In the face of the international legal and political systems' paralyzing silence and utter failure to hold Israel accountable for its genocide in Gaza, international civil society has refused to stand idly by. Instead, it continues to forge a path, presenting essential working models for what true justice in Palestine must look like.

Let him rest in . . . peace?

I don’t know. The irony of those words is a little too much for me to grasp as I sit here contemplating the death of Dicke Cheney at age 84. Cheney, mastermind and primary organizer on the “war on terror,” which, in a 20-year span of insanity, cost the United States some $8 trillion and killed (murdered) nearly a million people, according to Brown University’s Costs of War Project.

And as though that total weren’t high enough, the Project notes that this number is very much an undercount, since it doesn’t include indirect deaths of the war  caused by “disease, displacement and loss of access to food or clean drinking water.”

In November of 2025, Zohran Mamdani—a youthful progressive who, just a few months before, was polling in the single digits—won the mayoral election in New York City. He succeeded in the country’s largest city, home to the highest Jewish population of any city in the world. He achieved this despite the political establishment, billionaires, and media landscape pivoting against him with unusual bipartisan cohesion. For a country that has spent the past decade doubting its own democratic immune system, this is a matter of consequence. It tells us that America may still be able to self-correct when it counts the most.  

As someone who has seen public life in the United States move further away from any moral center—particularly concerning the Middle East, justice, and the worth of Palestinian life—Mamdani’s win represented something I had not experienced in years: American democratic hope.  

Tucson, AZ — AUDIT USA and its Executive Director, John R. Brakey, have filed a Motion for Reconsideration asking the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two, to correct several legal errors in its October 20 ruling in Santa Cruz County v. AUDIT USA. The Court, which sided with AUDIT USA in its Opinion, previously agreed the County’s lawsuit should never have been filed but declined to award attorney fees and sanctions — despite statutes requiring them.

In 2022, Santa Cruz County sued AUDIT USA and John Brakey simply for requesting a copy of an election record – the Cast Vote Record (CVR) – from the August 2022 Primary Election. Although the Superior Court judge promptly dismissed the County’s case, the County continued its unjustified litigation by appealing twice to the Arizona Court of Appeals.

There’s no argument about one thing in looking at the results of the off-year elections: Republicans had a very bad day. We can all argue about what that means for the future, but there’s no way not to see this as anything other than an ass-whipping. Democratics won governor races in both New Jersey and Virginia, and they did so by beating the poll predictions by 6 and 10 precent. These were also victories of women candidates over men, which is an accomplishment in and of itself in these dark days. Zohran Mamdani won with a decisive majority over the former governor and longtime political lion of a New York State political dynasty. He is the youngest major there, as well as first Muslim, Southeast Asian, and former resident of Africa. He is also a socialist and will now be the socialist mayor of the largest US city since a socialist was mayor in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That’s not all. California’s Governor Newsom won his controversial ballot referendum approving the redistricting that will give Democrats an opportunity to pick up five seats in the midterms to counter Trump’s efforts in Texas, North Carolina, and other states.