn’t get a vote.”

Some compared Hawaii, where Democratic Gov. Josh Green recently signed legislation clarifying that corporations are not people, with Delaware.

“Hawaii made a move to rein in Citizens United,” writer Van Dennis posted on X, “and Delaware responded, ”The fuck you are.“

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Brett Wilkins

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

Book: “Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All”

By | |
Leave a comment

Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All

Jeremy Lent

“One of the greatest thinkers of our age” (The Guardian) presents a new way of living—one modeled on nature’s design instead of capitalism’s—for fans of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Doughnut Economics

It has often been said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism—and yet that is what the historical moment urgently calls for. Climate change has reached an emergency state, inequality continues to grow, and, for many, the future has never seemed more bleak. Incremental policy improvements are no longer enough—we need a deep transformation of our current civilization to continue to survive.  

In Ecocivilization, leading thinker Jeremy Lent reimagines the basis of our civilization, and argues for a new global system of living, one based on life-affirming principles modeled after nature’s own design. What enfolds is a robust framework incorporating Lent’s own expertise, and the lived experiences of those on the ground already putting ecological civilization’s core tenants into practice—justice, mutuality, diversity, and symbiosis. 

From the global economy to universal housing and income, from infrastructure to agriculture, every major aspect of our society could be redesigned to work together as a coherent whole, setting the conditions for all people to flourish. Ecocivilization shows how this future on a regenerated Earth is not only desirable, but entirely feasible.

About the author

Jeremy Lent

Jeremy Lent is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future.

His new book, Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All, (Melville House, May 2026), lays out the potential for a fundamentally different world system—an ecocivilization based on life-affirming principles rather than principles of extraction, exploitation, and wealth accumulation. It demonstrates the specifics of an alternative, positive future available for humanity, weaving together the groundbreaking work of visionary leaders, thinkers, and communities around the world.

His award-winning book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, examines the way humans have made meaning from the cosmos from hunter-gatherer times to the present day. His more recent award-winning The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe offers a solid foundation for an integrative worldview that could lead humanity to a sustainable, flourishing future.

Lent has written extensively about the vision and specifics of an ecological civilization, and is a founding member of the Ecocivilization Coalition, a worldwide alliance of changemakers coming together to act as a transformation catalyst in service of this potential future. He is president of the Coalition’s parent, the Institute for Ecological Civilization, and is a board member on the executive committee of the Global Compassion Coalition.

Lent is the founder and host of the Deep Transformation Network, an online global community of over 5,000 members exploring pathways toward a life-affirming future on a regenerated Earth.

‘Cancer on our democracy’: Kevin Rudd calls for inquiry into Murdoch media dominance

By | |
Leave a comment

Kevin Rudd has launched a petition calling for a royal commission into Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd.
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd. Source: AAP

12 October 2020 (sbs.com.au)

Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has called for a major government inquiry into the tight ownership of Australian media by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, securing almost 140,000 signatures on a petition after just three days.

Mr Rudd, who was prime minister from 2007 to 2010 and briefly in 2013, filed a petition calling on parliament to set up a royal commission to investigate what he called the “abuse of media monopoly in Australia in particular by the Murdoch media”.

“The truth is Murdoch has become a cancer, an arrogant cancer on our democracy,” Mr Rudd said in a video posted on Twitter on Saturday, urging people to sign the petition, which also called for recommendations to boost media diversity.

The petition, due to be submitted to the House of Representatives on 5 November, had 86,115 signatures as of Monday morning, up from 46,000 on Sunday.

News that makes sense

Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.Enter email addressSubscribeMorning (Mon–Fri)Afternoon (Mon–Fri)WeekendInsight

By subscribing, you agree to SBS’s terms of service and privacy policy including receiving email updates from SBS.

By 8pm on Monday, it had jumped by about 50,000 to just over 138,000 signatures. 

“What I picked up across the Australian community is growing levels of anger about the impact of the Murdoch media monopoly on people’s lives,” Mr Rudd told AAP on Sunday.

“This anger is finally bubbling over into a much more broadly based social movement. People are just fed up.”

READ MORE

According to Mr Rudd, 70 per cent of Australia’s print readership – and virtually every newspaper in Queensland – is owned by Mr Murdoch.

The newspapers owned by Murdoch’s News Corp include The Australian, the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, and the Courier Mail.

Overseas, it owns publications such as The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in the United States, and The Sun and The Times in Britain.

Mr Murdoch also controls Fox Corp.

‘Political protection racket’

Mr Rudd has accused Mr Murdoch of keeping his loss-making newspapers in Australia to maximise his political power, pursue his commercial interests, and bully anybody who has a different point of view.

“In 18 of the last 18 federal and state elections, we’ve seen the Murdoch media campaign viciously against the Labour Party and viciously in support of the Liberal and National parties.

“There’s no such thing as a level playing field any more.”

READ MORE

Mr Rudd said the issue had been swept under the rug for too long, because the Murdoch media and coalition government scratched each other’s backs.

He hopes the groundswell of support will mean the government will be forced to consider calling a royal commission.

“That is a political decision for Mr Morrison,” he told AAP.

“The Murdoch media act as a political protection racket for the Liberal and National parties, so they don’t want to change things.

“But the bottom line is, any political party will always be mindful of where there is a groundswell of community sentiment.”

READ MORE

Mr Rudd also brushed off concerns that calling for government intervention into the agenda of a media company could set a dangerous precedent.

“What a Royal Commissioner would determine based on open terms of reference will be a matter for whoever that Royal Commissioner is. I don’t prescribe a particular outcome here,” he told AAP.

“But what I am saying loud and clear is that we no longer have sufficient diversity.”

‘Hidden agendas’

The petition appeared on the same weekend Mr Murdoch’s son, James Murdoch, spoke of his decision to leave his family’s publishing company in August over “disagreements over certain editorial content”. 

In his first major public comments since, James Murdoch spoke to the The New York Times about his concerns the company’s newspapers were hiding agendas and endorsing disinformation.   

“I reached the conclusion that you can venerate a contest of ideas, if you will, and we all do and that’s important,” he said. “But it shouldn’t be in a way that hides agendas. A contest of ideas shouldn’t be used to legitimise disinformation. And I think it’s often taken advantage of.

“And I think at great news organisations, the mission really should be to introduce fact to disperse doubt – not to sow doubt, to obscure fact, if you will.”

He said he decided he could be “much more effective outside” the company.

Rupert Murdoch in 2019.
Australian-born American media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Source: Invision

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese on Sunday would not say whether he supports Mr Rudd’s call for a royal commission.

“Kevin is doing that as a private citizen, as a former prime minister. He’s entitled to put his views,” Mr Albanese told reporters in Adelaide.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been contacted for comment.

Australia’s parliament is not required to respond to petitions, unlike in Britain, where petitions that obtain more than 100,000 signatures are considered for debate in parliament. Petitions to the House of Representatives have rarely been acted upon, according to the parliament website.

Mr Rudd, who became leader of the Australian Labor Party in 2006 and left parliament in 2013 after the party lost an election, has previously blamed Murdoch for running a campaign to kill Labor’s plan for the national broadband network in 2013.

News Corp this year booked a $A1.29 billion writedown on its stake in Australian broadcast business Foxtel, which has been losing subscribers to streaming giants like Netflix, at the same time as its Australian newspapers have been ceding advertisers to Facebook and Google. 

  • Update from Google AI May 28, 2026:

Kevin Rudd’s official parliamentary petition calling for a Royal Commission into the Murdoch media empire is no longer active for signing. [1]

The original initiative and its subsequent impact progressed through several key stages:

The Parliamentary Petition (2020)

  • Closure: The official electronic petition hosted on the Parliament of Australia website closed to new signatures on November 4, 2020. [1]
  • Record Numbers: It set a historical record as the largest electronic petition ever submitted to the Australian Parliament, concluding with 501,766 signatures. [1, 2]
  • Government Response: The Coalition government at the time formally rejected the petition’s demands. The Communications Minister stated that the government would not establish a Royal Commission. [1, 2]

Subsequent Senate Inquiry (2021)

While the petition itself was closed and rejected, the public swell of support forced political action. In November 2020, the Australian Senate referred the issue to the Environment and Communications References Committee. This triggered a formal Senate Inquiry into Media Diversity in Australia, where both Kevin Rudd and former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull provided testimony. The final committee report in late 2021 recommended a judicial inquiry, but no definitive legislative crackdown occurred. [, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Current Status of the Campaign

The campaign moved beyond parliamentary e-petitions into structured advocacy groups: [1]

  • The Advocacy Group: To keep the momentum alive after the petition closed, the lobbying campaign was transferred to an independent body called Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission (AFMRC). [1]
  • Political Resistance: Despite a change to a Labor government under Anthony Albanese, the current administration has explicitly ruled out initiating a media Royal Commission. [1]
  • Rudd’s Current Role: Kevin Rudd stepped back from active chair duties at the AFMRC following his appointment as the Australian Ambassador to the United States. [1]

The Tenderloin Deserves A Fresh Look

By | |
Leave a comment

by Randy Shaw on May 26, 2026 (BeyondChron.org)

Promoting the Tenderloin’s Revival

The Tenderloin’s sidewalk drug activities are finally declining. Stores that were fronts for illegal activities have been closed. Long troubled blocks have been cleared. Problems remain, but unfairly negative perceptions of the Tenderloin are slowing the neighborhood’s revival.

The Tenderloin has much to offer. Those who want to support San Francisco’s largest remaining low-income and working-class neighborhood, the one with the most children and with the greatest ethnic diversity, need to give visiting the Tenderloin another chance.

Here’s some of what you will find in the Tenderloin.

The City’s Largest Residential Historic District

The Tenderloin is a national Historic District. It has 409 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. Roughly 100 of these buildings covering 33 blocks have plaques detailing their history.

There are also nine “Lost Landmark” plaques on sidewalks. They highlight places like the Compton’s Cafeteria and Blackhawk Jazz Club, which are no longer with us (the must-see Compton’s Cafeteria Riot play at 835 Larkin brings back that legendary 1966 event).

The Tenderloin was likely the nation’s first apartment and hotel district. It’s primarily composed of large buildings. It’s only single family home was built in the 1960’s.

You can learn about the neighborhood’s extraordinary history by visiting the Tenderloin Museum. The museum was an outgrowth of my research into the Tenderloin’s lost history; that history is fully displayed in my book, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. It’s got over 125 photos.

In addition to its permanent exhibitions the museum has evening programing and events. Check out what’s happening on the museum’s website. You can buy tickets there for the acclaimed Compton’s play.

The museum also offers guided walking tours. The tours bring Tenderloin history to life. They also enable visitors to see many of the Tenderloin’s unique murals; only the Mission rivals the Tenderloin for its public artwork (a huge new mural funded by Chris Larsen’s $5 million donation to revive Larkin Street was just completed at Golden Gate and Larkin).

The Tenderloin Museum is about to triple in size. A new exhibition is planned on the Cadillac Hotel’s legendary Newman’s Gym, where Muhammed Ali, George Foreman and other famous boxers trained. Another exhibition will highlight the Tenderloin’s role in helping Indian-American hotel owners build the national hotel industry.

The museum will also feature what will be the city’s largest public collection of historic neon signs. If you visit at night you will many throughout the Tenderloin. The neon sign pictured above replaces one at the same site in the 1940’s and 50’s.

Try the Tenderloin: Its Delicious

The Tenderloin has long been a neighborhood of restaurants, bars and entertainment venues. Some bars closed during  but Aunt Charlies Lounge, the Nite Cap Bar, Cinnabar. Bourbon & Branch, The Zombie Village, and Emperor Norton’s BoozeLand remain.

The Tenderloin’s Black Cat Jazz Supper Club remains one of the city’s preeminent jazz venues. CounterPulse and its 115-seat theater has a long history of experimental art.

The monthly Thursday Art Walks are great way to capture the Tenderloin and adjacent Lower Polk’s current art spaces.

Tenderloin dining spots reflect the neighborhood’s ethnic diversity. I can’t list all the  great Tenderloin restaurants but  Son and Garden, Azalina’s, Brenda’s French Soul Food, and Out of Sight Pizza are all worth a trip to enjoy.

Out of Sight Pizza will soon open a dive bar with top quality bar food at the corner of Turk and Larkin. It’s being named Reggie and Maude’s, after Tenderloin madams Reggie Gamble and Maude Spencer, whose historic 1917 sex workers’ campaign is discussed in my book.

Saigon Sandwich continues to have long lines. L & G Vietnamese Sandwich Restaurant is one of Mayor Lurie’s go-to lunch spots in the Tenderloin.

A great Chinese restaurant is Hai Ky Mi Gia,  “San Francisco’s Mom and Pop Noodle House.” It’s in the heart of Little Saigon at Larkin and Ellis.

Yemini brings out the cuisine of the Tenderloin’s Yeminese population. Sungho enables diners to experience the traditional Korean gukbap. Sai Jai Thai has been serving authentic Thai food in the Tenderloin since 1997. Chao Pescao offers Cuban-Colombian dining.

Bodega has a storied history. Caleb Zigas, who went on to found La Cocina, wrote a restaurant review for Beyond Chron in 2004, soon after the original Bodega Bistro opened in Little Saigon. Now on Mason, Bodega is run by the son of the prior owner.

One of my personal favorites is Kinara Fusion Kitchen at Geary and Jones. It specializes in creative Indian fusion dishes. Its around the corner from two popular Indian restaurants, Shalimar—a favorite of D5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood—and Chutney. On the same block as these two is the acclaimed Ox & Tiger, a Filipino and Japanese inspired pop up. Also nearby is Cantoo, a popular Latin Asian restaurant

Try these restaurants. They are delicious!

The next time you attend the Golden Gate Theater, the Warfield or the Orpheum, consider dining at one of the Tenderloin’s top restaurants before or after.

Become Part of the Solution

The Tenderloin cannot revive without more positive foot traffic. You can help make this happen by patronizing neighborhood venues. Think about it: Where else can you do a social good by eating a great meal or enjoying a festive bar?

The more people who come to eat or drink, the more people will follow.

That’s why sharing positive experiences about the Tenderloin is so helpful. If you on social media, when you have a positive Tenderloin experience, post about it.

Many already post Instagram videos rebuffing negative stereotypes about the Tenderloin. Check out this Instagram post from Darian Anthony. These posts can make a huge difference, particularly in attracting young people to the neighborhood.

If you’re social media inclined, you can also post your video on Instagram at visittenderloin (www.visittenderloin.com) 

The Tenderloin was on the rise when Covid hit. Its brand has since been badly hurt by increased drug activities. The Tenderloin’s reputation can only be restored if people give the neighborhood a fresh look.

The Tenderloin has always been a gritty neighborhood. Even during its many decades as one of the city’s most prosperous neighborhoods,  it has never been for everyone.

The summer is a great time to visit. You’ll be glad you did.

Randy Shaw

Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s new book is the revised and updated, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. His prior books include Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century.

More Posts

100% tax on slush fund payouts

By | |
Leave a comment

May 27, 2026
Public Citizen (citizen.org)

“[N]either the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States … all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.”

That is from the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution — passed after the Civil War to bring some measure of racial equality to our nation’s laws.

  • It almost seems like something that would not need to be spelled out. Of course the government should not give money to anyone who fought to overthrow it.
  • But the worry that people who engaged in insurrection would turn around and demand compensation was real enough that a rule prohibiting it did need to be written down. In fact, it is one entire sentence in an amendment that is only nine sentences overall.
  • In flagrant violation of the 14th Amendment, Donald Trump has concocted a $1.8 billion, taxpayer-funded slush fund for MAGA loyalists — quite possibly including just about everyone convicted of crimes on and leading up to the attempted coup d’etat carried out in Trump’s name on January 6, 2021.
  • Congress can and should prevent the fund from taking any money out of the Treasury and making any payments to anybody.

In case Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for MAGA crooks, cronies, and criminals begins disbursing payments in defiance of the law, Congress should pass emergency legislation imposing a 100% tax on any and all payments anyone receives from it.

Congratulations insurrectionist, here’s a check for $1,000,000.

And here’s your bill from the IRS for $1,000,000.

Tell Congress:

The 14th Amendment could not be clearer: Paying people who engage in insurrection against the United States would be patently unconstitutional. Pass the legislation — introduced by Representatives John B. Larson, Mike Thompson, and Richard Neal — mandating a 100% tax on any and all payouts from the Trump regime’s illegitimate, $1.8 billion MAGA loyalist slush fund.

Click to add your name now.

This is a message for the entire House and Senate, so take action today even if one or more of your members of Congress is a die-hard Trumpist.

Thanks for taking action.

For justice,

– Lisa Gilbert & Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen

Ro Khanna Urges Fellow Democrats to Stop Trying to Out Hawk Trump on Iran War

By | |
Leave a comment
Pete Hegseth And Dan Caine Appear For House Budget Request Meeting

US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) questions US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as he testifies before the House Armed Services Committee on April 29, 2026 in Washington, DC. 

(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

“We should be the party that says ‘Donald Trump, end this war, we’re going to support the negotiation’—and then we’re not going to get into these wars in the future.”

Julia Conley

May 27, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)

Congressman Ro Khanna on Tuesday suggested Democratic voters who believe the party lacks “principles,” as a number of respondents said in a new poll, have understandable questions about what Democrats stands for, as he denounced recent comments from several lawmakers who have attacked President Donald Trump for not being hawkish enough when it comes to the war he started in Iran.

“People want a Democratic Party that’s going to stand for things, that stands as the party that’s anti-war,” Khanna told Chris Hayes on MS NOW.

RECOMMENDED…

Senate Votes On Venezuela War Powers

GOP Hawks Alarmed as Trump Mulls Deal to End His Illegal Iran War

United States Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

‘It Needs to End. Now’: Trump and Allies Ripped for Lying to Dodge Iran War Powers Deadline

“And we should be the party that says, ‘Donald Trump, end this war, we’re going to support the negotiation’—and then we’re going to not get into these wars in the future,” he added.

Khanna accused his colleagues of sending the message: “Donald Trump, go blow up more things! Why aren’t you destroying more of Iran?”

“I’m not one of those Democrats,” said the congressman, who introduced a war powers resolution with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) to stop Trump from launching unauthorized strikes against Iran. “I’m one of the people saying, ‘Yes, let’s get a negotiated settlement. Let’s work toward ending this war.’”

“The Democrats should be for ending this war and be against more of these foreign interventions,” said Khanna. “The last thing we want is to goad Donald Trump into getting us into more conflict there.”

As examples of what Khanna is talking about, influential Democrats including Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) have spent the last several days provoking the president over Iran, and by complaining that the deal to end the war isn’t tough enough on the country, which the US and Israel began preemptively attacking in February in violation of international law.

More than 3,400 people have been killed in Iran since the war started, while Israel has expanded hostilities to Lebanon, killing more than 3,000 people. The casualties in Iran have included about 150 people, mostly children, who were killed in an attack on a girls’ school when the war started; Amnesty International has called for the US to be held to account for the bombing. A number of other schools have also been attacked, as well as medical facilities.

Despite the carnage—as well as the economic impact of war, which Iran swiftly responded to by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping route, and sending oil prices skyrocketing—Booker on Sunday debuted what Just Foreign Policy executive director Erik Sperling called “Democrat neocon talking points” regarding reports of an impending peace deal.

The senator said reports of the deal—including the reopening of the strait, a lift of US sanctions allowing Iran to sell oil freely, and an apparent agreement to hold formal talks on Iran’s nuclear program later—had him “outraged.”

“The president said he went into this to deal with the nuclear program. This does not deal with that,” said Booker, adding that the easing of sanctions of Iran would allow them to get “billions more” dollars.

“Giving Iran more money, as he has said, will allow them to do things like fuel their terrorist proxies,” the senator added.

His comments were followed by Wasserman Schultz’s interview on the same network Tuesday, when she said she was “concerned and frustrated over, again, another potential deal, a negotiation for a negotiation, where we’re going to unfreeze Iranian assets” and allowing Iran to “rebuild their ballistic missile program.”

Booker has taken more than $800,000 from pro-Israel groups including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, while Wasserman Schultz has taken more than $1.4 million.

Murphy also condemned the reported deal on social media Sunday, saying that Trump “hasn’t accomplished ANY of his constantly shifting goals.”

“Iran still has its ballistic missile and drone program,” he said. “They still have a navy that can close the strait. A hardline regime is still in charge.”

Jeet Heer of The Nation said that because the war on Iran “is immensely unpopular… prominent Democrats want to outflank Trump by being more hawkish.”

Historian and analyst Stephen Wertheim credited Khanna with articulating “what the vast majority of Democrats believe, but too few of their leaders say and mean.”

A March poll by Pew Research Center found that nearly 90% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the Trump administration had made the wrong decision going to war against Iran.

Khanna also spoke to Fox News over the weekend, saying he would support all efforts by Trump to negotiate a peace deal with Iran and expressing approval of the president’s apparent rejection of the “Lindsay Graham wing of the party,” referring to the South Carolina Republican, an outspoken advocate for military intervention in Iran and elsewhere.

Khanna’s comments, said Sperling, represented “what decent, pro-diplomacy messaging looks like.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Julia Conley

Julia Conley is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >